Rest as a Skill: A Living Series

This is part of my ongoing series on the seven types of rest. Each piece stands alone, but together they map a fuller picture of what it means to reclaim rest as a skill—especially for those of us who’ve been taught to earn exhaustion but not renewal. Start anywhere, come as you are. We are in this together.

I was taught to push through pain. Ice the ankle. Tape it tighter. Shake it off. Be tough. Rest wasn’t the reward for work—it was the thing that made you soft.

But… what if softness is strength? What if physical rest isn’t just recovery—it’s discernment?

Intro: Redefining Physical Rest

Physical rest is often reduced to one of two extremes: either collapse after burnout or the kind of rest “earned” only after maximum exertion. In sports culture—and in many professional spaces—rest becomes conditional, something you’re allowed to have only if your body is already on the verge of shutting down.

But rest isn’t passive. It’s a choice. A skill. And, for those of us conditioned to perform through pain, it can feel harder than pushing.

If you missed the introduction to this series, check out Rest as a Skill: An Introduction for a foundation on the seven types of rest.

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Where We’re Headed

This is part of my Rest as a Skill series, where I’m exploring the seven types of rest. Each one offers its own way to recharge:

• Physical Rest (You’re here!)

• Mental Rest

• Sensory Rest

• Creative Rest

• Social Rest

• Emotional Rest

• Spiritual Rest

Each post stands alone, but they all come together to show how rest is the skill we need to reclaim.

Resilience is Real, but So is Recalibration

When Paige Bueckers led UConn to the 2025 national championship, she reminded the world what it looks like to return from the brink. But I wasn’t just watching her play, I was watching her discern. When to move, when to hold, when to trust her body again after years of being told it wasn’t ready.

It brought me back to my own time as a walk-on at Villanova in the early 2010s. I wasn’t the star. I didn’t get the minutes. But I was asked to stay—after I’d already graduated—to co-captain a Big East Division I Women’s Basketball team.

(Tiny aside for the women’s basketball obsessed—back in the day, Nova’s division rivals were UConn, Notre Dame, and Marquette. By my senior year, these foes were stacked with the likes of Stewie, Big Mama Stef Dolson, Kiah Stokes, Skylar Diggins, Jewell Loyd, Kayla McBride, and Natisha Hiedeman (& bonus fun fact: current feisty WNBA 3-point shooting standout Marina Mabrey has an older sister who was also playing ND my senior year and she also dusted us from the 3. “Mike” Mabrey is now their assistant head coach! So yes, I am a UCONN hater. But I respect UConn’s sustained greatness and that respect remains true alongside my disdain for Geno’s smugness. His bravado will always leave a bad taste in my mouth—as insufferable as the smell of sulfur if you will. But I digress.)

Accepting co-captain still meant I wouldn’t lead from the floor. I said yes. Not because it made logical sense or suddenly the outside recognition would follow, but because it felt true to who I was becoming.

And it taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way: sometimes physical rest is choosing to sit. Not because you’re out of the game, but because your body and spirit know that leadership isn’t always movement. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is sit down before you’re forced to.

What the Court Taught Me About Stillness

I’ve pushed through pain before—emotionally, mentally, physically. I’ve worn rest as a badge of shame instead of a rite of survival. But that last season at Nova, when I was co-captain and still getting garbage time, forced me to rewire how I understood presence.

• Could I still lead without being center court?

• Could I still be committed if I wasn’t collapsing after practice?

• Could I learn to honor the wisdom of rest—without waiting for permission?

The answer, eventually, was yes.

Physical Rest as Discernment

Here’s what physical rest means to me now:

• Listening to my body before it screams.

• Letting stillness be part of my practice—not a disruption to it.

• Trusting that the absence of grind is not the absence of growth.

Physical rest isn’t just sleep, naps, or Black twitter self care reposts (tho I love all of those). It’s noticing when my body’s holding stress in my shoulders. It’s stretching before I hit publish. Unclenching my jaw. An extra d e e p exhale after noticing I’m doing the autopilot eye rolls and restrained grunts of frustration again.Physical rest is about not forcing myself to write when my brain is foggy and my back is tight.

It’s unglamorous.

It’s unsexy.

But it’s essential.

How to Practice Physical Rest

1. Start small. Can you rest for five minutes before your body needs 5 days?

2. Notice tension. What does your body do when you push too far? Can you notice it earlier?

3. Give your body credit. Not for how much it produces—but for what it carries. Every day.

The Wisdom of Sitting Down

Physical rest has taught me the same lesson I learned on the court: sometimes, the most powerful move is to sit down—not because you’ve given up, but because only YOU know what you’re holding.

Resilience gets all the glory. But discernment? That’s rest in motion. That’s wisdom in the body. That’s how we last.

Are you safe enough to rest?

This is part of my Rest as a Skill series, inspired by the seven types of rest. The truth is that rest isn’t a reward. It’s a right. Catch up or hop around:

• Part 1: Social Rest – Choosing Connection over Chaos

• Part 2: Physical Rest – Discernment, Not Just Recovery (You are here!).

• Intro: Rest as a Skill – Reclaiming What Was Never Optional

Rest, in any form, is impossible without safety. It’s the foundation that allows us to exhale, to trust, and to fully release. And on the eve of Inauguration Day—a literal turning of the page—safety feels like the cornerstone of how we move forward.

But safety requires vigilance, especially in a world that thrives on chaos. Think about how narratives are manufactured to manipulate public perception. Take TikTok, for example: a platform millions rely on for creativity and connection, suddenly positioned as both a threat and a symbol of salvation. Trump paints himself as its protector after playing a key role in its ban—a narrative as coercive as it is exhausting.

Staying vigilant against these manipulations takes a toll, especially for communities that are already disproportionately affected by instability and manufactured urgency. This is why social rest matters so much. It’s not just a retreat; it’s a refusal. A refusal to be swept up in the chaos. A refusal to let these narratives control how we connect with others or move through the world.

Right now, I’m in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by 14 Black and/or queer women—a living, breathing testament to what social rest can look like. Together, we’re carving out space for joy, for laughter, and for the safety to simply exist as we are. Social rest is about stepping toward community, toward the people and places that refill us, so we can meet new beginnings with clarity, strength, and hope.

Where We’re Headed

This is part of my Rest as a Skill series, where I’m exploring the seven types of rest. Each one offers its own way to recharge:

• Physical Rest

• Mental Rest

• Sensory Rest

• Creative Rest

• Social Rest (You’re here!)

• Emotional Rest

• Spiritual Rest

Each post stands alone, but they all come together to show how rest is the skill we need to reclaim.

Why Social Rest Matters

Social rest helps us push back against the constant vigilance these coercive narratives demand. It creates space for connection without performance, for safety without explanation. It’s not just rest—it’s resistance.

Last night, after a long day on the slopes, we all gathered in the chalet. The room buzzed with the kind of warmth you can only find in familiarity: a few of us cackling over the retelling of a treacherous climb up the side of a slope to get to dog sledding, while others passed around a video of someone hanging off the button bar, being dragged uphill on their snowboard for night skiing. A small group huddled around a Scrabble board, throwing out words with playful intensity, while a snorer and a few puzzlers worked quietly nearby, each in their own rhythm but fully present.

The glow in the room came from the fullness of a meal shared together: toasted sesame salmon, oven-roasted potatoes with a spicy crème fraîche dip, and honey-sriracha-glazed roasted cauliflower and carrots. The space itself feels like an exhale into the hug of melodic infectious rhythms, distinctly placeable sounds from the Caribbean Islands to the townships of South Africa, a sense of what’s possible when laughter, familiarity, and safety come together.

In a world that often demands resilience from marginalized communities—especially Black, queer people—social rest is revolutionary. It’s a refusal to stay in spaces that exhaust or isolate us. It’s an act of self-preservation, not selfishness.

Take the Alps, the Duality of Social Rest

This trip has been a lesson in social rest—how it’s both spaciousness and moving into safer spaces.

• Spaciousness:
  On the slopes, I feel the kind of rest that comes from flow. Snowboarding demands presence and is ostensibly solo during your liminal transverse: carving turns, adjusting to the terrain, letting your body take the lead. At 7,500 feet moving at 24mph, the only thing that matters is the next movement. It’s a spaciousness that quiets the noise of everyday life, reminding me that rest isn’t always still—it can be motion filled with intention.

• Moving Into Safer Spaces:
  The realest rest, though, has been in the community I’m here with. The Black, queer, homie vibes are a kind of sanctuary I always forget I deeply need to remain at ease and hopeful. Whether we’re hyping each other up before a run that feels absolutely outside what feels possible or sitting in comfortable silence on the gondola, there’s a safety in this space that feels like a homecoming.

Social rest isn’t just about stepping away—it’s about stepping toward people and places that refill us.

How to Cultivate Social Rest

Social rest doesn’t just happen—it’s a skill we cultivate by:

1. Recognizing what drains you:
   Think about the spaces and relationships that leave you feeling heavy, and notice when you need to step away.

2. Seeking safety over convenience:
   Sometimes the safest spaces aren’t the easiest to access. Social rest asks us to be intentional about where and with whom we spend our energy.

3. Balancing spaciousness and connection:
   Social rest doesn’t have to mean solitude, nor does it always mean community. Sometimes, it’s about finding the right mix of both.

Are you safe enough to rest?

Rest isn’t always still. Sometimes, rest is finding refuge. My refuge this week is in the stillness and flow of carving turns and the precious, unadulterated bellowing laughter of people who see me fully. The radical power is in our resting together. Social rest reminds us that we don’t have to carry everything alone. In a world that often demands too much, choosing rest—choosing safety—is its own kind of power.

This is part of my Rest as a Skill series. Next time, we’ll explore sensory rest—how to find quiet in an overstimulating world.

Rest, not in stillness, but in the kind of work that asks for nothing except presence.

Earlier, ahead of Christmas, I found myself window shopping, drawn to objects I didn’t need—an $80 fountain pen, a $40 mini leather notebook, $120 glasses. They were beautiful, tempting in their promise of productivity and refinement. But I paused. I realized I didn’t need to buy anything to feel rested or restored. Gratitude filled the space instead—gratitude for the tools, time, and presence I already had to create something beautiful with my own hands.

(Though I did snag a gift for my mom. Generosity and restraint can coexist, right?)

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A Mezcalita Worth Sauntering For

It started with a mezcalita—or mocktail-ita, depending on the drinker. It was a two-day process of layered beauty, beginning with Flor de Azar, an artisanal triple sec distilled by women in Mexico City and infused with citrus and botanicals from Veracruz. Its floral warmth transformed the drink into something that felt celebratory and deeply rooted.

The rim alone was a glorious explosion of flavors: cane sugar mingling with Jacobsen kosher sea salt, Malden salt flakes, Chinese five spice, cayenne, and chili pepper. The ice cubes? Blood orange roses with a whole star anise nestled in their center, tiny sculptures of winter elegance. These Viski glasses, with their timeless design and quality craftsmanship, added an extra layer of elegance to the experience, making each sip feel like a celebration.

If you were watching me make it, you might have felt transported. Picture a 1920s saloon, its Chesterfield couches and walnut tables bathed in the airy glow of mid-century nostalgia, softened by Japandi-inspired feng shui. I was dressed for timelessness: deep olive cargo pants, a black Both& muscle tank, and an open burnt-orange-meets-caramel corduroy button-down. My sculptural mariner-linked gold necklace and matching post earrings were a nod to understated luxury.

The process itself was meditative. Blood orange halves smoked atop the burner, releasing wisps of citrus smoke. Then came the tamarind syrup: hours of shucking pods by hand, boiling, and straining them against a fine-mesh sieve with the back of a wooden spoon. It was at the 4th time back around, I was reminded of my homestay grandmothers in Morocco, where I lived for a year, who would sit next to as they would muscle out the couscous for hours ahead of Friday’s infamous tagine. Rest is a skill—and apparently, I joined making tamarind syrup.

Tasks stretched into moments of grace. My two-year-old daughter Nyah “helped,” turning five-minute steps into half-hour meanders. And when she paused to resist nap time, the cold-brew dashi steeped longer than planned, becoming better than expected. Maybe my 2025 motto can be: I can’t be rushed—I’m steeping!

Did you know rest can also be grinding sesame seeds?

Then there was the ramen broth. I first made it years ago, a practice born of care and honed into ritual. This time, I pulled out the nectarine Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven—a group wedding gift from Amani’s family and dear friend/my brother-in-law’s godfather. Its golden-orange hue glowed like nectar as it cradled 6.75 quarts of broth.

The process was familiar and sacred: grinding white sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle, mincing garlic and ginger until the kitchen hummed with their aroma, and simmering it all into a broth rich enough to feel like nourishment for the soul. That’s when it hit me! Rest, fr, is not just for naps, bc I found it in the medicinal meditation of grinding sesame seeds.

These creations weren’t rushed or judged. I wasn’t chasing perfection or efficiency, just the simple pleasure of making. If I didn’t pause to notice how I was feeling, I would not have known simmering broth was also teaching me patience. Sharpening my skill of rest.

Rest Is More Than Stillness

According to the American Time Use Survey, nearly everyone engages in leisure daily, yet most of it is spent watching TV or scrolling. It’s leisure, but it’s not rest. I’ve realized that rest isn’t just about stopping—it’s about noticing. Sometimes, it’s found in the sacred, deliberate work of creating—when the process itself becomes the reward. That’s why some rest is through creation and I don’t need to pressure myself when napping isn’t most days my thing.

As I think about the year ahead, I want to explore this further. The concept of the 7 types of rest—physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual—has been on my mind. What if rest isn’t just something we stumble into when exhaustion catches up with us? What if it’s a skill we nurture, one dimension at a time?

In the coming weeks, I’ll be diving into this idea more deeply, exploring what rest looks like, feels like, and how we might reclaim it in all its forms.

“What are you seeing? What’s interesting?” I ask, equally quizzical, debating if this will be my last attempt at the ‘Montessori, gentle parenting’ approach to the ‘teach-able twos’ before declaring class over, regardless of her answer.

“Bubbles!! Right there.” Ever so empathically pointing to the yes, bubbles, in the toilet that had formed around the basin of the sitting water. She was, indeed, watching the bubbles. Maybe even attempting to count all the bubbles? There must have been over 200 because they were the tiny ones, like seltzer. And unbeknownst to me, I actually thought to myself, I don’t think I’ve ever peered close enough to see and confirm that yes indeed bubbles form in the sitting toilet water between flushes.

As Nyah stared into those bubbles, I felt my instinct to rush us forward. Oh, what now. Let’s just get this bedtime over with, was thumping in my subconscious But her curiosity reminded me that slowing down doesn’t mean losing control—it means creating space for growth.

This is where I also am leaning into tender self-compassion and also acknowledge that there was a very large part of me that wanted to snap and say “no, Nyah, I cannot explain why there are bubbles in your potty, for the love of God can you please climb onto the potty…”. I desperately want to skip past the curiosity and back to enforcing my next task our consistent bedtime routine: the last potty try of the evening. (Also, shout out to my other formidable toddler parent who attempt to stick theirs everyday.)

In leadership, I’ve found that curiosity is often the unsung hero. It’s asking, What do you see? What’s interesting? instead of jumping straight to answers or solutions.

It helped that interesting is a 4-syllable word I’ve never heard Nyah say before, because I already was pausing to have a silent chuckle and make a mental note to share this moment with my wife. Nyah’s fascination with something as simple as bubbles reminded me that the best leaders don’t just teach—they listen. They pause long enough to see what others are seeing, even when it feels inconvenient or exhausting.

I cox her up to sit “on top of the bubbles”, promising that in exchange for cooperation, I will continue to supply her tiny toddle brain with an in-depth analysis on why it’s ok to “pee-pee” on top of the bubbles, and prepare her for when we will be saying “bye-bye” to these bubbles after we flush.

Parenting is a trip, man. I knew it would be. Okay, understatement; I absolutely knew it would be. But that does not take away the miraculousness of watching, in real time, the world that Nyah once knew to be true E X P A N D. This in turn means what I once knew to be true about my own world has changed. The way I previously experienced the tiny human in front of me can also E X P A N D.

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If you had told me this morning that today’s bedtime delay tactic would involve Nyah cleaning the toilet, I am not sure I would have believed you. The ROI for children helping with bathroom chores couldn’t possible be realized until age 5, right? Today I legit watched my Virgo daughter insist that only she scrub the tiny poop stains off the inside of the toilet from yesterday’s poop party. Anytime a potty-training toddler poops in the toilet and not in her diaper its a massive moment of celebration—huge tings. But the exciting culmination of yesterday’s last potty try of the evening might have skipped a few important bits of context. I should rewind here.

For bedtime, my wife and I have set days of the week for who puts Nyah down in order lower the cognitive load (and thus start the day mentally prepared to partake in mind-to-mind combat for overcoming Nyah’s last delay tactics of the day). Yesterday was Tuesday, and a truly rough day for Amani. I offered to do bedtime. If on scale of 1 to 10, 10 being i dgaf about the how because ends justified the means, and 1 being she fell asleep in the car and didn’t wake up when you placed her in her crib, each number in-between is a completely different energy tradeoff with the devil to get to the endgoal of a sleeping toddler.

Tuesday was a 5. Not too wild, but yes I was asked to tuck each stuffy in after Nyah so everyone was warm and could sleep while stifling a laugh at the creativity. I definitely caved when she asked for two songs for the dance party, but was firm when I let her know two dance party songs meant only one book. However, because she did a great job listening, she gets to choose the single book and it can be a long one.

Today?!?! Dude, she cleaned our toilet. Unless time were the only measure, I feel like I have to say today was a 2. Yes, I did a LOT of explaining about why there might be bubbles in the toilet water, but because she spent so much time watching those bubbles, her Virgo heart-center was extremely unsettled why any part of her poop from yesterday was still looking back at her. The concept of dried poop hadn’t been something she ever knew could exist since she’s had under 5 poops in the potty in her lifetime. Sadly, he impact of letting her mind expand in this way meant 5 more minutes of me explaining. Bedtime and thus a child-free evening became yet another 5 minutes more out of reach. All this in exchange for the deep pleasure of me teaching her two-year-old mind. Alas, there’s so much joy in watching her simply connecting more dots.

“Being a big girl means pooping in the potty, not in your diaper.” I comment.

“No diaper!” Nyah concurs with big gusto, a buffed out chest.

In hopes to get us back on track, I quickly add, “It’s okay that there’s a little poop in the potty from yesterday. There’s so much reason to celebrate. Remember how last night we had a poop party? We blasted PJ Panda’s You Did It! Sometimes flushing doesn’t take away all the poop, but that’s okay because we can flush again!”

But with the calm tenacity and silly grin that only a newly-determined toddler who has connected two ideas can concoct, Nyah cocks her head to the side, puts her hands on her hips, and exclaims: “MOMMA, WIPE IT UP!!!! NYAH DO IT!!!!!” and sprints out of the bathroom.

Parenting and leadership both demand patience—not the kind that passively waits for things to unfold, but the kind that sets boundaries and builds trust.

When Nyah sprinted out of the bathroom to grab God knows what since her cleaning supplies are in the kitchen, I had to laugh. She was claiming her independence in the most determined way possible, and while it slowed us down, it also showed me what happens when boundaries and curiosity meet. I’m slowly inviting myself to savor these moments of growth, even if they mean sacrificing a little of my own comfort and control over “the most optimized, efficient, and streamlined” bedtime routine.

As a leader, I try to hold that same tension: being patient enough to let others learn and bold enough to say, Here’s where I stop so you can take it from here.

• Boundaries are the distance with which I can love myself and others 💯 at the same damn time.

• Joy as defiance, softness as power.

• Stepping up into leadership from a place of accountability ONLY to what sustains us.

In for 2025

Couples therapy for thriving, not surviving.

Amber lighting—none of this daylight 5000K nonsense.

Finding space to write, fast and messy—because it still counts.

Buying MY WIFE her dream home because why not?

Die-hard WNBA energy, because women’s sports deserve the spotlight.

Relaxing, the dying skill.

The wisdom of Black radical feminists, because bell hooks already gave us the blueprint.

Being the friend who asks, “What do you need?” but is okay if the answer is, “not this.”

Showing up for my people by modeling boundaries and taking feedback as care, not conflict.

Analog music for nostalgic connection, not escape.

A recommitment to trans rights and calling out transphobia wherever it lurks.

Embracing my Millennial Momma Montessori-chic era

Welcoming AI as a tool, not a savior or a villain—skeptical optimism for the win.

Saying no without a 10-point explanation.

Texting back “Maybe you are in the storm and are not THE storm?”

Unwrapping joy like a toddler who loves the box more than the toy.

Pancake cheese (what Nyah calls whipped cream) and the perfect NEIPA pour.

Out for 2024

Accepting crumbs and pretending it’s a feast.

Trying to be everything to everyone and losing myself in the process.

Feeling left out because I don’t have a Spotify Wrapped.

Ignoring settler colonialism while claiming “neutrality.”

Apologizing for what ain’t mine.

Corporate betrayals I saw coming but still cried over.

Emotional contortionism for people who don’t reciprocate.

Thinking burnout is fixed with a self-care budget and free lunch.

Hustling my way to nowhere.

Judging the youth for bringing back our middle school fashion just because our generation hasn’t processed our trauma.

Believing I failed because someone didn’t feel my care the way they wanted.

Meetings that could’ve been emails.

Getting duped by late-stage capitalism ads selling me a dream I didn’t order.

Overthinking the perfect comeback for an argument that wasn’t worth it.

“Family” workplace lies and Beyoncé’s commodified radical joy.

Wearing hard pants.

Overexplaining boundaries instead of just setting them.

My wife, Amani, is upstairs giving our toddler, Nyah, a bath because—let’s be real—stringing the lights is one of the non-collaborative parts of this ritual. When she comes downstairs, still drying off from bath duty, she stops mid-step, shakes her head with a smile, and says, “Whoa, this tree is massive—and a good one.” I laugh: “Yeah, this might be the girthiest tree yet.”

But here’s the thing: the moment I felt struck to write wasn’t just about the tree or even the lights. I am feeling a deep sense of homecoming—both literal and emotional. It’s my first full day back in our Brooklyn apartment after three weeks away, and it’s also a homecoming to myself.

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I feel myself grounding in the traditions that connect us to each other—alongside everyone else celebrating their own holiday rituals, finding presence in these shared moments. This collective power of presence deserves a pause. A moment of reverence. In that pause, I feel the weight of gratitude—not just for the rituals themselves, but for the way they bring me back to what matters most: family, community, and a sense of belonging.

And so let’s chat. This moment—stringing lights, sipping a seasonal stout, and debating whether I’ve underlit the top branches—is the punctuation mark on a much more complex stretch of grueling weeks out of town. Every Thanksgiving, we load up the car for our annual 10-12 hour drive from Brooklyn to Charlotte, North Carolina, to spend time with my brother and his family. This year marked the fifth trip south, a tradition that started during the pandemic right after my brother married his wife, who also happens to be my wife’s best childhood friend (because life works like that sometimes).

Our journey isn’t just a straight shot south and back north. It’s more like a spiral, an intentional pause that slows us down and grounds us before we reach our destination. Every year, we stop for a weekend in the Shenandoah Valley, giving ourselves permission to shed the urban, fast-paced production spirit and open ourselves up to the slower rhythm of the week ahead. This pause isn’t just a break from the road—it’s a grounding ritual of its own, a way to step into gratitude and presence before Thanksgiving even begins.

A week later, we’re back in Brooklyn, diving straight into the next part of the ritual: bringing home our own Christmas tree and decorating it with as much love (and swag) as we can muster.

Matching sweaters have become a staple of our Christmas-season style, but in true us fashion, they reflect both our personalities. My wife’s sweater is black, with the words “I don’t do matching sweaters” printed in cable-knit font. Mine, of course, is white and says, “But I do.” It’s a joy to then upgrade what are otherwise my sleepover-esque, hot-cocoa-colored thermal bottoms into an après-ski look with my black Chelsea boots and olive-green Canada Goose jacket—because who says holiday style can’t have a little edge?

And then there was Nyah. Let me tell you—our two-year-old had drip on a million. She wore her camel peacoat with a sage-green chunky sweater underneath, topped off with walnut-brown Chelsea boots that screamed Harlem Renaissance joy. On our way to the tree “farm,” she insisted on stopping to “strike a pose” on the stoop, like the style icon she already is. (By farm, I mean a three-minute drive we stretched into a one-hour adventure/photo shoot at our favorite Black-owned garden and plant shop, Natty Garden II, who hauls in fresh-cut North Carolina trees every year. Honestly, it might be less than a three-minute drive, because we didn’t even make it all the way through Aretha Franklin’s rendition of O Christmas Tree.)

Tomorrow morning, we’ll decorate the tree and sip decadent hot cocoa. We’ll hang many, many ornaments that tell the story of our family: a glazed Air Max 90 my friend Christie made for us in one of her last pottery classes, a really crappy Styrofoam-esque, glitter-covered Patriots helmet, a snowman skiing with a mask from Vermont, and even a black bear from Boone, North Carolina, where we helped my brother cut his tree last week. Each ornament is a snapshot of joy, a memory layered onto this spiral of time. And as we sip our cocoa tomorrow, surrounded by ornaments that tell our story, I’m reminded of how these traditions connect us—not just to each other, but to the rhythms of time itself.

Full-circle moments like these invite me to pause, reflect, and truly embody what I call living the future first. Decorating the tree wasn’t perfect—let’s be clear. I would’ve loved to get the lights perfectly strung on the first try because, duh. But instead of berating myself for being less than perfect, a conditioned tendency I am working thorugh shdedding, I gifted myself something radical: a break. I took a sip of that stout, stepped back, and let myself rest—not out of guilt, but because I deserved it.

This pause in my Christmas tree decorating isn’t just about the tree or even the memories the ornaments hold. It’s about what these rituals mean in a season that so often rushes by. For my family, traditions like these hold us accountable to joy. They remind us to pause, to notice, to ground ourselves in gratitude and presence as the year winds to a close.

The other lesson of liberation December holds for me right now is this: living the future first means using traditions to spiral back to myself. It means seeing time not as something linear or fleeting but as something we build with intention—layer by layer, ornament by ornament, menorah by menorah. Tomorrow morning, with a Motown Christmas vinyl spinning and hot chocolate steaming, we’ll lean into the best parts of being Millennial Moms™—hanging non-breakable, hand-crafted, cruelty-free felt ornaments, Montessori-chic treasures like blueberry pancakes, NYC taxi cabs, and hiking backpacks.

What about you?

What rituals or traditions bring you home to yourself this season? How do you find joy in the small, full-circle moments of the holidays? Drop a comment or subscribe—I’d love to hear your reflections.

👋🏿 hi, i’m jess ariel-wamala and i’m so excited to start this journey with you. this space is where i’ll explore big questions about leadership, liberation, and the rituals that shape who we are. I’m diving into this writing practice to reconnect with my voice, cultivate curiosity, and share stories that matter.

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What does living the future first mean in my life today?

It’s a question I’ve been sitting with as I navigate the intersections of my interior world, leadership, and this relentless, beautiful, aching moment in history.

For me, living the future first often starts with the seemingly small and trivial: how I raise my daughter. It’s in the daily choices that I aim to model the liberated world I want her to grow into.

I get a lot of compliments from strangers on how I am raising my daughter and so many questions around why she’s so caring, kind, observant—or cringe, obedient. I honestly always go back to basic first principles: treat others how you’d want to be treated.

As adults, we don’t tell colleagues to “get on board” just because, or jerk our parents by the back of their neck when they dilly-dally behind at a party making small talk. And most of all, we don’t double down on encroaching someone’s personal space if they shy away from our bold bids for connection—raising our voices, gesticulating even closer in their face, or worse, forcing them into a hug. 

I’ve chosen to treat Nyah like the little person she is: fully human. Yes is a full sentence. No is a full sentence. Consent matters. Naming and holding my own boundaries matters. Speaking to others with care and a gentle touch matters.

This means apologizing when I raise my voice, forcefully demand her attention, or accidentally ignore her because I’m absent-mindedly doom-scrolling. As an imperfect human, I, too, fall short of the same lessons I want her to follow. When I yell “no” and snatch something dangerous (like scissors), it’s up to me to come back into myself, apologize for losing control, and reaffirm the importance of safe choices.

Living the future first to me means manifesting possibility today. Growing up, I didn’t see duality modeled in such a radical way but now I realize duality’s power in liberation.

What if liberation is already here, and we’re just learning how to recognize it?

This question is giving me permission to stop striving for something I can’t yet name and start noticing what’s already here. Not tomorrow, or when I finally get my ish together. World-building can always start today. And I invite myself every day to imagine other worlds.

Now, this practice of imagining other worlds isn’t new for me. Even as a child, I found ways to escape and dream beyond what was in front of me.

As a kiddo, I had a poster that feels silly to admit now but gave me so much hope. It was the original 1998 Apple Macintosh desktops in their five iconic iMac colorways—a sleek design that shaped my love for modern design well into my 20s. “Think Different” held my gaze every night. When my external world felt heavy, I’d bite down hard and vanish behind that poster, imagining a portal into freedom.

As someone who’s spent years in tech—a world driven by urgency and optimization—that quiet has been hard to prioritize. My days are often measured in outputs and efficiencies, an unrelenting pace I once mistook for progress. But as I deepen my practice of mindful leadership, I’m rediscovering how expansive the work becomes when we move at the speed of trust.

Please hear me: in no way do I feel like I’ve “nailed it” as a parent. Nyah is still a two-year-old and a formidable, precocious human who sometimes has me feeling depleted and personally victimized. But living the future first isn’t a totality or a static state.

It’s like the modicum of freedom I imagined as a little girl. It’s like that first bite of an extremely satisfying, yet visibly underwhelming fast-casual pizza that completely blindsides you. It has no hallmarks of a place you’d return to, it’s unclear why you chose it to begin with, yet it quickly becomes the top takeout choice for easy nights in.

To me, to live the future first means turning down the volume on the skeptical voices, most especially my own. This feels sudden—anytime I take the first step to own and validate my creative ideas, my ideas, for a single moment, don’t feel so out there, radical, or plain weird. Instead, they feel more realized, secure, and known.

When I think of the leaders I admire, they all have a few things in common. Their legacy, impact, and fame came not from subjugation, exploitation, or demonizing others, but from their ability to uphold compassion, care, and accountability. They care deeply about ensuring their vision serves everyone, where inclusivity becomes the wellspring of abundance. They hold duality and contradiction, even from those who oppose them. I think of all types of leaders—Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Thích Nhất Hạnh—leaders who radically humanized the world around them.

I’m excited to finally return to a writing practice that feels safe enough to explore these questions.

Again, What does it r e a l l y mean to live the future first?

I am hopeful Substack will hold my writing practice safely and liberate me from the overachieving-to-burnout pipeline by providing an encouraging structure to cultivate my interior world. It’s a self-actualization my younger, credential-seeking self never had the luxury to explore.

So here’s where I am today, in this post: reclaiming my voice, reconnecting with writing, and exploring what it means to lead and live with compassion.

This space is my invitation to you, and to myself, to engage in the messy, transformative act of storytelling.

Will you join me? What does living the future first mean to you? Drop a comment or subscribe to join the conversation.

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