Pouring Into Ourselves with Sensory Poetry

Our recent poetry meetup invited ease, openness, and self-expression in a beautiful, unique way. This time, we let the soothing scents of shea butters and the power of words guide us as we explored our truths, challenges, aspirations, and the many layers of who we are.

We began with inhaling handmade shea butters created by Leslie of Brown Girls Embrace, a confidence-centered community dedicated to helping women and girls embrace themselves fully. Guests were invited to inhale and reflect on scents such as Mint Relief, Pink Sugar, Lemongrass, Lavender, and Brown Sugar that are labeled with an affirmation.

As we passed the jars around, we wrote how each scent made us feel and what thoughts surfaced. Some aromas inspired feelings of calm, clarity, softness, luxury, femininity, confidence, and comfort. Once everyone selected the scent that resonated with them most, we moved into a short meditation to fully connect with its essence.

With our senses awakened, we did our first poetry exercise using the “I Am” template, weaving descriptive words inspired by our chosen scent into our poems. This led to heartfelt reflections on embracing our complexities, loving our softness and beauty, holding on to hope during seasons of change, seeking clarity and relief from stress, learning to extend grace to ourselves as we give to others, and more.

Before transitioning into our final writing activity, Leslie led us through a guided affirmation practice. Together, we repeated aloud powerful affirmations such as:

• I am valuable.
• My past may be ugly, but I am so beautiful.
• I am confident.

For our final activity, we each selected an Intention Word and wrote a poem incorporating our chosen word. Interestingly, many of the themes from our first poems returned in deeper ways, as if our words were guiding us back to what was most on our hearts and minds.

One participant chose the word Simplicity and expressed embracing the simple things, like quiet moments, easy Sundays, witnessing and listening to nature, and remembering to step into our light and promise.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped create such a warm, fun, and freeing space for creative expression and connection. A special thank you to Leslie for allowing us to experience your shea butters in such an intentional and inspiring way, and to Anita of PJ’s Coffee in Camp Springs for always opening your doors for meaningful community gatherings.

Which scent do you feel would most likely inspire your words?