We recently connected with Guirlaine Belizaire and have shared our conversation below.

Guirlaine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

In 2008, I made the decision to follow my heart and leave a work situation that felt at a Soul-level deeply unfulfilling and painfully constricting. While I adored the mission of the organization – serving women and children all over the world – the day-to-day work was severely misaligned, like forcing a round peg into a square hole! Ouch!

Nervous to the point of nausea, I shared the news of my resignation with my colleagues. “Bad decision,” I was told with pity in their eyes, “with the economy at such a sharp downturn.” Even then, I tended to live from the inside out. And so, whatever was happening on the outside, my inner wisdom would not allow me to compromise from a place of fear and lack.

I remember well the first few bliss-full weeks after resigning – freedom and boundless possibilities! A blank page! A new chapter! I could breathe deeply again!

The weeks turned into months of no new work or opportunities. My savings quickly dwindled. At the six-month mark, I lived off spare change – pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters – accumulated when money was plentiful and predictable.

One day, I went into my favorite supermarket in New York City to shop for food that would sustain me for the week. I walked down the aisles choosing carefully, being very mindful of price and practicality. I waited in the long line and could feel the weight of my coins in my pocket. When my turn came, I went to the cashier. He tallied up my purchases, looked me in the eyes, and announced the total owed. I do not recall the exact cost, at least $25. With cash or available credit, such a transaction would take seconds. Not so with coins! As he bagged, I counted my coins. It felt like forever and the impatience and annoyance of the customers waiting on the line felt palpable to me – I understood as I was one of them not too long ago!

At one point, my heart was pounding rapidly – banging in my chest. I became flustered and embarrassed and filled to overflow with shame, disgust, and guilt. I could feel the tears coming, rising uncontrollably from my heart to my throat, and then to my eyes. I could not concentrate on counting the coins and my hands began to tremble. The cashier gently took my hands in his – warmth and graciousness radiating from him. He looked me in the eyes and said: “Take your time.”

In that Moment, he breathed life back into me, lifted me from an internal Abyss, grounded me, brought me back to my true essence by his gentle Prescence. In his generosity, he held sacred space for me. He embodied beloved community and what it means to truly care for one another.

This story of great kindness manifested remains quite vulnerable and tender for me to share. Still, I tell it often as it reminds me to be profoundly grateful for it all and to keep paying it forward.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Last year, I decided to stretch a bit, venture far outside my comfort zone to birth a passion project that had been gestating within me for years held back by immense fear of judgement and rejection. I wasn’t fully ready for the birth then and did it anyway – a continued mantra as the baby grows.

That passion project, SCCaR (from Sacred Cracks and Cervices to Rubies), is a gentle weaving and holding of space for meaningful and rich conversations about the various paths to transforming our deep pain, darknesses, and challenges (our sacred cracks and crevices) into precious jewels (rubies) of wisdom that remold us and ultimately serves all.

The name SCCaR comes from the many scars on my body – the visual representations of the rubies of healing that came from the cracks of trauma and the crevices of a deep depression that still lingers ever so gently in the foreground of my consciousness.

In its current form, SCCaR takes the shape of a podcast.

First, an invitation is extended to one of the many beautiful Souls I am blessed to call family, friend, and Kindred.

Second, the recording, a gentle holding of sacred, surrendered, and emergent space, a co-creation and sumptuous weaving between my guest(s) and me.

Then – the most delightful part of the process – delving into the recording and like a documentarian, pulling the essence of the conversation into short, sweet and potent vignettes. It’s incredibly humbling and exciting to witness the recording take the lead working through me to produce the vignettes and to see and hear more fully what I could not while engaging in the recording – the recurring themes, the body language, the shapes, colors and textures, the silences, the epiphanies, and the many subtle messages.

After sharing the vignettes with my guest(s) for their review and approval, we release them (little messages in the proverbial bottle) through various social media channels with the intention of humble service to and celebration of Love and our interconnectedness.

That intentionality for SCCaR is inspired by the following words of one of my most important teachers, writer Gwendolyn Brooks from her stunning poem, Paul Robeson:

“…we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.”

These words are my North Star and guide every creative endeavor.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I continue to gleefully invest a great deal of time and energy into knowing myself, using such systems as astrology, the Enneagram, Human Design, and Gene Keys. What consistently comes through and is deeply resonant is the innate drive to serve Love, to make a difference in a way that draws humans ever closer to each other and reminds us of our connection to the totality of it all.

Related is the unrelenting desire to share and to give all that I am blessed to have come through me, and the commitment to leave this physical realm completely and happily empty having been all that I was crafted to be and do all I was brought here to do!

Further, as a creative, I consume and am inspired by so many extraordinary artists and so I constantly feel the pull to give back, to contribute as a way of demonstrating gratitude and paying it forward.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of my favorite books is The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. The second of his Four Agreements is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.” This is the lesson I continue to unlearn – taking personally and caring too much about the opinions and beliefs of other people.

Growing up in a devout Catholic home with parents and a community navigating a country that they were not born in, the messages that I absorbed was to be mindful of what others think and that appearance is everything. I learned that as a girl child, I was to be always “good” and not to draw attention that could be interpreted as negative and reflect badly on my parents, family, and culture.

And so, to ensure that the opinions and beliefs of others would be favorable, I internalized perfectionism and became increasingly risk adverse, severely stymying my creativity.

Every time I vulnerably expose my heart by sharing a poem publicly, I unlearn taking it personally. With each yes that stretches my comfort zone with the risk of disapproval, judgement, or perceived failure, I am unlearning caring what others choose to believe about me. Deciding to launch a podcast with absolutely no expectations and just for the sheer personal joy, play, and experience of it, is me embodying taking nothing personally! An utterly liberating way to live!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/belizaireagency_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guirlainerithabelizaire/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@guirlainebelizaire9474
• Other: https://burgeoninc.blog/

Image Credits

Anna Louise
Ken Jones Professional