Dreaming Big Isn’t Betrayal of Survival
A Love Letter to Us
---
There’s a kind of grief that lives in survival.
It’s quiet, heavy, familiar—like background noise that hums beneath everything.
It’s not just about danger or scarcity.
It’s about what we’ve had to pause in order to keep going.
- Joy.
- Stillness.
- Imagination.
- Rest.
- Our own souls.
We’ve been taught that surviving is the highest we can go.
That wanting more is betrayal.
That dreaming is a luxury.
That building something sacred, soft, or ours—is asking too much.
But hear this:
Dreaming big isn’t betrayal of survival.
It’s the way we redeem it.
The way we say: “They didn’t get all of us.”
The way we whisper to ourselves and each other—We made it. Now we get to dream.
---
We come from people who held visions in their chest
even when the world handed them chains.
People who carved hope out of dust.
People who imagined things they never saw, never touched, never were allowed to believe in—
and still dared to believe anyway.
That’s not delusion.
That’s divinity.
That’s legacy.
We have always been more than what tried to break us.
Even when we had nothing,
we dreamed like we had everything.
Because our souls remembered what the world tried to make us forget:
We are worthy of life, not just survival.
---
I Am Tired of Surviving
I am tired of being conditioned to expect harm.
Tired of molding myself around systems that feed on our exhaustion.
Tired of the interruptions.
The delay.
The waiting for permission to live fully.
I want to live uninterrupted.
I want to take my soul back.
And I know I’m not alone.
I know so many of us are in this place—
trying to climb out of survivor mode while the world keeps throwing weights on our back.
But even here, we rise.
Even here, we reclaim.
---
We Are Not Betraying Our People When We Dream — We Are Honoring Them
To every one of us dreaming of something more—
of safety, of softness, of slowness, of joy, of land, of breath, of time,
of being seen without fighting to be seen—
We are not ungrateful.
We are not unrealistic.
We are not wrong.
We are the continuation of a prayer.
We are the answer to a vision our ancestors didn’t live long enough to see come true.
And that vision wasn’t just about surviving.
It was about:
- Building.
- Loving.
- Laughing.
- Thriving.
- Belonging.
So let them say it’s too big.
Let them say it’s too soon.
Let them say we’ve “come far enough.”
We know better.
We are worthy of rise.
---
With love and honor,
Chriseithia
Founder of Black Self Wellth™
---
This is sacred work, not open source.
Please honor the heart behind these words.
All rights reserved © Chriseithia Collins | Black Self Wellth™