I believe that self-expression is a gift from our souls that allows you to be OK with not being OK. At one point, I was in graduate school studying the art of counseling or, as I like to call it, the art of one honoring their self-expression while the other one proves to have focused attention in a conversation long enough that they've clearly honored their listening skills. True, right?
This was a part of life where I was often in a room full of peers who struggled with naturally being good at self-expression in conversations or even identifying how to express one's self in a way that releases the heaviness of our souls in a healthy way.
I begin to wonder why do we accept the mindframe that makes you feel as though you are displeasing to your spiritual self if you cuss.
There are women who sit next to you at work, in your family or that you meet for brunch or take girls' trips with, who was raised to feel as though having an occasional filthy mouth is shameful and a false liberation. The crazy part is, we consume this language from others in our music, TV shows and favorite movies but not within ourselves. Shit, Megan Thee Stallion had us wanting to live a Hot Girl Summer and we know those lyrics aren't clean. Consumed.
I've come across women who you'll never hear peep a single cuss word in public and if one ever slips through, you better believe that it's a disclaimer attached to it like, "Excuse my French!"
I have lived that life and when separating that part of me in my 30s to leave in the past, I named this woman in me, Kristen.
Kristen tip-toed around expression.
Picture this. She's vibrant and smells like the sweetest vanilla body spray everyday. She attends church most Sundays and even volunteers with a charity a few times a year. She works full-time after graduating as a first-generation college student. She's 26 and fearless with a "before I turn 30 plan". She follows every influencer online and is often seen posting about her attendance at places that grant her credibility and personal growth. Kristen knows how to put a decent caption to a bomb image and when she's disrespected, she takes the humble or nice-nasty (still humble) approach.
She's connected and self-made.
Lives in the heart of the city and is seen pictured in Fendi once a year, 'cause she feels guilty when showing off her designers or possessions online and when she does, it's always done in the most modest way. Only Kristen's close friends have seen that lioness side of her come out a time or two.
When showing respect to the elders in her family, Kristen wears her "yes ma'am/sirs" like a badge of honor and wouldn't dare let her folks hear one single cuss word slip out even if asked something personal.
She thinks she's a lion but you've never heard her roar. No one ever has it together all the time and that's OK.
Crazy! Kristen was me. Secretly living in frustration for so many years that I can clearly see her so easily now... I rarely ever told people how annoyed I truly felt about the way my life was turning out. And you better believe that when my vocabulary of shit, damns and fucks finally broke through, there was no disclaimer in sight. I felt like Auntie Maxine Waters, I was reclaiming my time. The frustration of life was too much, like damn that cuss-free mindframe is questionable as fuck, in my Ari Lennox voice.
In all honesty, no one ever told me directly that I had to be the strong one or the cautious one when expressing myself, I told this to myself. I became a master at helping women around me feel better while missing their cues and cries for real liberation.
Only thinking, 'She don't cuss in front of me but I see pain.'
As a similar meme states, Kristen is now the type of woman that when dating you, she'll burn sage in your house, put healing crystals under your pillow, sing love songs for no reason, leave yoga mats on your floor, throw out your processed foods and cuss your ass out in front of whoever if you disrespect the Queen. It took time, but she got there.
She's learned that to maintain her own happiness, keeping her feelings real is a must each time.
Just by being herself, Kristen's persona exudes peace, positivity and a hustle like no other but now she's unapologetically being true to herself. Her cousins may even call her the bougie one of the family but they love her though and have yet to meet this liberated woman but it's coming.
Over the years, I have become more and more liberated after every adversity that hit my life. If this is what it took for me to get here, and be centered with myself, I wouldn't change a thing 'cause I got here. And it all makes me the woman I am today.
Many of us are Kristens living a conservative life that doesn't empty our frustrations and pain. With every "fuck, shit, or damn" our smile returns. In a world of Kristens, our soul desires real balance that educates, laugh, cuss, sips tea, chill and then repeats.
It wasn't until I was last-years-old that I finally had the courage to release my mind. I felt so liberated and realized that it was me the whole time that hadn't stepped into my fullness as a lioness woman by the ideology placed on me. I still treated myself like I was unsure, incapable of expressing some things until I begin to live like I deserve this freedom shit.
There is healing in cussing and transparency. Find your tribe, release responsibly, and heal.
When someone plays with your heart and your feelings, you don't feel kind inside, you feel like fucking shit up, and it's OK to say that.
xoNecole is always looking for new voices and empowering stories to add to our platform. If you have an interesting story or personal essay that you'd love to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us at submissions@xonecole.com.
Featured image by Shutterstock
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak
