Honoring Pace, Spirit and Lineage as Strategy
- Brittany Janay
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Last month, I found myself in a circle of Black Baltimore-based thought leaders, activists, creatives, and cultural workers, a space inviting us to consider what it truly means to leverage, honor, and codify Black methodologies in our work, our leadership, and the systems we steward.
Hearing that language, Black methodologies, was both affirming and clarifying. Because when we talk about centering Blackness, it is not simply about elevating Black experiences or perspectives (though important). It is also about acknowledging that Black people have always had our own intellectual traditions, ways of knowing, communal norms, rituals, spiritual technologies, and cultural logic that shape how we imagine, create, gather, and lead.
These are not abstractions or exceptions. These are methodologies, born from memory, movement, and survival. Sitting in that room helped me name something I have been practicing intuitively over the past few years: Honoring pace, spirit, and lineage is one of my methodologies.
Not a productivity hack and, certainly, more than a preference. It is a cultural and spiritual inheritance that guides how I build, reflect, restore, and imagine.
This methodology has been re-teaching me how to relate to time — not as a measure of worthiness, not as a demand for constant output, but as an invitation to be present, to notice and feel aligned.
Honoring pace and spirit has shifted my internal question from:“What must I produce next?” to “What is emerging right now? What is being affirmed? What has shown up as spiritual currency for the work of this moment?”
And when I reflect on the arc of the Lineage & Legacy Recording Experience, I can see exactly what becomes possible when creation is guided by pace and spirit instead of pressure.
At the beginning of this year, Lineage & Legacy Recording Experience was quietly a studio experience — intimate, beautiful, deeply meaningful. I remember at one point, mid-year, feeling as though I had “dropped the ball” by not immediately building upon the project. I actually remember texting two Black women colleagues about these feelings, and both responding with curiosity and affirmation. Something along the lines of “what do you need?” and “But, you’ve done so much.” (I love us for real.)
That being said, when I slowed down, listened, and allowed wonder to show me the next right step, Lineage & Legacy Recording Experience began to expand into:
A Remembering Wall, inviting elders, ancestors, and memory into every room. A timely and divinely orchestrated partnership with Thee Event Curators, another Black-woman owned, Baltimore-based business, that was revealed at The Black Girls Vote Ball 2025.
The Lineage & Legacy Rememberings™, an intergenerational storytelling deck designed to help families and communities slow down, gather with intention, and preserve the stories, memories, and songs that shape who we are.
None of this was necessarily in the original plan. All of it emerged through pace, spirit… and lineage.
When I reflect on the origin story of the Rememberings deck, I can trace this line all the way back to December 2022, when I gifted my maternal grandmother with a “remembering” box. A box I curated to include reflection cards (I printed on business card paper at home), a voice recorder, journal and candle. We have since been in deliberate, creative thought partnership about this beautiful work.
My grandmother’s role, as an elder, a co-creator, a living archive, continues to shape how I think about honoring lineage as a strategy— as a methodology.
I wonder:
What if our elders and ancestors are not only guiding us, but co-conspiring with us? Co-creating with us? Co-founding the work with us?
What happens when we move through the world assuming and expecting their participation? When we are still enough to hear them? Patient enough to wait for them? Courageous enough to honor the ideas they seed in us?
This is what I’ve been learning all year.
This season continues to show me that when I honor pace, spirit, and lineage, the work reveals itself — not as something I must chase, but as something I am entrusted to steward.
I love this for me and us.
This month, my invitations to you:
Slow down enough to ask, “What is actually needed?” Not what is expected. Not what is performative. What is needed: for you, the people you serve and the work?
Choose presence over productivity. Notice what is emerging right now. Honor what is alive. Let that shape your next step.
Lead with lineage & legacy in mind. Ask yourself: If my leadership were a story my people returned to years from now, what would I want it to teach them? Let that answer serve as a compass.
Practice trust… in spirit, timing, and the unseen work. Some things bloom slowly. Some frameworks take years to surface in community. Some ideas need silence before they speak. Honor this.
I am not behind. I am in rhythm, in flow, in alignment. Everything I am building — slowly, intentionally, spiritually — is already becoming.
Announcing: Lineage & Legacy Rememberings™
Liberated Love Notes' eldest cousin, Lineage & Legacy Rememberings... has officially entered the chat. And I am so excited to share it with you.
This season has reminded me, again and again, that our stories are currency, our elders are living archives, and our memories are portals into healing, belonging, and becoming.
The Lineage & Legacy Rememberings™ Deck was designed for exactly that.
A storytelling tool with song cues and reflective prompts for intergenerational connection. Includes 54 cards for family gatherings, community circles, and more.
It Happened: Leadership as a L.O.V.E. Practice Learning Lab
In November, I had the honor of convening a small circle of Black leaders for the first Leadership as a L.O.V.E. Practice Lab .
The Lab affirmed something I already sensed: Black leaders deserve — and require — spaces that affirm our brilliance, honor our values, and make room for the spiritual and emotional truths we carry.
It also affirmed that Leadership as a L.O.V.E. Practice is not simply a framework. It is a methodology. A way of leading that honors lineage, prioritizes collective well-being, and asks us to show up with clarity, courage, and care.
I am grateful to the leaders who entrusted the space and modeled what it means to practice love in community.
And I look forward to hosting the next Lab in 2026. Stay tuned.
In the Spirit of Loving Accountability,
Brittany Janay
