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Culturally Safe Healing: Advocacy and Mental Health · Story Scaling

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Storyscaling by PodcastVideos.com, where creators share the truth behind the content, the grind, and the growth.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and family, I am bang of podcastvideos.com.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I first want to say thank you for watching these episodes.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for liking, subscribing, commenting.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's been an amazing journey having conversations with people in the community who are doing some amazing work.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you haven't already, like, subscribe, share with a friend, and let us know who you want to see on Story Scaling because we will do our best to get those voices up here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: Now, today feels special.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: I always try to get, you know what I'm saying, a little hype before we go into it, but this is genuine.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not, I'm not just capping right now.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like it is it is some special, special, special, special guests joining us today.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll let you introduce yourself.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Shakira Eekins.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a licensed clinical social worker.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Joy McGowan.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a licensed professional counselor here in North Forest, Arkansas, originally from uh South Suburbs of Chicago, though.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I never want to forget my Chicago roots.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I was really excited about this conversation, but I also wasn't excited at the same time.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: Let me explain.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Joy makes me feel.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: And Shakira, I've heard a lot about you, Shakira, and you just like joy.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like y'all, y'all people who force us to feel.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes in a good way, right?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like we we should be feeling, we should be processing, but sometimes you don't want to feel, you know?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was I was really excited to have this conversation because I know it's gonna be really rich with just information and you know, encouragement and tips on how to regulate my body, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: So let's get into it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to read some bios, and I just want to be very clear.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: This is what the streets is saying about YouTube.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, like this is this is this is what's popping in the streets right now.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Are we ready?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, Shakira, we'll go with you first.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: It says today's guest is a visionary in the healing space who is moving Northwest Arkansas forward by helping people reconnect with the one thing that we often lose in the grind, ourselves.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Shakira Ekins is a licensed clinical social worker and registered yoga teacher with over 14 years of experience, standing on the front lines of therapy, advocacy, and community collaboration.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: But she isn't your typical therapist.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: Shakira has pioneered a mission that blends the clinical depth of individual counseling with the communal healing of yoga.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: Specializing in support for BIPLC and LGBTQIA plus individuals, Shakira focuses on hard truths of navigating anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: She understands that healing isn't just about what happens in your head, it's how you feel in your body and how safe you feel in your community.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Whether she is leading professional workshops or sitting virtually with a client, Shakira's work is about building world-class therapeutic relationships that foster safety, connection, and lasting resistance.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Excuse me, lasting resilience.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Shakira, welcome to Story Scaling.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Resistance works too.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's interchangeable.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: Shakira, that's you.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's what the streets are saying.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I need to take what the streets are saying and like put it everywhere.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for your work and all you're doing in the community.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Joy?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: It says Joy McGowan is a licensed professional counselor, a passionate community advocate, and founder of Amari Counseling Co.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: From her early days running a 24-hour domestic violence emergency shelter to her current work as an architect of equity in Northwest Arkansas.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: Joy has dedicated her life to holding space for the vulnerable and dismantling systemic barriers to care.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Recognized as a social weaver by the Crystal Bridges Museum, Joy's impact can be felt across the region.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: She is co-founder of the nonprofit Resilient Black Women Incorporated, where she has secured grant funding to make culturally competent therapy financially accessible for women and youth of color.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Her initiative community partnerships include providing mental health support for actors at Theater Square, teaching as a professor at John Brown University, and pioneering dance and somatic therapy programs for survivors of sexual assault, a devoted wife, mother of four, and an unapologetic voice for equity, Joy approaches her lifelong mission of advocacy throughout three guiding principles grace, rest, and resistance.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: See, resistance works.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sarah.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for it.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a weaver and an architect, I'm like, uh, so here's the thing.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: Here is the thing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of words there.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think sometimes words are lofty and sometimes we can use them carelessly.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: But when it comes to you, ladies, y'all are doing that work.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Every single thing, you know, I didn't have to put no sauce on there.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have to try to stretch the truth a little bit, is like, no, y'all are on the ground in the community, connecting with people, teaching people how to connect with themselves.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've benefited from some of the teachings and some of the practices that you all have, you know, shown me and that I've received.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just curious, from your perspective, when you hear the bio, when you hear these things, the work that you're doing, what stands out first?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: What's the first thing that catches your attention?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think being seen, um, having people see and like truly see and understand and appreciate what I'm trying to do.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm in an age now where I'm like, I'm I'm not afraid to toot my own horn.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I it used to be really hard for me, especially as a social worker.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're taught often, you know, we used to be taught not to do that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're taught more often to do that.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like now I'm like, yeah, I'm doing that.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's great, or I'm trying to, and so it's really great to hear that reflected back and not and just from you know, wherever, not just from people like Joy, that you know, she's my girl, she's gonna lift me up, you know.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And not that that's not genuine, but it's like, oh girl, you're biased.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: You'll lift me up even when I look like Pooh.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to hear that from other places is like, okay, it's working.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, George.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's also like a reminder of like other people see the work that you're doing.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a validation, like, don't stop, keep going.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is important work.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just like when you and I, Shakira, we were planning this event.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, oh, maybe we'll just get like 10 people, and then the event sold out in one day, all 40 spots are gone before we get to midnight.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh, this is actually real, like, I think it's because people trust our reputation, Shakira.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like people see you when I see you on an event, I want to go to it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I see and I've missed it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how did I miss it?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's real.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: I I I love what both of y'all said, and I I think it's interesting to show your receipts, but sometimes you got to show your receipts to yourself.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you gotta remind yourself, like, bruh, I've done this, like this is me, this is who I am.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: And like you said, Shakira, if if I'm not, I'm trying every day to live up to this, you know what I mean?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's beautiful.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: All right, who who are y'all?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: Where where are we from?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: How do we get here?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like, take us, take us back as far as you feel comfortable, go as deep.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I really want to hear, you know, because the work that you're doing is not something that you can stumble into.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, Joy, I replace some of our conversations regularly.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Stuff you just said that you forgot you said, and I'm still like, man, Joy said I could do hard things, you know what I'm saying?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Or, you know, connecting with my body and all of these things.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I know that there is a path that kind of gets you to where you are now.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm just curious, as as high level or in depth as you want to go, take me through upbringing.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Joy, you want to go first?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can start.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I have not been doing this for 14 years.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like Shakira, I've only been in this for 12 years.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I always look up to Shakira as she's I know she I tell her this all the time.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like she is a big sister to me in the community and in our field.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And even though we don't have we have different degrees, so she's a social worker, um, a therapist, um, a professional counselor, and so like we're different, but she is definitely someone I look up to.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So for 12 years, um, my work, I would say, would have started when I was like in high school.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I knew really young that I wanted to work, particularly with people who have been victims of domestic violence.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's only after doing my own personal work that I realized how much like my own personal story of having violence in our home impact the passion that I have to want to work with people who have experienced violence.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I a lot of things that I felt like I have learned about myself and like where my journey starts, I realize that it started in my own scene of pain that I didn't have access to because my body was doing a great job of keeping me safe.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't have a lot of access and memories to what my life looked like in my home when there was violence in my home and I didn't always feel safe in my home.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I have all of these like ideas about how I knew I wanted to work specifically with um women and children who have been victims of violence.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to specifically um have to be able to support them in the legal side, which I got to do with my very first job, full-time job out of therapy um out of school, was uh advocating in the courthouse writing orders of protection for um women and their families, and like I'm not sure if anybody's ever written an order of protection, it's a 22 pages carbon copy.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to write really heavy, and so we would fill it out, and the only thing that the person who was a victim would fill out themselves would be their personal story, but it's all these boxes you have to check, and it's 22, it's 22 pages and it's only written in English, 22 pages per person you deal with.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, and it's carbon copy.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So carbon copy means like you have to like write hard and down to make sure it goes all the way through because you get the very final one, but then the person that you need the order of protection against gets a copy, and then the judge keeps a like everybody has their own copy.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, we I got to do both of those things, which at the time felt like a dream come true to me working with like my dream population.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also was really, really difficult working in an emergency shelter that was 24-7 and that never shut off.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as hard as it was, it was so it was so good and so impactful.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then from there, moving up here to Northwest, Arkansas, um, and being able to do school-based, couples, families, like all these things, and now owning my own.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So a little private practice.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like the work started really in my own story, trying to thinking that I was like supporting other people, but it wasn't until I did my own work that I realized like, oh, this was this was for me.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: This was me going back for, you know, how we say in therapy, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You going back for your little joy, your little self, and all these ways that I can see in my professional development of how I have gone back for little joy and like given little joy voice.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm to see Joy as this this advocate, this architect, the social weaver.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, that's you, hey, yeah, like, oh, little joy's been like trying to speak as much as she's been trying to help other people speak.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: I would be I'll be surprised if I could get through this without at least one thug tier.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna let it fall.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: I have a reputation of phone, so I'm not gonna let it fall, but I'm I'll be surprised if I can get through without something will enough.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Don't give us a challenge.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right, never mind, never mind, never mind, never mind.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, joy, thank you for sharing that sincerely.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: Shakira, take us back.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm gonna take you way back.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um my grandmother was always my person, and she belonged to a group in from Fort Smith.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: She belonged to a group in Fort Smith called the Young Ladies Social Club.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they were all retired ladies, but you know, at one point they were young ladies, and it was mostly black women and one white woman who were part of this group, and they did everything for the community.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: They back then in the 80s, commodities were passed out.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: You get your government cheese, best shit ever created, your government butter, best butter.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I lived for commodity days because we got what was ever whatever was left over once it was passed out.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: But they would pass out commodities, they would do bingo nights where the money was raised to fund other things they were doing, but we would win groceries, which we needed it, you know, almost as bad as everybody else.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But she taught me to give back to the community and especially my community because the social club primarily was for the black community.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was created.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how I don't even know when it started.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um my mom doesn't know either.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: She was just always in it, and all the pictures that we have are old, and they'd have formal events and they'd wear all white, and they were all dressed to the nines, hair pressed, hats, everything.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it was all about giving to the community, even as things were integrated.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they still had the old black Catholic Church that they would use.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it didn't it didn't carry on to newer generations.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I lost my grandmother when I was 11 to cancer.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know that she's with me all the time.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: I feel her all the time.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she is the reason that I went into social work because I wanted to do something, you know, seeing what you know, the trauma that I went through in my life, the things that my brother went through in his life, and then seeing my friends, you know, different things.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I was always the therapist for my friends.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was always the one, well, let's figure this out.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it took me a few jump starts to figure out how to be involved before I found social work, and I found it and the light bulb just clicked.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, what you mean?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I get to write angry letters, I get to go to protest, I get to yell when I'm angry, you know, what upsets me about the world and figure out how to grow and change it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um I got my graduate degree in 2011, and I've been going ever since.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done school-based, I've worked with kids and families, I've worked with um infants primarily with their families and toddlers, you know, just helping to deal with stress.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've done hospice, which was my favorite job, but I can never do it again.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's really intense.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Everything I've done has been centered around energy.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: It just took me years to realize it.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been really in tune, you know, with the energy of other people.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a big part of my parenting, especially now, especially as I was able to reparent myself and be the mom that I wanted to be.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just as years have gone on, I've connected it more and more.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: When COVID hit, I, you know, was like everybody else and just in a bad place mentally.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm like, I gotta do something about this.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I got kids.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, you know, I got kids that have clients.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I need to take care of this.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I found yoga and I loved it because I have a friend who's also a therapist that all through grad school, she was like, You gotta do yoga, you gotta do yoga, it's life saving.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, leave me alone, I like to lift weights.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I finally looked at yoga and it changed my life.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: It gave me a regulation I hadn't had before.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So then I'm like, I'm gonna become a yoga teacher and I'm gonna bring this to everyone, especially my people, because there was so much going on in our culture during that time, too.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just blossomed from there, from you know, doing partnerships with different people as I've reached out to connecting with people like Joy and developing friendships, and it just keeps growing and it keeps blossoming.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then once I found out about the nervous system and what research shows with it, and how our nervous systems, even right now, our nervous systems are pinging off of each other subconsciously to check for safety.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like I'll drive people crazy talking about their nervous system.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like my favorite thing, and the energy we put out and our connection to everything.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And my big passion is bring that especially to our people and you know, other people that are oppressed because that stress is chronic and it's so heavy, and it can literally kill us.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we need to survive.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just gonna be real.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: Joy, you told me this years ago.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: I believe in space, I believe in letting something breathe.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like, so I'm telling y'all now, I'm an internal processor, so we're gonna have some moments where we just letting something sizzle.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think it is a profound similarity between the two of you that both at a really young age deemed this idea of service or advocacy as pretty much a non-negotiable.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: Shikira, you knew you wanted to help people.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Joy, you knew out the gate you wanted to help people, you know.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: How?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: You my grandmother is the biggest influence on my life, and and thank God she's still with me.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: You lost her at 11.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's so young to know, oh, it's in me.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: I need to, you know what I mean?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like, talk to me about the path that you both chose in regards to knowing, like, man, I gotta carry the torch, I gotta get this information and spread it to my people.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how where did that come from?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Mine and my grandmother's favorite song, and we sing it together.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have since recorded over it as a kid, and it devastated me.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: But our favorite song was Reach Out in Touch.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's the official name by Diana Ross.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And because we watch whatever version of Motown at the Apollo or whatever came out in the 80s.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: We watched, we had that on VHS.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm old, y'all.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: We had that on VHS, and we'd watch it all the time, but she and I would sing that song together, and it was just ingrained in me.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is what you do, and you know, I'm also oldest daughter, you know, in a black household, which carries its own part of you take care of your people, but I also grew up with having a huge village, you know, especially with my grandparents and their friends and my mom and some of her friends, and so I naturally built a village myself, and I I think most of it is just who I was meant to be, but also who my grandmother created because I was always with her.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: I saw her every day of my life, I'm pretty sure, until the day she died.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was wholeheartedly my human, and I looked up to her.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: She is still the most amazing person I've ever known, most beautiful person I've ever known in my life.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it just made sense to me to carry on that legacy.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she always stressed, you know, a lot of lessons her and my mom taught me about being black, I didn't appreciate until I was an adult because we all have certain things that we go through with our black identity.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've since told my mom, I get what you were trying to teach me.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I didn't appreciate it then, I appreciate it now and I understand it now.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but but I think a lot of it was just I feel it was who I was deemed to be.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: I really do.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it was a calling and it's who I am.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I also feel like my grandmother just she laid down the gauntlet and is like, this is what we do, follow or fall apart.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I followed.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm over here, I don't know if you've seen, I got chills because I'm like, I was talking to my grandmother this morning, literally, and she was telling me about her father, and he was a farmer and he raised pigs and he had a garden, and he would just feed the community.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like go take this to Sister Brown, go take this pork shoulder to Mr.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: Dan down the street.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so, so obviously, my grandmother emulated that and kind of passed that down.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I love what you said.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: It was just the thing to do, it wasn't even anything that you know it would have been uncommon to not go into a life of service and advocacy because that's the opposite of what you man, I love that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: Joy, chime in there.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think about my mom and my dad, I feel like they were both community-oriented people, they both did a lot of like giving back to other people.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even when I don't feel like we had a lot to do, a lot to give.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: My mom started a whole daycare out of her house, mainly because she knew so many other families who couldn't afford daycare.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so she would give them like a really low rate.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she figured out how to like get funding for food so she could have enough food to feed all the kids.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the parents would not be on time with their money or anything like that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom's like, It's okay, pay me when you get it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And she ran a whole day out of our house just because she was like, How I help other women who are trying to go back to work and they can't go back to work.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and just like, so I usually think about that and thinking about myself being my own entrepreneur and like, oh, my mom was like the first woman I knew who ran a business and tried to support people in the most simplest way that she thought that she could that was so impactful.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I too grew up with my grandmother a lot right before she died.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother died when I was like about 16.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being there when she passed and just off there remembering just like being in the community with her and seeing all the people that she was connected to and all the people that she had lost.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother lived to be like 82, 83.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And just hearing the stories of like, you know, she would say, at my age, you have more stories of people who have left you than people who are still with you.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just recognizing like my grandmother and I spent so much time alone together, and just now seeing like how alone she was.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was only her and one other sister who was still alive.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, our grandmothers were grandmothers who had like 13 brothers and sisters, you know.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So she's like, it's just me and my sister now.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And most of my friends have passed, and just all these things of just realizing how family was always kind of connected.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I grew up really connected to my church and always felt like I had family outside of blood family.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea that like I could be close to people who weren't my blood, like that wasn't a foreign concept to me because I felt like growing up, our church was very much like just come and took you in, just took care of you.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that felt really supportive.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which I think continues to be like why this matters.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I often talk to my husband who agrees, talk tells me how he grew up in a very different type of church.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You you had a youth pastor who was our youth pastor was a uh black woman who was like vice president of Chase Bank in Chicago.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we would come to church on Wednesday nights and our in our youth pastor, and she's like, All right, y'all got a 30-second challenge.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, What is what does that mean?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, you have to talk for 30 seconds about something without using word crutches.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we're all like, What is a word crutch?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you saying?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: But she was like training us to like how you're going to present yourself.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I always remember this idea of like knowing that I was I was going to be looked at differently because I was a black person.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was a young black woman, youth, whatever.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always felt like living in these two different worlds, like, which is what I think characterizes a lot of what I do now as a professional.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always talking about why mental health is important for black and brown communities.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because I'm like, I don't think our Bix C culture sees that uh these things are not typically talked about in our culture.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's typically not language for this, and why is so important that I feel like I'm over-emphasizing mental health and black women, mental health and black men, mental health and black children.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because sometimes we don't think these two things go together.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just remember my youth pastor like reminding us of like, this is how you present yourself, this is how you sit down for an interview.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're always ready to answer.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: We were like 16, y'all.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, she's just like prepping us for like interviews.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: What if you get?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you're working at McDonald's.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't care where you work.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you know how to present yourself?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband's like, we we were not doing that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Bible said we was just playing around, playing games.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you think?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be, I want to be clear, Jordan.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like, same.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was not on that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we would we were not doing that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: We was eating watermelon and playing dodgeball and stuff.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we wouldn't get it.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: You would have us think about, like, we would have to come in and talk about what did you see in the news?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like 30 seconds like news reel.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is before we had cell phones, and we could like, you know, she was like, What what what have you seen in the news this week that you could talk about for 30 seconds without using word card?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're like reading newspapers trying to figure out like what can I say for Wednesday night about like we talked about God, but I mean she was really like, Yeah, what do you know?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And how will you carry yourself when you leave here?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know, I think that continues to influence me too.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do I represent?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, represent for what's important to me, what's important for people who look like me.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: All right, we finna go there.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm over here already.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I feel like this might be the segment, y'all.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: This might be the segment.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: But um, I hear you both speak about representation and how important it is for people who look like me, who look like you, to A, have the knowledge and the information about how to regulate your nervous system, or you aren't crazy, you know, you're storing things from when you were six, but you forgot, you don't even realize, you know.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: I remember the first time I heard the saying, your body keeps score.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, it blew my mind because you know, some of this stuff is it it can feel high level and heady, but most of this stuff like basic, you know what I'm saying?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: If you get beat up on this corner, every time you go past that corner, you're gonna get 10 suck.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm like that's it's just normal, it makes sense.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I say to this day, this was prior to getting married, shout out to my wife.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: But I say the the second best thing to knowing Christ was going to therapy for me.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like it changed, it literally revolutionized my life.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: And my therapist, I don't even know if it's appropriate to shout him out, but you know who you are, you helped me out a lot.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he was kind of even reframing this, you know, as black people, therapy is like weaponized, like, oh, somebody got killed, I'm gonna force therapy on you, or like, oh, you you got assaulted.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: You that's the only time we know about going to therapy.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we never have heard about this stuff as a means of maintenance or self-care.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: And my therapist was like, bruh, it ain't that you need a therapist per se.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: You deserve to be heard, like you deserve to have space.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you deserve all of that.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: The language shook me.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: It was I'm just like, dang, okay, cool.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: So, anyways, from you all's perspective, you're in the game, you're you're experiencing this, you're living this, you see it day in and day out.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to provide a little space for you two, as professional social workers, therapists, counselors, like people that are working in this realm, for those of us who are coming in brand new, for those people that's like, nah, I don't want to go to therapy, ain't nothing wrong with me.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: What, you know, like help kind of break it down and and demystify and maybe even dis des stigmatize this a little bit.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: I know that is a very big undertaking to ask of you, but kind of from your perspective, break it down for us who aren't as familiar to this world, you know.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I do this a lot with my clients.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you it's great to have somebody that's not related to you or involved with you in any kind of friendship or intimate way to be able to hear you, and you can say anything to them.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can say those things that maybe you wish you could say the p to the people you were close to, but you can't.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever my clients struggle with really getting down to the hard work, I always tell them it's like you just you deserve to have space.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: You may have been taught for so many years that you don't deserve it, but you deserve to have space, you deserve to take up space.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that won't take away from anything else you were taught.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just another way for you to truly, genuinely care about yourself.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we are both person-centered therapists, and so like our clients are the expert on themselves.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: We we talked about this the other day.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're not here to be anybody's mama, we got our own kids.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh, my clients from the intake, I'm not your mama, I'm not your big sister, I'm not your cousin twice removed, I'm not your auntie.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I have zero authority over you.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here to give you skills and to give you a place to be heard so that you can figure out what will help you be healthier.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that I learned to do that, especially as I got more and more of our folk in my office, even as parents of kids, because that helps.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: People are afraid of being told what to do.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: People are being afraid of being told that everything about them is wrong.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, that's not for me to say.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'll say if that's unhealthy, I'll say, well, you're beating yourself up.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I tell a lot of clients, why would you treat yourself as bad or worse than your abuser?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but I am you're driving the ship.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: You get to decide if you're gonna try this or not.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you what to do.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that seems to help soothe a lot of people.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think one of the big things we're afraid of is being bossed around by yet one more person, especially a person that's gone through all these degrees and has all this training.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it's just so that I do this right, so I don't create more harm.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's all that paper means.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: I am allowed to do this for you.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love that.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: People are experts on themselves, they don't need another boss.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it makes me think, uh, you know, let me get that fresh air.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Joy It makes me think like, I don't think that therapy has a monopoly on healing, but I do think that therapy is an avenue towards healing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there is something really, really empowering when someone helps you better understand or gain more awareness of your own story, of your own cycles, of your own strengths, maybe in a new way.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And seeing how maybe you have you've been surviving all these things, and actually you don't have to survive anymore because you're not in a place of threat.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is threatening you, but your body is just so comfortable to survival that it keeps activating itself up to this high level.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what if you could get back down to what we would say is the middle of your nervous system so that you're not just like like jump scare every five seconds.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you are safe, then why are we still acting like we're surviving?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is a complicated, nuanced conversation usually for majority minority folks, because I think there is always an aspect of our society and our culture that we are surviving.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: But most of the time we are safe enough.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's I think it's difficult because we look at the state of our world right now and we're like, it does feel like a survival.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: But then if I'm able to like settle, then I'm like, oh, I'm actually safe right here in this space.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: My nervous system feels safe with y'all, even though we're not physically together.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I probably feel kind of safe with my family, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm probably safe enough that I don't have to always be in the jump scare.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think therapy can help people realize that there is a way I can hold on to safety, internalize safety, even when the world is not as it should be.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or it doesn't look like it's gonna change anytime soy.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: I thought that was gonna be the moment.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm over here feeling it.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm getting a little chill, it's getting a little, you know, misty.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, man, because y'all, all right, here's the thing, right?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm about to give y'all some flowers real quick.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone's an expert today.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: Every you know what I'm saying?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you get on social media, I'm serious.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you get on social media and everyone an expert.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: They tell you how to raise your kids, they're telling you how to, you know what I'm saying, what to eat, what not to eat.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: They tell you what water to drink, and everybody, but don't nobody got no credentials, bruh.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: They don't got the paper that's that's helping you do it right, they don't got the 10 years of experience that both of y'all got plus, you know.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so when someone speaks from experience, it it resonates differently, you know what I mean?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: And and you, and so I feel very fortunate.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to give y'all flowers seriously, because I feel very fortunate to be able to glean some wisdom from you know, two people, two women who are like, this is how it is, you know what I'm saying?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like, y'all ain't trying to boss around, y'all ain't like you said, therapy ain't the monopoly on healing, but it helps.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if you can figure it out, like, you know, and it's funny, I share this story almost reluctantly, but I had a friend of mine go to therapy, and their therapist was also a musician.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so this person is confiding in this first-time experience, mind you, for a person of color.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, as black people, we already leery.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, wait, what's happening?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: What is it?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: Man, they go into this experience.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: This lady is talking to them, listening.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: And they said the one thing that I now know as someone who's been through this, like, the worst thing you could ever hear is like, man, I feel like my therapist was doing more talking than me.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so then after the fact, they said their therapist gave them their mixtape and was like, Hey, you going through true story, hey, you going through it.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: I make music, listen to this, it'll help you.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, bruh, you you just needed your 12-year-old self hugged in that moment, and this person handed you a mixtape.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: Sincerely.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so, all of that to say, there are a lot of people who aren't doing it the right way.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that y'all have areas of growth that you want to be better at, but you do make space for people and you do, you know, listen to people.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: And now I'm curious from your perspective, how do we find our own voice?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do we even know who who needs healing and what's happening in there and how to listen to ourselves?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of a sub-question, Joy, when you talk about kind of being in that that hyper flight mode, or you know, I seen something the other day, it was a post, and it was someone that was cleaning up their house frantically.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like everything, like da-da-da, washing the dishes fast, like just doing everything fast.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: And the person was like, Stop, you're safe.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then the caption was this long, talking about how, you know, from the time that we kids, you gotta clean, you know, clean up and you feel like you don't get in trouble if you don't, and you're under pressure and you're storing all of this stuff.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: Da, da, da, da, da, right.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_03: Back to my question.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: How do we find that voice um internally and and know, you know, who we are and what the voice is saying, and and how do we listen to ourselves, how do we hear ourselves?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: How do we even make the space to hear from ourselves, basically?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'll jump in real quick.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would say you start by listening to your body.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a phrase that I often use with my clients, like, you got to listen to your body.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I'll be quick.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I really I literally think that like part of meditating, which is something that I also started when I was uh in 2020 when the world was on fire with all of that.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: What is meditating?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Being able to like literally I my husband and I, we would turn off the lights, get our boys to sleep early, we would turn off the lights, sit in the living room, and put a 10-minute meditation video that just was walking us through a progressive muscle relaxation type of meditation, which just means you squeeze different parts of your body from head to toe and then you release them with an exhale.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it just had some music behind it, and we would just put the phone on the floor, he would sit against the couch, I would sit in between his legs, and we would just breathe because I knew that in in 2020 I was feeling so anxious, trouble sleeping, all these things.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I started practicing yoga and meditation, it was to me, it was during the time when I felt like the world was on fire.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just taking those 10 minutes, those 10 minutes always felt like longer.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: It always felt like we had been sitting there for 20 or 30 minutes.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it helped us sleep better, it helped us connect better.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as scared as I was all the time, that anytime he went outside and was in the car, that something could happen, that he would get pulled over by the police.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: I remember just like waiting for him to get home so we can put the boys to sleep and we can meditate together.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think listening to your body means like being able, I often tell my clients, putting hand on heart, hand on belly, and just being able to sit and listen to like what am I noticing about my heart?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: What am I noticing about sensations in my body?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, positive, negative tension.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: What am I noticing about my heart rate, about my breath?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it hard to breathe in deeply?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when people start meditating, it is difficult to take in deeper inhales and and then slower.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is quite literally difficult because you're used to talking in one breath and literally not breathing.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then realizing, oh, okay.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so oftentimes I will have clients sit in my in sessions with me.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I will have them close their eyes and just touch their heart.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately my clients start crying.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, and then they try to talk.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm like, actually, this is not the part for you to talk.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the part for you listening to your body.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, but wait, Joy, I'm like, I know it's so uncomfortable to actually sit with a hand on your heart and actually have to feel your heart rate.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know that's so uncomfortable, but can you give me just 10 more seconds of silence here?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Listening to our body, I think is like slowing down and being quiet.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes I feel like I have to remind myself too, like, slow down.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I moving so fast?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I have nowhere to be.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: I so now I try try practicing, giving myself extra time to get somewhere because I don't have to be late.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can be on time and I can be early because I am the master of my own time.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I right, I think I think sometimes we think, and and even when it comes to my kids getting to school on time, I'm like, they can be late for school.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is fine.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: We will get to school whenever we get to school.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell the little AI assistant when they text me why my son was like that it was because we was getting up.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no other reason.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I I'm trying, I feel like I'm even trying to like teach my kids like being somewhere on time can be nice.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it is difficult to do when we have a lot of other life just happening.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I want my kids to slow down, I want to slow down, I don't want them to always feel rushed from one thing.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's all right.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: What I got to do.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if and if I need to be somewhere at a certain time, that I'm gonna start getting my kids up earlier so that and I and as you usually I can tell my kids the night before, like, hey, tomorrow's a big day.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Mommy's gotta be somewhere.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: So mommy's gonna wake us up at this time.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when we get out the house, they're like, we did it.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, we did do it.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think they listen to your body.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious what would you add to that, Shakira?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know, Joy.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: You covered so much.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, I will start people very similar to what Joy does.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start from intake.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say, okay, in between now and the next time we see each other, pay attention to your breath.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell them they're like, What do you mean?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, notice if you're breathing.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because I promise you, you're not breathing as much as you think you are.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, You could tally mark, or you can just in general.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the time, clients will come back and be like, Girl, guess what?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll be like, What?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be like, I don't breathe.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no way, you're kidding.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I will educate them on when you are activated, because I don't like to use trigger to get you gets used too much.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when you're activated and you're in that extreme fight or flight, not just let's get stuff done, fight or flight, but that extreme fight or flight, here is what your body is doing.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll go through all of the energy reserving that our body does because it's getting ready to fight or flee.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I start my clients with all of that.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the science.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna lay the science on you.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then, because a lot of times that helps my clients be like, because I'm pretty woo.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna throw that out there.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm very woo.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that'll help me ease them into the other stuff that they see as woo.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're gonna do this breathing exercise, we're gonna meditate.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Well, you wanna slow your heart down?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to actually breathe, or you want to just kill over?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is what's gonna happen.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll correct on also the damage that it does to our body.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, forget what you already have that we've already listed as going on in your family, but you're gonna add to it, you know, and we're already at a disadvantage medically.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: So let's not die.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: So let's learn how to breathe.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: We we really be out here not breathing.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: We really do.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: I catch myself constantly, and I'm Meditate all the time.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: This is something that's the it's so interesting you said that.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: And and I appreciate both of those perspectives, like always well said.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: I could I really every time y'all talk, just assume that I appreciate it.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm getting I'm getting so much like you know, but I've caught myself probably more in the last two months saying you are actually not breathing.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know why instant came up, but maybe Joy, like you said, listening to your body, I didn't just started realizing, like, bruh, it's it's probably been 30 seconds since you've done this.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: Literally, 30 whole set half a minute since you didn't just, and I'm just like, oh snap, how am I even, you know what I mean?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm curious, because I want to I want to get into the event, but just on this, since we're we're talking about this, what's happening when we go a minute without taking a breath?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what's happening internally?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, why are we at that place where we don't even realize that we're not getting enough oxygen to our lungs, to our brain, and we, you know what I mean?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: What what's happening from a a scientific or you know, from you guys' standpoint?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so when we're doing that, that means something has activated us.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: That means we're having a stress response, right?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so it could be as simple as, okay, we're getting ready to do a presentation and we're nervous.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is most of the time fairly normal, unless we're so nervous we're reaching a panic attack, right?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or it could be we feel like we're in danger, whether it's a true life-threatening danger or it's just perceived.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is then our heart rate builds up because again, our body is trying to build up the energy to either fight or flee.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was according to research, the second response in organisms.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: The first was to play dead, and then as we, you know, as organisms evolved, it was then to fight or flee.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if that doesn't work, then play dead.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, and so our body's trying to reserve energy.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So our digestive system is shut down, our heart rates increase, our breath is shallow because we can't breathe as deep to move as fast.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our blood pressure is up, you know, with our heart rate.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: The energy is taken away from the part of our brain that logics and makes decisions, which is why it can be hard to logic, you know, we say you can't logic through anxiety because that part of the brain isn't even online, depending on how activated you are.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then, um, and that's just that's just some of the reactions that I can think of.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then if we stay there chronically, then that's where autoimmune diseases can come in and high blood pressure, and it's not the only causes, but it can definitely make it worse if we're in that state most of the time.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about like this happen every time.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_03: So if you got three presentations, you got to go see your baby mama, you gotta the bill do you if you got a desk.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna stay right there.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, wow.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: Joy, what do you got there?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you get on social media and they're reading, catching up on current events, and then you start doom scrolling, and you don't get done with all the stuff you get done.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like there's so much, and I always tell my clients we have we live in a society that is constant go, go, go, and is full of information, and that's not how we're supposed to be.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, innovation inner information is great.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots we need to know, especially right now, but we don't constantly need to know it.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: And being in a Western society that values be productive, be a worker, be, do all of this, then it's natural that we get disconnected from our bodies because that's not valued.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 47:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna add that part in too, right?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's something, which is why I think uh mental health matters for my majority minority folk, is because also in the background is the chronic stress of dealing with racial tension and racial stress that is literally always around you.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and especially in an area like let's just talk about Northwest, Arkansas, that is predominantly white area, and usually people of color, we are the minority or just like the least majority in the space, and particularly in the space that holds power.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think you oftentimes I hear people talk about Northwest Arkansas as being very diverse, culturally diverse, which I think it is.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: But when we start talking about who are the people who hold the power who make the decisions in our area, it is not people that look like us.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: Be tell them, Joy, be specific.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very, yes, we are very culturally diverse, and I love that for our elementary schools, but who's making the decisions about the elementary schools, about the school of lunches?
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not folks that look like us.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so when we talk about why host an event for people who are uh culturally diverse but still the majority minority in a small area like Northwest Arkansas that is uh financially rich, it matters because there is a racial stress that everybody is holding on to, that cannot always put words to, and does that does not always know where it is safe to talk about that racial stress.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: So as much as I, which is why Shakira and I work so hard with our clients to say, like, I have to teach my client how to regulate the nervous system.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they don't know how to do that, then I probably have not done my job well because I know that there will still be things that will be a stressor to them.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if I give them some really tangible skills, then now like my hope and my prayer is like, okay, when JoJo leaves my office, JoJo is like expecting the world not to get it, not to get him, not to understand him.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Jojo's like, that's cool.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not looking for the world to accept me.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know who I am, I know where I belong, and I know how to care for my body.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I can like make sense of what the world cannot carry, parts of my story or understand my story, because I do have safe places and safe people to turn to.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: I often will talk to my clients about like you have to one hour and say, I'm not enough.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: One hour with me a week, four hours a month, two hours a month is never gonna be enough.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you have got to be looking for safe people, safe places and safe things, like tangible activities or things that you have outside of me because I will never be enough for you.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was never meant to be.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so oftentimes I feel like, especially when I work with black and brown folks in this area, I have to remind them like I do believe that Norfolk's Arkansas can be safe for you, that you can find community here.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely believe that, and I absolutely understand why you're hesitant about finding people here.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: I get both of those things.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think oftentimes our culture struggles with nuancing conversations.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: So like I can be safe here and still feel alone here.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I just want to add to that, you know, trauma therapy helps you healing, working on your healing with trauma helps you to see what you can enjoy.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, it's not meant to be like, oh, okay, I'm stronger now, I can go through anything.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: It going through stuff is hard regardless, but it gives you the community, you know, like what my grandparents had, the community, um, because they were silent generation, so they were civil rights generation, to be able to rally when things are hard.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it also helps you see because you're more regulated and you love yourself more, which is a huge component, is that loving of yourself, then you can find the joy in your life despite what's going on.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because the thing I believe most, the one thing they can't take away from you, and it's something Angela Davis talked about, the hooks talked about, so many activists talked about is what's inside you.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: The part of you, the spirit, the soul, the witness, whatever you want to call it, that is truly experiencing this life.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: They cannot take that away from you.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: They cannot take away what you hold inside.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so finding the peace in that and letting that part of you live is so instrumental in being able to heal and being able to exist in so many areas that may not necessarily value us or value us all the way.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all didn't say, I hope when we're putting this together, I'm gonna try to get a gym counter.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like that distract little things that y'all didn't say, Mage Karen, you just said so much stuff.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm over there like, dang, yeah, that's real.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: I never thought about it like that.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_03: Joy, you're talking about something you might not be fully safe, but you're safe enough to breathe.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, man, this is this is some real, real, real, real, real value.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to us about the upcoming event and what we can expect.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, give us all.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_03: I know, you know, it's it's sold out right now.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: I know I know it's you give me this next one, but let us know.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: You better get on that wait list.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you can post it for us.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have a wait list, Lord help us.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: We we were literally in a in a chat on Instagram, just chatting.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even remember without because we chat so much, we said so many videos, I can't even go back and look at that.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: One of us said, Well, what if we did this together?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, okay, I'm fine, and she had a fly.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's something I love about Joy, because I got I got a lot of ideas with my brain, even with medication, I got too many tabs open and I can't make stuff happen.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, here's the idea.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want me to do?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where do I show up?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what's great is Joy's like, okay, here's what I'm gonna do too.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: And look, everything's done.
• 54:07
  unknown: So it's a perfect partnership.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: Being here this time, already got the promo.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_03: I got your walkout music.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like, let's go.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what you're gonna do.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is your part.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is my part.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is Alma's part.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, it's done.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the location.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: I love you.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sweet.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I need to stay over tonight.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a different no, no, but then Shakira is like, all right, don't do nothing else.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, I tell her that she don't listen.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know her.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um this came out of a text message because we were messaging on Instagram.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's this black woman called Trisha Hersey who wrote a book called Rest as Resistance.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Trisha is in Atlanta and she hosts these rest um community events where she literally just gets people in a room to literally sleep.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't I've never been to one of her events.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, maybe somebody will donate for Shakira and her eye to go to Atlanta so we can go to one of her events so we can say you know, go find me out of anybody.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody uh, you know, ask and you should receive.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible says.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, uh Shakira resent me one of her events, it was like, we need to do this.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, let me email my person right now.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Shakira's like, wait, are you for real?
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah, she said we can have it on this date.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a good day for you?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but it comes out of this place.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think Shakira and I are always trying to think about how do we bring this type these types of things to Northwest Arkansas because we know the people that we are in community with who are telling us stories of needing to rest.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we also were thinking about just what's happening quite literally in our country right now, in our neighborhood, uh, with the immigrant community and with ICE and all these things.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, how can we support black and brown folks who are worried about trying to be an advocate and we know they're not taking care of themselves?
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's literally what we're we're like.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do we help people like us who are advocating and not responding?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_03: Woo! All right, listen, I need a I need a final, a final word from you two, and we we have to do a part two, okay?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm like, I'm thinking about bro, how important is rest?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_03: We ain't even dove into it, social media is crazy, but you know, how do we keep our minds sane when we ain't supposed to be overstimulated, but we are and like so since sincerely, you know, I really, really appreciate both of you, and I'm curious.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm gonna give both of y'all a parting word, it could be a nugget, it could be a piece of information, you know.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Joy from to your point, you know, talking about regulating the nervous system and and feeling safe, you know, or Shakira, you talk about community and like all of these different things.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just curious, give the listeners uh a parting word, whatever shows up for you.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rest is resistance.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: Rest is resistance.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: How do we how do we really stick it to the people that don't want us to be here?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: We experience joy and we rest because they don't want us to do either.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I would add to that is the only prerequisite for rest is safety.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when you are able to identify an internal sense sense of safety, a safety and community, then you give your body more opportunities for rest, for things like joy, for things like peace, right?
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like we don't get to any of these things without a sense of safety internally, externally in our community.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the reasons why this event sold out because people because of one of our reputation, Shakira.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our reputation communicates safety to people.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people are like, oh, if they're gonna be there, I wanna be there.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um yes, rest is resistance, rest is joy, joy is resistance, and rest requires safety.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_03: Where can we follow, support, keep up with?
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do we stay in contact with you or all the listeners?
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: How do we join the wait list?
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like, plug everything, everything, plug it all.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: We need we need to keep up with y'all.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you go to my Instagram account, it is Joy J O I McGowan underscore LPC.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a post that the last post that says sold out, that is the link to um being able to get on the wait list.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then Shakira's information is her name, Shakira.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and Shakira, Shakira has just reposted everything that I posted about the wait list.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go to Shakira Eekens um on Instagram or Facebook, and you can also get that wait list information.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can also get that wait list information for my business page on Amani Counseling underscore C O.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is also the last sold-out event that says um hello all you can fill out this uh this wait list information.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we we only ask you for your name and your email.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: It allows us to put you on like an email list so that when we do the next event in June, you will get you'll be the first ones to get that uh link for the June event.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're just confirming the date and the time, the date and the location for June.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we will do this again in June, and we are so excited.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and hopefully we'll be able to get more than 40 people.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_03: I love y'all.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I really sincerely I feel refreshed and enriched.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I feel, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know another word, refresh is a good word.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like I feel refreshed from this conversation, and I really, really, really appreciate the great work that y'all are doing in the community.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: And Joy, like you said, y'all do have a reputation and y'all have built a lot of rapport in this community.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that that comes at a cost.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_03: I know that's not folks ain't just giving out their trust, bro.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's 2026.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so that is a testament of the work that you all have done.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I just pray that you're able to see even a semblance of you know the value that you all have have given us and the love that you poured into us.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I pray you're able to see that back.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for joining.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_03: And if that be all, I will see y'all next time.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you for having me.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.