What is this journey about?

Let's talk about what we're doing here

leo Guilbe 🦢

Apr 25, 2025

Hi CARE friend,

Before I start, let’s check in:

How has this week landed for you?

Any win you want to be witnessed for? Any downfall you want to be witnessed through?
If so: how can you be that compassionate witness to the parts of you that need your applause, your embrace… those parts of you that need Extraordinary You?
AND what or who always helps you be who you need to be and deserve to become?
Can you make sure to spend some time doing just that and/or with that person (or pet or tree!) TODAY?

Where am I coming from…

I believe that collective healing can only be accessed through personal liberation, and that personal liberation can only happen through self-CARE.

I also believe that there are three pillars of self-CARE that build upon each other and that we need to intentionally re-prioritize as a way of being:

Self connection that allows self-reclamation and fosters self-creation (which really means becoming who we were always meant to be—before “the world” told us otherwise)

How I understand the 3 pillars of Self-CARE…

PILLAR 1:

Self-CONNECTION is how we build and tend to our roots. It’s how we enter our own inner cocoon.

It’s how we move back home in our body sanctuary and recenter into our hearts, thereby reconnecting with our greatest source of Love and wisdom.

It’s how we unwound our psyche: by rekindling the gut-heart-mind axis that allows us to hear and follow our intuition, lead from Soul, and use our mind in a way that serves everyone (instead of letting our mind follow unexamined conditioning that—mostly unconsciously—hurts us all.)

It’s how we create the inner safety that we then get to project all around us.

That’s how much it matters! Because, yes, at any given moment, we’re either offering Fear or Love…

PILLAR 2:

Self-RECLAMATION is how we sprout. It’s how we rub our wings against the cocoon until they become strong enough to break it from the inside out… thereby freeing us to start anew.

It’s the journey of reclaiming our voice—spoken, written & sung—so that it matches the Love we are and manifests our most sacred intentions.

It’s how we can relearn how to embody that spark—that little fire that keeps your heart alive—and that is meant to light up the way for you to reclaim your sacred dream:

That dream that only YOU can have and put into form—for your sake and for the betterment of our world.

It’s how we heal our inner Feminine & Masculine, thereby reclaiming the magic, power and wisdom of those sacred energies. It’s how we ENGOLDEN them to heal our relationship with ourselves, others and Nature.

And it’s how we understand the power of Emotional Alchemy. It’s how we remember that ALL emotions serve and lead us back into Love.

Because Fear and Shame, when showered with Love, turn into Courage and Compassion!

And because Grief and Anger, when felt into Love, turn into Loving Kindness and Wisdom.

PILLAR 3:

Self-CREATION is how we bloom. It’s how we butterfly and rise.

It’s how we diamond up and turn both our wounds into Medicine and our gifts into a treasure that we get to receive… and share with the entire world.

It’s how we Swan:

Releasing the projections of those who labeled us “ugly” because they couldn’t see our strength, grace and beauty… because they didn't see that us being different didn’t mean we didn’t belong! Because they defaulted to harshly judging an odd-looking “duckling” instead of welcoming that adorable cygnet into their heart.

It’s how we disempower the internalized voices of those who couldn’t hear our heartsong… thereby unleashing ourselves as an ANTHEM that heals, awakens, nurtures and awes.

What do I call Personal Liberation?

It is the organic byproduct of Self-CARE as I understand it.

Sovereign in our inner world, we can show up rooted in Love and with a widely (wildly too) open heart in the outer one.

We’ve turned our wounds into gold and now wear our scars as true badges of honor:

Not in the name of survivalism—we don’t believe in that anymore—but as proof of our extraordinary resilience.

We reclaimed our gifts and we KNOW that we are enough, worthy, precious, and part of the sacredness of Nature.

We have our own back and we’re anchored into our center, so we can ease-fully be what the world needs—be it fire or water.

We made it home, and we’re not afraid to get lost again… because we know the way back BY HEART.

I believe that personal liberation is an ongoing journey and the invitation of a lifetime:

We never arrive because this is not a place, it’s SOUL embodiment.

It’s about turning our lives into WORKS of Art.

Freed from our projections and self-harassment. Freed from those stories that don’t protect us anymore and yet still keep us small. Freed from expectations that come from scarcity and not Love. Freed from our past and into the present moment.

Free to love ourselves and share that Love with the entire world. Free to show up unapologetically for the future we dream of.

It’s about letting creativity, joy, and grace reclaim, support and nourish us, so that we can feel our pain safely and ALCHEMIZE our personal experiences into a manifesto of collective healing.

And how does it foster Collective Healing?

Well, when we free ourselves, we free others.

Because we do not only model how it’s done, we give everyone PERMISSION to wake up, fall, rise, fly, FEEL and become…

We give each other permission to just be.

When we understand our own humanness, we can relate to the humanness of others.
When we bow to our own humanity, we can revere the humanity of others.

When we take full responsibility for our needs and dreams, we release everyone else from having to meet them for us. Which means that we can finally, truly, love them unconditionally.

And when we find our way back into Love—true Love for the human we are, true Love for every other being, true Love for the world we live in—we remember at the cell level that Love is all that truly exists.

So we become the Love that we and the world so vibrantly needs.

And this is my promise to you…

To keep showing up here—raw, tender, soft, fierce, vulnerable and open.
To share all that I’m experiencing on this journey as a former Paris wound-led physician who’s becoming the New York soul-led singer and artist she always yearned to be and offer.
To not only expand on all that I’m learning about our bodies, voices, hearts and essence! but also about all that I’m UNLEARNING about who we are not.
I promise to keep modeling reverence to that deep knowing that we call intuition, reverence to our body temples and sacred emotions.
I promise to keep writing about the messy middle, about the gut wrenching in-between, about the price we have to pay for our own trauma healing and about why it is ALWAYS worth it.
I promise to enter the dark forest first so that I can faithfully attest that there is nothing to fear beneath our skins…
I promise to believe in my dream and YOURS—even when you can’t, and even when I don’t know yet how.
I promise that I’ll keep showing up, even when I wonder if anyone cares, and especially when the story doesn’t make sense anymore—because that’s when we’ve been taught to give up… and I am committed to proving our cynicism wrong.

In a world plagued by lovelessness, the answer is not to further understand how to fight… the answer is to relearn the true meaning of LOVE.

And that’s why Self-CARE is how we heal not only ourselves but others…

Because Self-CARE is how we embody the Love we’re made of and for.

I now know for sure that WE are the Medicine…

We are the answer we’re looking for.

Sending you kindness, love and warmth—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not fear anymore.

leo