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Speaker 2: I encourage people to be doing the healing work that
Speaker 2: they need, but don't forget about how that healing work
Speaker 2: is also a part of a larger system, which is
Speaker 2: the community that we live in, and even this world
Speaker 2: that we complain about this world that's full of so
Speaker 2: much oppression, this world that's full of so much hate
Speaker 2: and chaos. Well, guess who makes the world function?
Speaker 1: People, Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great
Speaker 1: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good way. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Mina Bee,
Speaker 1: a former psychotherapist specializing in anxiety, depression, and trauma. Mina
Speaker 1: has worked in several mental health industries, including early childhood
Speaker 1: in New York City's early head Start programs, private practice,
Speaker 1: and community mental health. In this episode, Eric, Jenny and
Speaker 1: Mina discuss her book Owning Our Struggles, A Path to
Speaker 1: healing and finding community in a Broken World.
Speaker 3: Hi Mina, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hi Eric and Jinny, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you. We're going
Speaker 4: to be discussing your book, Owning Our Struggles, a Path
Speaker 4: to Healing and Finding Community in a Broken World. But
Speaker 4: before we jump into that, we'll start like we always do.
Speaker 4: And I forgot to welcome Ginny, who's sitting next to me,
Speaker 4: so welcome about me, Welcome me. I'll let you do
Speaker 4: the parable.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 6: I mean it goes like this. A grandparent was talking
Speaker 6: with their grandchild and they said, in life, there are
Speaker 6: two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 6: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 6: and bravery and love, and one is a bad wolf,
Speaker 6: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 6: the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 6: looks up at their grandparents and says, well, which one wins?
Speaker 6: And the grandparents said, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 6: like to ask you what that parable means to you
Speaker 6: in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 2: I think the first thing that comes to mind is
Speaker 2: this idea that two things can coexist, two opposing things
Speaker 2: can coexist. We have the capacity to harness goodness, purity, joy,
Speaker 2: but I think I think it's important to remember that we
Speaker 2: also have the capacity to harm, to hurt, and to
Speaker 2: cause pain. And it is up to us to hold
Speaker 2: ourselves accountable by being cognizant of the parts of ourselves
Speaker 2: that we feed, of the parts of ourselves that we
Speaker 2: tune into, the parts of ourselves that we heal, because
Speaker 2: healing is a choice, and the things that you feed
Speaker 2: yourself is a choice. And so that's what comes to
Speaker 2: mind when I hear that powable.
Speaker 4: That's really beautiful. And one of the things I love
Speaker 4: about your work is you are holding two things in
Speaker 4: your work a lot at the same time, right, And
Speaker 4: it is this idea that we are a result of
Speaker 4: the circumstances that we are grown up in our childhoods,
Speaker 4: the communities that we're in, the privilege we do or
Speaker 4: don't have, the abuse we do or don't suffer. So
Speaker 4: you're holding that, but you're holding equally this idea that
Speaker 4: we are not powerless people, that we have a great
Speaker 4: deal of our our own innate power. And I love
Speaker 4: that balance because we often see people with one or
Speaker 4: the other of those. But I find that holding both
Speaker 4: is really what's required for.
Speaker 2: Healing, absolutely, and I think when we make space for both,
Speaker 2: we can deal with the intricacies that come with life.
Speaker 2: You know, I think in the mental health field as
Speaker 2: a therapist, I practiced for nine years up until twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and that is when I pivoted to corporate wellness work.
Speaker 2: But I think our current climate around mental health is
Speaker 2: how can I feel good all the time? And when
Speaker 2: we don't take the time to explore our emotions, the
Speaker 2: story behind our emotions, I think sometimes we forget that
Speaker 2: pain can also have a purpose, right. I think that
Speaker 2: when we look in the cracks and crevices of our
Speaker 2: pain and our hurt and our traumas, we can realize, yes,
Speaker 2: there are things that happen to us that we can't control.
Speaker 2: We can't change his way, we can't change our paths,
Speaker 2: but we do harness a power within to be able
Speaker 2: to overcome the difficulties that we've experienced in life. And
Speaker 2: sometimes that's going to be hard. Sometimes that's going to
Speaker 2: make me sad. Sometimes that will make me want to cry,
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean I'm not healing, right, It just
Speaker 2: means I'm human. And that is what this work really
Speaker 2: speaks to, allowing two opposing things to coexist and know
Speaker 2: that pain is hard to deal with, but there is
Speaker 2: also power that I hold as a person where I
Speaker 2: don't have to allow that pain to control me or
Speaker 2: even dictate the type of future I see for myself.
Speaker 4: It's funny my mom had back surgery a few weeks
Speaker 4: ago and she's still in the hospital. She's had a
Speaker 4: number of setbacks, but that very idea when you were
Speaker 4: saying that, it just hit me. She thinks the fact
Speaker 4: that she's in pain is a sign that this went badly,
Speaker 4: whereas it's not. I mean, it could be, but it's
Speaker 4: part of what she needs to overcome. And if she's
Speaker 4: waiting and looking for there not to be pain in
Speaker 4: the healing process, she's not going to engage in the healing.
Speaker 4: And so this applies on so many different levels.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I connected with it too.
Speaker 6: It just made me think about even recently, I've caught
Speaker 6: myself in this mindset, which is if I'm not careful,
Speaker 6: like if I wake up one day and am in
Speaker 6: a low mood, or feel low, or feel heavy, or
Speaker 6: feel just I don't know if sad. Maybe sad's too far.
Speaker 6: It's just I don't feel great. My first inclination is
Speaker 6: to think.
Speaker 5: Like, what am I doing wrong? You know, what am
Speaker 5: I doing wrong in this day?
Speaker 6: What could I do differently so that I'd be doing
Speaker 6: it better so I'd feel better? But I can remind
Speaker 6: myself in those moments, like you just reminded us that
Speaker 6: it's part of the human experience. It doesn't mean we're
Speaker 6: doing something wrong. Or even more importantly, to remember it's
Speaker 6: not that we are wrong for feeling those emotions, right.
Speaker 6: You talk about the inability to cope with our emotions
Speaker 6: can often come from judging them. Judging our emotions, you know,
Speaker 6: Labeling emotions is bad and then assuming we are bad
Speaker 6: people for feeling them, instead of learning to accept and
Speaker 6: embrace them, that they exist because we're human.
Speaker 5: I just find that such a powerful thing to remember.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny that you bring that story up
Speaker 2: about your mother, Eric, because my mother had knee replacement
Speaker 2: surgery two weeks ago, which is a very extensive surgery.
Speaker 2: If you know anyone who's ever dealt with it, and
Speaker 2: I am her primary caretaker through all of this. Oh wow, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very interesting because while taking care of her, you know,
Speaker 2: the first week was extremely hard. As we moved into
Speaker 2: the second week, she had moments where I saw in
Speaker 2: her face she looked like she was really sad and depressed,
Speaker 2: and I would ask her what's wrong, and she's just like,
Speaker 2: I feel really bad that you have to do all
Speaker 2: of this for me. She had a lot of guilt
Speaker 2: and she's just like, you're sacrificing so much of your time.
Speaker 2: And I said to her, Mama, can sacrifice two to
Speaker 2: three weeks of my life to take care of you.
Speaker 2: Remember the way you feel right now is not your forever.
Speaker 2: I know you're going to heal. You're in pain for
Speaker 2: two to three weeks. The healing for a surgery like this,
Speaker 2: the immediate healing process takes about three to four weeks.
Speaker 2: I can sacrifice that. But I had to remind her.
Speaker 2: I'm like, see, the issue is your mindset right now?
Speaker 2: Is this is your forever? And remember, if I have
Speaker 2: hope that you're going to heal, I need you to
Speaker 2: have that same level of hope for yourself too. And
Speaker 2: I think sometimes when we're in pain, we go into
Speaker 2: forever mode? Am I ever getting out of this?
Speaker 6: Almost always, I would say, and I don't use that
Speaker 6: word often, but like I find myself almost always that's
Speaker 6: my first thought is like, well, this is how it's just.
Speaker 4: Going to be.
Speaker 6: But I like the word hope that you just dropped
Speaker 6: in there, that you held hope she's going to get better,
Speaker 6: and so she can also perhaps kind of share in
Speaker 6: your hope for her exactly, and we maybe benefit from that.
Speaker 2: That brings me back to the power of community care.
Speaker 2: And that's why that's so central to my work, because
Speaker 2: I always say, if I can have hope for myself,
Speaker 2: I can extend it to you, and I can hope
Speaker 2: that you would have hope for your own situation, And
Speaker 2: if you can't have it, I'll have it for you
Speaker 2: because I'm believing something better for you, so that one
Speaker 2: moments when I look at your face and I see
Speaker 2: sadness sketched in your eyes and I see you watering
Speaker 2: up with tears in your eyes, I can look at
Speaker 2: you and be hopeful for you in moments when you
Speaker 2: feel like you can't think of joy or cultivate happiness,
Speaker 2: I'll be that person for you because I know you
Speaker 2: will heal. You're making progress so already, and that goes
Speaker 2: to anything in life. And I think this is why
Speaker 2: having people is so important in the work that I
Speaker 2: practice as a therapist, but just also in life, because
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we're in that dark tunnel and you
Speaker 2: know how they have that metaphor you're looking for a light,
Speaker 2: and sometimes I think people are our light. Even if
Speaker 2: the both of us are in that dark tunnel together
Speaker 2: and we don't see the light that we're looking for,
Speaker 2: that person can be the light that you need in
Speaker 2: that moment. And that's just why I think it's important
Speaker 2: for us to bring people into our experiences as we journey,
Speaker 2: because sometimes our suffering can become so magnified that we
Speaker 2: need someone else to remind us. If I'm going to
Speaker 2: be hopeful in this moment, I encourage you to be
Speaker 2: hopeful as well. But if you can't do that, I'll
Speaker 2: do it for you.
Speaker 5: Oh MENA, that is so beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was interviewed last week for an addiction summit. I
Speaker 4: have a background with addiction, and the person said like, well,
Speaker 4: what one thing do you believe to be true about addiction?
Speaker 4: And I said, well, in general, I'm going to say
Speaker 4: addiction is too complex to boil it down to one thing.
Speaker 4: But if I was forced to say one true statement
Speaker 4: about addiction, it would be that people don't recover by themselves.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean you have to go to twelve step groups,
Speaker 4: but doing it alone for the vast, vast majority of
Speaker 4: people isn't going to work. And it's partially what you
Speaker 4: just said. It's in the grips of addiction, it feels
Speaker 4: completely hopeless. And I know for me being in meetings
Speaker 4: where I saw other people who said I felt just
Speaker 4: like that, but look at me now was what got
Speaker 4: me through many many days when I didn't have any
Speaker 4: hope that I could get better. But I saw that
Speaker 4: they did, and that was enough to sort of carry
Speaker 4: me through.
Speaker 2: You know, Eric, that's so funny the parallel that's happening
Speaker 2: between us right now, totally because people often ask me
Speaker 2: what made me center community care in my work, and
Speaker 2: I went to NYU to study social work in my
Speaker 2: graduate program, and my second year placement was at hazeldin
Speaker 2: Betty Ford Foundation. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, yes,
Speaker 2: And in hazeldin our core way of working with our
Speaker 2: clients is through group therapy and that practice of sitting
Speaker 2: with people, letting them listen to each other's stories, teaching
Speaker 2: them to manage conflict in the room, helping them practice
Speaker 2: compassion and empathy in a room of twelve strangers who
Speaker 2: had to go on a six month journey together. They're
Speaker 2: in that program that to me modeled what community care
Speaker 2: looks like, and that is why I made community care
Speaker 2: at the center of my work being an intern at Hezelden.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Wow, Yeah, it's such a beautiful thing to see.
Speaker 4: I mean, I went through a six month halfway house
Speaker 4: and it was the same sort of thing.
Speaker 5: It was groups.
Speaker 4: And I always say to people like I've done a
Speaker 4: lot of healing on my own through meditation and spiritual
Speaker 4: practices and therapy and all that, but equally important and
Speaker 4: equally powerful to me, if not more so, has been
Speaker 4: all the group work that I've done of different types
Speaker 4: over the years. It's so so powerful.
Speaker 6: The quote that you put at the beginning of your
Speaker 6: book really struck both of us.
Speaker 5: You say, self care is the bridge.
Speaker 6: To community care, and community care is the bridge to
Speaker 6: community healing, and that really is a foundational theme in
Speaker 6: your book. Which I think is so important that we
Speaker 6: just talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it speaks to this concept of what Eric just said. Right,
Speaker 2: you can do all this healing work and that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: You can meditate, you can go on retreats, you can
Speaker 2: even go to therapy and do that one on one work.
Speaker 2: But in my book, I always go back to this
Speaker 2: focus of but we heal to integrate into community. Heal
Speaker 2: because relationships are at the center of our well being.
Speaker 2: Heal because being a part of a community helps us
Speaker 2: to combat loneliness, It boosts our self esteem, it increases
Speaker 2: feelings of confidence. That plays a critical role going back
Speaker 2: to early childhood, infancy, the importance of a child developing
Speaker 2: attachment with a caregiver. Why do we think attachment and
Speaker 2: building bonds stops once we turn eighteen?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: You know this is a journey, which is why from
Speaker 2: infancy it's important we develop it. But the goal is
Speaker 2: for that to move with us through life. I encourage
Speaker 2: people to be doing the healing work that they need,
Speaker 2: but don't forget about how that healing work is also
Speaker 2: a part of a larger system, which is the community
Speaker 2: that we live in and even this world that we
Speaker 2: ca complain about this world that's full of so much oppression,
Speaker 2: this world that's full of so much hate and chaos, Well,
Speaker 2: guess who makes the world function people.
Speaker 6: Indeed, as healing as community can be, it can also
Speaker 6: be a source of great pain and trauma, right that
Speaker 6: the systems that enjure and oppress on various levels. And
Speaker 6: that's another I found just really compelling theme in your book.
Speaker 6: And I wonder if you would feel comfortable sharing a
Speaker 6: story with us that you share in the book about
Speaker 6: something that happened to you when you were ten years
Speaker 6: old in home depot. And I think it's an important
Speaker 6: and really powerful story if you're comfortable sharing it here,
Speaker 6: because I think it illustrates so many different points that
Speaker 6: maybe we'll touch on through our conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can absolutely share it. I will start off
Speaker 2: by saying that I had to record the audio book recently,
Speaker 2: and when I started sharing this story, I started to
Speaker 2: tear up. So in case that happens in this moment
Speaker 2: and people hear my voice cracking, it's it's a very
Speaker 2: deeply emotional story for me to revisit, but I do
Speaker 2: want to share it because I think it's important. So
Speaker 2: when I was ten years old. I was in a
Speaker 2: home depot, specifically in Fort Myers, Florida, and the state
Speaker 2: of Florida in our current climate, shouldn't be shocking that
Speaker 2: this happened to me. And so what ended up happening
Speaker 2: is I was walking in an aisle with my uncle,
Speaker 2: and my uncle is deaf, and my parents were in
Speaker 2: a different part of the store, and me and my
Speaker 2: uncle we were in the aisle by ourselves, and I
Speaker 2: saw these two white male police officers coming down the
Speaker 2: aisle making eye contact with me and looking at me
Speaker 2: very firmly. So here I am in my body ten
Speaker 2: years old. Grew up with the belief that my parents
Speaker 2: shared with me. If a cop ever approaches you, it
Speaker 2: means you did something bad. Just keep your cool, keep
Speaker 2: your calm. So that's what's playing in my head because
Speaker 2: I see them making eye contact walking toward me, and
Speaker 2: I just feel so frozen in my body. My trauma
Speaker 2: response is kicking in, especially also because I knew I
Speaker 2: would have to be doing most of the communicating. And
Speaker 2: so they come and approach me and they're like, ma'am,
Speaker 2: can we please see your ID? And so I'm like, ma'am,
Speaker 2: like I know I look older than I typically am, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, not ten people mistaken me as a teenager,
Speaker 2: but to be called ma'am was just so off putting,
Speaker 2: and it was just so strange, you know. So I'm
Speaker 2: staring at him and he's like, well, how old are you?
Speaker 2: And I said, I'm ten years old. So at that
Speaker 2: point I start communicating with my uncle to find my
Speaker 2: parents in the store somewhere because I could tell they
Speaker 2: needed to have a conversation that I wasn't equipped to have.
Speaker 2: He finds them, My parents come and they approach the
Speaker 2: officers and they're like, can you tell us what's going on?
Speaker 2: And the officer responds and says, a woman identified your
Speaker 2: daughter and said she stole her purse then proceeded to
Speaker 2: steal her wallet out of her purse. And as I
Speaker 2: heard that story, literally the little ten year old me,
Speaker 2: who was frozen in fear, instantly was like, what, I
Speaker 2: didn't do that. And I even write in a book
Speaker 2: I felt like I had an alibi already at ten
Speaker 2: years old, where I'm like, I was doing this and
Speaker 2: I was doing that, and I was with my uncle
Speaker 2: and what are you talking about. I didn't steal anything,
Speaker 2: So the officers didn't believe me. They kept having rebuttals, well,
Speaker 2: this is what the woman said, and so my parents intervened,
Speaker 2: and I just remember listening to my parents defending me.
Speaker 2: But there was one particular thing that they said in
Speaker 2: that moment that I had never forgotten. And I heard
Speaker 2: them say, it's because we're black, isn't it. And I
Speaker 2: remember as a child thinking to myself, they approached me
Speaker 2: because I'm black, and I grew up in a predominantly
Speaker 2: black neighborhood, went to predominantly black schools, so I never
Speaker 2: really thought of being othered, you know, because I was
Speaker 2: always amongst my own people. And when my parents said that,
Speaker 2: I heard a negative connotation in their voice, though, so
Speaker 2: I thought, well, who cares if they're white, Why does
Speaker 2: it matter that we're black? And they continued on arguing
Speaker 2: with each other. My parents refused to back down, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, the officers were like, you know,
Speaker 2: not forget it. We're gonna leave it alone. And I
Speaker 2: remember walking out of that store in at ten. I
Speaker 2: know I was young, but I was a little emotionally
Speaker 2: mature at my age because of some of the things
Speaker 2: that I've gone through, And I just remember thinking so
Speaker 2: They're not gonna, like look for footage to see if
Speaker 2: I did this. They're not going to see if there
Speaker 2: are any key witnesses to see if I did this.
Speaker 2: And then I remember my parents saying, who is this woman?
Speaker 3: Where is she?
Speaker 2: She's hiding and she's being protected. Meanwhile, this child is
Speaker 2: being blamed for a crime she did not do. And
Speaker 2: so that story was the beginning of me having to
Speaker 2: reconcile with what it meant to be black in America.
Speaker 2: And I remember going home home, sitting with my parents
Speaker 2: who who said to me, because of the color of
Speaker 2: your skin, there are going to be things that you
Speaker 2: endure and things that you face in this country simply
Speaker 2: because you are black, And there are going to be
Speaker 2: some things that we may not be able to equip
Speaker 2: you to now help you navigate these situations because they're
Speaker 2: so complex and they're going to be so deep, but
Speaker 2: they're going to travel with you everywhere you go. And
Speaker 2: so this is why you have to.
Speaker 3: Be this particular person.
Speaker 2: You have to show up in the world this particular way,
Speaker 2: which kind of creates this idea of the strong black
Speaker 2: woman trope. You can't cry, you can't be weak, you
Speaker 2: can't show certain parts of yourself because people will say
Speaker 2: you're ghetto, people will say you're uneducated, people will say
Speaker 2: you're not good enough, and that it's unfortunate. But the
Speaker 2: things that they said came to fruition, and I had
Speaker 2: to learn how to navigate those things as an adult
Speaker 2: in this country. But that would be the story that
Speaker 2: shaped how I see myself in this world.
Speaker 6: I want to sort of hold a moment for the
Speaker 6: power and the real grief that's there still.
Speaker 5: I can just yeah, see that and hear that in
Speaker 5: your voice.
Speaker 6: I'm wondering, as you mentioned in your book, so if
Speaker 6: some of this grief, you say that reading words around
Speaker 6: being black being exhausting, that those words can fill you
Speaker 6: with grief, because yes, you were exhausted, but it had
Speaker 6: nothing to do with being black. It had everything to
Speaker 6: do with the power of white supremacy and how those
Speaker 6: roots run deep with an American soil. Can you tell
Speaker 6: me a bit about the grief that you still hold,
Speaker 6: the sadness that this story still kind of evokes in you,
Speaker 6: and what that is connected to specifically.
Speaker 2: Now, I think it's connected to the grief of knowing
Speaker 2: that you can exist in a world we're simply because
Speaker 2: of your race, people will literally want you dead. The
Speaker 2: fact that if I knock on the wrong door, someone
Speaker 2: will shoot me. The fact that if I enter a
Speaker 2: particular neighborhood because of the color of my skin, someone
Speaker 2: would demand identification from me. The fact that I could
Speaker 2: be walking in a grocery store and someone will just
Speaker 2: say I want to kill black people today, and I
Speaker 2: could be a victim of that. And I share those
Speaker 2: examples because those are not just opinions. Those are facts
Speaker 2: of things that have happened in American society. And every
Speaker 2: time a black and brown person is murdered simply because
Speaker 2: of their race, I can think to myself, that could
Speaker 2: have been me. And that is deeply hard to reconcile with.
Speaker 2: To know that you're doing something as small as looking
Speaker 2: through an aisle to pick up dinner for your children,
Speaker 2: and someone could murder you in a supermarket because you
Speaker 2: are black.
Speaker 3: I could be.
Speaker 2: Pulled over, which I have many times, and because I'm black,
Speaker 2: someone will have a bias about me. And because of
Speaker 2: the bias that they refuse to check, the wilful ignorance
Speaker 2: they refuse to work on, they will aim to shoot
Speaker 2: before they listen. And I feel like, what's sad is
Speaker 2: that I felt this way at ten. My parents felt
Speaker 2: this way, my grandparents felt this way, and my ancestors
Speaker 2: have felt this way. So it has never changed. When
Speaker 2: I look in our current climate and I think about
Speaker 2: the racial injustices and the thought leaders and the activists,
Speaker 2: I think to myself, when are we going to stop
Speaker 2: having this conversation? Because when you look through the history books,
Speaker 2: from the moment slavery came to America, we have been
Speaker 2: asking people to see us as more than one fourth
Speaker 2: human and it is hard to live like that. But
Speaker 2: I have to make an active choice daily to see
Speaker 2: myself as a valuable member of my society, because if
Speaker 2: I don't, those thoughts will kill me. Those thoughts will
Speaker 2: leave me depressed, those thoughts will leave me anxious, because
Speaker 2: I have to leave my house if I want to
Speaker 2: enjoy life right. And so I think that is why
Speaker 2: that pain still deeply resonates, because white supremacy, being exhausting,
Speaker 2: still exists, and all of these systems of oppression they
Speaker 2: just keep manifesting with new faces. Before it was in
Speaker 2: shackles and chains and having slave masters, and now it's
Speaker 2: just embedded in systems. It's embedded in a jail system.
Speaker 2: It's embedded in adultification bias, which is why, at ten
Speaker 2: years old, a police officer called me ma'am and expected
Speaker 2: me to have identification. So it just has a new
Speaker 2: face and it has a new name, but it's still
Speaker 2: a system that is intended to harm us and to
Speaker 2: kill us. I want to be very explicit with the killing.
Speaker 2: It is intended to kill, and that is what is
Speaker 2: deeply hard. And when I think about that story twenty
Speaker 2: three years later, I can still feel the grief and
Speaker 2: the pain of that, because you would think ten years,
Speaker 2: twenty three years later, things would have changed enough, and
Speaker 2: they haven't. And I have to reconcile with that daily.
Speaker 6: It's just I find myself at a loss for words
Speaker 6: and struck by your power in how you then respond
Speaker 6: by saying, and I'll read your words here. You're telling
Speaker 6: someone that you're very much aware that there are people
Speaker 6: in this world who hate me for being black. But
Speaker 6: I love myself and how I see myself trumps the
Speaker 6: opinion of others. I cannot allow the judgments of others
Speaker 6: to rule and define how I live my life. And
Speaker 6: I stand in awe of that power that you have claimed,
Speaker 6: and that you have to choose that response and then
Speaker 6: begin a healing journey from there.
Speaker 2: I have to My life depends on that. My happiness
Speaker 2: depends on that. So I wrote that because I know
Speaker 2: black and round people are tired, hence that narrative in
Speaker 2: the book being black is exhausting. It's not exhausting, it's beautiful,
Speaker 2: it's wonderful. Systems are exhausting. They are, but I want
Speaker 2: to be happy, and I know I deserve to be happy.
Speaker 2: And despite the judgments that people have about me, my race,
Speaker 2: my gender, those things coexisting, I have to ask myself,
Speaker 2: how do I see me? Because that is really all
Speaker 2: that matters. There's going to be hate everywhere I go,
Speaker 2: and it may not even be because of the color
Speaker 2: of my skin. It could be because I'm a woman.
Speaker 2: It could be because I'm successful. It could be because
Speaker 2: of so many things, right when we even take it
Speaker 2: under the microscope of race, it could be for so
Speaker 2: many things. That there are people in this world who
Speaker 2: just won't like you, who will hate you, who will
Speaker 2: have judgments, and if I let their ideologies be my compass,
Speaker 2: I will not move anywhere in this world. So I
Speaker 2: wake up every day saying to myself, what do I
Speaker 2: think I deserve and let me live in alignment with that.
Speaker 3: And that is.
Speaker 2: How knowing that deep pain that I just shared, I
Speaker 2: can also make space remember the power of two things coexisting.
Speaker 2: I can own and recognize the hurt, the pain, the
Speaker 2: trauma around race and still celebrate who I am as
Speaker 2: a black woman and be happy about the fact that
Speaker 2: I exist in black skin and be happy about my
Speaker 2: cultural roots that go back to Panama and Colombia and
Speaker 2: what it means to be an American woman and what
Speaker 2: it means to be in black skin and own that
Speaker 2: and be happy about that and revel in the joy
Speaker 2: around that, because I too deserve good things, and so
Speaker 2: I make it a habit to take up space. And
Speaker 2: people are really going to hate me for that, and
Speaker 2: that makes me feel good to know that despite knowing
Speaker 2: that all of this hap exists around me, the things
Speaker 2: that I cannot control the judgments of people, guess what.
Speaker 2: I have wonderful friends in my life, friends who are white, black,
Speaker 2: Asian of all races, not just black friends, you know.
Speaker 2: So there are people who want to be in community
Speaker 2: with me, and that is where I give my energy.
Speaker 2: That is where I invest in. Those are the people
Speaker 2: that I show up for because of how they show
Speaker 2: up for me. And I think that is the beauty
Speaker 2: of just being able to own who you are and
Speaker 2: own your struggles and again allow those two opposing things
Speaker 2: to coexist. But find your people, Find your people, And
Speaker 2: that's the message I really want people to take away
Speaker 2: from here, especially black and brown people. Find your people
Speaker 2: and live in alignment with the truth you have over yourself,
Speaker 2: but also allow others to be that light for you, right.
Speaker 2: And I think that is what helps me just move
Speaker 2: through life being a joyful mean and be that I am.
Speaker 4: I wanted to pivot just a slight bit. There's a
Speaker 4: line that you have. You say that our core beliefs
Speaker 4: are like the soil of the earth, and our thoughts
Speaker 4: are the seeds that we plant. And I wanted to
Speaker 4: ask you to expand upon that. But I also wanted
Speaker 4: to ask you to expand upon that in light of
Speaker 4: everything we just were talking about with an idea of
Speaker 4: internalized oppression, and talk a little bit about what that is.
Speaker 4: And I think it applies as you said, it applies
Speaker 4: from a race perspective, It applies from a female perspective.
Speaker 4: It applies from being a poor perspective. Right, There's so
Speaker 4: many different ways that this process of internalized depression can happen,
Speaker 4: and so then maybe from there broadened out to the
Speaker 4: seeds in the soil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, internalized oppression is this inward battle.
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is people who experience
Speaker 2: internalized oppression, they start to believe the negative ideologies they've
Speaker 2: heard about themselves. And for black and brown people in particular,
Speaker 2: this actually dates back to historical trauma.
Speaker 7: If you are enslaved, you.
Speaker 2: Are told you are only considered one fourth human, You
Speaker 2: are perceived as an animal. Hence the term coon in
Speaker 2: black culture. Right, coon is short for raccoon, and that
Speaker 2: is what people used to call Black people as a
Speaker 2: way to refer to us as animals. So if you're
Speaker 2: told you're an animal, you're told you're not good enough
Speaker 2: and for centuries, right, I say this all the time,
Speaker 2: and I don't mean this in a negative way, but
Speaker 2: to be truthful, in our current climate, a lot of
Speaker 2: us can't even handle one bad day. Okay, let ourselves here, like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, yeah, you can't even handle one bad day.
Speaker 2: We can't handle being burnt out for two weeks. Okay,
Speaker 2: imagine four hundred years though of slavery and oppression, and
Speaker 2: what that does to your state of mind When you
Speaker 2: look in the mirror, what do you think about yourself?
Speaker 2: If you have been enslaved, your mother was enslaved, your
Speaker 2: grandparent was enslaved, your whole lineage has been enslaved, you
Speaker 2: have no marker for what it means to be whole.
Speaker 2: And so if you are being taught all of these
Speaker 2: negative ideologies about yourself, then what do you teach your children?
Speaker 2: And so internalized oppression is when we literally start to
Speaker 2: believe the negative concepts and stereotypes that oppressive people have
Speaker 2: told us about ourselves. And so if you have been
Speaker 2: told that you're not smart, you're not educated, not only
Speaker 2: will you believe it, you won't work toward anything. So
Speaker 2: now it shows in your actions, right, because our thoughts
Speaker 2: inform our behaviors. And that is what I mean when
Speaker 2: I talk about our beliefs and our values. And this
Speaker 2: concept of the soil is the foundation.
Speaker 3: Everything needs a foundation.
Speaker 2: You can't build a house with no foundation, and even
Speaker 2: if you have one, if that foundation is rocky. When
Speaker 2: I watch HGTV, when they go into the basement and
Speaker 2: they're ripping up the floors.
Speaker 3: Oh, we see cracks.
Speaker 7: We can't keep building.
Speaker 2: Imagine when that crack is in your spirit, and when
Speaker 2: that crack is in the way you think about yourself,
Speaker 2: how do you build on top of that when already
Speaker 2: the system you're building on is broken. And so the
Speaker 2: thoughts those seeds, Now, you're already have a rocky foundation,
Speaker 2: and those seeds that you're planting in that rocky foundation
Speaker 2: are your thoughts. But if the foundation is rocky, it's
Speaker 2: to cycle. What do I think about myself? How do
Speaker 2: I view myself? And on a larger scale, but thinking
Speaker 2: of historical trauma, because it is trauma that happens to
Speaker 2: a particular race or ethnic group, how do I see
Speaker 2: people who look like me? Because even as you see
Speaker 2: outlined in my book, when I'm talking about white supremact ideologies,
Speaker 2: I even name it, there are people of color who
Speaker 2: also harness white supremaict ideologies. Right, Because if you've been
Speaker 2: hearing these things about yourself over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: you might start to work toward leaning into the white gaze,
Speaker 2: which is what I share in my book where I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, well, I remember having an experience where
Speaker 2: I used to feel very shy about communicating because I
Speaker 2: didn't feel like I spoke correctly. I didn't think that
Speaker 2: I spoke well, and I didn't think I sounded intelligent
Speaker 2: when I would speak. But then I had to check
Speaker 2: myself and say, but who do you have those concerns
Speaker 2: about when you're around what group of people? When are
Speaker 2: you thinking that? And I had to admit to myself
Speaker 2: and say, well, specifically, when it's around white people, I'm
Speaker 2: more cognizant about how I speak. But when I'm around
Speaker 2: black people, I don't care. I don't care what they
Speaker 2: think about me and how I talk. And that's because
Speaker 2: I'm performing for the white gads, you know. And so
Speaker 2: all of those things are blended together where one of
Speaker 2: the things we have to remember is our beliefs are
Speaker 2: going to dictate the life we think we deserve, and
Speaker 2: that often is a thing that strips people of their power.
Speaker 2: You are the person who's in charge of harnessing that power,
Speaker 2: and so if you're telling yourself you're not good enough,
Speaker 2: that is a foundation that you're already setting.
Speaker 3: How do you build on that?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 2: The things you tend to build on that are negative
Speaker 2: I don't think people can be trusted. I don't think
Speaker 2: people from certain groups can be trusted. And so it
Speaker 2: continues to spread and trickle in different domains of your life.
Speaker 2: And that is how we end up in this constant
Speaker 2: state of what feels like brokenness because the foundation is
Speaker 2: already broken. I feel broken, and how am I allowing
Speaker 2: people in if I'm not trusting the people around me,
Speaker 2: and I have broken perceptions and ideologies of them too,
Speaker 2: And so that is what it looks like when you
Speaker 2: bridge that concept to this concept of internalized oppression aka
Speaker 2: internalized racism.
Speaker 4: And so what is the process that you've seen work
Speaker 4: with people for beginning to change those underlying beliefs? Because
Speaker 4: the word belief, I think is actually really important because
Speaker 4: we actually believe it very much to be true and
Speaker 4: usually will come up with evidence to justify that it's true.
Speaker 4: Those things don't just change because I'm like, well, I
Speaker 4: guess maybe you know those are deep patterns, and so
Speaker 4: what is the process of changing long held, deeply held beliefs.
Speaker 2: I like that you used what is the process because
Speaker 2: it is indeed a process, right. I think sometimes people
Speaker 2: want a specific formula. So if I write out six
Speaker 2: affirmations Mina, will I be better at.
Speaker 3: Having better movie systems?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, you might have to write some
Speaker 2: affirmations out on top of doing this and the exploring
Speaker 2: your childhood trauma and also exploring the where you got
Speaker 2: those beliefs from. It's complex, I'm going to be honest,
Speaker 2: it is so complex. But I often find getting to
Speaker 2: the root, sometimes breaking up the concrete so that we
Speaker 2: can get to the soil, is where the starting place is,
Speaker 2: because we first have to ask ourselves. I always challenge
Speaker 2: people and say, well, where did you hear that from?
Speaker 2: Where did you get this concept from? For some people
Speaker 2: it might look like going back to childhood. It might
Speaker 2: look like exploring their parent dynamics and saying, well, I
Speaker 2: grew up around emotionally immature parents who told me I
Speaker 2: was ugly, who told me I was stupid, who told
Speaker 2: me in order for me to be beautiful or be
Speaker 2: in a relationship, I had to be thin. You know,
Speaker 2: it's sometimes it starts in your childhood. For other groups
Speaker 2: of people, it might be understanding the way because again,
Speaker 2: these different systems around oppression and racism and how it's
Speaker 2: not just in individual acts, it's also a system that
Speaker 2: infiltrates in our media, it infiltrates in our education system.
Speaker 2: And so what does it look like when you turn
Speaker 2: on the TV and your whole entire life all you
Speaker 2: saw was white family and the black families you saw
Speaker 2: were single parent homes, and the white families had two parents,
Speaker 2: had a two parent household. Right, some of those things,
Speaker 2: some of those beliefs are deeply ingrained in us because
Speaker 2: of what we're exposed to, right, And so I think
Speaker 2: it absolutely looks different for everyone. But I think it
Speaker 2: goes back to that concept of again breaking through the
Speaker 2: concrete and saying, I need to dig through the soil
Speaker 2: and ask myself who planted this seed here? Where did
Speaker 2: this concept come from? And now I have to start
Speaker 2: doing inner work of challenging those ideologies. And then I
Speaker 2: also have to do this extra work of asking myself,
Speaker 2: well what do I deserve? Because I often work with
Speaker 2: people too, and when they have these negative concepts, I say,
Speaker 2: and how are these beliefs making you happy? And they'll
Speaker 2: do some self reflection and say, actually, consistently thinking about
Speaker 2: myself in this way makes me miserable. It's making me depressed. Right,
Speaker 2: And you see that link between mental health and our thoughts.
Speaker 2: It's actually not increasing my self esteem. It's not increasing
Speaker 2: my confidence. It's actually linked to me feeling even worse
Speaker 2: about myself. So, now, what are some things that I
Speaker 2: need to start doing to rewire the way I think
Speaker 2: and thinking of that rewiring system. It's not just on you. Now,
Speaker 2: we need to call in people. This is the part
Speaker 2: of community care. I need to call in people who
Speaker 2: can help me look at myself in a way that
Speaker 2: is valuable. I have to start reconciling with the fact
Speaker 2: that my parents are not healthy people. I have to
Speaker 2: start reconciling with the fact that the person I married
Speaker 2: this is touchy.
Speaker 3: The person I married is.
Speaker 7: Not healthy for me.
Speaker 2: They have to look inward and reconcile with the fact
Speaker 2: that those friendships I've had since childhood, they're not healthy
Speaker 2: for me because I am linked to people with toxic
Speaker 2: tendency and I'm linked to people with abusive patterns, which
Speaker 2: is keeping my belief about myself stuck because often abusers manipulators,
Speaker 2: those types of people want to benefit from you being broken,
Speaker 2: so they keep you in that state of being, you know,
Speaker 2: and so it is a whole system that honestly needs
Speaker 2: to be dug up from the ground. And after you're
Speaker 2: doing this in a work of self exploration, that is
Speaker 2: where you're calling people, and you might realize I have
Speaker 2: to get rid of some people, and I ast need
Speaker 2: to make space for people who can see me in
Speaker 2: my fullness and start to help me reframe my beliefs
Speaker 2: about myself. And I also have to reconcile with the
Speaker 2: fact that they are going to be people in my
Speaker 2: life who I love and I want them around, but
Speaker 2: I can't listen to the things they say about me
Speaker 2: because they're stuck in a place of trauma and they
Speaker 2: only know how to spew trauma towards me. They only
Speaker 2: know hurt, they only know judgment, they only know to chastise,
Speaker 2: And so I want to call them a talk on
Speaker 2: the phone, but I can't anymore. I want to run
Speaker 2: to my mom or run to me my dad, but
Speaker 2: I can't anymore. And so that is what the process
Speaker 2: looks like. It is a huge process that requires inner
Speaker 2: work but also out of.
Speaker 3: Work around the people that we coexist with in this world.
Speaker 6: I'm repeatedly struck by just how powerful it can be
Speaker 6: to like in your metaphor actually find the crack like
Speaker 6: to see it and to see it as a thing,
Speaker 6: like in this context, it would be like beginning to
Speaker 6: name these things, name these beliefs, name these wounds. In
Speaker 6: your book, you talk about turning into the voice of
Speaker 6: your inner child when it comes to what your trauma
Speaker 6: response might be. And so like for me, when I
Speaker 6: read how people might engage in behaviors that are not
Speaker 6: hostile but passive and started to go through that list,
Speaker 6: I started having language in words and naming what those
Speaker 6: responses look like. I began to see them in myself,
Speaker 6: and I thought, oh, like it's all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: Now it's a thing I can begin to examine. I
Speaker 6: can begin to see if I'd like to do it
Speaker 6: that way or try to different way, you know, see
Speaker 6: is it something that's innately harmful or somehow it can
Speaker 6: be not a harmful thing in my life, Like just
Speaker 6: I can examine it, you know.
Speaker 5: And then act on it. And in the action.
Speaker 6: The sentence just kind of really struck me around boundaries,
Speaker 6: because I think setting boundaries is one way we can
Speaker 6: and like you say, boundaries teach us that we are
Speaker 6: not powerless people. I never thought of it that way before.
Speaker 6: I love that as boundaries are a way of claiming
Speaker 6: our power, taking an action towards that, not just saying it.
Speaker 5: You know, but doing it, And that our window.
Speaker 6: Of tolerance right can alert us to when it's time
Speaker 6: to set a boundary for the sake of your nervous
Speaker 6: system and your emotional health. That is a real active
Speaker 6: way to begin the healing, I think, don't you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you know. I always tell people boundaries is
Speaker 2: something that is always ebbing and flowing because we experience
Speaker 2: new things all the time that we might say I
Speaker 2: never had a boundary for this. Now I need to
Speaker 2: figure out what to implement here, you know. And so
Speaker 2: often our window of tolerance between hyper arousal and hypo
Speaker 2: arousal where you find yourself constantly fluctuating between anxiety fight
Speaker 2: flight panic mode anxiousness, but then also ebbing to the
Speaker 2: other end of the spectrum where you feel depressed, you're understimulated,
Speaker 2: you feel numb, you want to detach, you want to isolate,
Speaker 2: and your window of tolerance will help you understand. Listen,
Speaker 2: we're starting to get exhausted swinging back and forth between
Speaker 2: these two spaces, so you have to step in and
Speaker 2: do something to regulate yourself here so that you can
Speaker 2: get back to your center, get back to your state
Speaker 2: of equilibrium, and also gets back to a state of calm,
Speaker 2: that area that is healthy for you, where you can
Speaker 2: function as an adult. And so our boundaries help us
Speaker 2: to see that, oh, I'm not as powerless as I
Speaker 2: think I am. And the reason why I share that
Speaker 2: is because often when we're interacting with people, I think
Speaker 2: we have a tendency to want the other person to
Speaker 2: know better. We want the other person to do the
Speaker 2: work of changing or being self aware or just recognizing
Speaker 2: the things that they're doing to us, instead of us
Speaker 2: being the one to name it and say, listen, there's
Speaker 2: no reason for you to be calling my phone five
Speaker 2: times in a row, right. And that's a simple boundary
Speaker 2: or a larger boundary where it's like, I really don't
Speaker 2: appreciate when you speak to me like this. It's very judgmental,
Speaker 2: and it can be so powerful to own that you
Speaker 2: have the ability to stand up for yourself, you have
Speaker 2: the ability to protect yourself. I think safety is at
Speaker 2: the root of any relationship in life, and safety is
Speaker 2: what also helps us navigate through the world.
Speaker 3: As we know.
Speaker 2: Talking about trauma responses and inertrvous system. A disregulated nervous
Speaker 2: system is searching for safety, and so hence we have
Speaker 2: mood imbalances. We also might have those somatic symptoms where
Speaker 2: we're having migraines, gut imbalances. Our body is alerting us
Speaker 2: that we don't feel safe and we're being exposed to
Speaker 2: something that is impacting our safety. But sometimes I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people have this concept that in order
Speaker 2: to feel safe, the people around us have to adjust
Speaker 2: and engage in certain behaviors, instead of us recognizing we
Speaker 2: have power to name and call out the things we
Speaker 2: do not like and the things we're no longer willing
Speaker 2: to tolerate to be safe. I think sometimes too, when
Speaker 2: we feel threatened by something, we expect the person imposing
Speaker 2: the threat to pull back from threatening us, instead of
Speaker 2: us saying this is where I draw a line, because
Speaker 2: I see you have some issues around boundaries, you have
Speaker 2: issues around how you speak to people, You have some
Speaker 2: sort of issue guarding this circumstance we're in. So I
Speaker 2: have to be the one to draw the line here
Speaker 2: because I see you may not know better. And sometimes
Speaker 2: it boils down to that, It boils down to people
Speaker 2: acting in their own trauma responses. It boils down to
Speaker 2: people thinking they're doing something that is okay because other
Speaker 2: people tolerate it, so they think you will tolerate it.
Speaker 2: And we have to understand that in order to be
Speaker 2: in relationships, we have to communicate it's okay to express
Speaker 2: your desires and needs to someone and take a step
Speaker 2: back to see if they can meet those needs. And
Speaker 2: if they can't, there's going to be some grief with that.
Speaker 2: But you're still not powerless in that process. You can
Speaker 2: decide how close do I want to be with you?
Speaker 2: Do I need to adjust the degree of closeness, or
Speaker 2: do I need to just become estranged? Do I need
Speaker 2: to cut this relationship off altogether?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: And so it's really all about us recognizing and owning
Speaker 2: the power that we hold to. Once again, you're always
Speaker 2: gonna hear me say this, give ourselves the life we
Speaker 2: feel we deserve.
Speaker 4: I had a question around these sort of passive coping strategies,
Speaker 4: right that we use things like chronic niceness, or putting
Speaker 4: other people's needs before your own, or.
Speaker 6: Feeling responsible for other people's feelings and trying to fix
Speaker 6: or control their emotions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that one's a little bit clear. But this is
Speaker 4: where I personally find myself challenged because some of those things,
Speaker 4: the outward behavior might be the same. Right. So for example,
Speaker 4: you might be a nice person and be kind to
Speaker 4: people because it's something you value. You also might be
Speaker 4: chronically over nice because you're afraid if you're not, no
Speaker 4: one will like you. Right, these things are very close
Speaker 4: to each other and the way they appear. And one
Speaker 4: of the things that I struggle with is that internal discernment.
Speaker 4: I get that it's all about what my intention is
Speaker 4: in doing it right, So I mean, I think that's
Speaker 4: the first place is to try and do that. But
Speaker 4: I find that sort of even when I'm doing that,
Speaker 4: it's still kind of tricky to tell, like am I
Speaker 4: reacting out of a conditioned, habitual response to say childhood
Speaker 4: events that I don't want to or am I sort
Speaker 4: of responding because I'm a person who values taking care
Speaker 4: of others and helping other people. And it's an area
Speaker 4: of discernment that I often find challenging.
Speaker 3: I love that you say that one.
Speaker 2: I love that you're using the word discernment because I
Speaker 2: think that wisdom is what a lot of us need
Speaker 2: to be able to help us understand what are our intentions.
Speaker 2: The other thing to it is the thing about relationships
Speaker 2: is no relationship is equal, and so I think it's
Speaker 2: also important to remember how our discernment and our intentions
Speaker 2: can ebb and flow. Because in this relationship, I want
Speaker 2: to be nice, I want to do this thing, but
Speaker 2: maybe there's a different relationship in my life where I
Speaker 2: feel obligated to do it. I'm afraid to speak up,
Speaker 2: I'm afraid to say no. So I'm just acting out
Speaker 2: of condition but as a result, right, And I always
Speaker 2: tell people, after you act on something, do some inner
Speaker 2: work to self reflect about how that action impacted your life,
Speaker 2: because sometimes prior to doing something it can be hard
Speaker 2: to discern what the intention is, but the aftermath can
Speaker 2: sometimes help us understand.
Speaker 7: The why what led me to do this thing?
Speaker 2: I find some people will say yeah, I'll go to
Speaker 2: the party, or yeah, i'll pick up your workload, and
Speaker 2: then when they do it, or even in the midst
Speaker 2: of doing it, they're frustrated, they're angry, and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: who are you angry? Act right, the person who made
Speaker 2: the request or the person who agreed to doing the
Speaker 2: thing that they did, not one to do right. And
Speaker 2: I think sometimes this is where trial and error comes in,
Speaker 2: and I think we need to make space as humans
Speaker 2: for trial and error, because when you are trying to
Speaker 2: do this work right, this work of being whole, of
Speaker 2: being healthy, there are going to be moments where you
Speaker 2: just do something and you realize, oh, man, that didn't
Speaker 2: feel good.
Speaker 7: I said yes to it.
Speaker 2: Or I did this particular thing out of the act
Speaker 2: of being nice. I thought it was being nice and
Speaker 2: now I'm in the middle of doing it, or the
Speaker 2: aftermath of it makes me realize, ah, man, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: have done this thing. I feel resentful, I feel regretful
Speaker 2: about it, And that is just an opportunity for you
Speaker 2: to learn and put that nugget into your bag of
Speaker 2: life and say, you know what, next time this opportunity
Speaker 2: comes my way, I'll resist urgency and I'll practice the
Speaker 2: power of pause so that I can give myself more
Speaker 2: room to think about, well, what are my intentions here?
Speaker 2: Because last time the scenario came up, I thought I
Speaker 2: wanted to do this, thinking it was a nice thing
Speaker 2: and thinking I was just being a nice person. But
Speaker 2: the aftermath of it really drained me. It really impacted
Speaker 2: me deeply. It made me miserable. I was frustrated even
Speaker 2: doing it. So do I really want to do this
Speaker 2: thing again? Or is it just embedded in me to
Speaker 2: show up for certain people this way or to show
Speaker 2: up and be nice in this particular way, you know?
Speaker 2: And so I think it's just important for us to
Speaker 2: always do that self reflection work, even after the fact.
Speaker 2: But also sometimes we just have to allow life to
Speaker 2: happen and that life be the thing that shows us
Speaker 2: oh man, you shouldn't do this again, right, and allow
Speaker 2: that to be a roadmap for how we move forward
Speaker 2: and the different relationships we navigate in too. But I
Speaker 2: think that part about relationships is also important. Remember, no
Speaker 2: relationship is equal. I might be willing to do something
Speaker 2: for a best friend that I wouldn't be willing to
Speaker 2: do for an acquaintance. Even in a marriage, I might
Speaker 2: be willing to do something for my life partner.
Speaker 3: But just a friend, Uh, maybe not.
Speaker 2: I don't think I want to do that, And if
Speaker 2: I force myself to do it, forcing it is a
Speaker 2: keyword or ready, you know. And so I think giving
Speaker 2: ourselves permission to show up differently for different people in
Speaker 2: different circumstances also helps us use discernment in those circumstances
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And tying back to your broader message about community,
Speaker 4: I often say that like discernment often needs community, that
Speaker 4: you know, I'm able to discern things by talking to
Speaker 4: other people, I'm able to see things that I'm not
Speaker 4: seeing when I'm processing it in my own head.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And I think that is so important. And
Speaker 2: it goes back to that concept of who you surround
Speaker 2: yourself with. You know, people who are also investing in
Speaker 2: you and pouring into you and have firm beliefs about you,
Speaker 2: even when you don't have positive beliefs about yourself.
Speaker 3: Are there people.
Speaker 2: Around you who want good for you, who want good
Speaker 2: things to happen for you, And sometimes they are the
Speaker 2: compass that leads you.
Speaker 3: Towards your future.
Speaker 2: And so community care is just vital for our growth
Speaker 2: and our well being, and I think we should all
Speaker 2: be cognizant of how we practice being in community with people.
Speaker 4: You've got a technique that you talk about in the
Speaker 4: book that I thought was really interesting. I was hoping
Speaker 4: you could share it with listeners around audio journaling, because
Speaker 4: I think this is another way of getting it out
Speaker 4: of our head and being able to process it differently.
Speaker 4: So can you share kind of what audio journaling is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm going to be deeply vulnerable here and
Speaker 2: share how audio journaling came to life for me. And
Speaker 2: that is because I live alone and sometimes when I'm stressed.
Speaker 7: Out, I just talk.
Speaker 3: I talk out loud. I talk to myself, y'all.
Speaker 6: It happens same same, I'll meet you there, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: I'm quite sure my dog is not listening to anything
Speaker 2: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: He's absolutely not responding.
Speaker 2: So I'm just having conversations with the walls, the couch,
Speaker 2: the dog.
Speaker 4: I have a deaf dog who I talk to all
Speaker 4: of the time.
Speaker 6: When you process earlier, you just got to talk it out.
Speaker 7: Yes, you do.
Speaker 2: And I think that is where the concept came from.
Speaker 2: That I actually started to share with my clients who
Speaker 2: started to give me wonderful feedback around it. And the
Speaker 2: reason why is because talking out loud is linked to
Speaker 2: two things. One, Yes, it helps us with discrepancies in
Speaker 2: our thinking. So I find that when we're talking out
Speaker 2: loud the same way a friend will call you up
Speaker 2: and say, hey, this is what's going on. I'm angry,
Speaker 2: I'm frustrated, they're looking to you for some level of
Speaker 2: advice or feedback, and you're able to listen and pick
Speaker 2: up on things that may not make sense, things that
Speaker 2: may sound irrational, and you're able to feed it back
Speaker 2: to them. Now, the reason why a lot of us
Speaker 2: do that is because what we're seeking in that moment
Speaker 2: is something called cold regulation. When my nervous system is disregulated,
Speaker 2: it could be disregulated from a breakup, from something that
Speaker 2: happened at work. Literally, maybe I was walking down the
Speaker 2: block and something happened and I'm just so anxious, I'm flustered.
Speaker 2: I'm calling someone because I need their nervous system to
Speaker 2: balance mine out.
Speaker 3: And so the way the.
Speaker 2: Brain works is there's those mirror neurons that light up
Speaker 2: when we're in connection with other people. We also have
Speaker 2: that wonderful chemical of release called oxytocin that draws us
Speaker 2: closer to people. And so I find that one of
Speaker 2: the things that happens for people, however, is the option
Speaker 2: to coregulate may not always be available. I am big
Speaker 2: on coregulating. I love being around people. I am super social.
Speaker 2: I want to talk on the phone, voice no FaceTime,
Speaker 2: I want to do all those things. But I have
Speaker 2: enough discernment to understand people are not always going to
Speaker 2: be available.
Speaker 3: I'm not always going to be able to have brain
Speaker 3: on the weekends.
Speaker 2: I'm not always going to be able to FaceTime a
Speaker 2: front and talk over the phone. I might sent a
Speaker 2: voice no, I might not hear back until later on
Speaker 2: that night. I still have to find a way to
Speaker 2: regulate my body. I can't depend on someone else to
Speaker 2: always be the thing that I need. And so this
Speaker 2: is where that concept of audio journaling comes in, because
Speaker 2: now it teaches us how to self regulate. And I
Speaker 2: think the same way we would share certain things with
Speaker 2: a friend, hoping that they would pick up on those
Speaker 2: discrepancies and give us advice. I find that when we
Speaker 2: speak out loud, we can hear something that when we
Speaker 2: think in silence it may be hard to pick up on.
Speaker 2: And so this concept of audio journaling is really straightforward.
Speaker 2: You grab your phone, you turn on the recording app,
Speaker 2: and you just talk what are you thinking of? And
Speaker 2: if you're not ready to play it back, it's fine.
Speaker 2: But just speaking out loud and hearing yourself could be
Speaker 2: enough for you to say, does.
Speaker 3: That make sense?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 2: Because science also shows that eighty percent of our thoughts
Speaker 2: are negative daily, so we're already waking up struggling to
Speaker 2: be hopeful, to be joyful, to be positive if eighty
Speaker 2: percent of our thoughts are conditioned to always focus on
Speaker 2: what's going wrong. So there are times where we need
Speaker 2: to just speak out loud so that we can listen
Speaker 2: to the things that we're saying and in challenge our mindset,
Speaker 2: because then when we challenge our mindset, that ultimately helps
Speaker 2: us challenge our beliefs. What we talked about earlier, right,
Speaker 2: And so I think that is just a way that
Speaker 2: people can learn to self regulate when coregulation isn't an option, it's.
Speaker 4: A form of self distancing also, which is another psychological technique.
Speaker 4: You change the way you refer to yourself internally, and
Speaker 4: it creates a little bit of distance. So I think
Speaker 4: it's another way that facilitates that.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, it's amazing to me that sometimes I will
Speaker 6: hear something come out of my mouth that I don't
Speaker 6: think I've ever consciously thought.
Speaker 5: I don't know where it came from, it just came
Speaker 5: out of my mouth.
Speaker 6: So I feel like this is a technique I'm absolutely
Speaker 6: going to give a try too, you know, I mean
Speaker 6: I just think that it could be a really powerful one,
Speaker 6: and I think it connects to another term that you
Speaker 6: mentioned in your book, which I'd love us to explore
Speaker 6: a little bit. When you mentioned it self regulation, is
Speaker 6: what connected it to me? Is this idea of emotional maturity?
Speaker 6: Maybe I'll just let you. Would you define that for us?
Speaker 6: Tell us about what it means to be emotionally mature?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one I will bust a myth that age
Speaker 2: comes with maturity.
Speaker 7: That is not true.
Speaker 2: I think our parents and our elders used to teach
Speaker 2: that to us, especially the concept of respecting your elders,
Speaker 2: when sometimes our elders are not the wisest people in
Speaker 2: the room and sometimes the most harmful people in the room.
Speaker 3: Right, But being emotionally.
Speaker 2: Mature is about practicing discernment and wisdom. It is about
Speaker 2: practicing emotional intelligence, being in tune with your emotions, learning
Speaker 2: to hold yourself accountable, being responsible over your actions, and
Speaker 2: also learning to.
Speaker 7: Meet people where they are.
Speaker 2: I find that in our current culture, a lot of
Speaker 2: people struggle with this because we have been taught so
Speaker 2: long that again, age equals maturity. And I think there
Speaker 2: are so many different things that relate to why someone
Speaker 2: might be emotionally immature. One trauma stunts development and so
Speaker 2: on a cognitive level, on an emotional level, on a
Speaker 2: mental level, experiencing childhood trauma during your primitive years of development,
Speaker 2: which is ages zero to five, can literally stunt your
Speaker 2: growth because your brain is developing rapidly during that time period.
Speaker 2: So when you are experiencing especially complex and chronic trauma,
Speaker 2: which are different traumatic events that are ongoing, and it's
Speaker 2: multiple different events that are ongoing versus one isolated situation,
Speaker 2: Imagine being traumatized day after day after day after day,
Speaker 2: and that informs your childhood that is going to I
Speaker 2: have an impact on your well being. So I think
Speaker 2: that's the first thing to understand, because some people emotionally
Speaker 2: react from the place where their trauma started. So you
Speaker 2: might have this adult who's forty five years old who
Speaker 2: when they're angry or they're upset, they regress back to
Speaker 2: their childlike behaviors to self protect. Some of their childlike
Speaker 2: behaviors might look like I threw a tantrum when I
Speaker 2: was a child, and so I screamed and I yelled
Speaker 2: because I needed attention, I needed someone to see me,
Speaker 2: and that was my way of being protected. And so
Speaker 2: at forty five, I still scream, and I still yell
Speaker 2: and I curse. But the problem is you're someone's boss.
Speaker 2: You can't do that at work, right, You can't do
Speaker 2: that anywhere honestly if you want a healthy relationship. And
Speaker 2: so I think on the other side of that, when
Speaker 2: you're the person interacting with someone with those types of behaviors,
Speaker 2: it can be important to just remember that how old
Speaker 2: a person is literally is just it's this system we
Speaker 2: created to keep track of how old a person is
Speaker 2: through life. It doesn't necessarily help us understand emotionally and
Speaker 2: mentally who they are. And so when we learn to
Speaker 2: take responsibility for our emotions and our behaviors, we learn
Speaker 2: to do that internal work with being self aware. That
Speaker 2: is how we start developing emotional maturity. So your trauma
Speaker 2: doesn't have to hold you back. You can heal through it.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing I want people to know too.
Speaker 2: You can reframe that, you can fix that, you can
Speaker 2: adjust that, but it's going to look different for every person.
Speaker 4: So maybe we could wrap up with two ideas that
Speaker 4: you talk about that I think are sort of related
Speaker 4: to each other. And the first is you often talk
Speaker 4: about how healing is a ongoing, daily sort of thing.
Speaker 4: And you also have a line that I absolutely love,
Speaker 4: which is self care is a prevention strategy, not just
Speaker 4: a crisis response. And I have to say, I think
Speaker 4: that is one of the ways that I'm matured in
Speaker 4: my healing over the years was I actually figured that
Speaker 4: out and went from I'm only doing this type of
Speaker 4: work when I really have to to living this way.
Speaker 4: So talk about those two ideas.
Speaker 2: I think those two things are extremely important if we
Speaker 2: want to live a life of wholeness and really doing
Speaker 2: the work to manage our mental health.
Speaker 7: One.
Speaker 2: Healing is absolutely an ongoing process. As I shared earlier,
Speaker 2: there are going to be times there we experience things
Speaker 2: in life that are new to us that we never
Speaker 2: dealt with before that we have to teach ourselves how
Speaker 2: do I navigate this now? How do I manage this grief?
Speaker 2: How do I manage this pain? I've never did this before,
Speaker 2: I've never experienced it before. And I think we have
Speaker 2: the whole space for that and allow that to be
Speaker 2: a part of the process. Because this is life. We
Speaker 2: can't determine what our next steps are. And I think
Speaker 2: it's because as people we want to control things so
Speaker 2: badly that it's like, how could I not know my future?
Speaker 2: But we don't, and life is really all about leaning
Speaker 2: into every moment that is open to us and asking
Speaker 2: ourselves daily, what do I need to get through today?
Speaker 2: Because it might look different from what I experienced yesterday.
Speaker 2: I always tell people I had to go on this
Speaker 2: new journey of discovering what self care meant for me
Speaker 2: because when the pandemic hit, it altered my life so
Speaker 2: much that three years later, the things that I loved
Speaker 2: for years I hate them now. I don't want to
Speaker 2: do it. I don't want to come close to some
Speaker 2: of those things I used to love, reading physical books
Speaker 2: in bed, I don't even want to touch a book.
Speaker 2: I'd rather listen to an audiobook.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I used to do so many things, but twenty twenty
Speaker 2: was a year of trauma, and so that trauma rewired
Speaker 2: the way I care for myself. Right, this is what
Speaker 2: healing is a journey means. It means knowing when it's
Speaker 2: time to pivot. It means knowing when it's time to
Speaker 2: quit something, because quitting.
Speaker 7: Can be a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: And it's also knowing when it's time to call and help,
Speaker 2: and this is where the community park comes in. But
Speaker 2: also recognizing self care as a prevention strategy is having
Speaker 2: a daily toolbox that we utilize so that there are
Speaker 2: certain practices that are part of our well being so deeply.
Speaker 2: It is now who I am. I embody this thing.
Speaker 2: It is not something I just do.
Speaker 3: It is me.
Speaker 2: And I say that because, to use an example, people
Speaker 2: often ask me when I'm experiencing certain things, how come
Speaker 2: you're not taking that personally? And I'll say it has
Speaker 2: taken years of self reflection and development for me to
Speaker 2: get to a place where I experiencing so deeply and
Speaker 2: within five minutes, I'm like, all right, well that really
Speaker 2: hurts and I'm sad about it, but it is what
Speaker 2: it is. I have no idea what they're going through,
Speaker 2: or maybe they just can't show up for me, and
Speaker 2: I don't make it about me anymore, you know. But
Speaker 2: that's because I now embody this as a practice, which
Speaker 2: is why it's a prevention strategy versus something where it's like,
Speaker 2: oh man, I'm having bad day.
Speaker 3: Now I have to figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: And I also tell people your brain is always looking
Speaker 2: for safety, and so when you're having a very bad
Speaker 2: day or you're stressed out. Self care as a prevention
Speaker 2: strategy looks like what is familiar versus searching for something new.
Speaker 2: If I'm having an overwhelming day or I'm burnt out,
Speaker 2: I don't need to come home and say, well, what's
Speaker 2: for dinner? What am I gonna cook? Just order the
Speaker 2: Chinese food, Order what you always eat, right. Give your
Speaker 2: brain something familiar to stabilize itself. But it has to
Speaker 2: feel familiar. So when you make self care a familiar practice,
Speaker 2: it is your go to and instead of engaging in
Speaker 2: fight or flight, your body now reacts in a state
Speaker 2: of calm because this is what you embody day to day.
Speaker 6: Thank you for sharing so much of yourself in your
Speaker 6: book and in this conversation. Thank you for sharing so
Speaker 6: much of your wisdom that is hard earned through your
Speaker 6: deep pain and also the way you actively choose and
Speaker 6: claim and body or power.
Speaker 5: It has touched.
Speaker 6: Me deeply, and I am just really grateful. I think
Speaker 6: this conversation will to reach out and touch a lot
Speaker 6: of other people deep.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you so much, it's really been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you both so much. I enjoyed speaking with you both,
Speaker 2: and thank you most importantly for holding space.
Speaker 5: Absolutely take care.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
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