What More Magic Do I Deserve?
In 2022, I started dreaming.
I had built a beautiful life grounded in self-trust, expansiveness, and community. I lived on my own in a place I loved—and that loved me back. My work felt both interesting and hopeful. I was in tune with my power, growing ever closer to the mission I was meant to fulfill. In that place of comfort I was able to dream up my first solo international trip to Mexico City, ready to take my lonelyblackgal self to new heights. I wanted to test whether the self I had nurtured in Brooklyn—this whole, magical, expansive self—could travel beyond the context where she had been built and still remain intact. I had taken solo trips before, but always to familiar places like D.C. or Miami—places adjacent to my communities, never fully untethered. But Mexico City was different. It would be my first time stepping into a place where I knew no one, spoke little of the language, and was guided only by internet recommendations and my intuition.
Cafe in Mexico City
In Mexico City, I felt the same excitement and wonder I had once felt in New York, but without the layers of cultural individualism and familiar history that I knew all too well about the States. There was a moment when I imagined a life beyond the American dream—something more expansive, more interconnected, more spiritual. Even more than my last international trip living in Berlin during grad school, this trip felt like a homecoming. I used my superpower of observation and my senses to tell me where to eat, who to connect with, and how long to stay. My nights out felt gilded, filled with connections across the diaspora that provided an affirmation and ease it had taken me years to cultivate at home. No place had ever felt so comfortably uncomfortable.
I tried to bring that feeling back with me. But like walking through a magic mirror, the spell broke as soon as I fell back into my routines at home. I felt agitated constantly. Opening any cabinet or drawer in my apartment would result in a complete overhaul of my space as if I was trying to make room for something coming. My Brooklyn life, as sweet as it was, still left me on edge. I had worked so hard to build this life: the six-figure job, the speaking engagements and sponsored travel opportunities, the work I found meaning in, the empowered relationships and influential community, the rent-stabilized apartment, the family that was, for the most part, doing well. I had reached the comfortable plateau of post-20s, mid-career achievement. Everything I had worked for had amounted to something. And yet, it all felt tenuous and temporary.
The Irritation of Expansion
As with most things I turned to my community to better understand myself. My coaching practice was growing. I was connecting with leaders and coaches invested in ushering in a new season of transformation. The people I was drawn to—Black women, women of color, gender-expansive folks, neurodivergent—were all feeling the same pull. They were frustrated, restless, or facing life changes that forced them to reimagine everything. Many of them were dismantling the structures that had once made them feel safe. As I poured into my clients and community, I saw my own yearnings reflected back to me.
I have a way of believing that the people we connect with most easily offer us a mirror to some essential part of ourselves. Whether they are clients or friends, they reveal to us a part of ourselves that we desperately want to water and nurture. The reason we love community is because community allows us to see ourselves without ego and transaction. And the times that I feel more empowered, hopeful, and fulfilled is when I’m doing things to pour into my community. There was something about all the achievements and material comforts that I’d collected that no longer felt aligned to what truly gave me light and joy.
I started to realize that my comfortable life no longer aligned with what gave me true joy. At first, I felt guilty—how dare I want more when I had so much? But the irritation remained. The desire to expand, to live a life centered on spaciousness, service and creativity, wouldn't go away. I questioned everything: the way I gave my energy to systems that didn’t serve me, the endless cycle of consumption, the illusion of stability in an increasingly chaotic world.
And so, I wondered aloud: What if I could get paid not to work? I prayed for my investments to mature, for my company to get acquired, for a severance package that would let me take a real break. When the wildest version of the dream felt too big, I reeled it in: What could I do with what I have now? I put myself out there for more speaking engagements. I traveled more. I poured into the relationships that expanded my imagination. I built my coaching practice into something real that returned the same investment that I gave to it. I started carving out more professional development and self care time from my 9-5 to get a grip on who I am and what I offer to the world. And it felt like I could sustain this for a while until I could get more comfortable with the idea of a more entrepreneurial way of life.
But sustaining comfort could not be the legacy of how I spent my time and energy. Being able to thrive and enjoy my calling and excitement for my coach and community work would require changing the way I see my work, relationships, and everyday connections in relation to my dream. I wanted to give my unique vision and dream the best of me, not the leftovers.
I started the quiet job search. I had hushed conversations with close friends. I ran the numbers and worst case scenarios. I scoped out the limits of my dreams, testing how far they could stretch before they snapped. I watched as many of my peers—mentors, former colleagues, friends—leaned into sabbaticals, some by force, some by necessity. I set a plan to spend no more than a year at my job. I started applying and interviewing, getting far into the pipeline for roles at The Times, Tiffany’s, NYU only to end in not quite disappointment but a growing yearning for something the shift.
And then, all the worst happened. My full-time job became unstable. Relationships I had counted on shifted dramatically. My comfort became uncomfortable. More of my nights became restless. My body manifested illness more frequently. Exhaustion became my constant state. I felt the widening gap between the divine, aligned life I wanted and the complacency of the life I had settled into. Self-care, therapy, coaching, and solo trips couldn’t just be about refueling to serve someone else’s mission. They were about reclaiming my energy for what truly served me and my community.
In hindsight, I recognize this as divine (re)alignment. The dream I had whispered—of getting paid to not work, of stepping into my own vision of work and service to my community—was coming to fruition whether I knew I was ready for it or not.
The Mae House
The Power of Stillness
Amidst the chaos of endings, I took a solo trip to upstate New York to breathe. Still unsure of which available paths were right for me, I needed to offer myself the same spaciousness I offer my community: get still and allow the most important path to become clear.
I focused first on rest. No alarms, no deadlines—just being. In an unhurried space, I could actually see myself again. I journaled. I danced. I fed myself well. I moved through the house, letting my body process all it had been holding. I asked myself the same question I ask my clients: If anything were possible, what life would you create? If money and fear held no power, where would your imagination take you?
The answer came easily: I would move to Mexico.
One night at a local queer diner called Deb’s, I connected with the bartender. A sweet faced newly wed who shared my feeling of being unsettled and wanting to move. They shared wanting to possibly move back to New York. After I picked my mouth off of the floor I made sure we had a way to stay in touch. I think I would’ve written it off had I not heard from them a few weeks later about planning a trip to visit Brooklyn and hoping to view my place.
More and more signs like this would come up. Like the job layoff that serendipitously came with a paid off ramp and generous severance package. Or meeting another friend and potential subleaser who used to live in the same building and wanted to return. And that’s nothing to say of the dozens of times I got angel number confirmation every time my doubt and fear got paralyzingly heavy. There was plenty of resistance and moments of doubt. And the divine path was revealing itself. Rather than spiraling on worst case scenarios constantly, I let myself see delays and disruptions as opportunities to slow and affirm that I was on the right journey. This sort of meditative spirituality kept me grounded and focused on the outcome that I wanted which was spaciousness and joy.
Leaving Brooklyn felt like shedding a well-worn coat—one that had kept me warm and safe, but had begun to feel too small. Selling my furniture, packing my books, saying goodbye to my favorite neighborhood spots, and making sure my friends knew how to stay connected—each step was a delicate negotiation between gratitude for what was and anticipation for what could be. The kismet and alignment continued down to selling my couch and bed on my very last night in my apartment. I could feel the new timeline emerging. Even my long layover in my hometown, usually an uncomfortable tension between who I was there and who I am now, was great practice in carrying my groundedness into more triggering territory. I got to see again how the universe would align to meet my needs and desires.
When I arrived in Mexico City, I was met with a familiar symphony: the hum of Spanish conversations, the warmth of the sun filtering through my window, the scents of street food vendors, the buzz of the city: the promise of the dream I’d once dream to live a spacious life guided by community and creativity. Simple tasks became lessons in patience and humility. But in the midst of the unknown, there was wonder: a stranger’s kindness, a café that felt like home, the first moments of belonging in a new place.
Allowing the Magic
As I sit in my new apartment, the afternoon sun casting dancing shadows over the floor, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time: peace. My biggest struggle now is trusting myself and my higher power to align everything for the vision I set out 3 years ago. The path from Brooklyn to Mexico City was not linear, but a winding journey through fear, hope, loss, and discovery. Each step deepening the commitment as a whole, grounded, and worthy version of myself, embracing the unknown. There are still so many stories that I can’t wait to tell. So many versions of myself that I can’t wait to meet. So many lessons that I can’t wait to share with my community. See more of the journey here
We are living in a time and season where it is impossible to ignore the systems of neglect and exclusion that want us to be disempowered and disconnected from our highest and most divine forms. The consequences for continuing to subscribe to someone else’s vision are becoming more and more dire each day. We each have unique magic that deserves to thrive and grow in the world around us. And we have forces, communities, deities, and ancestors waiting to support our ideal vision. It’s just a matter of getting attune to the right frequencies. I wonder how many of us just need to remember the courage of our child self and leap so that the net can appear.
If you’re feeling some sort of urge or curiosity toward building your ideal life, I’d love to support you! Maybe it’s moving out of the country, maybe it’s changing careers, or building your own creative practice. I hope you’ll make the time to explore what’s calling you.
Ready to start dreaming?
If you’re interested in exploring what’s calling you, get started by setting up your free discovery call to learn how coaching can empower you to step into an aligned future.
