Held in The Heat
Stillness, surrender, and the spaces that allow us to hear ourselves again.
There are moments in life where the noise softens long enough for us to finally hear ourselves clearly. Not the version of ourselves shaped by performance or strengthened solely by survival, but the real version beneath the pressure, beneath expectation, beneath the constant need to carry everything in silence. Lately, I’ve found myself sitting with a question: What if the life we are trying so hard to hold onto is the very thing preventing us from truly living?
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned how to hold on. We learned how to stay strong, and while strength is a blessing from the Most High, perhaps we were never designed to carry what no longer nurtures us. What we hold onto eventually settles somewhere within us. It settles in the body, in the nervous system, in the emotions we suppress, and in the environments we remain loyal to long after we have outgrown them. Eventually, the body remembers what the spirit has been trying to release.
Maybe that is where the shift begins. Not in becoming someone entirely new, but in finally surrendering to what was already placed within us. Surrender is often misunderstood because people associate it with weakness or defeat, but surrendering to purpose is not weakness. It is alignment. It is trusting that what was placed within you was never random.
The Most High does not move recklessly. The gifts placed within us, the ideas, the convictions, and the quiet pull toward something greater all exist intentionally. Sometimes, the purpose is not revealed all at once. Sometimes it arrives through small and intentional seeds planted through patience, stillness, and lived experience. Before you know it, you look up and realize you were becoming the whole time. That realization has been sitting with me deeply lately. The Most High has a way of leading us into spaces that allow us to hear ourselves more clearly, spaces where we are not constantly being pulled, pressured, or consumed by expectation. Spaces where presence becomes possible again. Lately, for me, that space has been the sauna.
The sauna is not just heat. It is reflection, stillness, and release. It allows the body to reset and return to itself, not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Recently, while sitting in a sauna surrounded by melanated women of different ages, shades, and walks of life, something shifted in the room. Many of the women worked in healthcare. Accomplished women. Educated women. Women carry years of service, responsibility, and lived experience within them.
As one woman began speaking about her work as an occupational therapist, the room became something deeper than conversation. We almost forgot it was a sauna. She spoke about traveling with her husband while simultaneously building in real estate together, and she spoke about feeling called toward something beyond the systems she currently worked within. There was a quiet conviction within her words, the kind many of us recognize immediately because we have felt it too.
The question lingered throughout the room: Am I living from what was placed within me, or what was placed around me?
None of us rushed to answer it because many of us understand what it feels like to outgrow environments that once felt necessary. Many of us know what it feels like to recognize that certain systems were never truly designed with us in mind. As the women continued speaking about healthcare disparities, lived experiences, and the emotional realities of serving within those systems as melanated women, the conversation deepened even further.
Stories like Henrietta Lacks remind us that melanated bodies have long existed at the intersection of contribution and exploitation. Her cells advanced modern medicine in immeasurable ways, yet her story also reflects the painful reality of how melanated women’s bodies have historically been used, studied, and separated from consent, recognition, and care. Those realities did not disappear with history. Even now, melanated women continue to face alarming disparities in healthcare. Across the United States, melanated women experience disproportionately high maternal mortality rates regardless of education, financial status, or access to resources. Many still encounter delayed diagnoses, reduced access to quality care, dismissed pain, and medical environments where their voices are questioned instead of trusted. That should concern all of us because when we speak about health, we are talking about more than the body. We are talking about access, safety, trust, and recognition. We are talking about what it means to be fully seen and fully cared for. And while those realities are heavy, there is still something deeply resilient within melanated communities. Long before systems attempted to define us, there was already brilliance, endurance, innovation, care, and spirit woven into us. That deserves acknowledgment, too.
After leaving the sauna, I found myself floating into Wagyu House tucked away in Chicago’s South Loop. The atmosphere carried a quiet kind of luxury, peaceful and intentional. Another melanated woman greeted me, and somehow we instantly found ourselves laughing together about our pixie cuts and how confidently wearing them has never been seasonal for us. It was a small moment, but meaningful. A reminder that joy, laughter, beauty, and softness are forms of restoration, too.
Over spicy beef broth, fresh salmon sushi, and sake, I found myself thinking again. Sake itself is created through fermentation, a process built through patience, care, and transformation over time. Nothing about it is rushed. And it made me wonder: What if becoming was never meant to be forced, but cultivated slowly and intentionally?
That thought led me toward another reflection entirely, toward the people quietly planting seeds every single day within our communities.
Aisha Oliver, Founder of Root 2 Fruit Youth Foundation Photo: Village Voice Consult
People like Aisha Oliver, founder of Root 2 Fruit Youth Foundation on Chicago’s West Side. Her work centers on youth development, community safety, and relationship-based support systems that meet young people where they are while guiding them toward greater possibilities. Through healthcare exposure programs, CPR training, wound care education, and hospital partnerships, young people are introduced to pathways they may never have imagined for themselves. That matters deeply to me because I understand firsthand how exposure plants seeds. Sometimes all it takes is one opportunity, one mentor, one environment, or one person believing you are capable of more. Those seeds grow.
Jasmine Williams x Members MMMC Photo: Mrs. Mom’s Mother Club
The same can be said for Jasmine Williams and the work she is cultivating through Mrs. Mom's Mother Club. Her organization creates intentional spaces where women and mothers receive not only encouragement but tangible support through mental health resources, professional development, networking, and community care. As a mother of six, her work is not theoretical. It is a lived experience transformed into service. That kind of work deserves flowers, too, because when mothers are supported, families are strengthened, and when families are strengthened, communities grow stronger alongside them.
That is what The Melanated Times is about. Documenting the work. Telling our stories. Highlighting the people cultivating change quietly and consistently, whether in Chicago, Boston, or anywhere else in the world where community is still being built with intention. This is about the seed planters, the cultivators, and the people creating spaces where others can heal, grow, and recognize themselves again.
And maybe that is what being held in the heat truly means. Not punishment. Not pressure. But transformation. The kind that happens when we finally release what was never meant to stay. The kind that begins when we allow ourselves to be fully present long enough to hear what has been calling us all along.
So I’ll leave you with this:
What are you still holding onto that was never meant to stay?
And what could finally grow if you allowed yourself to live?
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Photo(s): Village Voice Consult, Mrs. Mom’s Mother Club