love notes from keesh

The time has finally arrived—After 3+ years, Stranger Things returned to Netflix with its 5th and final season. Volume 1 released November 26th and its four, 1+ hour chapters left its fandom speechless. If you frequent here, you know I love to relate authenticity and self-healing to pop culture. As soon as I picked my jaw off the floor from that chillingly, exciting ending—my brain gears got to spinning.

I talk a lot about becoming our authentic selves, but the truth is: authenticity isn’t a destination... it’s a cycle. A continual process of growing, shedding, healing, and evolving. Every season of your life calls for you to step into a new version of yourself, to quantum leap — and that transformation often mirrors Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a foundational psychological theory in personal development.

From physiological needs to self-actualization, we revisit each level every time we expand. And the ongoing journey of Will Byers from Stranger Things is an amazing example!

There's a lot of buzz on the internet surrounding 'decentering men' and 'decentering the patriarchy' and while YES ABSOLUTELY to all of the above, I try my best to reframe things in a more aligned way for myself. There comes a pivotal  point in many Black women’s lives when we get tired of surviving on autopilot. Tired of performing strength, tired of always being “the dependable one,” tired of shrinking our needs in relationships, friendships, careers, and even in private moments with ourselves.

And when we finally choose to center ourselves — not in a selfish way, but in a sovereign, spiritually aligned way — we often discover something deeper: the way we attach, love, respond, protect ourselves, and show up was shaped long before we ever had the language to name it.

If you were a 90's kid like myself, you were a pre-teen/teen when Mara Brock Akil's critically acclaimed hit series, Girlfriends, debuted on UPN September 2000. It was an instant hit amongst Black women who at the time were not accustomed to easy-going relatable shows of its caliber.

For this love note, I want to discuss the divine masculine and the divine feminine energies. Now, before you roll your eyes and click the 'X' because you have reached your mental capacity and are completely fed up with hearing the trending words "masculine" and "feminine," please take a moment to hear me out! 

Today, I want to take a moment and send a love note of inspiration to all my fellow creatives, entrepreneurs, and artists. Unless you have been under a rock, I'm sure you've heard that Netflix’s global hit, Stranger Things Season 4, Vol. 1, returned to our individual big screens on May 27th after a three year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fans from across the globe reunited with our favorite Hawkins gang and as a day one fan, I was completely blown away by this new season and I am eagerly awaiting Vol. 2's release on July 1st!