GirlTrek's Black History Bootcamp

REFLECTION:

Kindness begins with having self-compassion. Because you can't extend what you don't give to yourself. Being compassionate to yourself and understanding, I'm not perfect and I have to be able to forgive myself for things so that I can then extend that to other people. This is important, especially as women and Black women, for sure, because we give, give, give, but who gives to us? 

Who gives the superhero the voice, and when does the superhero get a chance to recharge?

There's a connection between not being kind when we feel tired and depleted, and being very kind when feeling abundant and taking care of ourselves. The kindest gift we can give to ourselves is to intentionally pull away, take the time to replenish and fuel back up. Whether it is taking a nap on a Sunday afternoon, or forgiving yourself and knowing that it's okay that you don't have it all together. It may not always be the easiest thing to do, but it is always the kindest.

PRAYER:

God, we thank you for today. We thank you for a time of coming together and gathering in your name to intentionally seek you, to know that without you we can do nothing and with you we can do all things, including taking care of ourselves. Right now, God, we commit to renew our devotion to ourselves. We thank you for loving us with the gifts of our bodies. We ask that you would help us to be kinder to ourselves that we might radiate that kindness and love to everyone that we come into contact with. 

We thank you, God, for loving us, and for demonstrating kindness to us even in your acts while you're here with us on the earth. We thank you, God, for this opportunity to gather as women, strong women, women committed to do something bigger and better than we already have. We know that you have great purpose for us and that great movements have happened through women simply moving their feet. We love you, God. We magnify your Holy and majestic name, and it's in your name that we pray and ask all of these blessings. 

Amen. 

REFLECTION:

Today's topic is about long-suffering and when we tell you that Black women know long-suffering, we ain’t lied. We have turned a kind of slow burn of pain into muscle, into magic. Every Black woman we know has made long-suffering and patience an art. The ability to practice patience in the face of hate is a virtue of God. It’s one of the Fruits of the Spirit. It's hard and it's why Black women are ready to lead. Patience or forbearance or long-suffering is not passive. It is staying the course of your most amazing life every single day, and that requires muscle. It requires discipline for loving yourself. 

We know what it's like when you have the kind of fire that threatens to burn you down. You can let it burn you down or you can stoke it and let it live in your belly and let it fire you and propel you through your suffering.

In practice, this means creating a muscle of being mindful and grateful for every single moment and garnering the strength of generations which has brought you here today. We have fire from the long-suffering of our foremothers. It is time for us to stay in lockstep until we are ready to activate. That is what long-suffering is. It is the muscle of magic.

PRAYER:

We thank you, Lord God, that regardless of the situation and circumstance, in trial or tribulation, that you give us the ability to stand. We thank you for this character trait from you, Lord God. We thank you for the ability to dance in the rain and stand in the storm and rejoice in our sufferings. Right now we ask that you equip us with your armor, with the whole armor of God. The armor, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, and the sword of your spirit. We ask that you give us peace that passes all understanding, in the name of Jesus. We ask you right now to come into the mess of every woman and child who is standing at your feet. To the only wise God, our savior and glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forevermore. 

Amen.

Music Credits:

“Everybody say Blessed."

We did it y’all!

We walked for 21 days, journeying through 21 Pleasure Principles. We pray that over the past 21 episodes, you have learned the liberation stories of our people and that you have been transformed in ways that make you feel more alive.

Pleasure Muse: Zilpha Elaw 

Tantalizing Trivia 

• One of 22 children, she was born in 1790 in Pennsylvania to free Black parents. 
• Her mother passed away when Zilpha was just 12 years old. Her father passed away two years later. She was sent to live in the home of a Quaker family. 
• Soon after she would attend a camp meeting held by the Methodist society. She embraced the teachings and became an active member of the Methodist church. 
• On her sister's deathbed, she had a prophecy that Zilpha would be a preacher. She rejected this message, until years later, when she fell deathly ill and in her sickness had her own prophecy of the same vision. 
• She was 29 years old when she preached her first sermon. 
• At the age of 56 she published “Memoirs of the Life, Religious Experience, Ministerial Travels and Labours of Mrs. Elaw.” The book documented her personal travels from around the world preaching. 
• In Britain, where she lived for more than a decade, she entered into one of the first interracial marriages with a her second husband, a white man. While living in England she had a chapel built in London to further her ministry. 
• She was considered to be one of the most “outspoken” women of her time.
  

Mirror Work:

Assume a posture of prayer. Whatever feels most natural to you. You can kneel, lay, or fold yourself over in a child pose and let all of the weight you are carrying drip down onto the floor. Take three deep breaths from this place,  with each exhale, repeat quietly to yourself, “I am listening.”  Now take three more deep breaths. What do you hear? Take a few minutes to write. Don’t overthink or censure yourself. Just write. 

Affirmation:

• My words have power. I use them to speak life. 
• I am walking into the greatest vision I have for myself. 
• I see a future that is expansive and bright. 

Pleasure Muse: Gloria Richardson

Tantalizing Trivia  

• She was a Civil Rights activist who led The Cambridge Movement in the 1960s.
• Honored for her leadership, she sat on stage at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.
• She grew up in Baltimore but was from a prominent family - of landowners, lawyers, and politicians - from the eastern shore of Maryland, who were free before the Civil War. 
• Gloria's father, John Hayes, died of a heart attack due to segregation which required him to drive further for medical attention - this was a turning point in her life.

• She attended Howard University and started social activism against segregation. During her early activism, Richardson was arrested three times. 

• In 1961, SNCC and The Freedom Rides came to her hometown of Cambridge, Maryland. She and her two daughters got involved in the movement.   
• In 1962, Richardson was asked to help organize the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), the first adult-led affiliate of SNCC.
• She was a passionate and fiery spokesperson who never minced words and always spoke truth to power as one of the only female leaders of a civil rights organization.  
• She was brave: rather than asking for civil rights, she asked for economic rights, and she publicly questioned nonviolence as a tactic. 
• The students – including her daughter – were committed to nonviolence and were attacked by mobs of armed white people. Subsequent freedom walks and sit-ins included armed black men who surrounded the students for protection; clashes escalated.
• During protests in 1963, Richardson was photographed pushing aside the bayonet and rifle of a National Guardsman; the picture went viral in the media, and she became an icon of the movement   
• She signed a peace treaty with Robert F. Kennedy and local officials after an uprising in Maryland for civil rights. 

Mirror Work: 

Look at yourself and repeat 2 Timothy 1:7: “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Affirmations:

• I have the power to change my life. 
• This will pass. It won’t last. 
• I’m worthy of love and happiness.

Pleasure Muse: Rosa Parks 

Tantalizing Trivia 

• Her future husband took her on a first date to a rally for the “Scottsboro Boys”, nine Black men who were wrongly accused of rape. From that rally she became compelled to activism. 
• She was educated on civil disobedience during her days at the famed Highlander School in Tennessee under the guidance of the legendary Septima Clark. Later she attended a leadership training run by the famed Ella Baker. 
• She was a staunch supporter of the labor movement and managed the office of E. D. Nixon the director of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and President of the NAACP. Rosa Parks became the secretary of the NAACP in Alabama in 1948. 
• She functioned as an investigator for the NAACP and helped for the Committee for Equal Justice. She was also the youth advisor. 
• She learned “daily stretching” from her mother as a child and would later in her 50’s develop a daily  yoga practice that she shared with her nieces and nephews.  
• In the mid 90’s she was attacked by an assailant in her home. When the media began reporting this as a failing of the Black community, she pushed back hard by offering that the attack was endemic of the systematic problems she spent her life working on and not that of Black people. 
• She lived to be 92 years old. Flags across the country flew at half-staff on the day of Park’s funeral. 

Mirror Work:

Find a quiet place to sit. Get comfortable. Let the chair do the work of holding you. Plan to be here for 10 minutes. In that time observe your breath without judgment. Is it shallow? Is it deep? What areas of your body does it flow too? Where could you use more breath? Breathe deeply into those spaces. Luxuriate in the fact that you do not  have to stand, do not have to move. You have been given this moment to sit still and just be. Thank God for that. 

Affirmation:

• I can sit and rest. No need to rush. 
• I am where God wants to be. I am open to where God wants to take me. 
• I give grace freely. I receive grace daily. 

Pleasure Muse: Myrlie Evers-Williams

Tantalizing Trivia 

• Raised by her grandmother, and an aunt, two respected school teachers in Vicksburg, MS. 
• They encouraged education so in 1950 she attended Alcorn A&M where she pledged Delta Sigma Theta sorority and on her first day of school met and fell in love with Medgar Evers - they got married a year later on Christmas Eve. 
• The young couple became prominent leaders in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, Medgar, serving as the NAACP’s first Field Secretary in Mississippi; together they fought for voting rights, equal justice and the end of segregation. 
• The Evers Family became a target of the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council.
• She said “Medgar was the love of my life.” and “the fear of losing one another was real.”
• In 1962, their home in Jackson, Mississippi, was firebombed; in 1963 her husband was brutally murdered in their driveway; and the murderer was exonerated and walked free, because of an all white jury in Mississippi; Protests, vigils and calls for freedom were widespread. 
• The world mourned with Myrlie Evers and her three beautiful children; The world watched her lay to rest an American hero, martyr and civil rights activists - who also served as a sergeant in World War II - in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. 
• A photo of her and her son grieving became the cover of Life Magazine; millions watched her tears flow; the image was later distributed by the NAACP to provoke the moral consciousness of a nation.
• As a widow, she moved her children to Claremont, California, went back to college, she made two bids for U.S. Congress and wrote a book called For Us, the Living, telling her family’s story in Mississippi and wrote an autobiography called Watch Me Fly. 
• She became chairperson of the NAACP’s board of directors, was named Woman of the Year by Ms Magazine, The National Freedom Award and in 2013 delivered the invocation at the inauguration of the first Black president of the US, Barack Obama.
• She went on to marry Walter Williams, a union organizer and moved to Oregon and committed herself to living a good life. 
• She never gave up the fight for justice for her family, and 30 years later in 1993, under a new judge, she pressed for conviction of the murderer - requiring her to exhume Medgar’s body for new evidence - and won the case, sending the murderer to jail for the last 8 years of his life. 
• Her legendary life was played by Whoopi Goldberg in the movie Ghosts of Mississippi and was featured in several other films, including the 2022 film Till. 
• She said she’s never lived a day of her 90 years without love, and has bravely battled hate. 

Mirror Work: 

Say goodbye to someone you lost. 

Affirmations:

• I feel my feelings. 
• I am grateful for true love.
• Grief is a part of healing. 
• I turn my grief into goodwill 
• I rest when I am hurting. 
• I seek help. 
• I'm grateful for each day.
• I honor the fallen with daily fulfillment and joy. 

Pleasure Muse: WIlma Rudoplh 

Tantalizing Trivia 

• She was the 20th of 22 children and weighed 4.5 pounds at birth. Her early health challenges included pneumonia, scarlet fever and polio. 
• As an Olympic champion, and the first American woman to win three gold medals in one Olympics,, she was among the most highly visible black women in America and abroad. 
• Her welcome home parade became one of the first integrated events in the state of Tennessee. 
• She was an active participant in the civil rights movement, participating in lunch counter protests that led to the desegregation of public facilities in Tennessee. 
• Her post-track and field career included graduating from Tennessee State University, becoming a teacher, a national broadcaster, a nonprofit leader, a Goodwill Ambassador in West Africa, and a coach. 
• She once dated boxing legend Muhammad Ali. 
• Her death, at the age of 54, was early and untimely, from brain and throat cancer. 

Mirror Work

Find a scar on your body that reminds you that it’s possible to heal. Maybe it’s not visible to the naked eye. Run your fingers over the spot. Recall the site of injury. Remember the pain or discomfort that you experience in the moment of harm. Now, run your fingers over the spot again. Marvel at the miracle of your body putting itself back together again. Thank the scar for the work that your body did at the site to heal. 

Affirmation:

• My scars are scared spots of healing. They remind me that this too shall pass. 
• I am worthy of my time. I spend it taking care of myself. 
• I don’t settle for the care in front of me. I seek what I need and don’t stop until I find it. 

Pleasure Muse: Oshun 

Tantalizing Trivia  

• Oshun is a goddess deity, or orisha, of the Yoruba religion of West Africa. There are equivalent goddess figures in multiple cultures including as Oxum in Brazil and Ochun in Cuba.
• Tradition holds that Oshun comes from Osogbo, Nigeria. That city is considered sacred, and it is believed to be fiercely protected by the water goddess. The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, a forest that contains several shrines and artwork in honor of Oshun; it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
• Every year Oshun devotees and other people of the Yoruba religious tradition go to the Oshun River to pay homage at the Oshun festival. 
• One of the youngest Orisha’s and one of the most adored in the Yoruba religion. She is the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. She exudes sensuality and all the qualities associated with fresh, flowing river water. 
• She is a teacher of both magic and mysticism. She is the granter of wishes and all of your heart’s desires. 

Mirror Work:

• Drop into a Goddess squat and allow your hips, chest and heart to open to your divine power.. Instructions: 
• From a standing position with the feet 3 feet apart, bend the elbows at shoulder height and turn the palms facing each other. Turn the feet out 45 degrees facing the corners of the room, and as you exhale bend the knees over the toes squatting down.
• Press the hips forward, press the knees back. Drop the shoulders down and back and press the chest toward the front of the room. Keep the arms active, as if they were holding a big ball over your head. Look straight ahead with the chin parallel to the floor.
• Breathe and hold 3-6 breaths
• While breathing repeat the affirmations below. 
  

Affirmation: 

• I am at the center of creation, the river of life flows through me. 
• I give birth to new ideas each day, I nurture them with care. 
• I am divine. 

Pleasure Muse: Bessie Springfield

Tantalizing Trivia  

• First Black woman to ride across the United States solo. 
• At 16, taught herself to ride her first motorcycle, a 1928 Indian Scout. 
• At 19, started her adventure across the American South at the height of the Jim Crow Era - on a Harley-Davidson. 
• One of the few civilian motorcycle dispatch riders during World War II.
• Married six times. 
• Over the course of her life, drove all 48 continental states and long-distance rides in Europe, Brazil and Haiti
• Inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
• Lived to be 81 years old  

Mirror Work:

Your life is abundant, where will you go? What will you do?  Let’s plan it. Your next adventure.  Relax your face. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in an inspiring place. Is it on a sailboat? A crystal blue sea? The Great Wall of China? A dirt road at sunset? A silent retreat at an ashram? Imagine yourself there. See the surroundings in your minds eye. Here the sounds. Feel and taste the air. You are there. Now open your eyes, look at yourself, and make a silent promise to go. 

Affirmation:

• I deserve to enjoy life. 
• I embrace living in the moment. 
• I'm packed and ready to go. 
• I am free and open to adventure. 

Pleasure Muse: Emma Dupree 

Tantalizing Trivia: 

• She was an herbalist and traditional healer who grew up on the Tar River in North Carolina. Her pioneering work serves as the basis for much of today’s herbal medicine movement. 
• She was known for her “garden grown pharmacy” and grew everything from  sassafras, white mint, double tansy, rabbit tobacco, maypop, mullein, catnip, horseradish, silkweed and other plants from which she made tonics, teas, salves and dried preparations. 
• She believed her gifts and understanding of herbs to be a gift directly from God and used the bible to guide her decision making. 
• She lived to be 99 years old and received the North Carolina lifetime achievement award, heritage award and the North Carolina Folklore Society for her significant contributions to her community. 

Mirror Work:

Imagine that your ancestors stored the secrets of their survival in your DNA. Imagine the secrets pulsating through your body. Now quietly ask them, what do you have to tell me? Say to them, “It’s ok to share now. I am listening. I am paying attention. I hear you.” What was said? Spend five minutes journaling 

Affirmation:

The intelligent wisdom that guarantees that the sun rises everyday, also lives in me. Each day I rise into its warm embrace and with that rising I am healed. 

Pleasure Muse: Naomi Sims

Tantalizing Trivia:

• Naomi Sims is the first Black supermodel in history - certainly, the first Black cover girl to land the featured cover photo in major magazines like Life and Cosmo in the 1960s and 1970s
• With a dark complexion, a thin body, and standing 5’ 10 she says she was not considered beautiful to others as a teenager. She thought otherwise.
• She created a master plan to break into the racist modeling industry. When no agency would sign her, she represented herself and booked an advertising job and then - with that success - helped launch a brand new agency, Wilhelmina. It became the most prestigious agency in America.
• At the height of the Black Power Movement, Naomi Sims became the very face of the “Black is Beautiful” ethos.
• Sims went from modeling to mogul when she earned a cool 5 million in the 80s through a cosmetic and wig line developed expressly for Black women.

Mirror Work:

Without changing, notice your posture. What is it saying? Now turn on the playlist and dance to the pro-Black anthems. Notice your posture now.

Affirmation: 

[Say it loud.] 

I’m Black and I’m proud.

Pleasure Muse: Sharon Schaffer 

Tantalizing Trivia 

• She is the first Black woman to become a professional surfer and some of her work was featured in the opening of the Smithsonian African-American History Museum. 
• She was a pioneer as a stunt double in Hollywood. As an actress she toured the country playing Harriet Tubman. 
• She is an activist who has used her platform to organize other surfers into paddle-out protests to bring awareness to social justice issues. 

Mirror Work:

It’s time for you to claim what’s yours. Stand tall in the mirror and call-out, “I got it!” Look yourself in the eyes. Are you convinced? Now say it with more authority, whatever wave is washing up next, whatever emotions are washing into your body, trust yourself. Look back into the mirror, into your eyes, and say louder, “I got it!”  Repeat three times or as many times as you need until you believe it’s true. 

Affirmation: I am prepared for whatever comes my way. I got it! 

Pleasure Muse: Mary McLeod Bethune

Tantalizing Trivia  

• Mary McLeod Bethune was not satisfied until Black girls were educated and free. 
• Born in South Carolina to parents of enslaved Africans, she was the 15th of 17 children. She worked the cotton fields with her mother and each afternoon, walked 5 miles to school to learn to read. Even then, she said she knew there was a calling on her life, a divine mission. She said, “For I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.”
• She started early. She went to Bible school in Chicago, served in a Christian mission and started outreach to prisoners.  Of her mento there, she said, ““I was so impressed with her fearlessness, her amazing touch in every respect, an energy that seemed inexhaustible and her mighty power to command respect and admiration from her students and all who knew her. She handled her domain with the art of a master.” 
• She moved to Florida to start a school. She raised money by making sweet potato pies, ice cream and fried fish and the students made ink for pens from elderberry juice and pencils from burned wood. That one room school house turned into Bethune-Cookman University, but she served as president for 20 years. She said, “I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a loving God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve." 
• She rode that wave of victory to global prominence as “The First Lady” of the Black Planet; founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, established the “Black Cabinet” as national advisor to president Franklin D. Roosevelt and the only Black woman to help charter the United Nations
• Unveiled in 1974, today, there is a 17 ft bronze statue of Bethune in a public park in Washington, D.C. It is the first monument to honor an African-American or a woman on the national mall. 
  

Affirmations

• Inhale, satisfaction smells sweet; Exhale, everything is working for my good
• I speak words that result in satisfactory experiences. 
• I rest satisfied with what I can do now to make the world better. 
• I live a life that is steeped in satisfying moments. 
• I will follow my bliss and surf my satisfaction. I will notice when I feel the charge of alignment in my soul and I will say yes! More of this. 
• Gratitude satisfies the soul. 

Mirror Work:

See yourself as a surfer. …waiting on your board for the next big wave. Your feet can’t touch the ground and you’re far from the shore. Relax. Play. Smile. Dangle your feet in the living water. Your wave is coming. Your purpose today is to catch it. …a surge of satisfaction. This is soul work. Who or what is inspiring you to pop up? Which wave is calling you today? Wait for it. Not that one. Not that one. Connect and feel. Not that one. Wait for it. That one!  Ride your own wave. The one that feels good and holds you steady. The wave of a good job, a rich experience, a nurturing relationship, a communal service.  Your wave is coming today. Ride it and feel the rapture of being fully alive and satisfied. 

Prayer for Pleasure

Dear God,

Call me. Make it clear which wave I should ride. I want to be satisfied with this one precious life. I want the exhilaration of being snatched up in satisfaction. Help me to see me as you see me.  Give me the faith of my foremothers that life is good. Light my feet with the fire of purpose so that I can experience the rapture of being alive. Let  me surrender to divine destiny and awesome alignment. 

Amen. 

Pleasure Muse: Toni Cade Bambara 

Tantalizing Trivia: 

• Born Miltona Mirkin Cade, this author, activist, and professor, changed her name at the age of 6, to Toni. She then added Bambara to honor the West African ethnic group, Bambara. 

• Her anthology, “Black Woman”, was the first feminist collection to focus on Black women. It included works from her friends Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde and Alice Walker. 

• After the success of her two fiction books, Gorilla My Love and The Salt Eaters, she became a filmmaker, covering topics like the Philadelphia MOVE Bombing and the disappearance of over 40 children in Atlanta. 

• She believed strongly in clairvoyance, dream analysis, telepathy, and ancestral healing, and wrote about those themes in most of her work. 

• She died at 56 from colon cancer. Toni Morrison posthumously edited and published her last book, Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions. 

Mirror Work:

Do a two minute free write, completing the sentence, “The truth is, I…” There’s not right or wrong. Just let your truth, about whatever comes from your spirit, flow onto the paper. Now look at yourself in the mirror as you read it out loud. “The Truth is I…” Repeat three times. Look at yourself while you speak and honor the courage that it takes to face our truths head on. 

Pleasure Muse: Queen Afua

Tantalizing Trivia  

• Born Helen Odel Robinson changed her name to Queen Afua
• She was raised in Harlem at the height of the Black Nationalist Movement and was a community organizer. 
• As a child, she suffered from asthma, allergies, eczema and debilitating cramps and at 15 years old, started a lifelong investigation, and practice of healing herself - she started  daily exercise, learning more about herbs and she changed her diet. 
• She experienced dramatic healing which led her on a spiritual quest, hearing directly from God, on several occasions, instructing her which plants and herbs to use for different ailments. 
• She tapped into ancient African traditions and combined those with her “impeccable listening” and intuition to launch her “Womb Healing Movement” that has helped over 1 million women. 
• She has become a wellness guru to generations of Black women including cultural leaders like Erykah Badu, India Arie, Jada Pinkett Smith, Iyanla Vanzant, Lauren London and Beverly Bond. 
• Queen Afua has written seven best-selling books that Center, African healing traditions and designed and led hundreds of workshops and retreats to heal Black women. 

Mirror Work:

Look at yourself naked in the mirror. Relax. Smile. Say thank you to your body. Put your hands on your womb with loving kindness and imagine the inheritance of Divine Femininity that flows through you from your mother’s womb and her mother’s womb. Say I am the daughter of ____ who is the daughter of ____.  Commit to listening to your womb. What is she telling you? What does she want you to shift in your life? How does she want you to heal yourself?

Pleasure Muse: Dr. John Francis 

Tantalizing Trivia  

• He gave up using motorized transportation and took a vow of silence that was intended to last one day. It lasted for 17 years. 
• He completed three college degrees, including a Phd while silent. 
• He walked across the United States and is referred to as the “Planet Walker”. 
• He was a pioneer of Black conservatism and environmentalism. 

Mirror Work:

While out on a walk find a patch of natural earth and take your shoes off. Look at your feet planted firmly on the ground. Imagine the healing powers of the universe shooting up through the arches of your feet. Feel stronger with each breath you take. 

Pleasure Muse: Alice Coachman 

Tantalizing Trivia

• Alice Coachman was the first Black woman from any country to win an Olympic gold medal. 
• She was born in segregated Georgia and as a child picked cotton and sold peaches, pecans and plums to help support her family
• She rejected  the patriarchy and segregationists, both telling her Black girls should not be athletes; Shout out to two women who encouraged her to become a runner - her fifth-grade teacher Cora Bailey, and her aunt, Carrie Spry.
• She ran barefoot on dirt roads to practice; Her stumbling block became her stepping stone and this kind of “no excuses” training made her the best athlete in Georgia in high school.
• She was recruited by Tuskegee and won national championships for track and field and in 1948, dazzled the world in the Olympic Games! King George VI of England put some respect on her name and the gold medal around her neck.

Mirror Work:

Flex in the mirror. Yell “Game Time!” Start clapping.  And run out of the bathroom like you believe in yourself. LOL

Affirmation:

I can do whatever I set my mind to. 

Pleasure Muse: Alice Coltrane 

Tantalizing Trivia  

• At 29 she became a widow with four children after her husband, famed jazz musician, John Coltran, passed away. 
• She founded an Ashram in the mountains of California and was an active healer, practicing energy work and laying of the hands. 
• She entered a two year mourning period after his death where she withdrew from friends, family and food. She referred to it as a necessary spiritual journey. 
• She professed to have divine revelations. 

Mirror Work

Sit or stand with your eyes closed. See yourself from within. See your image as God would see it, and honor what you see, by silently telling yourself, “I see the God in me.” 

Affirmation

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Pleasure Muse: Donna Summer 

Tantalizing Trivia

• Born to a working class family in Boston - her father was a butcher and her mother was a schoolteacher - her voice soared when she started singing solos in the AME church at 11 years old. 
• She dropped out of high school to move to New York City to join a blues rock band.  
• She landed a career-altering role in the musical Hair which debuted in Germany, where she lived and learned to speak fluent German. 
• She married an Austrian man and they had a daughter name Mimi. 
• She became known as the "Queen of Disco" with 32 chart singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 and forever changed the face of music and her upbeat music ushered in a new dance called disco. 

Mirror Work

Look at yourself today and play “Love to Love You Baby” or “Hot Stuff” Make deep eye-contact with your finest self. Dance the entire song and try and break a sweat. 

Affirmation

With every step, I sway and play. 

Pleasure Muse: Dr. Sebi 

Tantalizing Trivia

• He grew up in Honduras and got his foundation in herbalism from his grandmother. 
• He was arrested several times for practicing medicine without a license, but attracted a zealot following of believers who followed his lifestyle and diet advice. 
• Nipsey Hustle called him an underdog hero and champion of the truth. 
• He worked with Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy, and Kendrick Lamar, just to name a few. 
• He pioneered a lot of the current popular health trends, including plant-based, fasting, knowing the PH balance of foods, and the healing benefits of sea moss. 

Mirror Work: Gently massage your skin. Imagine that it is reflecting back to you everything that is inside. Notice where it is supple. Notice where it might be dehydrated. Notice your melanin. Give thanks that your body has the ability to process toxins and foods properly. 

Affirmation: I tend to my body because it is a temple. I feed it food that is nourishing. 

Pleasure Muse: bell hooks

Tantalizing Trivia

• She was born Gloria Jean Johnson, but like a longline of Black women who refused to be defined by the narrowness of this world, when she was ready to step on the scene with her talent, she changed her pen name to bell hooks after her great-grandmother. 

• She published more than 30 books. Her first, “Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism” was inspired by Sojourner Truth. 

• She identified as queer, but defined it as far more complex than who she was sleeping with. She said it was about “the self that is at odds with everything around it and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live."

• She was celibate for 17 years. 

• She practiced Buddhism and counted the monk Thich Nhat Hnah as her teacher. 

Mirror Work: Gaze lovingly at yourself with slow admiration for each feature on your face. Imagine that you are meeting yourself for the first time and wrap both arms around your body in a loving embrace. Send the love that you have given out back to yourself with three deep breaths. 

Affirmation: “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.” bell hooks