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Elsa Mehary

@elsalovesyou

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Creating Coherence
Signal + Strategy + Design
AD alum | Hearst, Condé Nast, Time Inc., NYTimes

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There has never been a better time to be a polymath. Or Black. 🤎 The intelligence that was built under pressure, refined through systems not designed to hold it, and dismissed as survival is intelligence needed now.

Some forms of brilliance get celebrated as genius in one context and dismissed as survival in another. The overlap is adaptive intelligence — pattern recognition, cultural translation, fast learning, resourcefulness, emotional forecasting, and moving between worlds.
This is not a new skill set. It is an ancient one. Built under pressure, refined through generations, and still being misread as scattered, unfocused, or hard to place. If you never heard the term read on it just might be YOU!

Comment POLYMATH for the quiz to see what kind of polymath you are (the deeper dive)!

#blackfutures
#polymath by @elsalovesyou

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5 months ago

There is so much conversation and controversy about Black women lately. Yes, we are in demand. But what is loud isn’t always accurate. We might be under attack because precious minerals are valuable and must be protected. And being constantly scripted into someone else’s play is exhausting. Let’s make sure we are writing our own narrative for the future.

#blackfutures
#womenled
#humantech by @elsalovesyou

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5 months ago

Community I know we are all fluent in all of these but what’s your superpower? Some Black folks might only speak the English language but they are fluent in many other ways. Cultural Intelligence is mine. Let’s discuss.

First slide image of @mikia08 📸: demis_god by @elsalovesyou

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a year ago

We all know that a little bit of friction can make it feel good or even great. I’ll leave that to your imagination. But what happens if everything is ease. The Fall of Rome is what happens and we are in it. There are extraordinary gains happening alongside very real losses, and I want to believe that what is on the other side can be just as rich as what came before.

Standing in the middle, I can also see how many traditions, practices, and forms of knowledge are being flattened into something easier to consume, easier to scale, and easier to monetize.

The connection is still there but in the depth, ritual, difficulty, and context are being watered down almost to obscurity.

Western capitalism has played a major role in that transformation.

I recently heard of yoga studios not allow to use the word OM to make the practice more inclusive. Ironic. The old steal and replace method. Sometimes the friction is where the mastery, memory, connection, and meaning live.

Where are you seeing shifts in your own industry or culture that you do not think are coming back?

#blackfutures by @elsalovesyou

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17 hours ago

We take for granted the aunt, grandmother, mother or cousin who keeps the family together.

She remembers the birthdays. She has the old photographs. She knows who is related to whom. She keeps the recipes, the addresses, the stories, the documents. She plans the reunions and makes sure everyone knows where to show up.

And because someone has been holding all of that information, the rest of us get to experience the result:
connection. closeness. belonging.

You just show up and somehow you are included.

Not every family has this. If yours does, you are blessed.

But there is a question we rarely ask:
Will your children have access to the same family knowledge?

Will they know the stories and things your family built?
Or will some of it stop with you?

The Family Legacy System is a digital toolkit for organizing and managing your family’s heritage, so the knowledge one person has been carrying can become something the family can carry forward.

Comment HERITAGE. And download a Free Heritage Home Design Guide by @elsalovesyou

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a day ago

You do not have to carry the sky on your shoulders,
or be the steady stone that never crumbles.
Your breath can be slow.
Your hands can be empty of tasks,
open only to the warmth of the sun
and the quiet grace of doing nothing at all.

You were taught to measure worth by what you can carry but perhaps softness begins with what you can put down.

A reminder for myself.

#softblackgirl
#blackfuture by @elsalovesyou

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7 days ago

A bit of whimsy… I’m cosmic. Which one are you? by @elsalovesyou

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9 days ago

Always wear your invisible crown.

My grandmother grew her own kind of victory garden. She made jams, jellies, apple butter, coconut cakes, and rolls from the fruits of her garden. She also grew me.

I was blessed to come home from school to all of it.

I wish I had some of my grandmother’s recipes. Pinterest can give me instructions, but it cannot give me her hands, her habits, or the memories held inside what she made.

We are responsible for what we allow to grow into the next generation. Sometimes legacy means tending what is healthy. Sometimes it means pulling up what would choke it.

Many of us have become disconnected from the labor required to grow a healthy family garden. We visit it occasionally, admire what bloomed, or assume it will continue without us.

But inheritance does not tend itself.

The Family Legacy System gives you a place to preserve what you want to keep growing. Comment LEGACY for the link. by @elsalovesyou

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17 days ago

What will the next gen of doulas be? We all need cheerleading and a hug at this point. Anyone getting whiplash from the pivots?

Before the village became scattered our major transitions were ushered in by extended family, neighbors, religious communities, elders, mutual-aid networks, multigenerational households, close-knit professional communities. A beautiful web of humans that were interdependent, not without problems but you were not alone. I heard this happens in the South?

We DO have professional specialists, but strange gaps in actual human care. And we wonder why our mental health suffers This is deeper than therapy tho.

The doctor handles the treatment but there is a gap
The lawyer handles the divorce but there is a gap.
The funeral director handles the burial but there is a gap.
HR handles the termination but there is a gap
The financial adviser handles the retirement account but…. How do we get to the other side.

And if you’ve been through any of these, you know the gap. It’s the processing before beginning anew.

We usually skip this step because there is no room in modern society. Just gotta get up and get back to it. Yeah ok.

We need a secret society of doulas. Thank you to all those doing this work. We salute you.

#womenfirst
#doulasareessential
#nextgen by @elsalovesyou

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20 days ago

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21 days ago

The Family Legacy System has finally arrived. 💎

I come from a big but secretive family. We are scattered, and like many families, our history contains plenty of plot twists, half-truths, closed vaults, and stories that were never fully explained.

Fortunately, I have enough Scorpio in my chart to keep digging.

I didn’t share much about my family because I was private and I didn’t know enough.

Everyone worked, survived, and kept moving. I was expected to do the same. There were few milestone celebrations, formal tributes, or places where our stories were gathered. I thought every family was this way.

These discoveries are part of why I created the Family Legacy System, a private, living archive designed to help families collect what they know, uncover what they don’t, and preserve what should never be lost.

It is a place for the photographs, oral histories, recipes, documents, land, accomplishments, memories, and gems of wisdom that make a family what it is and shared with each other.

If your family has a strong oral-history tradition, do not take that connectedness for granted. It is deeply healing to understand the people who contributed to your becoming. When I look across my own lineage, so much about who I am begins to make sense.

And even if no one ever reads every record but me, I will still gather the gems.

The Family Legacy System is now available. Thank you for following this journey.

Comment LEGACY and I’ll send you the link.

#blackfutures
#familylegacysystem
#lineage by @elsalovesyou

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a month ago

I first heard of the Future Matriarch through author and creator Megan Pinckney Rutherford of @shadesofpinck. She told me you don’t have to be a mother to a a matriarch. Shifted my whole perspective. To have birthed a community, a movement, or a way forward is matriarchal. How many of us are already stewarding the collective? Protecting the continuity of a family, preserving the culture, and creating structures for others to one day inherit.

Many women are already doing the work without claiming the title, receiving the recognition, or sharing in the rewards.

If this is you, claim the honor! For it is not for the weak. If you also have or are raising babies, sending blessings and praise. 💪🏽🌺

You are needed. You deserve to be supported. And we honor you for stepping into the role.

Follow me over at @theCasaJewel for all things family legacy.

#BlackFutures
#futurematriarch by @elsalovesyou

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a month ago