Therapy vs. Self-care vs. Praying the Pain Away

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Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot Il, a production of I Heart Radio. Hi, Hi everybody. This is one of the very rare occasions that we don't start off with the music. We just want to stay where we are in this moment. Today we're gonna be talking about therapy versus self care versus praying the pain away. Let me just say this is J dot Ill the Podcast. My name is Jill Scott. I'm here with Lah st Clair and Aga Graydon Danceler. We're having a moment, good people. This is how humanity goes. You know that sometimes we are dealing and facing things that who that don't have a drop off section. You can't just put it somewhere and say I'll get back to it. A lot of things in life we can. But there are some things in life that we just carry and they show up. They show up in places we least expect, on days we least expect. The sun could be shining and families around and fun is happening, but they show up real life heartaches. There's a lot of reason for them. You very well could be experiencing trauma from your childhood. There's a lot of that, you know, you could be experiencing a divorce or a breakup of a relationship that really matters to you. Um, you could be dealing with the loss of a child, a loss of a parent. Guys, bear with me. We're talking about the effort and the tools to get through these things. I don't even know if it's the through. Is it the through, y'all to get through it? It's definitely the true so that you can move forward and continue to treasure the moments that you've had to treasure at the moments that made you smile and glow from the inside. We are all up in here sharing tears this morning or this day, this evening, whenever you're listening to us, we are completely inside this thing because we all understand it. And it doesn't matter who how successful you are, or how long it's been, or what you're doing in your life, the heartaches of our life do affect us. Therapy versus self care versus praying it away. Mm hmmm. Uhliah has said when we first talked about this that she felt like that everything that that is all about a combination of the three, and that's really important to kind of know the difference between them. I mean, this morning, I knew we were going to have this conversation, and I was really looking forward to it, actually, and I was looking forward to having this conversation specifically with y'all because I've had different conversations with you guys separately about just kind of how you're working through the stuff that you're dealing with, and you know, just we've had talks about it, even touched on it on the podcast many times, and I knew that it was gonna be a good conversation. And I started out this morning having a really beautiful conversation with a good friend of mine who is so honest with me and was really helping me to see some some strengths and some things I needed to change, and really just kind of you know, being a sister girl, just really showing up in the most intelligent and beautiful way. And I felt really empowered after that conversation. And then, like things happen, sometimes grief does this thing that they call it waves, And this wave of grief just went over me because that connection and love oftentimes is uplifting for me. Obviously, who wouldn't Philip lifted by love? But sometimes it's a certain kind of love that I arians that also triggers a lot of pain for me. This is going into is going into year three since my mother passed away from the physical and this morning the grief just who I mean, it just came in and just washed into my heart and spirit and I just was trying so hard. Girl. I was using all my tools. I was like, okay, you know, I listened to some inspirational music and I said, okay, boom boom. I went downstairs. I was feeling accomplished. I was cleaning, I was doing things, you know, to really feed my spirit. And I was like, I knew I was gonna have this good conversation today and I was ready, and it just settling my chest. It just settling me and looked me and my eye you know, you know how like a baby will do you when you sleep, little tyler will crawl up on you, sit on your chest, look at you. Feed me, deal with me, deal with me. And that grief was like, hoh, deal with me now, and I just was like, Nope, not today, grief. I ain't fucking with you. Today. Today is a good day. And I got all my stuff. I went down stairs and came down here to the office where I typically will record set up all my ship, and I said to myself, Aga, this is happening, ma'am, this, this has happening. If you don't call somebody and get it out, it's gonna come out while you're working. It's gonna come out, and you're wonna be able to stop it. So I called my sister and I said, Tasha. She said, hey, you know, let's see it. I said, are you busy? She's yeah, what's wrong? I said, I gotta get this out now. I got twenty minutes. I gotta get it all out. She's like, go ahead. So I started talking and oh, I mean just crying, like bent over pye cry on the phone my sister. And it felt very much like a cleansing, but it wasn't done. And I tried to get it out, and I just feel so foolish because you don't you try to control the conversation with green, with your feelings, with your emotions. You actually, I don't know about y'all, but I actually it's dumb enough to think if I just get it five minutes, okay, I can just gotta. I could flush it out and whatever. And when the girls asked me, why my face looking ask I'm gonna be honest, but I would have gotten out. And so I got out, got off phone, told my sisters, all right, good, I gotta go. Me sign on. As soon as I got on, Eve's asked me what was it like here? How are you doing? What? Then? Why the hell? Why would you even ask me that? Yeah? Eaves asked, that's how we were doing? And I looked at Asia and I said, Asia, how you doing? Girl? Child? Shy? If y'all cads a breakdown, five four, it won't even countdown. It wasn't even a countdown. I was having technical difficulties this morning. So I clicked off and but when I clicked back on and I saw your face, I said, oh, what is going on here? And today is a a day since? And I want to be clear. I've been I've been therapy. I know it's how to get on my knees, baby, I know how to prostrate, I know how to go into my closet. I know all of that. I know all of that. I have good friends, I have good family. I know how to sit my ass down, and so the tools are there to help it, but it doesn't cure it. That's take it away. And Jill just said this so poignantly. It's the through you have to go through, the through. You know, you gotta go through it. And there's a there's something about grief, and you can grieve all kinds of things, right, it's something about grief that does not it is a thing that will not allow you to deny it, and so you have to figure out what you're gonna go to take it through it. But yeah, I've I've done all of those those things and and and the tools do help, but it's the commitment to the through. I don't know if this is a part of it too though. That's that's the thing. We didn't add this on into the topic. But you're supposed to let this happen as well, Like this is all a part of it. You're supposed to let when this you get overcome. You're not supposed to hold that in and figure it out later. You supposed to just let all that ship out. M m hmm. That's what she's supposed to do. That's getting through it too, getting through it again. It was ugly. It's not a tractor, No, it's not. It's not beautiful. We need to talk about it more though, so people can feel more comfortable and the ugly of it. You know, I want to see a grief coach. I'll come back and you lie, smart woman, and I will take no credit for that. I have a good friend. And this is why. Let me just say this to you. And I know some women do struggle with this, and we've talked about this on the podcast, but this is why. Who women friends in any amount, in any amount will save your life. Come on, you ain't got to have on thousand of them, but I promise you, if you've got a good circle of women friends, they will save your life. And so I had a good friend who called me and said, hey, I got a friend who's does this grief coaching and I she said she was gonna be doing some sessions and I thought about you. That's how I came to do that. But I went to grief culture and she was telling me about this process around allowing the person to fall apart, allowing that whole thing to happen, to letting that ball drop. And for people with children, you know, it's rough because it's like you don't you be trying to decide how broken you want your kids to see you? And I have people around me all the time seven, and so I had to kind of come to terms with the humanity of it, all of allowing the humanity part of myself to be seen, and that it could also help other people to understand their own humanity. So when you're asked that I want to share this, that was what I tried to think about, was that it doesn't help me or anybody else to appear as if I'm just always handling it. It's always together. They benefits nobody. And then you say your kids had a conversation with you about this, when initially when it first happened, and you weren't and you was acting a certain way, and it was like girl hot to ask me. It wasn't all the kids, it was that son, son. It was that big one, y'all. It was that big one. I was acting a hot ask fool because a lot of times people think with grief is they think about sadness. They don't think about anger. And that's another thing I learned in grief coaches that your grief you have to be able to name some of the words, how are you feeling, are you angry? Do you feel abandoned? Do you feel you know? Start to really pull out those vocabulary words or your ass like there's more to this than just I'm sad and I'm upset. But I was really very short. My attitude was really short, and I got into a confrontation with my adult son that didn't go well. He's about to go back to school and here and I were literally arguing, well, I was acting crazy job, fussing and gary and all about nothing because you know what I mean, telling everybody they could go to hell. I had left, I pulled my car, child dove around the corner. He called me on the phone. I was just like, Mom, if you don't find some time for yourself, this is gonna continue to explode. And he said, we don't know how to give you that space. Unfortunately, because we don't, we don't really know how to do it. We're not used to it. So you have to assert that for yourself. We want to give you what you need, but you're gonna have to tell us what you need. Mm hmm. Girl, that he could put a word to that, like Jude, that he could put a word to that, like those feelings, because that's the part he could say that, Oh my god, that's just I've written about it in the past that's fantastic. And that is such a tribute to you and Fatina's parents that you allowed and helped your son to be sensitive to other people. That's beautiful. I wrote about this before and I told him, I said, you know, that was the day I realized that I had given birth to a friend. Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. And that was two years ago. And he and I continue to have some very good conversations and very open ones also about his own grief process. And that's the thing also too with children or with young people, because mother all kinds of young people, so they don't actually have to come from from our birthing, but we mother and and do this. And it's really important with young people because young people will oftentimes have Hella trauma in which they are not processing with you. They are taking on that process on their own, and they hide many things. Young people are very very good double life people. It was all one girl where we not a social media without social media. So what kind of magician you gotta be? Now? She the kind of magician you've got to be. Now, come on, you have got to be now. I asked my children, just do your best? Can we just do our best? That both of your lives can look as closely alike as possible for me, so that I might help and love on you the proper. But I feel like it's our thing where we just hadn't been socialized to handle our stuff, and that's how we pass it on. The humanity hard to be a human. So you have a parent that gets drunk a lot or uses drugs a lot, you know, just excessive ways to cope when a conversation is necessary and mandatory. And the fact that your son with love checked you in love who it is. It's something to celebrate. My grandmother and my um used to say one thing. And my girlfriend, Kim Kim Mitchell, she she always said, you can't hold your stomach in forever. Yeah, eventually you're gonna have to breathe. And that's really what it is. We're out here and and hurting and trying to act like it doesn't. It will show up on you. So we even And there's one thing in particular, Aga and Layah and I, you know, we agree, we're so proud of you because you constantly make this effort to feed your mind in a time where people are not necessarily I won't say they're not trying to be learners, you know, and you're out here making the effort to learn. And even in all of that intelligence and the quest for it, some ships hurt so bad that you cannot pretend that it doesn't. This is an issue. I want to try hard not to you know, I want to try hard not to pretend. I'm not interested in pretending you allow time for it. So that's it's also that too, So sometimes you you don't pretend, but are you allowing time for this? The moments? And that's the thing is that they come to the surface when you've been pushing them aside. That's the thing is that they make themselves known because you've not carved out the space for them to exist. And I've been someone open about this on my social media about the process of the grief and everything and what I've been going through about my mom. But there's always a little voice in your mind and says, so people are tired of hearing about this. They want you to get over it. That's oh, Asia, that's how that's me all day. That's me all day. I do this and there's no time frame, there's no time. Let me, let me get my ship together then and trying to trying to rationalize your pain is causing you pain. Amen, We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back. But can I tell you, guys, this is the for me. This is so this is the perfect example of how that comes full circle because no, Lie, my grandmother's birthday was on Friday, and I went through the whole well, what do I post it? What I do? Well, maybe people don't you know, and I'm gonna just and I ended up not really doing anything, and then I kind of just let the day go by. And it's funny because you feel like you don't You don't want people think you forgot because you deal with this on the daily like I have. I have the breakdowns, but I also, like I tell you, I sit here and I talked to my grandmother you know as well. But it ain't always sweet. It is moments where you and she's my grandmother, so I can only imagine. And then that's the thing too, It's like she's a grandparent, so you know, we expected that they're going to pass and everyone's gonna outlive them. So you're trying to deal with that grief too. But then and then you know, you gotta deal with the grief of your mother and a daughter who's lost. It's just it's it's it's so, it's so, and it all has a significance because it's about how it touches the person and who that person was in your space and life, you know. But then I had view in my life too, and so I'm like, just provides. I'm grateful for this. I have to tell you a very close friend to me had a very bad breakup and I came over to just be with her, to be her support system. At the time, she did some ship I wasn't ready for. She She got on the floor and she just had a pillow and was screaming and rolling around on the floor. And I was like, Oh, I don't know to do. I don't know to do. What's so odd about that is I had a moment like that with my grandmother. My mother told me to leave her alone and let her be. But this time I'm a grown up and I'm watching my friend in this outrageous amount of pain, and I just laid down with her. M I just laid with her and and just held her because I didn't know what else to do or say, and I don't you know these times as a friend, you don't know what to do, but you know, check on you, how you're doing, check on you. You know, just just hug along because of breaking up, because jail, a break up in COVID at a certain age, like it's that's a grief. That's great. Oh, by all the things. And I tell you something, a hug will pull it out your ass and peep, somebody put their hands on you, and you got anything that's floating up there to SERVI fo baby. That's the hardest part, one of the hardest one. When Eve said, how you doing that? Was that? That was that? Yo? No line, I swear to god. I was riding my bike on the beach like two weeks ago, and I saw this girl and I saw the back of her, and I said, I just knew it because I had already talked to one the phone, knew she was moving here. But one of my favorite interns in a I saw the back of her and I was like, she was on her roller skates and she turned around and I grabbed her. And mind you, this girl is like six ft two. I love I love all of you. Her whole family a bounces, but I just knew it was her, and I hadn't grabbed somebody and hugged somebody like that that I had that I had just uh. Oh, it felt so good, y'all. Oh, it felt so good. I don't know what I didn't kill y'all. When I see y'all, I don't know. I might squeeze the life out of y'all. I'm gonna bite the funk out. I'm gonna bite y'all. I'm gonna need to hug. That's what. That's how I feel about y'all. Though. One of the blessings of of grief, grieving anything, is it if you allow yourself to scream on the floor, come on, if you allow yourself to actually feel it, to feel your feelings. Yes, there is a deep pealing and a deep power in that, because, like I said, I'm gonna circle it back to this, you're reminding yourself of your own fucking humanity, your own humanity, and you know, I'm gonna go here. As a black woman, this is a thing that we have to assert daily. We have to daily assert our humanity in resistance to what it is that we're consistently getting. And one of the biggest blessings of this grief. And let me be clear, I will take all the reverting back in my maturity and emotional development to have my mother here in the physical police believe it. Okay, However, I cannot deny what has happened in my spirit, how I have discovered myself and where days that I would never have had I not had to fall on the ghol round. If I had to be on the floor, it's a different perspective in it. There's so much power getting up off the floor going and what I thank God for is the women that pulled me up and the arms that were waiting, and there's so many, Oh my god, there's so many. And I say this not to trigger anyone who doesn't have that, because I realized that too, that that's a blessing and a privilege to have love. Yeah huge. I say this to say that in this moment, if there's somebody who is experiencing this, I just really want to reach my hand out and help them then pull him up off the floor, because even if it's just this moment with us, it's in important to have it and that you're just so powerful on the inside, you really are, and that God creates all of this, even grief. God creates grief, even to your better bit, Come on, all of this is for you. It really is. It's for you. It feels like a thing that's happening to you, but it's for you. What is growth without the rain? I hate to sound cliche, but seriously cliche, but it's not. There has to be rain in order for the flowers to bloom. I want to say this is a little known fact, but it's a very very big deal. Years ago, Erica by Dude and I were on the phone and we were talking about a lot of things, but this one particular thing stood out. We were talking about prayer, and she said, I don't ask for things, I just thank God for everything. And in that moment she taught me how to pray. I grew up as a Jehovah's witness, you know. I visited a lot of places, Catholicism and Hinduism and Buddhism, visited the Koran and learning about that, and that was the first time anybody had ever really said something about prayer that It just it was like a mind blow. Mmm. So I suggest two everyone, and I have to say that that has changed my life and when you are in the place and and now, of course I'm I'm thinking about all the people that I love and that you know I lost, and I'm and I'm crying for you, Asia, because I see it and I feel it. These other times when you get really silly about and and and really use your all your words to say thank you for everything. Thank you for the sandwich, thank you for these socks that feel good on my feet. Thank you for the bath i'm about to run. Thank you for the water in it. Thank you for this ginger beer that's calm in my stomach. Thank you for every moment. Thank you for my grandmother's hands and her sweet kisses and all the things and and do it so much that it irks yourself that you get on your damn nerves, your own nerves. Being grateful, Yeah, it changes things. It lightens the load. Even if you know you're being a bit of a smart ass, God knows you, go ahead and be as smart ass you know, think, just be grateful for all of it, because there was someone that touched your life in such a way that you'll never be the same, That they shared time with you, that they loved you, and cared for you and was honest with you and harsh with you at times, enough so that you can scab and heal. You know what I'm saying. You know this is that the prayer portion of of our conversation. Don't ask for anything. I tell you all the time. I mean, and I say this light, but I also said in a very heavy way because I am more present now that my grandmother has passed, my relationships with God it's become so much more close and less unofficial, you know what I mean. And and I also feel like I got somebody like I don't know. I know, I swear, I know for sure, I swear to God. I mean, I swear to God. But I know for sure that my grandmother is whispering in his ear because of the things that have happened in my life since her passing. And as you were talking and talking about the things that have happened to you and with you and how you evolved, you have to acknowledge that that is your mama as well. And I know you acknowledge her. You know she has ever pressed to do it all the time. But I say that to everybody else that's listening in a way to like I cheat. My grandmother is all ever so present, and I say, and to what Jill said, when you're talking about praying, I think the easiest way to start with acknowledging being grateful is in these moments. This is what I do in these moments when I'm asking God like why, like why me? Like what is the plan? Like I don't know. I checked myself and I go, thank you, thank you guy, thank you for my blessings. I do not want you to ever think that I am ungrateful. I acknowledge my blessings, and I acknowledge and I have faith in this journey that you have written out for me. And I just I sometimes I just I get nervous and I'm sorry and I asked. But I just want you to know that I am so so grateful. I have to do this because I know that I am blessed. I know that I have beautiful people in my life for a reason. I know I'm not a bad person, and I know you got the best in mind for me. So with that all in mind, I'm not gonna question you no more, and I'm just gonna say thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen. Gratitude is it tho. Yeah, I mean that's the it, because gratitude is that precursor for joy, and the enjoy is the thing that no one can take from you. That's that's the thing that cannot die, that cannot pass away, that cannot you know, leave you or break up with you, that cannot pay for anything. You know, you know what I'm saying. It's not people. Joy is just joy. And that is a thing that we as as a people have tapped into so lovely in terms of our tenacity and growth and and and all the things that we're able to pull from. And we can recognize it no matter where it shows up. That's why when you experience us in Christianity or Islam or or your have y'all been watching that thing special on the Black Church. I have not seen it as yet. I'm sorry. It's interesting that it came out because y'all know I read something. Yes, yes, ma'am, you know, sorry I did, but I did. I did just be something and if they and I had to laugh at my old self because I was like, oh, let's risk up about that. But I had stumbled over this thing about the Bokogo people and how they come from an area of West Africa and absolutely show up in the bloodline of many African Americans, as we all know that West Africa was such a hub for the slave trade, and that many of the traditions of the Bicago people and their belief and of how they view the cosmos and how they view the life cycle show up in early and current practices and Black Christianity as well as Black as slum, and so many different elements of that show up in our spaces, and particularly this one thing called the ring shout. And all black people know about shouting in church. Come on now, But as I was growing up, you know, you know, you ever re reading some stuff and you're black. I knew. I knew it. I told my girlfriend years ago, I said, yeah, girl, I'm Muslim by stuff. I love shouting. I think shouting is the most beautiful, blackest thing I've ever seen in my life. I said, that's something that's so African that she was like, that's interesting that you're said from that way, Yeah, girl, that's that's us. And so reading this and understanding that the ring shout comes from the Picago people and that that was part of our traditional religious belief and that we incorporated that and that it has sustained itself even after we introduced it into African Methodist Episcopal Church and they tried to send us down. He's Black leadership tried to do away with it, and we would have nothing of it. That even when we couldn't shout in a circle, guess what we did shouting standing still in the seat where we were. So I think, again, this is a thing that's joy, this thing that we can access that there's so many pathways to it. So there is the spiritual pathway, which is really our birthright and our blood right. And then there's the self care aspect of it, in which we allow ourselves to be human being, hone in on our own humanity and remind ourselves of it day. And then there's the therapeutic aspect of it that teaches us how to use these tools to move through these things. That there is such a thing as actual tools. There are actual tools that people know, information and you know, intelligence, things that we can tap into others. They say, hey, look, I recognize what's happening with you, and you're normal, You're okay. And that's the thing about therapy. It's the process. It's going through the process I know that on Tuesday at three thirty, I'm going to talk about this. And it may be a day that you show up on Tuesday at three thirty and you don't have anything to say. That's okay too, that's okay too. You know, it's better if you have insurance. But you know, and which generally it covers people out there, but it but the process of it all, you know, being able to express yourself about that particular thing at this time is really important, just to allow it and release it. The holding on business is what makes our shoulders go up around our ears and our back hurt and our blood pressure raise. And you must know that. And I'm you know, I know that you know, but I'm just saying it anyway because it's true that what's going on in our mind and our emotion it does have every effect on our bodies. Say it. It absolutely does. And your mind and your energy can absolutely make you physically sick. Yes, listen. My grief coach asked me one day, she said, how does this brief show up in your body? I've never had a therapist asked me that, how is this showing up in your body? Name it? When you're feeling this what does your body do? Yes, girl, listen, this is a time period in which people are way more comfortable understanding that sick that you can be vegan, You can be working out five six times a day. You can be doing all of those things which are important to do. And I don't want to diminish that it's important to eat properly into and to exercise and move the body. But you can be doing those things and still a thing creep up mhm, A thyroid m A cancer information. Yeah, any of these things can creep up on me because there's a thing going on in the heart. It's a thing going on in the emotions and the braining of the mind. And you just you spoke a word to me just then, because this is the thing that I feel like, really is the monkey on our backs that we really have to deal with. I say all the time, I think trauma should be a public health emergency. It should be number one on the public health agene. We'll be back after the break this. I'm just having several full circle moments. I literally was just talking to a girlfriend this morning who have been trying to get her sister to go to therapy for the longest and her sister got offended because the first word the therapist throughout it is trauma, which is ill because some people can't even face the fact that they have trauma in their life. I was like, what were she? She you? She was like just a month and then and and definitely this woman has been through trauma her life that she's never never, never, never dealt with. And then it led into a whole another conversation too, of deciding your therapist because literally, Asia, as you were talking about your your grief counsel, I was like, dang is because she does your grief counselor have a resource for other therapists because it's so hard to to Once you want to go to therapy, then you gotta find your match that part. You know that part. And I have a good girlfriend. Her name is Kamilla Rasha, and I can name her because she does this work and she talks about the importance of black people having either black therapists or therapists who are doing specific work around equipping themselves to have discussion with black patients specifically and that often times and particularly people who are dealing with very I think the word is a cute, but stuff that's very far up the spectrum on emotional and mental disability that oftentimes they're they're desired to be in therapy. To not be in therapy comes from that disassociation, that isolation from going into a therapeutic situation. That's it's particularly for black men and black boys, where they're going in and they're not only not talking to a male they're talking to a white female therapist, not at all tied into their experiences or what nothing. And then we're like, oh, well we try therapy with them. We tried to put them in therapy and it ain't working. Well. You know you know what, Hair, here's a gag. My therapist is a white man. Wow? How is wow? How? I had one of those, and I'm how do you? We have very similar ideas, I suppose on life. I'm not looking for him, I personally am not looking for him to understand me as a black woman. I'm more interested in him understanding or not even understanding me. But you know how therapy is, it's it's it's gentle nudging guidance as the questions. It's asking the right questions for you to come up with the answers for yourself. Because when you do the work yourself, it sticks. When somebody else tells you something you know it can it can be really fleeting. But my my therapist is a white man, and um, he asked the right questions for me, because it's not all I absolutely believe it's if your matches. I think it's important to keep these things on the table so that we don't begin to get discouraged when we can't find someone who is And I don't hold anything back at all. Right, that's not why I can't to bullshit. Come to this is build means I don't bullshit and high and there are exceptions to every rule and just to the script. I have another girlfriend, I saying her name, but she just got rid of her therapist because she was too damn judgmental black woman therapist. Okay, like my secrets, because now you're like, you still you're still dealing with him, Know that you still you still dealing with that girl, but you know you know better. Wait a minute. But I didn't want to pick up to the writers of This is Us because they attacked us on this with Sterlen Brown when he was seeing a white woman therapist, and I loved that the conversation came up where he for him he needed a black man for what he was going through, right, And so that's that's really what moren So I'm saying is that when it doesn't connect, then there may be these other elements that are in the room that are keeping us from necessarily making that connection. And then we can that we have the option of taking into account these kinds of things. But girl, listen, I was very surprised. Was y'all love it first sight? Ji, y'all love it first sight? He and I? Yeah, like, no, no, I was going through a divorce and I was trying to deal with everything that occurred and they're not listening to myself portion of the show. You know, when you know better, but you do something anyway, you know that moment. I was trying to deal with that, like, Okay, I'm not gonna beat myself up forever about this. I'm very glad that it's over, but I don't want to do this these things again, and I have to talk it out and I have to address myself. So I went to therapy for that and once I moved past that, and that took some time. I was also dealing with a job that I felt was brutal, and it almost stopped me from wanting to do anything creative. That added on to it, you know, our next that was the next conversation, how to move past that. So he had kind of just grew as I grew, you know, from one situation to the next. And you know, I honestly, I'm I'm away from home now and I miss him. Really, I do. I miss my therapist. I do because to do the online day. It's a great relationship. I know, I know we could absolutely So I like the office. I like that sofa. I like that he is uh, the spaces is warm, and I like the no nonsense of the place. I came to purge. I came to deal, I came to face. I came to address myself and check myself. You know, I like that. But I started the grief counseling during the pandemic, so I have never been in physical contact with the grief coach, who is, by the way, a white woman, but who was also a white woman who first by a person who knew and understood that she knew and understood some things that were basics. So she never shied away from those conversations with me and was clear that if there was a point in which I felt she couldn't understand what it is I was dealing with, that I should feel absolutely okay with moving forward. But I think that more than anything, it was an experience that I needed that was beyond that. It was more so I needed someone to make things plain for me because I'm that type of person where I'm so used to being a person in charge. I got all these children, Uh, you know, I've been an independent artist for a long time now. I'm used to being in charge. I needed someone to give me homework assignment, to give me things that I could do, that I could do and things I could implement. And even though therapy worked, yeah, therapy worked in a different way from me. So it's like Jill said, therapy was more so a conversation that helped me work through and talk through things that I could work out for myself. Grief coaching was something I did that I felt like was more like I had these activities and I'm doing these things and implementing these things that helped me to clear the noise and actually do things with my life that I could take away from this and giving me language and that that really helped me. You know, there was one time where I was she asked me to I want to say, it was like make some piece of art or something that expressed like the legacy that my mother left me. And I knew right away that I was going to paint. My mother was a painter, and I knew that painting was the It let me paint something. Mind you, I adn't paint anything in a thousand years, and it did everything for me to think about legacy and think about what my mom left me and who I am as a person and express that through some sort of creative space. That activity did more for me in that that moment then just talking about it being able to implement an action in my life. And so that opened up a big door from me and other things that I wanted to do in action to celebrate her legacy. So I say this, and I'll circle back to what Lijah said about her grandmother's birthday. If your grandmother's birthday is a time that you want to celebrate and a time that it's important to you, you can attach an action to it, and that action they'll have to involve anybody. It could be posting, it could be throwing her a birthday party. It could be going to have her favorite foods or you know, giving or gifting somebody something that was important to her and saying, you know, every day on her birthday, I'm gonna givet this organization someone or I'm gonna do such and such a stuff. I love that. I love that. I'm like Alzheimers. Yes, yes, yuys Alzheimer's at a dance party. Yes, girl, great coaching. I've just thought of this, and I meant to say it earlier. I just never want to take away the with close relationship that Native Indians had with shouting. Oh yeah, I don't. I don't want to take that away that that I agree with you. I mean, I said, I grew up as a Jehovah witness, so we ain't shout nowhere, m And the first time that I saw shouting is scared the crap out of me. I was like, what is happening? Why? Or what is happening? And even now the surports to me that understand and and the reasons why what I don't understand is the same dance. You know, I don't understand that portion of the show because I know y'all it's always specific dances for specific things. No, no, no, I just mean the nature Americans, I mean Native Indians. I understand that that's a cultural thing. So I suppose it's the same thing. In church, it's a specific kind of dance for for shouting h okay and then the beat the same thing. You can only do the same thing. There's some variations on for sure, there's variations on it. And then there's clapping, and then there's the clap, the clap shout combo. Girl. When I've seen it, and it was genuine, it was a beautiful thing to see. You're funny, You're gonna act like his kids. You ain't never get scared by somebody got the holy ghost of their church, because I know I did. But no, no, no, not fronting. I thought that was very strange. I was like, I don't know what was happening. I grew up with the African Methodist, Episcopal Baptist combo, so at A and me church, they didn't do none of that. But in Baptist Church they did. Now some people ay and me, dude, I don't know, because I don't even want to get into that, because you know, I don't even know what my letters are. I just thought it was about I'm just learning from the PBS thing about the derivatives of Baptist, Pentecostal A and me. But I'm like God right, Baptist right. So like I said, I grew up around Methodists and A and menited Methodists is totally different. But again that's about that was the mixture on my mom's side, on my daddy side, on Baptist. So again, going to those two places, you saw a different kind of thing going. But that's the beauty of black culture. It does have nuance and differences once you start digging all the way in. But yeah, I mean you you're gonna see a whole different type of shout. You go to a Southern Pentecostal church, it's different. The first time my my cousin took me to Deliverance, y'all know, delivering to RELI. I went to Deliverance. It was a very big church at the time, and I went to Deliverance and this was my first time seeing anybody's shout and the lady was so so into it that she inadvertently slapped me across the face and I hit her back. I hit her back because I didn't, you know. I couldn't understand why she was, why she would hit me. You know, I just didn't understand. And I was like I was a little better growing woman there, But how do I know better? You know, how would I know better? I only experienced sat in the stories you told us. I get I expected you to do guests, Yeah, I didn't know what was happening. That is what led me to go to other places. I hold up, it's a whole of the world out here. What are they doing? What are they doing in the Catholic Church? And I was like, oh, we're gonna get on our knees again. Okay, all right again, okay girl, all right? Women you want me to go were in the box and go to box and say what okay, confess who's in there? Like like, what's happening in his side? People? I can't see him. This is why I was so happy when my mother just said, you know, baby, we're just a spiritual people. You know, we don't have to be don't really. You know, I did the Muslim thing turned it was his Lam for me, and she was just like, we're just gonna be loved the Muslim thing, you know them, She was like, and I was, you know, praise the Christian So we're just gonna go to this church and you know, I still got the Karan and you know I walked by and praise Jacksons and yes, Lord child, before were getting all types of trouble. Let's put it like this. Oh, let's put it like this, because I'm gonna tell you something. Our folks don't play about their beliefs. That's number one. So it's super important. But um, no matter what, I don't think we're paying I want to say. I know he wasn't playing. I just was saying. I just want to make sure that we circle back, yes, specifically to saying this thing, that this pathway, the spiritual pathway to healing, that this pathway that we all decide to choose, no matter what that pathway is, if it's the hybrid of things, if it's a specific pathway, whether you know, no matter what it is, that that connection is important to having a perspective on the world, and it is important to healing. It is important to adding that into your kind of recipe of well being. That is, you know, and we may not always under stand everybody's pathway. You know what I'm saying, and it's not for us to know it really isn't. It's like anything else in life, it's to understand its purpose, yea, to understand its purpose. You may not understand it, but you understand its purpose. I love that. Yeah, I've seen people use that in many, many ways, which is why I've always had really good relationships with people who had different beliefs. I've had some of the best and most beautiful conversations about God with people who did not practice the same religions myself. I love that right now, no matter what religion you practice. I love that we're all meditating. I love that. I love that that we're exchanging meditations and you know apps and stuff like that. Like, I love we're doing this way more than we were doing ten years ago. I just, yeah, I think there's a there was a fear, and I think that that's something that does keep people from allowing their you know, gumbo of self well being, Yeah, from having more than one ingredients. Fear is that fear that if if I rely on something outside of God or what is perceived to be God and religion, that somehow I'm I'm dishonoring God. Sometimes I'm just as how, somehow I'm dishonoring my my belief and relying totally on God. And I think that that is a fair conversation because I think people need to have it fully in order to open themselves up to these other ingredients. If we don't address that, that is a real concern. If we're not serious about allowing people to work through that feeling, then they will always say, I ain't doing that meditation or I ain't doing that therapy. You know, they're gonna continue to reject it if we're not real about the fact that, yes, I understand that what you're saying is that I rely solely on my Creator. I get that. I get it, and I think you got to be able to validate that feeling. That feeling is real. But I do think that just like food in the ground and just look like water you used to wash you but and just like medicines that you use to get rid of your headache and all of those things, that we have a we have a world that's full of tools and places and spaces that we can go in order to strengthen ourselves. And that that is not discrediting God, and that is not putting God's second. That is actually saying God, I know you made a big world, and I will use all the things at my disposal to feel the way that I need to feel. I mean, that's just my thinking. You know, faith without efforts fruitless that part. So it's all about doing the work and whatever that means, whatever that means, because quite frankly, you know, life is really the biggest gift to anybody's ever going to give you ever, And it's a much better life when you're living in gratefulness and in grace than in whoe. What was heavy. It's a burden. You carry it. At some point you have to put it down. You have to put it down, and you got to go through the work in order to be able to even reach for the ground on that one carrying it around. And not to say that you won't pick it up. Sometimes Hello, you pick it up again. It'll show up just like you did this morning for you and sat on your chest and looked you in your face. Agent, you know, like a whole toddler. I'm still here looking in your eye. Are you in there because I'm here? You in there because I'm here? And you have to face me. You got to face me. This is a part of it all. Friends, this is a part of the journey, and I'm so grateful that to be able to share this with you. Friends, Friends, I knew you when you had new titties. I don't know I had for a long time. I I'm just saying they they were still fresh. Y was actually referring, She's referring to my my very very used, very true. Oh yeah, I didn't think, you know what, Jail. That was rather brilliant, just very true because my first time meeting Jail, I had no children, and my titties were very fresh and unused. You don't remember pictures dolling. I was dog Laugh is still the best medicine. Laughter is still the best men. Throw that in there, throw it, throw it all in there. It's a gumbo of forwardness, of moving forward into gracefulness and gratefulness. That's the gumbo. Some some therapy, we need some of that. Some prayer, certainly need some of that, and all of that self work. Those you know, forgive me the long walks, and you know, I'm just saying all of those things are important forward because this is life, and sometimes that motherfucker hurt. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for commenting and having discussions outside of this one hour we share with you every week. We appreciate that this is Jay dot Il the podcast and we'll talk how do You Eat an Elephant? One by Ti. Hey, everyone is producer Eaves and it's time for the resources. Aga mentioned her girlfriend, Dr Kamila Rashad. Dr Rashad is the founder and president of the Muslim Wellness Foundation and founding co director of the National Black Muslim COVID Coalition. She also established the Black Muslim Psychology Conference. I'll drop links so you can learn more about her and her work in the episode description. Also, seek out a therapist in your area or through an online service or app. You know. We advocate for therapy all day on this show. All right, until next episode, y'all. Hi, if you have comments on something you said in this episode called eight six six, Hey, Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six four three nine five four five BI, don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill. Scott presents Jay dot Il the podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Layah st Clair, and Agr Graden Danceler. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun's produced by Layah st Clair and me Eves Jeff Cope. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Larenger. A dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. 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