Freedom…
I’ve determined these past few years that it really is possible to be free. And freedom isn’t just a destination. It’s a journey — an inner journey.
It took traveling internationally by myself in 2016 (after essentially not traveling outside the U.S. since a high school trip nearly 30 years ago) to help me step outside my comfort zone and start living as my freest self. Since 2016, I have traveled solo to: London (twice); Paris (twice); Amsterdam; Lisbon (twice) and Porto, Portugal; Kuala Lumpur and Malacca, Malaysia; Singapore; and Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada and Cádiz, Spain. I also made my first trip to Mother Africa this summer where I traveled with a group to Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Elmina and Agona Duakwa, Ghana.
Each trip has brought with it a lot of deep self-reflection (with the help of journaling), shedding of thoughts that no longer serve me, and a commitment to living life without self-imposed boundaries or limitations. To celebrate the newfound me, I started calling myself #afreeblackgirl in 2016, and the name stuck! Friends and family even started calling me #afreeblackgirl, and countless people sent me messages asking how they, too, can get free. Women asked if they could start traveling with me and asked when I was going to start producing #afreeblackgirl products they could buy. One friend went as far as to say that she wanted to join the #afreeblackgirl “movement.” Wow.
So, here we are. I want to build a movement made up of women journeying towards their inner freedom, using travel as their/our inspiration. Through deeply self-reflective international and domestic travel opportunities with me, education and conversations online, and an upcoming product line, we are going to get and stay free.
I hope you’ll take the journey to your inner freedom. And guess what? I’ll go with you.
Peace, love and freedom,
Carolyn Ash
(aka #afreeblackgirl)