Author: June Allen

Relationship Crumbs?

June Allen
When pain is a standard part of growing up, it makes sense why so many of us adapted by being need less and want less. Our care givers may say they loved us, yet failed time and time again to consider our needs.
 
Under the system of racism, there’s no room for emotional nourishment. It’s commitment to dehumanisation strips us of the ability to relate and care for each other beyond survival.
 
If we’re hurt too many times as children without repair, it’s easy to settle for relationship crumbs as adults. The deprivation then becomes an armor which allows us to hide in being strong for others, while we privately suffer the pain of intimacy being unsafe.
 
Sometimes we’re so afraid of loss, that we can’t ask for what we need. In healing, we grieve the loss of nurturing and release our need to be invisible.
 
In this moment, I will remember that I deserve to be seen and heard. Today, I will give myself permission to ask for what I want.
 

Birthday Truth.

June Allen
Birthdays can be bitter sweet as you get older because the celebration of another year is also a reminder of the relationship losses and regret around the things that have not manifested or worked out.
Last Friday was my 52 birthday and I work up with so much sadness from being in lockdown and isolated from those I care about.
It would now be easy to beat myself up for the sadness and force a fantasy of euphoria and gratitude when I was actually feeling an avalanche of lockdown grief.
In accepting this truth, I allowed the day to dip and rise without judgement. By the evening, I was overwhelmed with gratitude from teaching a virtual class that celebrated the 1 year anniversary of the magical Ghana retreat.
Being transported back to the motherland with my business partner Faith and a group of beautiful sistas gave me hope. A powerful reminder that this COVID insanity is just for today and I can build joy into my future staying committed to knowledge and service.
In healing I’ve learned that the truth is a powerful path to self acceptance. Today, I will remember that every feeling matters and I don’t have to suffer with them alone.

What does, ‘doing the healing work’ actually mean?

June Allen

In this weeks live I want to talk to you about what doing the healing work actually means. We often hear the phrase thrown around on the wellness circuit, but does it actually mean in practical terms?

  1. It means telling the truth, firstly to ourselves.
  2. Asking for help in spaces that understand racism as a system and are culturally competent.
  3. Staying willing to trust the process, letting go of the outcome and taking the baby steps needed to move forward.

Know Thyself.

June Allen

To know thyself is to honor our inner world. It’s falling in love with ourselves at the deepest, richest level.

In homes where pain is the head of the household, knowledge is forbidden. In a system which demands our silence, intimacy is fused with abuse.

With knowledge comes the wisdom of emotional sobriety and saying no brings the precious gift of serenity.

Freedom to think, seeds the freedom to feel. Freedom to feel brings the fearless change that liberates us from the strain of under-being.

In healing, as we release the lies we believe about ourselves, we close the gap between who we think we are, and who we really want to be.

In this moment I will remember that authentic intimacy with others must begin with divine intimacy with the self. When I dare to embrace my greatness, I also light the path for others to do the same.

 

If you enjoyed this love note from June you can click here to get them in your inbox every week.

How to deal with lockdown and election anxiety.

June Allen

With the UK going into lockdown again today and the results of the election about to be revealed, I’m hearing a lot of you talking about anxiety. Yesterday, I caught myself in compulsive overworking mode and when I eventually crawled into bed I paused to check in with myself to get present to what was really going on. I’ve learned over the years that underneath anxiety was my body’s way of warning me that something (or someone) feels unsafe or a boundary has been crossed. 

With parenting, studying, holding space for others and doing some trauma work, I’d let my own self care slip. Sometimes we can be so focused on trying to deal with the anxiety that we miss the message it’s trying to bring us underneath it. The election has revealed the increase in people voting for someone who’s been blatant about his white supremacist views. The lockdown is a reminder of how black and brown folks are more vulnerable around COVID with no support from the government around how this is being addressed.

Whilst I had not been thinking about how these things impact me personally, my anxiety was a reminder that I need to check in with myself and do this work. In this session, I’m going to share how I deal with anxiety and how it can be your ally in this current climate.

My Judi Love BBC London Chat : How to deal with regret.

June Allen

One Friday, I’m minding my business and someone popped into my Instagram DM’s to ask if I was available to do an interview with Judi Love!!!! Yaaaassss Judi Love! I was already a huge fan of her work and her lockdown Quarentine date night had me in stiches on many a corona evening!

Anyway, so I’m super excited to be asked to be part of her conversation about how to deal with regret. Click here to listen.

The 5 Principles of Rest.

June Allen

When we think of the topic of rest we automatically go to our sleep habits but rest is so much bigger than that. With rest at the focus in the Sacred Sista Sanctuary this month, today I share the 5 principles to get you started and keep you grounded in a solid rest practice.

One of our most basic human needs for wellness is rest. Healing happens when we practice these 5 principles of rest. 

AWARENESS: We check in daily with ourselves and listen to the language of our bodies. 

HONESTY: We give ourselves permission to tell the truth about our relationship with rest. 

DETACHMENT: We let go of the people, places and things that disrupt our need to rest. 

BOUNDARIES: We stay focused on setting and keeping our internal boundaries for rest. 

SPACE: We create, build and maintain a nurturing plan for rest, play and our relationships. 

Watch this live stream for a deeper dive.

How to start healing the black mother wound.

June Allen

Last week, hearing about Lauren Hill’s daughter Selah talk about her mothers horrific abuse triggered feelings of anger and sadness. What made this situation more painful was Lauren’s response with justification, deflection and self centering. As a survivor, I was also feeling a lot of gratitude for all the pain I’d worked through to break this generational cycle with my own daughter.

This issue obviously triggered a lot heated discussions on social media so I did this live stream sharing how to being healing this deep core wound.