Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

I was asked yesterday to describe soulful grants. My mind went straight to my heart. Of what use is a grant if it only knows the head, forgetting that the longest journey you will ever take is the one from your head to your heart. So my response: Grant writing is a way of connecting to our deepest desires. Those that sit in the private corners of our heart. We don’t strive for excellence consistently if we don’t understand what it means to excel. For me these days, to excel isn’t about making the loudest noise or perfecting the perfect score. I am learning that it’s about striving, solving, soldering, then surrendering. Somethings will make you fall on your knees and submit to the highest summit. We don’t survive in whole, just pieces that know to roll and roll with whatever storms that arise until you reach your deepest goals. Most of my grants have failed. They were focused on the head. The ones with heart, persisted even when I couldn’t. I knew to surrender.

I walked into a room yesterday, a group too, led by one of the brightest minds I have ever seen in a while. He reminded me of myself, when the world was like an ocean, anything including the deepest waves were full of possibilities, steeped in hope. Time can steal these feelings, things and people too. But I am learning still that your destiny is yours, nothing is ever as it seems, strive still while you breathe, then try again even when it all seems futile. For tomorrow is a day still brimming with hope, still nourished by the sounds of possibilities. Tend to yourself carefully, understand the significance of No, then be prepared to excel. This to mean is what soulful grants entail.