For the past 8 weeks, I have been dedicated to active, daily, engagement in my coaching, liberation, and education work and communities. Finally, after a Summer of building connections, and strengthening my values, it is time for me to take some much-deserved time off to REST! This next week of August 31st - September 4th, Taylor Life Coaching will be closed, and I will be unreachable via email, until my return. Any community members with an active coaching package on the calendar/upcoming, please check your email, as you have been notified of my time off and given specific instructions for personalized support during my absence from office.

Reframing Rest for Yourself

I hope that you, especially my fellow Black community members, hear me when I project Tricia Hersey’s message that;

“Rest is Resistance” (2024)

Poverty Changes the Way We See the World.

When poverty is experienced, especially in childhood, our brains show physically observable signs of negative developmental differences (Luby, Constantino, & Barch, 2022). Poverty is not only a lack of money or capital with which to move about the world. Poverty is also all of the resulting consequences of uneven distributions of wealth and structures of power, which uphold generational cycles of forced low and no-income living.

Poverty is also all of the

resulting consequences of

uneven distributions of

wealth and structures of

power, which uphold

generational cycles of

forced low and no-income

living.

- Saint Taylor

What does this mean?

I Have Recently Had the Great Fortune of Reconnecting With an Old Friend.

I can already tell that the connection we have begun to re-foster is different this time. For one, we’re older, more experienced, and more aligned than when we previously had contact. But there’s more to it than that, too. This time, we listen and reflect, we hold space and offer tangible support, we no longer wish to construct pretty sentences without associated actions. I feel stimulated and seen. Challenged and called to challenge.

These things prompted my wondering about the role of reconnection and renegotiation of relationships, in answering the call to liberation action.

What Does Reconnecting With Faded Relationships Have to do With Acts of Liberation?

I Have Increasingly Been Communing With The Concept of Decolonizing Education.

In doing so, I find myself reaching less towards the formal systems of information that we have legitimized and uphold in the West. Instead, I am leaning into the literature and content of the ancestors, artists, liberation-fighters, Indigenous Peoples, abolitionists, scientists, and other free-thinkers who dare dream of a decolonized and indigenized world. The people whose creations and existences have been systemically left out of our curriculum and syllabi.

I count myself privileged that, while I endured a wealth of educational abuse growing up, I also avoided full participation and indoctrination into a system of learning that was built from, and to continue, the principles of racism. I reflect on why 250 years of ‘American’ history continue to be told to our children, yet I did not learn the names, beliefs, leadership strategies, community practices, religious ceremonies, migratory patterns, family rituals, funny anecdotes, or native language of my direct ancestors, who were enslaved on this same land, and created just as much historically relevant content, over 250 years.

What is Lost to Time and Death Will Not Come Back to Us.

Let’s Talk About Airborne Awareness.

Being ‘Covid Conscious’ (CC) and ‘Airborne Aware’ isn’t some new trend that will pass over time. It is a lifestyle decision that myself, and others who have become conscious to the dangers of airborne diseases and toxins, have taken on as an act of self and community care. In Asia, airborne awareness has been ingrained culturally, broadening the use of disease mitigations (Corey, 2025). In America, 80% of people reported not wearing a mask in public spaces, as recently as one year ago (Corey, 2025). Knowing that Asia has a tendency for collectivist culture, while America is highly individualistic, these statistics may not surprise you. However, whether your motivation is personal or communal, there are many reasons and ways to mitigate getting and spreading deadly diseases, like Covid-19.

Did You Know? Now You Will.

Covid-19 has been the deadliest virus in American history (Gamillo, 2021), but only 20% of Americans believe that Covid-19 remains a major threat to public health, today (Corey, 2025). Less than half of Americans support staying home from work and school, wearing a mask in crowds, and testing for Covid-19 when ill (Tyson, et al., 2025). Around the world, anti-mask violence is increasing, with anecdotal stories like these (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) popping up on the internet everyday. Yet, major media and public health outlets have largely moved on from reporting and tracking Covid-19, let alone other deadly airborne diseases and toxins. The responsibility has been passed on to us, the general public, to mitigate disease on our own through continued data collection and education, increased disease mitigation strategies and access to such tools, and advocacy towards federal and global protections against airborne threats.

Oh to be Young and Alive in the Age of Body Positivity! Unless…

Since 1996, a non-profit organization called ‘The Body Positive’ has promoted the ideal of body positivity (TheBodyPositive.Org, N.D.). The nineties were not the beginnings of the movement towards diverse body acceptance, however. The 1960s bred the Fat Liberation Movement through the founding of organizations such as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance [NAAFA] (FKA the National Association to Aid Fat Americans) (NAAFA.org, N.D.). As early as the 1930s, Black women were publicly fighting against fat-phobic fear mongering cloaked as scientific data (The Joy Project, 2022). Unlike disability liberation movements, whose actions have led to legal protections, social conversations, and concrete change (albeit still lacking and only after decades of fighting)(American Bar Association, N.D.), fat liberation has not received the same advancements over time. These examples also only account for post-colonial, Western, primarily “American”, histories. Taking this limitation into account, how and why are fat people’s voices being silenced, and their liberation stifled?

It’s in the Things You’re Thinking.

Fatness has been socially internalized, normalized between generations, and morally condemned as generally unacceptable (Drinkwater, 2016). That kind of thinking is difficult to overcome. Fatness has been intentionally and closely associated with the medical field as a means to normalize thin, white, and able bodies as desirable (Strings, 2023). It seems almost automatic, then, to want to avoid something that has been so vehemently associated with risk of illness, death, and unhappiness. Even Artificial Intelligence (AI) is learning that thinness is preferable, to its consumer (Warren, et al., 2025). When we “avoid” fatness, what is it that we are actually doing? What are we telling ourselves? Our communities? The fat people around us?

Child welfare is in a global state of emergency (Risser, 2026).

But there are also children in our own (so-called) countries, cities, communities, and families, who are in need of our attention. As a survivor of child abuse myself, I know intimately how diligent, mindful, and conscious attention and action may have changed my childhood. Though I experienced a profound level of isolation compared to my peers (I experienced educational abuse disguised as ‘traditional home-schooling’ from 4th-12th grade), I also was a part of multiple communities who had the ability to make a difference. Below, I will explore two of those communities, discuss some signs of abuse or distress to notice, as well as intervention and support strategies to employ on an individual level, when advocating for children.

Churches, Faith, and Other Spiritual/Ritual-Based Communities.

An estimated 84% of the global population is involved in a recognized/reported faith-based community (Mendes, 2026). With these statistics, it is likely that we see, know, interact, or have interacted with others who participate in a faith-based practice, even if we do not ourselves. Child abuse which has been deliberately hidden in church communities continues to be uncovered, globally (The Commune Magazine, 2024). But sexual abuse, or abuse at the hands of authority figures directly tied to these communities are not the only dangers to look out for. It is imperative that, when we see children in our faith-based spaces, we make sure to acknowledge them. Getting to know a child, their typical mannerisms and orientation towards those in their family/party and others, and being aware of potential signs of harm, can make a huge difference in that child’s experience within the community. Some things that the church community of my upbringing could have noticed/looked out for:

Loneliness as a Condition of Ableism.

Loneliness and its history are being studied at an increasing rate (Cooper, et al., 2024). For disabled communities, however, abandonment and loneliness are far from newfound phenomena (HistoricEngland.org.UK, N.D.). Functioning, particularly in economic and social realms, has long been a predictor of worthiness and humanity (Teles da Silva, et al., 2025). This lens, Western in dominance, leaves disabled people behind, as ableism is passed down to future generations.

These facts beg some critical questions, as we live through multiple public health crises (World Health Organization, 2026). What will happen to those who have already been, and inevitably will be, disabled by these illnesses? If history is to be our measure, the systems created to ‘care’ for disabled people will continue to fall short, abandon, and fail us.

Water filtration has long been a protective practice.

Egyptians who lived 3,500 years ago are thought to be the first practitioners/recorders of a water filtration process (Elkadi, 2024). Today, there are organizations, legislation, by-laws, restrictions, and strict filtration processes in place (especially within most colonized/Western nations), to reduce public exposure to harmful water-borne pathogens. Beyond harmful viruses, the dangers of ‘forever chemicals’ and microplastics are more actively being considered. In fact, the news of the dangers of contaminated water sources has spread so far and wide that in countries such as The United States and India, the use of household water filtration systems (think ‘Brita’-type products) is at an all time high (Harrington, 2026). Though capitalist companies profit massively off of the marketing and sale of these filtration services and products, with a market value of $21.7B estimated by the end of the decade (Harrington, 2026), there is benefit to the public, too.

So, why are we talking water filtration?

The global adoption of water filtration and purification strategies has led to a healthier world. For example, cholera is eradicated in the water purification process (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2000), meaning that 70% of the world is regularly protected from contracting cholera through their local clean water source (Shrestha, 2024). While there is still striving to do, to protect the 30% of people still at risk due to a lack of clean water access, there are countless movements dedicated to establishing and maintaining clean water access for all!

Colonization has always led to illness, disability, & death.

One of, if not the most, influential factors in the rapid and continued colonization of Turtle Island (today known as, North America) has been the communal transmission of disease. Without regard for acquired immunity, rates of transmission, and health disparities, European colonizers devastated Native populations before even drawing a weapon (Native-Americans.org, 2025). Not only were the lives of countless Indigenous peoples lost to these illnesses, but so were their languages, traditions, and cultures, as their colonizers grew hungrier for dominance (Native-Americans.org, 2025).

Modern day repeats these patterns on a massive scale.

Many of us who are clean-air and health conscious have to grapple, daily, with the reality that those around us are not. Whether our co-workers, family members, friends, lovers, or passers-by on the street, we are inundated by not-so-friendly reminders that they’ve ‘moved-on’ (from the most recent pandemic). But the stories of Turtle Island’s Native communities have already shown us this story. Our communities are currently being devastated, at alarming rates, due to the lack of widespread regard for vaccination rates, access to mitigation tools, rates of transmission, health disparities, rapid disease evolution, and more. This will continue to be true in perpetuity, without a drastic shift in public health thinking, outreach, and interventions.