WEBVTT - Checking In Replay: Iyanla Vanzant 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.040 Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:19.680 iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hey Hey, Hey, y'all, how 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:29.400 y'all doing. I have someone absolutely amazing, a legend, gonna 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:35.080 go down in history as a trailblazer. She has been 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.479 helping people with their mental health since the late nineties. 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.440 And y'all, this icon, this legend is here to drop 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.600 some real knowledge that we can use today. I'm not 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.560 gonna waste no time. Let's get into it, y'all. This 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.160 is an amazing, amazing day that I have someone that 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.360 I can share space with. I'm gonna consider this sacred 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.680 space because of who she is, and that is what 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:07.000 she commands. Eyan la Venzant is one of the country's 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:12.960 most celebrated writers and speakers, among the most influential socially 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:18.240 engaged spiritual life coaches of our time, best selling author 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:23.800 and has a podcast on Shondaland Audio called The R Spot. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.840 And she has fixed all of our lives, whether we 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.240 were actually on the show or just watching from afar. 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.720 Please welcome. I don't care. I know this ain't in person, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:39.600 but stand to your feet and welcome mss Ian la 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:40.679 ven Zant. 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.080 Ah. Thank you so much. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.280 It truly is a joy to sit with you. I 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.200 shared space with you some years ago at Essence Fest 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.640 a while ago. Oh my gosh, yes ma'am, Yes, ma'am. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.160 And I'm glad that I got to honor you and 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.800 give you your fly hours while you were there. And 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:07.000 so today's episode is going to be a lot of honor. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.680 But while you hear of your wisdom, I'm not even 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.399 gonna call them nuggets, because Iyanla, don't drop nuggets. Nuggets 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.079 is what little shit suits be dropping in the yard. 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:23.720 I'll tell you, she drops gems, Okay, life gems. You 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.240 debuted into the mainstream with your iconic appearances on the 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.799 Oprah Winfrey Show in nineteen ninety eight, and you taught 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:37.680 women to say I'm not broke, but instead to say 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.160 I am temporarily out of cash. Just some of your 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.960 many sayings and how you were one of the first 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.960 black women someone that we could look up to that 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.520 we could talk about our state of our mental health 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.120 without any shame, but somebody that we can say, wow, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.680 missing Ila gets it. We're a trailblazer to do that 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:03.280 on such a big play. So from twenty two, from 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.120 back to nineteen ninety eight. How do you feel about 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.840 seeing how widely celebrated it is that we can talk 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:11.120 about our mental health. 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:16.639 Yeah, I just I'm so grateful, and I also want 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.399 us to do more than give it lip service. Now 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.839 at least we're talking about it, because you know, back then, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.799 you didn't even want people to know if you had 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:30.239 a headache, you know, much less if you were feeling depressed. 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.480 So I'm really grateful, and I still have great concern 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:41.560 that the way mental health is addressed and spoken about 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.640 and the services for it scheople don't always meet the 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:52.480 needs of women of color, particularly women of color, because 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:58.200 the depth of our wounded us, the depth of our experiences, 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:03.880 aren't always include did in the How can I say 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:09.520 this the traditional psychological models. I worked with a woman 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:15.320 a few years ago who, from all perspectives and intentions, 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:22.560 was physically verbally aggressive and you know, off the charts 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:27.000 if I can. And I was working with her and 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.080 I said, you know what, you're depressed. It didn't look 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.080 like the normal lay in the bed, don't brush your 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.360 teeth depression. And what I discovered, and I did some 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.760 work and talked to some people and came to understand 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:45.000 that there is a form of depression that manifests as 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:54.040 overt aggressive or abusive behavior, specifically among black women, and 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.919 nobody was talking about that, you know, so I was 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:02.360 able to connect her to someone that was familiar with it. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.920 So a lot of times we see with us what 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.279 would be called bad behavior, aggressive behavior, or the angry 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:13.000 black woman. It's really a form of depression. Depression meaning 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.600 that there's a place within where we feel totally alone, 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.359 totally unsupported, and hold the belief that we have to 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.880 do everything on our own for ourselves because nobody is 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.640 there to help us. That can be overwhelming, and what 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.520 it does to the average person is lays them down 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.360 in the bed. Yes, what it does to us very 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.800 often it sends us out with a vengeance. So it's 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.200 just something that I think we need to pay more 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:43.839 attention to. 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.680 It not only sends us out with a vengeance, but 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:47.960 it's because we have to. 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:49.440 Yeah. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.520 Yeah, a lot of people don't have, you know, the 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:57.240 resources to take time off to go get counseling with 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.599 someone that speaks to them. 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:00.279 Yeah. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.680 I want your take on why do you think as 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.839 it relates to black people, that when we say the 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.039 word depression as if it's a plague. I want to 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:13.880 stay away from me. We don't talk about that, honey, 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.040 I'm saved, sanctified, feel with the hot host. Ain't no 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:23.960 depression over here, And it's like, yes there. 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.960 It's cultural for us, I mean, dating back to our 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:35.400 oldest ancestors, A we don't affirm anything wrong, so there 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:40.040 can't be anything wrong with me. And if I can't 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.080 live up to the expectations, the requirements, the demands, the 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.279 responsibilities of whatever my role is in the village or 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.799 in the community and now in the society, then there's 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:56.400 something wrong with me. Culturally, I don't speak about that. Culturally, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.120 we cover it up, we hide it, we mask it 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.800 because if there's something wrong with me, it's going to 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.760 impart certain responsibilities on other people. And because I don't 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.320 want to be a burden, let me just mask, cover high, 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.760 deny whatever is going on. So that's one thing. The 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.800 other thing is and this is specifically for women of color. 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.000 And I say women of color because I'm part Native American, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:29.280 part Latin, and part Black and part so I say 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.240 women of color because very often, as descendants of Africans, 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.560 we don't look at the other our sister women in 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.800 the Native American culture or the Latin culture as experiencing 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:43.800 many of the same things that we do to a 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:49.960 different degree, but very often as women of color. This 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:57.720 whole notion of depression speaks to our strength. And since 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.920 we have the myth of the superwoman and the beast 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:06.920 of burden and the one responsible for everyone else, we 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:12.720 we can't abdicate our responsibilities or fail to meet the 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:18.920 expectations of others. So we deny again in mask or 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.560 overcompensate to prove to you, I'm not feeling like a 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.800 pile of crap. I'm going to overdo, overgive, over commit, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:33.199 or overspeak, you know, yes. And then for Latin women, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.320 you know, culturally, for them in the machismo of the 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.760 Latin community, what the woman wants or needs or whatever, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.280 you know, that's subjugated to whatever the men are wanted. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.120 And then in the Native community, you know, women are 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.280 like dust on your shoe. You don't even ask them. 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.840 They and if you ask them, they probably won't have 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:56.800 anything to say. So it's shifting. It's shifting, and we 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.960 have to be grateful. But the shift requires is that 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:07.080 we become willing to speak it aloud, to speak it aloud, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.640 you know, yes, and not just carry the burden or 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.280 take on the responsibility as a part of this dysfunctional 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.720 culture that we find ourselves in here where women are 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:21.559 just carrying so much weight. 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.199 Carrying so much weight. And I thank you for affirming 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.319 and empowering us to begin to talk about it. Even 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.440 if some of us we're talking about we don't have 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.520 the right language for, we might not be talking about 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.560 it in the right way, but I'm so glad that 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.320 we are getting there. As it relates to depression, I 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:48.200 remember asking my mother. I became open about depression in 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.200 twenty thirteen, pretty much by accident. I was doing an 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.480 interview and somehow I was like, oh, yeah, you know, 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.840 back in twenty twelve, I was in the bed for 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.800 weeks talking about depression and I'm supposed to be promoting 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.320 Fell Out of the musical, and here I am. Somehow 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:09.280 depression gotten the mixed and mister an, let you know 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:11.840 how this goes like you might think you said something 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.640 off the record, but it made the interview and it 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:21.079 became sure this headline, and I was so ashamed because 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.200 I thought, are people going to look at me as 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.800 a liability? Then in twenty eighteen having to check myself 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:35.400 into a treatment facility for depression, and the support and 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.920 the love that I've gotten, and for people saying thank 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.080 you for not letting me feel like something's wrong with 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:46.520 me or that I'm alone. I have decided to speak 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.200 up about it and let people know the journey, and 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:55.880 thank you for being a trailblazer and helping people feel empowered. Yeah, 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.720 to talk about it. I'm saying all this to say, 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.240 even still trying to talk to say my mother about it. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:08.800 She is seventy, there's still some oh yeah, resistance, resistance 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.600 and shame, shame even and even to talk about other 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.520 medical issues. I need to know what was carried in 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.839 my bloodline. Why are we so afraid to say, well, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.560 you know, grandfather had such and such, such and such. 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:24.920 Now she did tell me, she said she does believe 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.840 my grandfather, had there been a diagnosis for him, that 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.200 he would have been bipolar. So I was shocked to 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.480 hear her say that. But mental health issues, I don't know, 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:36.079 like you said, if it's still because we don't want 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.280 to affirm anything wrong or give power to spirits, because 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.440 apparently what you give power to that thing manifesting girls 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.640 and I'm like, no, we got to know what grandfather had, 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.280 we got to know what Mama had. 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.120 Well, again, for us, it is cultural, and you know 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.560 how it was handled back in great great grandma's days. 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.080 You went to the wise woman or the or the 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:04.840 medicine man, and you got yourself together. Every disease or 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:10.200 imbalance has a spiritual component, and many of us embrace 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:16.679 a spiritual foundation that doesn't always support us in telling 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:22.280 the truth about what we are experiencing. But culturally, not 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.480 only was it is it taboo to admit that there's 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.520 something wrong with you, It is inappropriate to speak your 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:35.679 family business. So God, now that I'm older and I 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.240 look back and I say, oh God, my cousin James 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:42.240 was gay. He wasn't even gay, he was hysterical. You know. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.520 But black men, you didn't talk about it. You didn't 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.319 talk your family business outside. And very often we didn't know, 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.800 we didn't know. We called it something else. 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:53.960 We called it crazy. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.920 They just different, They different, right, don't even you know? 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:03.240 So it's cultural or for us, but those taboos and 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.160 those behaviors that are not supported because we live in 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.720 a very different time. We live in a very different time. 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.199 You know, there was a time when I could go 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.400 and lay my head in Grandma's bosom, and her in 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.960 the prayer warriors would stand around me and lift me out. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.560 But now Grandma might be in the crackhouse, or she 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.720 might be in a senior citizen center, or I might 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.679 not even know who she is, you know. So some 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.319 of the things, some of the things that we had 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.840 in our community, in our village, in our culture that 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.720 would support us in moving through these things, we don't 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.679 have them anymore, so we have to come up with 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.760 new ways. The other thing is people talk about mental health, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:52.120 but they still think of two words crazy and wrong, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.720 which then generates a lot of shame for black people. 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.080 You can be fat, you can be ugly, you can 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:06.840 be broke, but you can't be wrong. You know, it's 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.040 cultural for us, as we were indoctrinated to believe that 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.600 because our skin was dark and our hair was wooly, 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.160 and because we came from a place called Africa where 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.920 the majority of the people were dark with wooly hair, 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:24.120 there's something wrong with us. We don't meet the standard, 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:26.720 and we don't understand that. We carry that as a 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.400 cellular memory in our DNA. So let me weigh five 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:34.680 hundred pounds, and every medical facility wants to help me. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.720 Let me be ugly as the bottom of somebody's shoe, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.840 and I can go get some plastic surgery. But please 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:46.160 don't let me be wrong. Don't let anything be wrong 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.720 with me, okay, because then that triggers up that cellular 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:55.160 memory of being inferior and being savage, and being beaten 0:14:55.400 --> 0:15:00.080 and being denigrated, dishonor disrespect. We don't understand that that 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.240 still rings true within us. So while we talk about 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.480 mental health, we still have these labels that we attached 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.960 to it, and we don't think of it just as 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.440 a form of health. It's health. Your mind needs to 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.200 be healthy, and that's what mental health is. How do 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.720 I get my mind healthy? It's nothing wrong with it, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.360 But the same way I can have breast cancer, or 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.440 I can have diabetes, or I can have hypertension, or 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.080 I can have gout or arthritis, that's health in the body. 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.160 Mental health is simply health in the mind. And the 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.760 things that give you gout give you gout, and the 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.360 things that give you depression give you depression. And the 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.800 things that give you cancer give you cancer. And the 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.080 things that make you bipolar, make you buipolar. It's just health, 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.080 and that's how we got to think about it. 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.280 Come on, if y'll checking in is on the right path. 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.920 That is what we speak over here because we put 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.320 mental health way over here, but our part of a 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.160 vascular health, gynecological health, neural health, we all lump it 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.000 over here. Yeah, it's like I've tell people, you know, 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:12.400 some of the same mental health offices, psychiatric offices, psychologists. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.440 They're in the same building as your obgyn. It's not 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:16.640 over there somewhere. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.360 The other thing that we don't give enough consideration to 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:27.440 is that there are physiological influences on mental health. If 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:34.280 there are certain imbalances and discordant energies in your physical body, 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.640 it will affect your mind. My daughter had coalon cancer 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.600 thirty one years old. Never drank, never smoke, had been 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.720 a vegetarian for twenty two years, and she got coalon cancer. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.400 And they said it was a rare form of coalon 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:53.760 cancer called familial palopopis, which is supposed to be ancestral. 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.240 It runs through your bloodline. We couldn't find it in 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.800 my side of the family or her father's side of family, 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.960 but my mother did have breast cancer, so it may 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.119 have just hipped the generation and showed up that way. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.080 But throughout her treatment, I mean it was just certain 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.840 days it was like, who is this person and where 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.800 did they come from? And in prayer one day, I 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.840 was just reminded, the same disease that is affecting her 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.919 body is affecting her mind. She is thinking with a 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:31.000 diseased mind. You cannot expect her body to be affected 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.800 by cancer and not have an impact on her mind. 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.680 And I was like, oh my god, I never even 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:42.159 thought about that. So there are physiological things that also 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:47.080 lead to certain mental health imbalances or mental health challenges. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.800 I personally happened to believe that the whole notion of 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.200 being bipolar what they used to call what did they 0:17:55.240 --> 0:18:01.280 had another name a manic depressive, manic depressed. It got 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:02.680 to be bipolar about but. 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.720 Ten years ago, but I did not know that. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.080 Oh yeah, it was manic depressive, then it became bipolar. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:15.080 I happened to believe that there is such a powerful 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:22.119 spiritual component to bipolarists that you can't fix with a pill. 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.720 You can't fix that with a pill. There's something going 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:30.560 on in there with the spirit that you got to address, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.480 you know, In African culture, it is believed that we 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.240 have what's called an egg bay, and an egg bay 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:45.119 is the union of our ancestors on the other side. Yes, 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:51.800 and sometimes for many of us in our ancestral line 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:57.800 people weren't buried with reverence. People weren't honored after they died. 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.840 They were hung on trees enough there for days and 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.520 then maybe dumped in a hole. But what happened to 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.800 put that spirit to rest so that that spirit would 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.960 have rest? You know now that the physical body is decayed, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:18.240 who's calling that person's name in prayer? So I personally 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:25.480 believe that there are some spiritual imbalances in our ancestral 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:32.560 lineage that also lend to the experience of bipolarism. That's 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.080 just me. I'm crazy. Don't pay me no, mom. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.879 I have never durned near stood up during it. And 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.240 I can stand up because I got my breeches on below. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:47.679 So okay, okay, so okay, okay, you're helping me. You 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.760 answered the why I've gotten so angry at people. Even 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:56.800 lately in comments of certain people talking about therapy and 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:02.479 Jesus therapy and spiritual reality, it's been said, well, you 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:08.840 don't need this because you don't trust God enough, but 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:17.320 I am so my cellular stuff is just going because 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.920 you just answered why people have a disconnect between our 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:27.240 mental health therapy that side and the spiritual side. It 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:32.120 can be and it is both. And you can have 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.760 prayer and like you said, you can have something going 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.000 on in the mind, but you're still a great woman, 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.480 You're still a successful man, but something's going on in 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:41.120 the spirit. 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.240 Yeah. You know, think of your therapists as the gonecologists 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:45.959 for your brains. 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:47.960 You're talking right. 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.560 You know you don't go to the godacologists to take 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.000 care of that stuff and then not do everything else 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.919 to take care of it. You know, your therapist is 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.320 the gonecologists for your brain, or the theologists for your brain, 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.400 or the. 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:04.879 Sound bite for the post. 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:09.480 Think of your sound bitts as the god ecologist for 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.960 your brain. Got to go in there o corral, see 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:17.520 what happening in what's going on, and then help you. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:22.600 And in terms of prayer, God uses people so you 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.040 can pray and you can embrace whatever your faith walk is, 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.320 whether it's Jesus or Buddha, Muhammad or I mean Allah 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:34.280 or whatever it is. And maybe that divine entity is 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.399 going to send you to the right gonecologist for your brain. 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:45.600 Come on together, let me tell you a quick story. 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.760 My birth mother died when I was two, and unfortunately, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.840 everybody either forgot or chose to tell me that my 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.720 birth mother was an alcoholic. And it was discovered when 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:02.000 she was carrying me that she had breast cancer and leukemia. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.399 And so I was born and she died when I 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:07.919 was two years and three months old. And like I said, 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.040 nobody ever told me grow up thinking one woman is 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.160 my mother and she wasn't. I was thirty years old 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.359 and I found out. But here's the point that I 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.800 want to make. My mother was an alcoholic. I grew up. 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.120 I never drank. Never. I don't dream this very day. 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.920 My biggest drink is a is a Shirley Temple. And 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.480 every now and then I'll have kolua and cream when 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:31.760 I want to be grown. 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.080 Don't be grown. I thought she was gonna say ginger ale, 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:34.960 but okay. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:39.119 A lou and cream. And then also my mother was 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:44.400 the other woman. My father was married. My father was married, 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.040 and he and his wife lived around the corner. My 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.720 mother was his side piece, and she lived in my 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.439 grandmother's house. My father's mother's house, and that's where I 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.560 was born and my brother was born. And again, because 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.520 I never knew her, I grew up all my life 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:06.160 feeling guilty. I was always wrong. I always did something wrong, 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:08.560 no matter what happened, it was my fault. I was bad. 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.800 Blah blah blah blah blah. Fast forward. I was about 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.240 thirty years old when I found out the truth about 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.520 my mother being dead, being the other woman, and being 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:22.760 the alcoholic, and through work, spiritual work, prayer and meditation 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:27.680 and also working with I guess he was a therapist. 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:33.840 I discovered this. Hear me that I marinated in the womb, 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.880 first of all in liquor, so I probably had enough 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.200 liquor in the womb. I didn't never need another drink, 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:45.919 you know, I never I had probably you know, she 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.080 was an alcoholic. I don't know what she was drinking, 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:53.159 but probably. And the grace is, this is grace that 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.359 I was not born with fetal alcohol syndrome. I wasn't not, 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:02.919 but I was born within the emotional addiction, and it 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:08.040 was guilt. I marinated in my mother's guilt of being 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:12.679 the other woman. She was guilty and she was ashamed. 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.680 So for most of I mean, I was pregnant at sixteen, 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.840 pregnant at nineteen, lived in an abusive marriage, did so 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:25.359 many things that engendered guilt within me, and I just 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:29.480 lived it out until, with prayer, meditation and a good 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:33.000 support system, discovered that the guilt that I was living, 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:36.000 a shame that I was feeling, wasn't even mine, it 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:38.840 was hers. I didn't have anything to be guilty about, 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:43.280 anything to be ashamed of, but I marinated in it 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:46.160 in the womb. Let me tell you something, Michelle. I'd 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.040 work with that, and I researched it and I dug it, 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:52.520 and it just became clear to me that many of 0:24:52.600 --> 0:25:04.000 us marinated in things in the womb. Shame, fear, guilt, aggression, loneliness, sadness, abandoned, abandoned, rejection, disappointment. 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:08.720 That's what our mothers were experiencing. And it gets woven 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:13.040 into the matrix of our DNA, of our cells, of 0:25:13.080 --> 0:25:16.160 our bone marrow, and we come forth with these issues 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:19.960 and challenges and problems that affect our mental health and 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:23.560 then not even ours, they're not even ours. 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:27.440 So not only intergenerational, but what would you call it, 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:31.760 intro wound, intrautero, something. 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:35.359 In vitro, in vitro, you know, in utero, whatever you 0:25:35.400 --> 0:25:39.760 want to call it. My mother was a drunken hear 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:41.760 me I say this. You don't say this because I'm 0:25:41.760 --> 0:25:43.560 gonna get you if you say it. My mother was 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:47.040 a drunken hole who lived with shame and guilt. Now 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:50.000 I can say that, and I want to say that 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:55.200 to understand what she was experiencing so that I could 0:25:55.240 --> 0:25:58.320 forgive it a meal. But once I did the spiritual 0:25:58.359 --> 0:26:01.840 work of forgiveness for my then I also had to 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:05.720 do the work required to shift my consciousness and my behavior. 0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:08.600 I'm not always wrong, it's not always my fault. It's 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:12.520 not my responsibility. And I don't have to sneak around 0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:15.240 and hide round and not be the truth of who 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:18.440 I am because my mother was the other woman. I'm 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:22.120 telling you, it's all about mental health, and we need both. 0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:24.840 We need the prayer and the spiritual work, and we 0:26:24.960 --> 0:26:28.200 need somebody to help us unpack that. But how many 0:26:28.240 --> 0:26:32.000 of us don't even know our mother's story Because culturally, 0:26:32.400 --> 0:26:35.359