Heart Rant Digest

Finding the Space I Was Meant to Stand In

Shout out to The Karen Hunter Show—one of those places that keeps my mind turning and my spirit honest. If you haven’t listened, go listen. Conversations like that remind me that truth still has a microphone somewhere.

“If there’s a question of my heart”?

Today I’m sitting at work thinking about the world. About women. About community. About where I find myself standing in all of it.

Recently I had the opportunity to speak at a mental health and wellness community picnic hosted by The Phoenix Group, at a Black-owned business called Urban Drink. It was a podcast-style conversation in a Black business space about a topic that doesn’t get talked about enough in our communities: mental health.

And while I was standing there, something clicked inside me.

I realized I’m standing in a space that is new.

Not just new for me.

New for community.

New for culture.

Maybe even new for the world.

Because I don’t want to live inside the limited boxes we’ve been given.

I don’t want to be:

• just a woman who is angry at the world

• just a woman who competes with other women

• just a woman who wakes up every day and only works

• just a humanitarian doing surface-level good

That’s not enough for me.

I care about the wholeness of people.

Not the polished version.

Not the social media version.

Not the “we’re fine” version.

The whole human.

The broken parts.

The healing parts.

The struggling parts.

Because struggle is struggle.

It might look different.

It might sound different.

But pain is pain, and healing is healing.

And the truth is, somewhere along the way we started forgetting that.

We’ve gotten to a place where people will:

love the person they make babies with…

and hate them at the same time.

We’ve gotten to a place where we relate more easily to animals than we do to other human beings standing right in front of us.

That’s madness.

We argue about being men and women, but if we lack empathy for another human being—what does any of that identity even mean?

What does being a woman matter

if I don’t care about another woman?

What does being a man matter

if I don’t care about another man?

At the end of the day, we are all flesh.

Flesh that struggles.

Flesh that hopes.

Flesh that needs love.

And what I’m beginning to realize about my work and my heart is this:

Community is the axis.

Community is the place where all of this meets.

It’s the element that allows us to actually see each other again.

Not perform for each other.

Not mimic each other.

Not secretly resent each other.

But actually love each other as humans.

That’s the space I want to stand in.

Not on the surface.

Not in trends.

Not in performance.

But in the messy, honest work of helping people reconnect with their own humanity—and with each other.

And somewhere in all this thinking today, I realized something that settled deep in my spirit: I’ve found where I’m supposed to be.

“I’ll keep letting my heart lead, and maybe that’s enough to build my legacy.”