Tu Paz: A Journey of Faith and Healing

I want to be honest with you all. In some of my past posts, I talked about stopping weed or skipping those psychic readings. But the truth is, sometimes I enjoy a good smoke, and sometimes I do get a reading. I’m not perfect, and that’s okay.

I’m not here to pretend I have all the answers or live a flawless life. I share my journey with you because honesty matters. We all try things, make choices, learn, and sometimes stumble again. That’s part of growing.

I’m learning to be gentle with myself, and I hope you can be, too.

But I still want to stop smoking weed and will continue to try my very best to never smoke at all. I’m also not going to drink anymore because, to be quite frank, I don’t even like drinking at all. Not one ounce. I only ever did it because I was conditioned by society to feel like it was more acceptable. But both weed and alcohol are vices, and I don’t really want any part of them. So, like I said, I’ll keep trying my best to completely refrain from them both.

However, I’ll say this: the readings have saved me. I’m not going to stop. In fact, I’m going to embrace it. They have literally saved my life. Maybe we’ll get deeper into that later…

And while we’re being real, let’s talk about self-forgiveness and the cycles of trying—especially in relationships.

I have this bad habit of thinking I was always the one who made the mistake, and then trying to go back and fix it. Let me just say this: don’t go back and fix shit. You’re not fucking wrong. If you feel like something is off, something is off. You can’t always be the one that’s wrong. It can’t be that one-sided. It just can’t.

But either way—wrong, right, in the middle, in between, yellow, blue—if the relationship ended, never go back. Whether you hit that man, whether that man hit you, whether you’re not over him, whether you think maybe you could have done something different—it doesn’t matter how the shit ended. As long as nobody’s dead, don’t go back. That’s what I have to say about that.

Same with the cycle of smoking weed and feeling bad about it. I was raised in an African household with a very traditional African mother. So smoking weed was basically like doing cocaine—like the craziest drug known to man. That mindset shaped how I saw myself, and it made me feel guilty every time I indulged. But honestly, drinking is just as bad (and we don’t even have to touch too much on that right now).

And while we’re on the subject of conditioning and unlearning—let me just say, a big part of why I smoked was because everyone around me was doing it. I thought, There’s nothing wrong with you. You can do it too. It doesn’t mean anything. But the truth is, I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the person always fucking smoking. I don’t think it’s ideal. I don’t want to be dependent on anything—that’s not healthy for any human being.

So I had to be honest with myself: Yes, my mom feels how she feels, and I get that. And yes, part of me believes a little weed or a little alcohol can be okay—no harsh substances, please—but I still don’t want to partake in it. I’d rather be completely sober and deal with whatever comes up.

And one last thing—this probably doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but I’m going to say it anyway: Stop letting people lie to you with their pretty little quotes about “healing in peace.” Healing is not pretty. Healing is actually very, very nasty-looking. Very ugly.

My healing process? I literally looked—and also felt—like the scum of the earth. Like the dirtiest thing this planet could ever create. Oh my God. It was so bad. So, so, so bad.

But we’re going to leave it here for now.