​

Hi Reader!

Happy December! *This is about to be a little lengthy but I swear its worth it and it's for YOU!

There is a version of me that 2020 required. A version that needed quiet, land, stillness, and a slower pace. A version of me that needed healing on a cellular level... not performative healing, not “vacation healing,” but the kind of healing where your soul sinks into the soil and remembers itself.

And to honor that version, I built a life that matched her needs.

I moved out of the city. I created a home with warm light and room to breathe. I grew tomatoes and lavender in my backyard. I built an altar in a room where the only sound in the morning was the breath of God. I gave myself a life that felt like a balm.

And it was good. It was necessary. It saved me.

But here is the thing that 2025 taught me:

A life can be good and still be too small.
​A life can be peaceful and still be misaligned.
A life can feel safe and still not be the life your destiny requires.

This year, I looked around at the life I built—the life that held me, healed me, matured me—and had to tell the truth:

This is beautiful. And it is not big enough for me anymore.

When I moved into this house, I bought a fiddle leaf fig. A tall, skinny thing that leaned against the wall like it was shy. I put it in a corner of my living room where there was good light, gave it some water, and let it settle.

And then it grew.

Fast actually.

Before long, its leaves were brushing the ceiling. It was trying to live, trying to expand, trying to stretch into who it was becoming - but the ceiling was blocking it.

So I moved it. Right to the front door, where the ceiling goes up to the roof. The highest point in the house and the best lighting as well.

I repotted it so its roots could expand. I gave it new soil. I gave it room.

Now, that tree is almost touching the highest light in my home.

And one day Spirit said to me:

“If you had left it in the corner where it "fit"… it would have died. It would have suffocated trying to become more in a space that could not hold its becoming.”

This is a newsletter about Black Women’s Joy as Infrastructure.

Joy is not a feeling. Joy is an environment. Joy is the room you give yourself to grow into your purpose.

And this year, I realized that the life I built for my healing no longer had the ceiling height for my becoming.

-------------------

One afternoon this summer, I went into my backyard to pick cherry tomatoes. The little ones that burst with sweetness. I love those so much. Especially because I grew them. I held them in my hands and thought:

This is a beautiful life. And in the same breath: This is not actually the life I’m supposed to be living right now.

It wasn’t sadness. It wasn’t dissatisfaction. It was clarity.

I realized I had grown so accustomed to this life - this quiet little rural reality, this safety, this garden growing, little version of myself - that I forgot to ask the next question:

Is this life spacious enough for the woman I am becoming next?

And the answer, whispered from my ancestors, my body, my dreams, my priesthood, was:

No. You have outgrown this corner.

-------------------

Here’s the thing that softness taught me this year:

It costs something to grow.

It cost me old identities. It cost me money I didn’t want to spend. It cost me a relationship that was both tender and heartbreaking. It cost me the illusion that I could stay comfortable and still become who God is calling me to be. It cost me friendships that apparently couldn't survive an evolving version of me. It cost me parts of my organization that needed to evolve. It cost me the fantasy that growth could happen without disruption.

Expanding required me to stretch my roots. It required me to repot myself. It required me to leave rooms that I had long since mastered.

It required me to say out loud:

I want more. I want something different. I want bigger. I want joy that matches the calling on my life.

And whew. Telling the truth about what you want will rearrange your entire world.

WHEN THE BECOMING COSTS YOU YOUR COMFORT

When I looked at my life this year — my projects, my business, my love life, my home, my friendships — I realized that so much of it was built by a version of me who was still holding her breath amid panic and a pandemic.

And that life I created was perfect for THAT time.

But it is not perfect for the woman I am now: a priest, a scholar, a global creative, a woman desiring partnership of a certain caliber, a dreamwork expert, a soft Black woman reclaiming pleasure as power, a wealthy woman in process, a woman rooted in Ifa, Oshun, Obatala, Egungun, Olokun, Eshu, and Egbe, a woman whose destiny spans continents, a woman who is ready for Senegal, for Paris, for Philadelphia, for everything... A woman whose authority is no longer local — it is global.

That woman needs more sky.

That woman needs new soil.

That woman needs an ecosystem designed for expansion.

This year showed me... through dreams, through relationships, through Spirit, through heartbreak... that even love can become a corner if you are not careful.

Even purpose can become a corner.

Even success can become a corner.

Even peace can become a corner.

And when the ceiling lowers, your spirit knows it before your mind does.

Your spirit starts whispering:

“This is lovely. But this is not enough.”

And the moment you hear that whisper, the becoming begins.

WHAT I DID WHEN I REALIZED I HAD OUTGROWN MY LIFE

Reader Here are 3 things I did once I had this revelation: (very simple, very difficult, very necessary):

1. I told the truth. To myself. To God. To the people who were supposed to hear it. Even when telling the truth meant losing something I loved.
   ​
2. I let what needed to fall away, fall away.
   Jobs. Relationships. Expectations. Old selves. Old templates.
   ​
3. I did not fight the crumble.
   I repotted myself.
   ​
   New desires. New cities. New collaborations. New boundaries. New financial strategies. New spiritual responsibilities. New language for my calling.
   ​
   I gave myself more soil, more sun, more sky.
   ​

And like my fiddle leaf fig, child… I began to grow again.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU AS YOU ENTER 2026

Where is your spirit touching the ceiling?

What life have you outgrown, even though it is still beautiful?

Where have you confused comfort with calling?

What version of you is suffocating in a corner you mastered?

What would repotting yourself actually look like?

Who are you becoming, and what does that version of you need?

​
*THE TRUTH IS THIS

Softness is not passive. Softness is not small. Softness is not fragile.

Softness is knowing when the life you built is no longer the life that can sustain your joy.

Softness is discerning when you need a new ecosystem.

Softness is listening when God says:

“Daughter, it’s time for more.”

And then obeying.

Here's my call to action for you at the end of this LONGGGGG newsletter!

If you’re ready to step into a life with more soil, more sun, more sky — join me at @RealSoftGirlSociety on Instagram.

I am creating a community for Black women who are repotting themselves, expanding themselves, softening themselves, and dreaming themselves into their next evolution.

Because joy is not a feeling, joy is infrastructure. And it’s time for your joy to have room to grow.

​

Share your answer to at least ONE of the questions above with me in my email. Simply "reply" to this email and let me know where you're growing to in 2026!

​

Yours sincerely,

​ebonyjanice like peace​