Hi Reader

I missed sending the newsletter on the 1st of the month. I know.

For those of you who follow this newsletter closely, you probably noticed. For those of you who didn't — thank you for the grace anyway. Either way, I wanted to name it.

The truth is, I've been deep in a prayer container that began on February 2nd, and I am just now coming up for enough air to sit down and write to you.

When I say prayer container, I don't mean the polite, neat version of prayer that many of us were taught. I mean the kind that rearranges your days. The kind that asks you to slow down, to listen more than you speak, to sit with questions that don't yet have answers. The kind of prayer that makes you realize you are being worked on as much as you are doing the work.

And if I'm honest, Mercury retrograde hasn't helped matters. The whole season has felt like moving through honey — slow, thick, (like me - wink), and a little disorienting. Nothing quite clicking into place the way you want it to. (deep sigh)

But it ends in a few days. And I can already feel something loosening.

What this season has been reminding me is that faith is not really about certainty. We talk about faith as if it means confidence, as if it means you know exactly what is coming and you are simply waiting for it to arrive. But that has never actually been my experience of faith.

Faith, for me, has always been about returning.

Returning to the altar when you don't have an answer yet. Returning to the prayer even when the prayer feels like it's going nowhere. Returning to the vision you once held for your life, even when your physical reality hasn't caught up with it yet. Lighting the candle again. Pouring the water again. Saying the same prayer again.

There is something very quiet about that kind of faith. It doesn't always look impressive. It doesn't always look powerful. It certainly doesn't look like the loud declarations many of us grew up associating with spirituality. But I am increasingly convinced it is the more powerful kind. The kind that doesn't require you to perform certainty. The kind that simply asks you to stay in relationship with the thing that is calling you.

In the middle of all of this, I had the joy of sitting down with Dr. Jennifer Mullan, author of Decolonizing Therapy, for a conversation that felt like it came straight out of the season I've been walking through. We talked about what it actually means to heal and lean into softness — not the Instagram version, not the version that suggests you wake up one day and everything that ever hurt you is suddenly resolved, and you get to finally lie around in a pink robe and get your nails done every day. We talked about healing as return. Returning to your body. Returning to your intuition. Returning to your own authority. Returning to the quiet, knowing that many of us were taught to doubt. It felt less like an interview and more like a remembering. I think you should listen to it. It will be worth your time.

And while I'm being honest with you, the spiritual mentorship work I've been building over the past few years, a twelve-month one-on-one container called A Return to God, was born out of everything I just described. It came out of my own returns. The times I had to come back to prayer. The times I had to come back to myself. The times I had to come back to God, even when I didn't feel particularly holy, clear, or ready. It's flowing, and it's BIG. To the point that the offering can only hold 2-3 women a year. So you know it's juicy.

But what I really want to know is this:

What are YOU returning to right now, even if you keep leaving it? What keeps calling you back?

Hit reply and tell me. I read and reply to every single one.

In Grace, EbonyJanice ✨