Day 8/180: What if what's Missing Isn't Something New But Something Remembered? June's Call to Cultural Courage
Trusting your inner wisdom, your 'inner knowing,' is not just important; it's a cultural power that only you possess.
The neuro-cultural mindset acknowledges how colonial narratives become ingrained as default neural pathways.
"you're allowed to feel multiple emotions about the same situation.
grateful and disappointed.
hopeful and exhausted.
Excited and terrified.
complexity isn't confusion—it's human."
-Michell C Clark
Hello Beautiful Warrior,
I hope that June is off to a good start for you.
In West African Dagara wisdom, rushing the ripening of purpose or a dream is like rushing fruit to grow—it happens in its own sacred time. I hope you remember this wisdom code as your welcome this new month.
Trusting your inner wisdom, your 'inner knowing,' is not just important; it's a cultural power that only you possess. It's a reminder that you are the best cultural guide for your journey. This journey of trusting the inner rhythm of your purpose journey requires faith, sometimes silence, and courage to integrate your innate wisdom. It's a journey that leads to self-authoring and personal growth, and it's a journey you're fully equipped to navigate.
What if what's missing isn't something new but something remembered?
This question has been the cornerstone of every personal and professional conversation I've had with clients, friends, and family.
Everyone agrees that we cannot do more or be more.
In a world that often demands more from us, without deprioritizing or taking away some of the current things on our plate; or without providing the support or flexibility to allow for our full participation, we need to take the time, now more than ever, to determine who, what, and why current trends, etc., deserve our full attention.
Trusting our inner knowing is crucial. Practicing cultural courage, which involves embracing and expressing your cultural identity in the face of societal pressures or expectations, is also crucial. It's about being true to yourself and your cultural heritage, even when it's challenging.
Adding something new to our already overfilled and overstimulated life plate means that something will fall off, or someone (hopefully it's not you) won't get the attention they deserve. This way of being contributes to a fragmented way of thinking and often manifests in our decisions and choices. Many of us are either now learning the wisdom call of our bodies, or in some cases, we get to hear it when it's a little too late.
What I know for sure is this: creating space to remember what matters from a values, cultural impact, or legacy perspective requires space to explore, practice, and embody - whether in a community of practice with other humans or alone with nature.
When we view our journey of purpose, leadership, healing, or simply existing through the lens of ancestral cultural knowledge systems, we tap into a powerful source of wisdom. These 'cultural wisdom' (what I refer to as wisdom codes) encompass the collective knowledge, beliefs, and practices of your family, community, or cultural heritage. For instance, it could be the traditional healing practices of your ancestors or the storytelling traditions of your community. It offers valuable insights and guidance for personal growth and connecting with purpose, enriching our lives and relationships.
As you welcome June, here are some reminders I've been prioritizing. In a world where human-made intelligence and AI news unfold faster than we can keep up, I hope you make a ceremony of your human connection to yourself, your community, and all living things. I hope the wisdom of June inspires you to dream bigger.
J: Joy-centred practices. Let's make joy a priority in our lives. Focusing on joy can disrupt the hustle culture and create intentional space to remove what no longer serves us. Life will always be life, and none of us are immune to its many unplanned disruptions. So, make practicing joy part of your daily work or an intentional practice. As Jay Pitter's 'Being Black in Public Spaces' reminds us, joy is not just a human right; it's a birthright. Let's not view our public expressions of joy as a tool used to resist anyone or anything but as an intrinsic part of who we are. Prioritizing joy can transform our perspective and bring a sense of optimism to our lives.
"Black and other racialized people often frame joy as resistance. While I understand the structural & historical reasons for doing so, I think this framing centres and deifies oppression. The notion that all of our actions, emotions and ways of being in the world are in response to structural discrimination diminishes complex parts of our histories and personal agency.
What would change if you viewed your public expressions of joy not only as a human right but as a birth right — intrinsic to who you are versus a tool used to resist anyone or anything?" This is one of the questions I am eager to explore when my book Black Public Joy launches in January 2026!!!- Jay Pitter, Placemaker. Author. Urban Planning Adjunct Professor. More on Jay's report and work here:
U: Unleashing your bravest story as you unlearn colonial narratives that have occupied cognitive and mindset space in our ways of being, celebrating, and rewarding. Who or what drives your cultural narratives of success? I hope that you make room for cultural curiosity rooted in your ancestral, indigenous ways of knowing and being, not just in professional spaces but in our entire existence. Leaning into the wisdom of West African Indigenous practices has shifted my mindset and perspective on how I define success and how boldly I dream and strive to become. Success is cultural. I've developed stronger roots and deeper clarity on what I consider a legacy. This process of unlearning is enlightening and disruptive in the most empowering way. What would you remember if you centred your multicultural wisdom knowledge systems? What will cultural courage look like for you? What will you remember and be brave enough to put into practice from an ancestral, family or lived expertise?
What practices or wisdom codes will you author into culture? Who will you author into culture?
N: Neuro-cultural integration as a mindset practice that honours our multicultural cognitive capital, ancestral intelligence patterns, and whole-self cultural wisdom. This neuro-cultural mindset practice activates our self-sovereign pathways to be gentle with ourselves and our dreams, and to dream bold visions that integrate intelligence, hope, and lived wisdom across our personal, professional, family, and community systems. The neuro-cultural mindset acknowledges how colonial narratives become ingrained as default neural pathways. This mindset practice can intentionally disrupt these limitations through present narrative storytelling, moving from recognition to disruption to imagination and ultimately creating new neural pathways. The neuro-cultural mindset enables us to practice ACE Leadership with our full ancestral, cultural, and Emotional wisdom, rejecting colonial fragmentation while consciously crafting new stories that reshape our neural architecture.
As Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett explains, "Your brain is constantly running a budget for your body, using past experience to predict what will happen in the world"—and our brains are built for revision, prediction, and creation, the perfect tools for dreaming beyond colonial limitations.
E - Embody self-trust and multicultural wisdom as a neuro-cultural mindset practice. What would it look like if you trust yourself and your inner knowing as a leader while actively rewiring colonial neural pathways that tell us to doubt our ancestral intelligence? In our workshops, we focus on helping leaders build both cognitive and emotional trust through present narrative storytelling that honours their complete cultural selves. You do not need permission to trust your intuition—your human emotions and personal experiences embody lived wisdom that helps us make choices and decisions that may not align with popular or conventional thinking. Success is cultural, and practicing self-trust means creating space for ways of knowing that mainstream culture may not celebrate. What if your impact is introducing new neural pathways for defining success? When we embody the living wisdom from our various roles as individuals, mothers, leaders, sisters, friends, dreamers, and ancestors-in-training, we consciously activate our self-sovereign pathways to reshape our neural architecture. This embodiment practice shifts from recognizing colonial limitations to envisioning expanded possibilities, ultimately creating a lasting legacy that inspires, fuels, and sparks new ways of being grounded in whole-self intelligence.
"Your brain is shaped by the realities of the world that you find yourself in, including the social world made by agreement among people. Your mind is a grand collaboration that you have no awareness of. Through construction, you perceive the world not in any objectively accurate sense but through the lens of your own needs, goals, and prior experience".- Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett Source: How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain
Let's reclaim cultural narratives that honour and celebrate our whole, complex human lives. This act of reclaiming our narratives can empower us and strengthen our sense of connection and belonging. May we author culture with curiosity, compassion, and artistic courage, leading our multicultural lives and ways of being out loud.
May we remember that we are always deeply loved and supported.
This month, as you deepen your integrated intelligence practice (the wisdom of your many selves and lived expertise), know that you are creating purpose, lifestyles and leadership legacies rooted in wisdom codes that transcend current ways of being.
May discomfort be our signal.
May we trust ourselves more.
Because when we remember that no one is coming to save us.
We remember that we have always been
The ones we've been waiting for.
Jig things up a little in June
Shake up your routine.
make silence or make shouting, what brings you joy, your most revered path to your heart.
believing in you and our collective dreams,
always in all ways
keep dreaming bigger.
Here's what's on my joy list:
This month's poem:
"May the sun be on your soul today. May your body taste serenity. May you touch your feelings like a lover. May you compost some far-away oppression and grow a garden. May kindness river through you and everlasting prayer for us all." Jaiya John
I hope you are brave enough to meet your bravest self this month. Trust that the journey you’re on,
I will be marinating on the U "unlearn colonial narratives that have occupied cognitive and mindset space in our ways of being," in this season. These can be such barriers to becoming and doing what you came here to do, be give.