As a hu­man race, there seems to be a nat­ur­al de­sire for trib­al­ism. Some­thing about know­ing there is a group of peo­ple that would be loy­al, un­der­stand­ing and who you can re­late to, that al­so seem to play a role in de­ter­min­ing who we are as in­di­vid­u­als, can bring us a sense of be­long­ing. In fact, the im­por­tance of find­ing your tribe should not be tak­en for grant­ed since it is this col­lec­tive group of peo­ple that will sup­port your ideas, pro­vide clar­i­ty up­on your dreams and help you to feel em­pow­ered and strong.

As we each weave our way in­to each oth­er’s lives, tribes nat­u­ral­ly form. Whether it be with­in the fam­i­ly or the work­place, the com­radery and in­flu­ences up­on a per­son’s life are what makes them in­di­vid­ual. I say this af­ter en­gag­ing my new found tribe and re­al­is­ing that they are me and I am them.

As a nat­ur­al hair blog­ger, I along with sev­er­al oth­er lo­cal nat­ur­al hair con­tent cre­ators, was in­vit­ed to at­tend the of­fi­cial launch in Trinidad of a US-based nat­ur­al hair prod­uct brand Car­ol’s Daugh­ter on March 14 at Veronique’s in Port-of-Spain. Look­ing back, I have to ad­mit that I had an amaz­ing time en­joy­ing the vibes, sip­ping on cock­tails, learn­ing about the his­to­ry of brand, in­ter­act­ing with the prod­ucts, look­ing on at hair demos and min­gling with the oth­er blog­gers and Youtu­bers. But not on­ly did I en­joy that more­so, I en­joyed be­ing around my tribe!

I fol­low many of these oth­er con­tent cre­ators on so­cial me­dia, so I was re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to see­ing them all in one place. While I wasn’t wor­ried that every­one wouldn’t get along, what I didn’t ex­pect, was how well we all con­nect­ed and spent the evening to­geth­er. From the out­side look­ing in, you would think that we all knew each oth­er on a per­son­al lev­el for years but, in fact, quite a few of my fel­low con­tent cre­ators met in per­son for the first time that same evening.

I took a step back and looked on as every­one posed for pic­tures with each oth­er, took each oth­er’s pic­tures, shared edit­ing tricks and hyped each oth­er up! And I smiled. I smiled be­cause I felt as though some­thing in me fi­nal­ly clicked, like some­thing fi­nal­ly fell in­to a place. A piece of my life puz­zle that I didn’t even know was miss­ing was filled.

Let me ex­plain. While I fol­low all these beau­ti­ful women on so­cial me­dia and in­ter­act with them on Face­book, Twit­ter and In­sta­gram prac­ti­cal­ly every oth­er day , we nev­er met up in one place.

So when we fi­nal­ly were able to meet up, we were able to have brief con­ver­sa­tions about our ex­pe­ri­ences as con­tent cre­ators in the lo­cal land­scape about our chal­lenges, suc­cess­es, the good, bad, and the in be­tween.

Meet­ing up with these won­der­ful women so­lid­i­fied no­tions that I’ve been think­ing about for the past few years about my con­tent cre­ation. But even more so, it made me re­alise that for the first time in a very long time in my life, I am sur­round­ed by peo­ple who tru­ly sup­port me.

Now, ad­mit­ted­ly, as friend­ly as I al­ways aim to be in my in­ter­ac­tions with any­one that cross­es my path, in re­al­i­ty, I have very few friends. I could prob­a­bly count on one hand how many friends I gen­uine­ly have. The term “friend” is used so loose­ly nowa­days, but for me, there is still some sort of en­dear­ment in the term. With two of my clos­est friends now liv­ing abroad, I found my­self be­com­ing a lon­er, but as life would have it, things didn’t stay that way for long.

It start­ed off with me want­i­ng to go to brunch and tak­ing a chance and ask­ing fel­low blog­ger, Rochelle of Eller Style, if she want­ed to come. She agreed with­out hes­i­ta­tion, and since then, we’ve done brunch dates sev­er­al times. Then, a chance en­counter with La Shell of One Pot Liv­ing now re­sults in me ac­com­pa­ny­ing her to all sorts of thrift mar­kets and events. I even­tu­al­ly al­so met the vi­va­cious Dinelle of This Pret­ty Nerd when I car­ried her to meet my swim­suit mak­er.

All these con­nec­tions and more, have come about, due to the fact that we all share a com­mon goal: cre­at­ing con­tent, be it for YouTube or our own blogs or oth­er me­dia forms, we use our plat­forms to of­fer some sub­stance that goes be­yond the pret­ty face/ex­ces­sive skin and oth­er vi­su­als that so­cial me­dia has be­come in­un­dat­ed with. We share in things hair and beau­ty re­lat­ed yes, but we al­so share as­pects of our lives, things that our fol­low­ers can re­late to and can share in.

For me, hav­ing a group of women that sur­rounds me this way gives me hope, and shows me that at least, I’m do­ing some­thing right. They have kept me afloat when I want­ed to give up on my blog, my YouTube chan­nel,or, any sort of con­tent on a whole. They are the ones who kick my butt if I get lazy and feel un­mo­ti­vat­ed. They are the ones who tru­ly un­der­stand the strug­gles in this whole blog­ging busi­ness and have prac­ti­cal­ly al­ways been the first to com­mend me on a job well done.

I write all of this to say thank you to these beau­ti­ful, dy­nam­ic women. From all over the coun­try, from all walks of life,thank you. We may not be the clos­est of friends, and that’s okay, what I do hope is that as time goes on, we can meet up more, de­vel­op stronger re­la­tion­ships, where we can share with each oth­er, and build each oth­er up. I hope we can be­come a re­source for each oth­er and that we can present a unit­ed front for­ward as the women in the emerg­ing fields of blog­ging, vlog­ging, and oth­er on­line con­tent cre­ation.

Af­ter all this time, it feels amaz­ing to have a com­mu­ni­ty that shares the same pas­sion. I’ve fi­nal­ly found my tribe, and it is my hope that our tribe con­tin­ues to grow and flour­ish. Whether you’re in­to the arts, sports, an­i­mals, cars, pho­tog­ra­phy or any field in fact, con­nect with your tribe and let that en­er­gy flour­ish.

Tshenelle Bethel-Pe­ters aka Nel­ly B, is a nat­ur­al hair, plus size, beau­ty, and lifestyle blog­ger; an avid sup­port­er of buy­ing lo­cal and a firm be­liev­er in the pow­er of a smile. Fol­low her at www.adayinthe­life­ofnellyb.com or @blessed­nel­ly on Twit­ter and In­sta­gram