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Time to stop sacrificing yourself

Writer's picture: A'Leeyah PonderA'Leeyah Ponder

I have found myself paying close attention to my own needs lately. This sounds very ordinary, but it's a quite extraordinary practice when you've lived majority of your adult life trying to be everything for everybody.


In the face of leadership roles, sisterhood, friendship, and spiritual care providing, it's easy to get lost in the doing of it all. Isn't that why I'm alive though? To give. To live in the service of others. To be, and become beholden, to the culmination of needs those I care for face. This practice is draining to say the least, and is a life filled with little reward and ridden with burn out. So, I invite you to take a mindful and sacred HALT: if you too wrestle with the temptation of self-immolation in the name of purpose, love, and community.

Your work and commitment to community should not come at the expense of you.

I had to reckon with this truth this morning.


I called my Nana flustered, frustrated, and ridden with a faint pain in my chest – not too far from my heart. I nagged about feeling the weight of all of my commitments to others.

I enjoy what I do, and yet find myself sitting with familiar regret of doing too much too often. She reminded me, gently, that God hadn't called me to do Kingdom work (i.e. ministry, working in my purpose, pursuing my passion, work that centers serving people) at the expense of my own temple. Did you catch that? My body is the temple of the Spirit of God (alt: Holy Spirit), just as yours is if you so desire for it to be; and God is not calling our bodies (alt: temple) to be tore up from the floor up because we've cared for others temples at the expense of our own. It hadn't dawned on me until that moment that I had again overdid it, and was ready to run myself into the ground in the name of "purpose".


Is purpose-filled work still purpose-filled work if it costs you your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health? 
The answer is no. 

Many momentos of womanist wisdom come to come to mind in this time. My newest favorite is... "Everything given to you is not yours to have, neither is it yours to hold". So, I intentionally lay down and release certain burdens that belong to both me and my peers because they aren't ours to have, hold, nor keep. Other beautifully sacred sayings have been both captured and conjured by the lips of the Black women in my life; and I keep them close to my heart in this time. Their wisdom gives me hope.


In the name of those that have gone before us, and those toiling not far ahead of us, we must listen to sacred sayings as they too are glimmers of light seeking to help us on our path forward. May we lay those bags down instead of becoming the "Bag Lady" (Badu, 2009) (atl: men, non-binary, they, or them) that our Soul Sister Erykah Badu spoke of. May we learn to "Relax, relate, release" (Collins, Friedman, 1991) as A Different World's Whitley Gilbert, acted by Jasmine Guy, so eloquently and energetically chanted in the Season 4 Episode 13: "Ex-Communication". May we believe that we have so much to give the world, and yet, are in need of filling our cups first where the overflow of the care we provide ourselves can serve the world in a greater and grander capacity.


May we stop being Martyrs for the hustle, the bag, the grind, external validation, and for what we believe purpose-living is; then, and only then, will we find ourselves at the crossroads of chaos and eternal peace being filled with the courage to choose the peaceful road less traveled.


I love you. Jesus loves you most.

May we meet, greet, and welcome peace in ways we didn't know were possible in this season. May we soften our hearts to the possibility of living gentle sustainable lives.

With love and gentleness,

Miss A'Leeyah Ponder


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Citation:

Badu, E. (2009, June 16). Erykah Badu - Bag Lady. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqN0jsSeqPo

Very Random 2. (1991, January 31). A Different World “Ex-Communication” (J. Collins & M. Friedman, Eds.) [YouTuber]. Carsey-Werner Productions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuNLVV6Yvks

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