What’s up, swimmers? Happy zodiacal new year! Happy Aries season!
We’ve crossed the threshold into another spin around the wheel. But just a gentle reminder that while you may wish for fresh! and new!, it’s true that transitions take time. If you’re not feeling springy, that’s okay! The Earth is still waking up, too. Take your time, be gentle, and if you have to work anything, may it be your optimism, and your wishing spirit.
I’m in quite the liminal place myself, so it’s a good thing that today’s conversation with my beloved Christine of Zen Wellness Space is warm, grounding, inspirational, and educational! We’re in a collective 7 year in 2023, but Christine went through a personal 7 cycle in 2022, so she brings us ripe and ready information from the future! She also shares all about reconnecting to her ancestral roots through Haitian Voodoo, a practice in which she’ll be initiated into in the next couple of weeks!
I wanted to create a sacred space where we collectively work together towards living empowered life of intuitive wellness on our own terms.
- Christine
Christine a first-generation child of two Haitian Immigrants. She’s a full-time working, wife, mom, healer, advocate, doula, hype woman, and a Zen Wellness GodMama. Born in BK, Christine currently resides in the PNW.
She shares on her website that, “While in the beginning stages of my wellness journey, it was hard for me to find marginalized communities especially Black moms on the same journey of wellness. After seeing my community be dismissed from the wellness conversation I decided to create my own seat at the wellness table and Zen Wellness Space was born!”
It’s my goal to empower and guide those seeking modalities that are here to remind us of who we are, and the gifts we were born with. In this space we center duality as we take our power back, all while looking inside ourselves for insight and guidance…
- Christine
I might be a bit biased, but knowing Christine has totally enriched my life, and I’m so excited for you to get to know her. She’s warm, wise, and completely wonderful, bringing love, empathy, and light to every space she’s in. She fully embodies the curious student and the creative teacher, and is always shapeshifting—staying flexible and open to whatever Spirit is asking of her.
Some of my favorite moments from this conversation include:
[on shame around Haitian Voodoo] "That is my mission: to really show people the beauty that is in these traditions... just our Indigenous practices. There's so much pride! I understand why there's shame... the systems did exactly what they're supposed to do... shame people who are in their power, and who know themselves."
[on cultural appropriation & sharing practices] "I think it all boils down to respect. Just really listening... to the elders. And even maybe not ask as many questions. Just sit and just observe, and just listen."
[on daily devotional practices] "This is what I need to do. I know myself, and this is what I actually need in order to sustain. Because I want to be able to be the Oracle of Hope and Inspiration and Equanimity to people, but I can't do that if I'm not well... Spending time with spirit, spending time with my higher self — that's what fills me up."
But there really are so many eye-opening bits of education within. Let me know which moments stood out to you!
If you’d like to connect with Christine, there are many different ways to do so!
SITS 1x13 - Diving Deep with Christine of Zen Wellness Mama