I Wasn’t Supposed to Make It. My Culture Taught Me How to Heal

Survival Was My First Language

I wasn’t supposed to make it.

At eighteen, I was a young mother with no safety net — no parents to call, no plan to follow, and no roadmap for survival. My mother battled addiction. My father was serving a 25-year sentence. My grandmother, my rock, passed away while I was still figuring out how to be someone’s mother.

There I was, holding a baby in one arm, pain in the other, trying to rewrite a story that seemed already decided for me.

But even in the chaos, I carried something sacred: my culture. The prayers whispered by my grandmother. The strength of the women who came before me. The rhythm, the food, the warmth, they were my quiet teachers.

When Systems Fail, Culture Holds You

As a young Black mother navigating welfare offices and social housing, I was seen before I was heard — judged before I was understood. Survival became routine: stretching $330 a month, borrowing hope from one day to make it to the next.

Yet through that storm, I discovered that the very thing meant to break me was also what built me — the resilience embedded in my roots. My culture reminded me that I came from survivors, healers, and storytellers.

Even when my daughters’ fathers were both killed within months of each other, even when grief and guilt sat heavy on my chest, my cultural identity whispered what the world didn’t: you are not alone.

Cultural Healing Is Not Trend — It’s Tradition

Healing for me didn’t come wrapped in wellness buzzwords. It started in the small, sacred rituals my grandmother practiced long before “self-care” became popular.

The scent of cocoa butter on my skin. The rhythm of old gospel humming through my home. The way burning sage filled the room like prayer. These weren’t luxuries — they were survival tools, ancient practices passed through generations that carried healing in their simplicity.

Culture taught me that healing isn’t about forgetting where you’ve been — it’s about reclaiming what’s been lost. It’s remembering that our bodies, our language, our traditions hold wisdom deeper than any textbook.

From Pain to Purpose

Out of that revelation, Intimately U was born, not as a brand, but as a bridge. Every candle I pour, every affirmation I write, every ritual I create is a love letter to the women who came before me, and to the women still learning how to breathe again after the fire.

When you light one of our candles, you’re not just igniting wax, you’re igniting intention. When you write in your Intentionally U Journal, you’re not just writing words, you’re rewriting your story.

My culture showed me that healing is not about perfection. It’s about returning, to softness, to ancestry, to self.

Cultural Relevance Is Healing

For far too long, wellness spaces have ignored cultural context, as if healing exists in a vacuum. But for many of us, healing means confronting history: generational trauma, systemic barriers, and internalized survival habits.

Cultural relevance in healing isn’t a trend; it’s a reclamation. It’s creating room for women like me, women with scars and stories, to see ourselves reflected in the spaces meant to restore us.

When we make self-care culturally grounded, we make it accessible. We make it human. We make it ours.

The Light I Carry Forward

I share my story not from a place of pity, but from purpose. I am here, alive, whole, evolving, because my culture refused to let me disappear.

If you’ve ever been told you wouldn’t make it, remember: your roots run deeper than the pain. Your culture is your compass. And your healing is your inheritance.

So light your candle. Speak your truth. Reclaim your rituals. Because you were always meant to make it.

Join the Movement

Share your story of healing, resilience, and cultural reclamation using #IntimatelyUHeals.Together, we’ll keep shining light on what it means to heal, not just individually, but culturally.