How Far We've Come

Hi my fellow Saints! Welcome to this months community project! 😇

Now that you've read the picture of the essence of this project allow me to elaborate!

~HOW FAR WE’VE COME ~

is a project centered on witnessing our greatest accomplishments and holding space for them in gratitude and in hope! Remembering where we’ve been with soft eyes is so powerful. Remembering the things we once dreamed about and prayed for that we now have is not only cause for celebration, it’s also cause for hope! 🏽

It is so easy to get stuck on the obstacles in front of us without ever looking back to see all the ones we’ve overcome! This project is about looking back and remembering to have hope, to believe in ourselves and to celebrate our own accomplishment!

It’s also about celebrating our victories and sharing our stories with other women! While allowing other women to also share their stories! This vulnerable sharing process connects us in ways that are so meaningful and also let’s us know we’re not alone. It allows for us to come together on the common ground of humanity! We are all human and we all have human emotions, struggles and victories! This project is about sharing stories of victory in mutual celebration.

Witnessing other women in their power only feeds our individual and collective power and that is such an incredible concept!

So, this is my invitation to you. Join in on the celebration! Marvel at this beautiful life we live and give thanks and recognition where it’s due saints! 🏻Bare witness to the kind and complex women in this project and spread love and light. ✨

This project has been incredibly beautiful to witness as its unfolded. To see these women in the light of how far they truly have come, their resilience, perseverance, wisdom, love, and light for life is truly an inspiration! I was going to type out these long paragraphs about how amazing these women are but instead i will let you read how amazing they are in their own words!

Sultry Saint, Lili

“So one of my greatest accomplishments is finally being able to accept my body for the way it is and being able to show the world who I am. Depression was my worst obstacle and stopped me nearly every single time from enjoying anything in life for almost 8 years. No matter what I did it wasn’t good in enough in my eyes are whatever I was doing was wrong and I deserved to be judged on it. Whenever I’d try to go out with friends I came home crying countless times because being in public was such a mentally draining task because I truly thought that I was too ugly to show my face. I’ve been picked on and bullied for being overweight and dressing too extra since 5th grade and it didn’t stop until I graduated high school. So from a young age I believed that I wasn’t worthy of attention or any kind of attraction and it stayed with me to this day. Yes there’s some days where I feel too fat to leave the house and I cancel plans to stay home and cry but I find a way to remind myself that I’m not the hideous monster I used to think I was. When I became an adult the world around me changed and began to appreciate women with curvier and heavier bodies and that pushed me into loving myself. I got the courage to go out alone in whatever I wanted to wear and ignored all attention directed at me. Pretty soon I got many women and men that told me I was so beautiful and I got waves on compliments and praised that I’ve never seen before. With that help I was able to finally live a free life to enjoy without wondering how fat I look or how ugly my face was. Now I’m in the happiest and healthiest relationship I could dream of and he reminds me everyday that choosing to love myself will always help me strive to success. I’m here on this earth now because my body is more valuable than I ever gave it credit for and I honestly wouldn’t have survived my own mental state if I didn’t leave my comfort zone. I’m alive because I decided that I won’t let my insecurities end me in this lifetime.”

Sultry Saint, Elle

“1. My first greatest accomplishment I can honestly say I am proud of is my personal growth. I grew up in a very domestic violent household with many obstacles as my parents struggled in their roles to protect, guide, and show me what healthy role models are. I deeply love my family, but the dysfunction they passed onto me has been a continuous process I’ve had to humbly face as I have harbored much of the same issues. I’m deeply proud of my ability to take the negative and turn it into a positive and be brave enough to harness the values I have in life and relationships. I am a much stronger and loving person because of the trauma I’ve worked through. I am now becoming a mother and I pray I can continue to set an example for my daughter, that she would never question her worth and be unapologetically herself in the face of life’s setbacks and disappointments.

2. My marriage is one of my proudest accomplishments. After years of setback and bad news, we have pressed through some of the longest nights and hurts in our relationship. There were many times, I never thought we would make it. A lot of this was due to the broken marriage I saw growing up. We have faced most of our marriage alone, with very little support from family. However, despite it all, we have committed our love for each other everyday and continued to work on ourselves so that we can be the best versions of ourselves. I am so proud of how far we have come.

3. Completing over 8 years of college in a 10 year span. In May 2020, during the pandemic, I finally graduated with my Masters in Education. With the family situation I have faced, I have also had to take many breaks from school to “rescue” so to speak certain members of my family, neglecting my own wants and needs. With all the disappointment of this year and not finding a teaching job, due to covid - I am so proud of myself for finishing strong with a 4.0 and never giving up on myself. I hope and pray that I can find a place where to work with children and help them grow. I know that I will be an amazing teacher and give back to kids what my teachers instilled in me.”

Sultry Saint, Michelle

“I was trying to see what is it in my eyes considered an accomplishment and I honestly think is the three countries I’ve traveled to. Because all I’ve wanted was to travel around the world and China was the first step to that dream. South Korea was another place I’ve always wanted to go and I did!! The Philippines as well!! I would say my three biggest accomplishments are traveling to those three countries. I don’t remember how exactly I made traveling my ultimate goal in life, but I’m glad I did. Traveling to different countries has been a dream of mine since I was 9. My three biggest accomplishments that I have done so far are China, South Korea, and the Philippines. Those are the three countries that I have been able to visit so far. Traveling to China is my first accomplishment because it was the first country I traveled to. Even though it was for work, I have been able to travel around China and discover many cool places and things about this country. My second accomplishment was South Korea. This is a country that I wanted to go to since 2015 because of the music and dance I came to love. I was so happy when I finally got to visit this amazing country. My third accomplishment was the Philippines. It’s currently the last country I visited because of the pandemic but I was so blessed I got to visit it before the pandemic. The Philippines is another country I really wanted to visit Because of it’s beautiful nature! The picture of me is actually me in the Philippines the last country I was able to visit. I hope to soon travel again and continue accomplishing my dream in life!”

Sultry Saint, Tissana

“I’ve accomplished a few things in my 25 years on this earth. My proudest accomplishments of them all will be listed below. These accomplishments are a part of my personal growth and goals. First accomplishment that I’ll highlight is graduating from university with an honors degree my proudest accomplishment of all this is because I had many stumbling blocks in my life while studying 📑 and to have my mother experience me getting awarded among the top students was one of the greatest thing I could have done to make her proud being that I did something that she could have only dreamt of. I made her proud, I made myself proud and I’m still striving to be the best. Second accomplishment is living and working outside of my birth country. It was a part of my life time goals even though I’m still not at my dream country where I’m at now is just a piece of my master plan. Thirdly LIVING MY BEST LIFE that includes working, traveling, meeting new people and living one day at a time. Living without fear, being optimistic and resilient. This is an accomplishment for me it’s a part of my personal growth and goals I’m living it.been doing.”

Sable

" 1. My Inner Transcendence : In the last 7 months I finished my contract with my previous school, had a longer than expected, 6 week, sabbatical while waiting for the paperwork, started a new job at my current school after much effort, moved apartments, and I started The Sultry Saint blog and Instagram. All of these beautiful things that have come from my own recent soul searching and following efforts. I am incredibly proud of myself for doing the inner work so that these outer things can actually happen. I have been learning, growing, deconstructing and reconstructing and expanding myself in so many ways -- I'm incredibly proud of that.

2. Moving Abroad : I come from a small town where living in China as an English teacher is pretty unheard of and far fetched. When I decided to move here a couple years ago most people didn't really understand why and honestly didn't think it was a very good idea. Clearly, I did it anyways. I did it because I knew it was where God wanted me and where I wanted me. The seeds had been planted for years with this idea of moving abroad and being a teacher of some kind now it was my time to water them and watch the fruits grow. I truly cannot imagine where or who I would be had I not listened to my own divine intuition and the Holy Spirit within me. It was easily one of the hardest things I have ever done and to this day there are still extremely difficult times but I wouldn't change a thing! I'm proud of where I came form and I am proud of where I am at!

3. The Sultry Saint : This is both a recent/current accomplishment as well as a prophesy for so much more goodness and abundance to come! Making this blog and IG was such a raw, vulnerable, funny and exciting process. Not only has it allowed me to grow, witness myself and share my story, it as also allowed me to witness the stories of other women and share those stories in a beautiful light and safe place. To come alongside them in encouragement, kindness and sisterhood. This project has brought such meaningful beauty to my life and hopefully to the lives of the women who witness. I prophesy that it will only get juicier from here! 😉"

(me at the Great Wall of China! what the even heck!)

To the beloved saints that have taken the time to participate in the project, thank you. My heart is so for sisterhood and mutual support and your willingness to take part in something so dear to my heart it no small thing to me! I wanted to take this moment to say I appreciate your kindness and open-mindedness and I am honored that you would trust me to tell your story on a platform such as this! Thank you!

For all you saints who did not participate in this round thank you for reading this and following along. Thank you for witnessing the women who are in this post and I look forward to working with you as you are ready, willing, and lit up by a project!

Just a reminder that there will be many more community projects to come so stay tuned for those and if you weren't able to participate in the last couple sacred sisterhood projects don't worry! 😉 I plan on doing round 2, 3, 4 and so on as long as I have a willing community! 😇

If you're new here be sure to explore around my page a bit and let me know what speaks to you!

Join in on the celebration by sharing kind words with these beauties and by sharing this post!

Praying goodness and abundance over you dear saints.

Goodness and Abundance <3