Justikeandthetribe

Leading With Love and Compassion

This blog is for the individual that desires more of themselves + the people in their lives.

"Unlocking Your Full Potential: Why Life Coaching is More Than Just a Last Resort"

February 20, 2023 by Ikeranda Smith in personal development, self-improvement, life coaching, transformation, goal setting, mindset, wellness, self-discovery

"Are you tired of feeling stuck and unfulfilled in your life? Life coaching can help you unlock your full potential and achieve your goals, but it's not just a last resort. Life coaching is a proactive personal growth and development approach that can transform your life. With the guidance of a professional life coach, you can identify your strengths, overcome obstacles, and create lasting positive change.

Notes on turning 44: Why not joy?

October 27, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in Atlanta Georgia, black blended families, black professionals, children, gen x, generational healing, life, love, parenting, motherhood, raising secure kids

Why not love, or fun, possibly ease? How about a nap? Let’s relax and do nothing. Better yet, let’s skip a day of seriousness and be silly. I have always been quite hilarious; it’s one of the things I could do effortlessly in my life. It didn’t require anything of me. It took little to no effort, and I always got people to laugh. Then I realized that when you are known for certain things, people don’t want your truth, and they sure don’t want the weight of what it costs you to smile all the time. So, I stopped. I came to a screeching halt. I began to take like seriously, or maybe it just got severe, but whatever it was, I decided over 15 years ago to grow up.

44 and counting

October 27, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in mental health, Atlanta Georgia, small business owners, black professionals, gen x, millenials

This year I turned 44, and wow, what an entrance into the double digits in the upward 40s group. I have been quite enthralled in “life,” and for me, that looks like chasing my purpose (God teaching me), loving my wife (learning how to be in partnership), and raising secure kids (nurturing my inner child), all simultaneously. While getting older is fantastic for many reasons, it is also sobering; yet we are born knowing that life is precious and should be treated as such. The problem is that by the time we genuinely understand that sentiment, life has lovingly grabbed us in a choke hold, smashed all our unfortunate realities in our faces, and we are grasping for pieces of ourselves that we have gathered through just living ‘life”.

My Sister From Another Mother

September 27, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in black mothers, love, life, motherhood, relationships, womensupportingwomen

Today I pause to acknowledge a beautiful black woman that has been a part of my life for 17 years. The mere notion that two black women who met when they were young, relatively immature, and still learning to love themselves, yet have managed to witness the evolution of one another, is impressive. I met Kupae [ coo-pay] when we were both newly married (at the time, I was married to a man), and we were both attending the same church, trying to create the “perfect heteronormative life” or at least one that felt worthy of what society thought of us. We immediately hit it off because when you show up as your authentic self, even as you have so much more to learn, the core of your friendship is immediately cemented.

Am I my sister’s keeper?

September 21, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in black, black mothers, family, generational healing, history, life, love, spirituality, womanaremagic

Lately, I have been thinking about how the mother wound and its role in the lives of men and women have surfaced as of late. The commitment to healing the fracture of not being loved must be foundational for women. It creates an openness and honesty that is necessary to be in community. When we lack self-love, we become a container for garbage that makes us feel like we must “outdo, out-work, out be” one another. Underneath that confusion is a sobering truth that many women would rather die than admit, most women don’t love themselves.

CanadaTheGreat, Don't Forget To Love Yourself!

September 13, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in black, black mothers, children, family, love, parenting, relationships, raising secure kids

Being a mother raising a daughter, you quickly realize where your deficits are. Girls become a mirror for the wounded mother that wasn’t loved by their mother outwardly or validated by their father. Girls become a reflection of everything their mothers didn’t learn because shame crippled the generation before them. Girls become an image of all your wishes while at the same time becoming your triggers. I was a black girl that wasn’t accepted. Not because my mother didn’t want to, but because she didn’t have it mirrored back to her in a tangible way that led her to believe it was attainable. My mother didn’t think she could carry such a heavy mantle, so she dropped it, and I graciously picked it up, but not without some scars.

Growth or Bust

September 06, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in black, black blended families, black mothers, children, family, Inner child healing, motherhood, parenting, relationships

I grew up in a dominant family system, raised by a single black mother who was the oldest of 12 children; I should not be the mother I am. I say this as a head nod to my mother but a revelation to myself. I should not be the mother that I am. Truthfully I can’t take the credit solely; my wife is a “G,” and in her defense, she would say that she was much more neglectful with the oldest kids. We admit that it was less to worry about when she raised the older kids. However, today we realize that to raise secure kids, you must be unequivocally secure, or someone will suffer, and I suspect it won’t be just the kids.

Connection makes all the difference

September 06, 2022 by Ikeranda Smith in black mothers, generational healing, LGBTQIA, love, marriage, queer, purpose

Being married when it is done correctly changes everyone involved. As I get older, I recognize that marriage is a container that isn’t always open to drink from. People hide their true selves under the microscope of perfection. It makes it impossible for other people to grow and learn how to live in a liberating way. My wife and I have grown in the face of confusion and disappointment, and we have learned about the daily practice of sacred love. Contemplating how we love and what we need to be the best version of ourselves, we create intimacy, communicate and, of course, go to therapy.

The products we become...

July 19, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black fathers, black mothers, fatherhood, Inner child healing, love, parenting, motherhood, relationships, family

I am product of abuse. Physical. Emotional. Sexual. I say this because most of my life, I would never have admitted such a truth. I would have made it sound more colorful, delightful so that it would be more palatable to digest. I would have danced around the verity of knowing that the pain I have endured didn’t start with me. It began with a trembling urgency to break free, it lingered in exchanges that were damaged from survival, it is suspended in generations that will not allow the pain to visit long enough to heal it. I am a guest in my family. They just don’t know it.

Decolonizing Black Blended Families

June 29, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, fatherhood, love, motherhood, parenting, black blended families

Some things were not meant to work + if you are blessed to start again with another human being that shares your same values…it’s a win! I have been navigating a blended family for many years, but it always reminds me that relationships need to be decolonized. I am a product of a blended family; my kids are products of a blended family + my wife’s kids are a product of a blended family. The more people to love. The more people to build community. The more people to give children a second chance at having minimal trauma. This is always the plan; however, it takes an enormous amount of work to achieve this goal. It takes open-minded people who have healed their inner child, put their egos in check + most of all want the best for the “children.”

Life?!

June 24, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, education, generational wealth, purpose, queer, personal growth

If I could be honest, I haven’t always been aware of my blackness. It was something that I witnessed all of my life along with the perils of watching others carry the burden of being black, but me…I never understood my blackness. My parents were born during a time where there was no way in the hell you could not be aware of your blackness. It was a time when you dare not be conscious of your blackness. A period where, “are you out of your mind, you’s black!” type of era. It was obvious that they didn’t want to live being black + now explain it to me what it was going to represent to me when clearly I had not lived their working day as of yet.

Overcoming

June 08, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, black mothers, fatherhood, generational healing, love, people of color, relationships

I did not grow up with my parents staying together. It was one of the things that I missed the most. Not them specifically being together, but the idea of a love so expansive that it survives. I would have settled for a divorce coupled with a reconciliation that echoes “We did it.” It never happened + I never got to see two people making it, in + out of love. I missed that. It was not like I was a child that whispered, “God please keep my parents together.” I often prayed the opposite + hoped that they find peace individually. However, as I got older, I begin to see that relationships are this complex narrative that everyone tries to figure out. Some people never figure it out because they in no way make it to the part that ends in completion. It just stops. Abruptly sometimes, but all at once. Sometimes it ends so rapidly, everything comes undone + nothing can be salvaged. I was hoping that my parents could reclaim a few things left from the wreckage. But they never survived.

Doing the work

June 02, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, Inner child healing, LGBTQIA, loveislove, personal growth

As I sit here wrapped in my thoughts, I am acutely aware of my body. All too often, we have left our bodies before we were ever given the chance to become acquainted with it. We are mere expressions of abuse, neglect + abandonment frequently being reminded of our past as we casually move throughout the world. Most of us were taught to suppress enormous amounts of information in exchange for love or care. Our trauma has played out in the desires we have that are fundamentally disproportionate to the comfort we require daily. The critical issue with quelling our triggers is often we cannot. We must become familiar with the vibrations that remind us that we have never fully recovered.

Deep love measured over time

May 24, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, black mothers, children, love, parenting, motherhood, relationships, women of color

This picture is a moment of love. Deep love. Measured over moments of struggle + sometimes immense joy. I am learning to enjoy the view. Consume every moment of every second as I watch my daughter become a woman. As she emerges from the residue of trauma from two parents who collided without understanding the capacity of ushering an entire soul earth side. Its complicated! I wait patiently as she wonders will she be like me. I observe her as she begs Spirit to release her from the shackles of my life. I see her. I comfort her daily returning her to herself, the original design. I return to me as well….as I re-mother the broken parts of me.

This Is Parenting

May 17, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, black mothers, children, Inner child healing, love, life, motherhood, parenting

Imagine birthing something only to realize you had to let it go. You couldn’t possess it, + you only were allowed to facilitate their growth based on their lived experience. This is parenting. It is the mirror that most of us mistake for our reflection when it really is a glimpse of our unresolved pain. It is a blessing to see the flowers bloom that you plant, but no one ever tells you the times your heart will shatter during certain seasons. No one explains the growth you will endure by raising a part of yourself. No one discusses the guilt you carry from wanting to do everything right while thinking, “I’m failing miserably.” Maybe it’s just me.

Healing + Re-Mothering Myself

May 10, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black mothers, co-mothering, Inner child healing, motherhood, relationships, women's rights

My mother was a complicated woman. Layered with the stench of a childhood that led her to never want kids. I am a product of that. I know it, she knows it + we have unpacked it several times over. I recall my introduction into the world way before I became Ikeranda because it is important to understand your birth story + how you even came to be. My story is hinged off my mother’s intention to never have kids. My father wanted kids, particularly a girl, so despite him leaving his intention brought me earthside. I am grateful for this narrative because it gives me a reference point + why re-mothering myself is so essential to my healing.

The Good Stuff...

May 03, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black fathers, Inner child healing, life, parenting, relationships, fatherhood

Fathers hold a substantial about of weight in a child’s life + I carry the residue of this sentiment. My existence came on the hills of my mother’s + father’s relationship which I learned later in life was destined to never stand a chance. My father wanted kids + my mother did not so I was conceived in a womb that was vacant from the beginning. I understand that children can sense everything just from the intention of the space they reside. I understood that my existence frustrated my mother not because she did not want kids, but she wanted so desperately for her marriage to work. So when my father could not remain on the pedestal society put him on, he quickly fell from grace + so went my self-worth along with the marriage.

Keep Me Young

April 26, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in Inner child healing, marriage, queer, relationships

As I get older, I realize that I need to remain young + free. I need to hear only my voice in my head at all times. Although in love, I remain humble. Open to the possibilities with a heart dedicated to service + forgiveness. My heart craves gentle embraces coupled with bursts of laughter that feed my inner child. You provide that. I thank you. I am reminded of my prayers when you look at me during times when I am struggling to understand the next lesson in life. You look deeply into my soul + remind me that I am capable of whatever it is that I am trying to master. I appreciate that. You give me guidance without the need to control my decisions which allows me to soar to my highest potential.

Ready For Love

April 19, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in black, generational healing, relationships, queer, marriage

I have always been ready for love even when I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked to be. I desired love to fill the empty parts of me without me doing the work of pouring into my own vessel. I was actually incomplete when I met my wife many suns ago. I didn’t realize that wanting something doesn’t necessarily mean that you deserve it. I wanted something that I had not given myself. The nerve of me right? All fractured + frantic for someone not understanding the work that it really required.

Understanding Where I Was Fractured

April 12, 2021 by Ikeranda Smith in mental health, Inner child healing

I used to struggle understanding how someone could withstand so much pressure; yet find peace to bestow love to others. Its a learned skill that requires patience + devotion. Not at the same time; but consistently acknowledging the duality of both. Every evolution begins with a problem + for me it was my trauma. I have learned to embrace those parts of myself that were meant to be a hinderance. I have cultivated every lesson as something to pass on to others. I recognize that people crumble underneath the symptoms of trauma much quicker than just confessing the disease. Nothing is more sobering than the sound of your truth on someone else’s lips. I guess that’s why I am not afraid of being broken in an effort to be great.