Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

Envision the no. When you carry a dream, people will tell you no — not because they doubt you, not even because they can’t see what you see, but because they are simply not meant for it. The dream was never theirs to hold.

This was my weakness for a long time. I expected everyone who crossed my path to align themselves with visions they had no business carrying. I handed people seeds from my garden and wondered why they wouldn’t tend them. That is not how it works. That is not how any of this works.

There were people who quit. Walked away from what we were building together. And somehow, when they came back, I let them back in — forgetting that the first wound always cuts the deepest, forgetting that a person who leaves once has already shown you something true about themselves.

So envision the no. Envision it early and often. Understand that for your dream to live, you must learn to surrender to the no of those who were never meant to say yes. The right people are already there — rooting, waiting, ready. But sometimes you have to release the wrong ones before the right ones can walk through your door.

I am in a season of release. One last straggler left this spring, and child, it was time. We couldn’t fully commit to them because they had quit on us first. Their leaving felt like peace to them. But the truth is — we had already let go three years ago. We were just waiting for them to catch up to what we already knew.

That waiting should never have happened. Let people go early. Let them go cleanly. Let them go before the dream pays the price for your hesitation.

We organized only after they left. Imagine that. We were asked for years to build something, and it took their absence to finally build it. There is a lesson in that — painful and plain.

We may look like we’re on hiatus. We are. But the dream keeps dreaming. And when it is time, we will move — in alignment, in wholeness, with the people who were always meant to be there.

We will always choose alignment. We will always envision no.