For Colored Girls Who Have Considered LinkedIn When Affirmations Weren’t Enuf

For the Worldbuilders Ep. 075

Betelhem Makonnen, conjugated keyboard (2020) Materials: Keyboard, tumbled rocks, Dimensions: 12.6" x 14.8" x 1 “

Dear Worldbuilder,

In yesterday’s podcast we covered the shame that sometimes emerges when reminded of our interdependence. Needing to move back in with a parent, asking for a partner’s support before quitting a job that is no longer sustaining your survival, but quite possibly threatening it, or asking a co-worker to cover for you because it’s all too much, too fast, too soon.

I was recently confronted with this silent shame. It’s usually really quiet and can easily go unnoticed if we’re not paying attention. I heard it’s whisper throughout this week and last as I faced overlapping illnesses which required I make arrangements for care, request various accommodations and rearrange my schedule, which rearranged the schedule of others.

I’m pretty comfortable dropping into a posture of flexibility as the needs of my body, my mind and my finances shift, but involving others in the dance always makes me want to stop the music and get serious. Have I really exhausted all the options I can explore on my own? Can I really not push through? Watch yourself, the favors you’re asking for might run out right along with grace being extended…for now.

I know, just like you know, this is the voice of racial capitalism informed by white supremacist and patriarchal values. The problem is, if we’ve been talking in this voice for all our lives the search to find our own can be overwhelming. This is deep work, work that takes amounts of time and permission capitalism will not grant. This is time and permission we must take. Time and permission we then get to extend to our communities when we need them to be flexible with us and they need us to return the gesture. Inside this interdependent choreopoem, the music never stops and the grace never runs out and you are never too much — in fact, you might find us sticking around for more of you.

The phone rings, a notification pings with the text reading, “Do you need anything?”, translation: “Can I have this dance?” This time you say, “Yes” without a whisper of shame, because this too is worldbuilding.

Inside This Week’s Episode

You don’t need more affirmations. But perhaps, like many of us, you are desiring tools, skills and strategies for navigating the seasons where your faith starts to feel foolish and the results you wished for are taking longer than the ego can bear. In this episode we explore navigating suspicion around our creative commitments and the temptation to give up inside the wilderness of the in between. We remember the potency of our creative power activates when we’re lost, not when we know the way. How do we remain steadfast inside our commitments while facing the grief, fear and uncertainty of our time? How do we release all our “shoulds” and stay in the game long enough to learn what comes next? How can we design our creative practice around the time and permission we need to find our own voice? These are the questions we explore inside this week’s episode.

Inside the episode we cite Ntozake Shange¹, Wesley Taylor², Myleik Teele³ and Victoria Monét⁴. I also want to extend immense gratitude to

Kay Brown

of

Assemblage: Baby's Breath

who recently published “What Does It Take to Sustain the Lives of Black Feminists While We Are Alive?”. Kay, our voice memos back and forth where you introduced me to the concept of “Affirmation Banking” also inspired the title of this episode. Please check out Kay’s essay linked above and their beautiful offering, The Clearing.

Tune into the 75th episode “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered LinkedIn When Affirmations Weren’t Enuf” on the podcast For the Worldbuilders via Spotify or Apple Podcast. Let me know what you think by replying to this email. 💌

Register for The Worldbuilding Workshop Series

You don’t need anymore affirmations, but perhaps you are desiring additional strategies, tools and skills around learning how to translate your power, creative spirit and ancestral wisdom into income generating offers that financially support the work you know you came here to do for the long haul. If we know we can’t wait for the applause, awards or recognition to provide financial security inside our practices, how might we sustain our work in the meantime?

Whether that work is teaching, coaching, writing, consulting, facilitating, researching, designing or gardening, I want to invite you to register for the free Worldbuilding Workshop series to learn more about Seeda School’s upcoming creative retreat.

Seeda School hosts a 9-week retreat where you will learn how to develop and launch an income generating creative offer through 3 major milestones:

1. Decide on an Offer Inspired by Your Zone of Desire

2. Create a Framework for the Journey You Will Take Your Dream Participant On

3. Create A Regenerative Sales System and Invite the People

Register for our free Worldbuilding Workshop Series to learn more about the retreat and receive the syllabus outlining all the Seeda School programming for Spring 2025 in your registration confirmation email!

So be it, see to it, breathe through it,

Ayana

1. “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf” is a 1976 work by Ntozake Shange. It consists of a series of poetic monologues to be accompanied by dance movements and music, a form which Shange coined the word choreopoem to describe. It tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society. (Source: Wikipedia)

2. "Go wherever makes the work possible” — Wesley Taylor

3. “It Is Working—You Just Can’t See It Yet” (Substack) and “225: Stop Quitting Too Soon” (Podcast) by Myleik Teele

4. Victoria Monét on taking the streets instead of the highway and one of my favorite songs of hers, Hollywood feat. Earth, Wind and Fire.