Habari Gani? IMANI!
On this final day of 2020, I wanted to offer a few words of encouragement. The 7 principles of Kwanzaa have encouraged me in the last 7-days of this year, and I thought they might do the same for you. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the principles, as follows:
Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (Cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (Creativity): To always do as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
The principle on Friday, January 1st, 2021 is Imani, or faith. As a matter of fact, faith is the principle that begins each New Year. How awesome is that? As Louis and I sit down to write our individual and collective goals for 2021, we are committing to exercise great faith. As none of us knows what the future holds, there is something that we choose to believe that propels us forward. That something causes us to plan, hope, and expect. We have great expectations! Hebrews 11:1 in the Christian Bible reads, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Throughout 2020, many of us lost faith. We lost faith in our jobs, our democracy, science, and each other. We distanced ourselves from those we loved because we couldn’t trust where they’d been and what they’d been doing. We are still debating if we can trust the COVID vaccine. Many don’t trust the results of the presidential election. We don’t even trust if we will have a job tomorrow. We moved away from faith, and chose fear. Are you ready to choose hope again in 2021? Will you choose faith? You can choose to release fear to make space for something new.
Here’s to walking by faith, not by sight. Create a powerful vision for your future. Manifest!
Happy New Year,
Dr. Adrianne R. Pinkney
Integrative Wellness and Life Coach
