Hi, I’m Rée.
Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned.
In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies. I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy.
Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea, who like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me.
homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale. To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be. What it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
In this episode, I speak with Nikiea—a filmmaker, graphic designer, and motivational coach to authors—about her earliest memories of growing up in a home led by strong women who served their community. We talked about her being the oldest child, and the weight of responsibility that came with assuming those roles, and how the things she saw and experienced impacted how she learned in school. We also discuss the impact of losing loved ones, and how that grief manifests in our bodies if we are not careful, and especially if we don’t know how to say no.
Here is our edited conversation.
Computer-generated Transcript:
Accessibility Disclaimer: Below is a computer generated transcript of our conversation. Please note that there are likely very many errors––including the spelling of our names––and may not make sense, especially when taken out of context.
00:00:03:07 – 00:00:29:04 Unknown Hi, I’m Ray. Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed as a student with undiagnosed neurodivergent learning disabilities and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned. In the decades following. I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies.
00:00:29:06 – 00:01:00:21 Unknown I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy. Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea who, like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me. Homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale, to speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems, to rethink what schools can be, what it should be.
00:01:01:02 – 00:01:24:03 Unknown When we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources. In this episode, I speak with Nakia, a filmmaker, graphic designer and motivational coach to authors about her earliest memories of growing up in a home led by strong women who served their community.
00:01:24:05 – 00:01:48:20 Unknown We talked about her being the oldest child and the weight of responsibility that came with assuming those roles and how the things she saw and experienced in her community impacted how she learned in school. We also discussed the impact of losing loved ones and how that grief manifests in our bodies If we are not careful, and especially if we don’t know how to say no.
00:01:48:22 – 00:02:28:13 Unknown Here is our edited conversation. Why? I was just thinking about how how similar I am to my son. Because when I was young, I was so bubbly and always singing and always, like, animated. Those are my early memories of me. Just always like chasing after people, like talking to them, constantly talking, constantly talking. As a student, I was really reserved.
00:02:28:15 – 00:02:58:15 Unknown I was it was said that I daydreamed a lot. And my grandmother, she ended up coming to the school and sitting in my classroom. These is somehow me being the kindergarten need to pay attention. So it was this whole thing when she was like I was sitting there. You still staring out the window in this? That’s pretty much how my entire school career went.
00:02:58:17 – 00:03:35:09 Unknown It’s always a it’s not as interested in listening to what was taught, but ended up knowing what was taught. But that that whole thing of like concentration in the sense of school structures that I was in was was not something I was as into. But then also as a student, testing was like, what? Give me a test. So it was a thing for me is still not a thing for me.
00:03:35:11 – 00:04:02:10 Unknown Even now, I mean I have, you know, I feel like it’s much more ingrained in our culture now. We have so many surveys and things like that that feel like tests. But just the idea of being tested, I think, kind of just probably bored me. You know, now that I’m at Grips was like, I was one of those kids that just needed some extra time or, you know, any of that kind of stuff.
00:04:02:12 – 00:04:45:22 Unknown So I always tested at the bottom of my class, especially in reading at the end of the school year. Every time I entered a new school, which was only three times, I ended up going back to the top of going to the top of the reading group. So it really was like a testament to like I knew what I was doing know, but it just I probably should have could have been diagnosed, but in a way just it could have been made more simple for me to step into a classroom if teachers would have known, okay, this is her history, Like this is her trajectory.
00:04:45:22 – 00:05:25:00 Unknown And and it doesn’t necessarily mean she needs to be in the lowest reading group. Maybe it means that she tests differently, you know, or you ask more questions differently. So that’s what’s so yeah, that is very relatable, actually. And it it wasn’t until later in my life that I realized I had some kind of learning challenges and disabilities and also lots of cultural differences that I was navigating between home and school and not speaking the same language as everybody else at home.
00:05:25:02 – 00:05:55:05 Unknown So, you know, family dynamics have a lot to play, you know, and and you kind of we’re talking about your grandmother coming in to the classroom and watching you sort of looking out the window and daydreaming. And I, I was I wanted to ask you, do you remember sort of like what kinds of imaginations you had or what you were thinking about instead of maybe wanting to listen to what the teacher was saying?
00:05:55:07 – 00:06:52:17 Unknown I’m going to stop saying that’s a good question. And that’s such a good exercise to to like, imagine myself sitting there and staring out the window is parts of me that actually remember, like staring out the window in kindergarten. I can still remember, like what the window frame look like. And honestly, I was one of those kids that like movies like Peter Pan was made for because I was just there in My Son is so similar, but I just was like imagining, like scenes, you know, and stories play out and that’s what I think it would take me so, so long to get back to what was being taught sometimes because I was in a
00:06:52:17 – 00:07:34:05 Unknown whole nother world, though, like, you know, one of those kids. So you I’m pretty sure that’s what was happening. Yeah. Because you had an a very rich inner world. And I wonder, you know, is and maybe if it’s maybe it’s not necessarily what you were thinking about at school, but I’m curious, sort of like maybe the types of like stories that were happening within the settings that you were in.
00:07:34:05 – 00:08:08:08 Unknown So whether it was at home, whether it was at school, whether it was, you know, other places outside of the home or school, like what kinds of things were happening that you remember that might have been some of the things that you had internalized and you would rather think about than being in school? Because I remember reading some of the stories that I had written, like in second grade and the stories, you know, they’re so crazy.
00:08:08:08 – 00:08:39:11 Unknown And so I’m always just so curious, like, you know, how other people were processing. And I don’t know if you can remember that long ago. Yeah, it’s been decades, right? So I’m just curious if you remember any of those things. It’s kind of like sad in a way when I think about it, because even though I was that bubbly, there was a point where I stopped being that way.
00:08:39:13 – 00:09:09:08 Unknown There’s a home video that I watched, probably I think I might have been 20, like around 20. And we still had some VHS cassette tapes all over the world. Now it’s the VHS tapes, the old fashioned ones, and it was someone in our family was a recording, one in the family. And then you just see me like singing my songs with a little fake guitar.
00:09:09:10 – 00:09:36:15 Unknown And I had all like, this Rick James cut pencil, wig. And I’m just like, singing songs all through the apartment and, and like, saying, like, look at me and listen to me sing some of the stuff. And then most of the time the camera is like, boring. Whoever else is in the room, like my mom cooking or my sister was a baby at the time.
00:09:36:15 – 00:10:22:18 Unknown She’s like, crawling, falling off Southern couch and the person is filming. They’re like filming themselves in the mirror. You still see me, like singing songs and and it’s like, it’s crazy to watch myself be that way because that’s not who I was in elementary school, really, like my later years. And so I was in middle school. Definitely. And my mom, after like watching that particular video because we were watching a stream of videos, my mom was like, I hate watching those videos because it just makes me feel like you were begging for somebody to to listen to you as you went.
00:10:22:19 – 00:11:06:17 Unknown Everybody was ignoring you. And honestly, it made me really sad. Of course, I mean, hear her say that, but it also was a huge identify for me for this pattern of unnecessary trauma that I went through as a little girl and how many things I personally ignored because I was ignored. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot because having kids is like you literally birth yourself.
00:11:06:17 – 00:11:28:16 Unknown So it’s like I thought like it’s like you think your kid is not going to be exactly like you. I just figured my son was going to be similar to his daddy is he’s so similar to his father, but also he’s so similar to me as a kid, like barely even me now, even though he talks like me.
00:11:28:18 – 00:11:54:14 Unknown But it’s just he just is me as a little person. And just those home videos have been playing in my mind, like even therapy sessions. Sometimes I think about it. I think about like, that’s what I’m going to talk about today. And then other stuff comes out, of course. But it’s like it really was that conversation that we had.
00:11:54:16 – 00:12:34:14 Unknown And my parent is not like a huge conversationalist that has to do with anything in the past or future to be present, whatever It’s not like, yeah, let’s get into the emotion of this conversation. Know, just like, matter of fact, she’s like, you know, I don’t want to watch these videos anymore. So like, okay, because I’m just watching it like, you know, yeah, You know, I can kind of really relate to that in many ways of being the only child, but also the smallest child in our whole extended family and not feeling like I got the adequate attention from the adults around me.
00:12:34:16 – 00:13:16:15 Unknown When you say you didn’t get the attention or I guess I’m putting that word in your mouth, I think the word you used was that your mother was saying they were ignoring you, you were asking you were doing all of these things to get people’s attention, but they were sort of ignoring you. And I was wondering, like, I know that brought up a few tears and I’m wondering what other signs or what other memories come up for you around this this memory of not feeling like you got the attention that maybe you wanted needed.
00:13:16:17 – 00:13:58:01 Unknown I think that, it’s weird because people used to always tell me that I was so special. I am one of those kids who needs was raised under my grandmother. Like, a lot. I had my grandmother, my mom and my aunt. Who were these pillars like of women who, like, helped raise me. but mostly it was my grandmother when I was working, and I was one of the grandkids that was raised to be the rock of the family.
00:13:58:03 – 00:14:32:11 Unknown So it’s weird to to think about me in a way of people not listening to me, but people looking to me to do these imaginable, especially emotional tests and to hold things together. And it’s just like all these expectations. But they weren’t my expectations for myself. So being a kid, I always felt that weight. I always felt that weight.
00:14:32:13 – 00:15:05:14 Unknown This is kind of outside of the conversation, but a lot of my older cousins who are on the first generation from my grandmother’s children, a lot of my older female cousins had been institutionalized for mental health issues or completely unable to get through a trauma that occurred, a sudden trauma that occurred and were inoperable on a regular basis.
00:15:05:16 – 00:15:25:04 Unknown And as a kid we used to go visit them and check on them and they would have kids or not, and it would just be they would not be there. It wouldn’t be like the cousins that I knew, you know, when I was tiny, it was like as soon as I got in elementary school, they just started falling off.
00:15:25:04 – 00:15:56:18 Unknown And not because of death, but because of whatever was going on. And this I’m talking about three cousins who are all it just is. Four of us actually is five. Six of us in the line of females of of grandchildren, females. Does that make sense? Coming from my grandmother. So yes, Yes. There was my older cousins, my other cousin, and it was I’m trying not to say names in as well because then it was me.
00:15:56:20 – 00:16:23:18 Unknown So all three of them were out of it and then it was me. So I spent most of my elementary school, middle school, high school, knowing that that would be my trajectory at some point. Nobody knows why they’re like this. All of it. That is in the mix of like that little girl who wasn’t listened to. You. It’s weird.
00:16:23:18 – 00:16:53:03 Unknown It’s all weird, but it’s it’s necessary, I think, for the conversation because it it played a huge role in how I was pretending to be okay with not being listened to, pretending to be okay. Cause not knowing what the care was for, whatever happened to my other cousins. And I remember I used to say to my mom when I was getting close, I used to say to my sisters, too, I have well, I had two sisters.
00:16:53:03 – 00:17:20:14 Unknown And I used to say or I used to say, like if I get crazy, I want you to take me to a place with all other crazy people. That’s not a nice thing to say, but I was just like, I want to be in a place with people who are thinking like me and the issues that I’m having so that nobody has to feel bad about coming to visit me and watching me like try to exist in this whole existence, this whole systematically structure like, you have to be okay.
00:17:20:16 – 00:17:38:03 Unknown We want you to seem like you’re okay, so we’re not going to send you to a place to get you help. You know, we just want to let you live in your house. And your house can be torn up in a mess. And we’ll come visit you sporadically and pretend like we’re helping you to do something. But we’ll just leave you alone and let you be mentally ill.
00:17:38:08 – 00:18:00:03 Unknown I didn’t want that. So I used to tell my sisters, like, Please, please let me go. So like, separate wherever I need to go and I’ll be fine. I’ll get me a boyfriend that’s like me. I’ll just be fine. Like, just let me just do what I need to do. Just not. I don’t want to be like in this house that was still with my mother when I was around.
00:18:00:05 – 00:18:25:12 Unknown I’m 23. I was like, I don’t want to be in this house, like going nutso. We with people like me. So that’s a weird because that was always playing in the back of my mind. But I guess being the kid and not being listened to, it just really it helped me to start finding out why after my mother’s reaction to it.
00:18:25:13 – 00:18:56:10 Unknown VHS tape, I started like that’s when I really started doing a lot of self reflection, not necessarily therapy. I wanted to go to therapy. I just didn’t make that a priority. So I just was around so many great people who exposed me to all these different opportunities, like little conferences will grow yourself and all this other stuff. And that really helped.
00:18:56:12 – 00:19:29:10 Unknown In addition to Anatomy of Wings as being you finding all Wings the program, it helped me to talk through like the things that I was going through and feel seen and heard, and to realize that maybe much just me doesn’t have to be similar to my cousins just because it’s a line of mental health situations. And I just need to say that I don’t feel like people who have mental health, severe mental health issues are crazy.
00:19:29:13 – 00:19:57:05 Unknown Honestly, I feel like the whole world is crazy. But I’m just saying like if I had to like zone out and psychosis and just be like, you know what? I’m just, you know, I have this thing going on and I just need to be with people like me. That’s just what it is. That’s just how I felt. Some because I don’t want that word crazy can be like, Yeah, weird.
00:19:57:07 – 00:20:48:22 Unknown So I kind of want to go back to when you were talking about Anatomy of Wings, which I know is an incredibly successfully a very successful feature length documentary film that you co-directed. And it just got so many accolades. It went on to screen at so many festivals. And, you know, I have I had seen multiple versions of that film before the final cut, and it was just such a moving story, you know, of ten plus years, right, of watching the The Wings women grow up.
00:20:49:00 – 00:21:21:21 Unknown And I really wanted to ask you about your experience, not necessarily just, you know, in the making of the film, but through that process of being with the women and going through ups and downs and essentially being their mentor. Right. Because you talked about this piece of a lot of people looking up to you, and I know you meant more in your home life and in your personal life, but also in your professional life as well.
00:21:21:23 – 00:21:47:16 Unknown You know, these women really looked up to you. I remember one scene of that film, you know, one of the the characters she said to you, Miss Nakia, you know, are you going to be part of this? You know, the the Wings program and you said, you know, yeah, I’m going to help, right? Like you were one of the mentors.
00:21:47:16 – 00:22:31:20 Unknown And so I kind of wanted to ask you about, like how you got into that project as a mentor and how that experience kind of compared or contrasted that with kind of the role that you played in your home or at school, not as a mentor, Never. My life is slowing down a good way. I feel like that being 38 for me is sobering because I’m slow down a lot of ways, but I do realize that I play that role of allowing people to need me so much.
00:22:31:22 – 00:23:26:09 Unknown I’m a everywhere. It was everywhere. It was like I needed that to happen for some reason. Part of me needed that to happen. For me to be a part of the conversation, you know, part of a community, people pleasing is easier term, but really it’s like to me it just feels like such a disconnection to my soul, consistently expecting to to be the rock for everyone and not necessarily always seeking to need to be that person, but having that whole savior mode where it’s like, this is a situation that could use my expertise and then stepping into it and giving it 100% or very close to it.
00:23:26:11 – 00:23:50:12 Unknown So yeah, Wings was Wings was an opportunity for me to learn so much. And then I wasn’t really so much expected to be a lead mentor because I’d already been working with kids. I mean, well, the girls were kids. I mean, they were in middle school, but I had already be working with youth before, before and after. I was in wings.
00:23:50:12 – 00:24:16:12 Unknown Like every day I was working with you. So that was my my actual job job. And I will be coming from that job most times in coming to join Wings on Thursday. So I wasn’t looking to be like the mystery kid that I ended up being. But is it naturally because you are so used to you being that kind of person?
00:24:16:12 – 00:25:02:06 Unknown You know, like we mentioned at home and and also in my work environment. So honestly, I was still unpacking how how that felt for me because I feel like recently I’ve just had so many, like earth shattering things happen in my life over the last five years, and it’s just been like, I don’t sometimes I’m not tapping into who I was at that time because I’m so different now than I was then, because I have to be to just survive, to just make it through the day.
00:25:02:08 – 00:25:35:08 Unknown I can’t operate being the missing market. I was then at all. I don’t have the capacity anymore, you know. So at that time, because I was a single woman and I was, you know, working, you know, living the life, it was fine for me to step into a role to to play like second money, Big Sister. You know, in my house, I’m playing I’m playing the role of almost grandma.
00:25:35:10 – 00:25:56:17 Unknown you know, and then also I’m in a house with them for a while. When I was little, my mom moved out pretty late. I moved out at 25, so I was like playing the role of Big Sister slash mommy to see my younger sister. And she always says that she’s like, You know, I don’t even remember Mommy when we were young that someone were you.
00:25:56:19 – 00:26:22:05 Unknown I feel like you raised me. She was like talking a lot, she said in therapy. And I was like, I’m so glad that we’re not like that now. But that was like, So you see, like, that was just my life. Always like stepping in, but also having to step in and be kind of that male figure in our actual house.
00:26:22:06 – 00:26:49:06 Unknown Yeah, honestly, it was so it was a lot to manage and I guess was I was in it. I didn’t realize it was a lot because it was easy to go to happy hour and like drink and then go to sleep. Like that was thing. I didn’t even realize that that was my routine. And so after I had my son like, well, we don’t have the same coping mechanism.
00:26:49:06 – 00:27:09:23 Unknown I can’t go to the bar breastfeeding like, you know, And then it was the pandemic. So I was like, There is no bar. Like, that’s terrible for us. For those of us, that was like, so we used to go out on the weekends. I mean, having a baby and then being told you really can’t go out on the weekend is like, what?
00:27:10:01 – 00:27:33:00 Unknown What is happening here? What is going on? Am I my, my sister that passed And you know, she, she actually worked in that lifestyle. So like we would be me and all of us, three of us ugly. My sisters will be together on the weekend at some point. We all knew we were ended up in Danielle’s place at her workplace.
00:27:33:00 – 00:27:58:15 Unknown And we will be chilling out, you know, and drinking when everybody else. And she has to patrol because, you know, she was like high class and that was our lifestyle. That’s how we got rid of the memories of whatever or that’s how we just were, you know, And it’s so normalized now. I feel like it’s so normalized. And all society is like, she has a job and she goes ahead.
00:27:58:15 – 00:28:17:00 Unknown You know, that’s like a normal thing. You know, she’s now leaning over drunk. I’m not in my neighborhood. Some of my friends that are my age who were like drunk at the time, they would be like sitting on those steps in a stupor or like my mom had a store in her neighborhood. What am I really, really good friends he would like.
00:28:17:06 – 00:28:39:22 Unknown He had, like a rough patch with drinking with something that he did when he woke up and when he would sleep. And sometimes I would come to my mom store. He would be just sitting in her front part where the customers are slumped over like just out of it, knocked out. It’s not a like Colt 45 or whatever he had that day.
00:28:40:00 – 00:29:13:21 Unknown I like point you to come on and get it together. He’s 100% sober now, But I mean, since I wasn’t like that, right. Also comparing that to, like, my cousin’s license, I’m not that far off. I was okay, but not really okay, because all of that like being that person to hold space for people was leaving. No space for me to hold space for Nikki and you know.
00:29:13:23 – 00:29:51:05 Unknown Yeah. So I don’t really understand how I was functioning operating at that time because now I can’t even when I say all I can tap into is being present for myself or my son, that is it. I cannot. I cannot. I don’t is not even able and see, I’m so absolutely exhausted from just saying no to things. I can’t even think about being present 100% present for any other person, you know, any other a human being.
00:29:51:05 – 00:30:17:09 Unknown Because human beings, all that spiritual lives are enough for me. This is light, but human beings are like, I can’t be that present that I used to be for anybody else anymore. And I’m grateful for nobody wants to go through traumas. However, on the other side of them, it’s like, Wow, I really am not deserving, but I appreciate me.
00:30:17:09 – 00:30:46:15 Unknown That was that pillow for people in the past because that is served a great purpose, you know, for others And it’s like every time I think about the work that I used to do in community, because it wasn’t just wings, it was also my job, my other jobs. I was one of the staff members. I would walk in all kids.
00:30:46:17 – 00:31:09:09 Unknown A lot of the kids would be like, Miss Nigeria and we would be, you know, zoning out the same way. I’m just one of those people with kids just really, really gravitate towards me. So that’s how it was. Even where my community work with adults, that’s how it used to be. Even I just talked about one of my good friends.
00:31:09:11 – 00:31:39:00 Unknown I used to be like, That was my friend Sue for some reason, always in that like not needing to be in the same room. Well, sometimes just wanting to be showing up as a person, but ended up taking on that role. Yeah. Once I my aunt as me, she’s like, How does it feel to be the one that people always look to?
00:31:39:02 – 00:32:21:05 Unknown And I’m just like, Yeah, I don’t know how that feels. It’s exhausting. It’s yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s a very interesting question and it’s, it’s, it’s very it’s a very it’s a hard one to unpack. And I was curious about, you know, you talked about, you know, being seen and heard and how you were learning that by receiving all these opportunities to grow and reflect and things like that.
00:32:21:07 – 00:32:52:00 Unknown And I kind of want to tie that in to this insight that you just shared with us about, you know, when you’re holding space for other people, what’s space do you have left to hold for yourself? And I kind of want to ask you about that transformation of realizing that you need to make presence and space and time and energy for yourself.
00:32:52:02 – 00:33:19:23 Unknown How did you finally realize that or how did you start to, you know, reserve more of that time for you and saying no to things that were not exactly serving you in the moment that you needed it? So honestly, therapy helped me a lot with navigating how to say no, because honestly, I was trying to say no in the past.
00:33:19:23 – 00:33:46:00 Unknown I was always trying to say no. But it’s like soon as somebody asked me is like, yes, came out of my mouth and then I would be in the car or like by myself, like, say yes. And then trying to like, unravel how I could say no. Like I used to sit in the pit of my stomach sometimes when I would say yes, especially to family, because it was just like it would always be.
00:33:46:06 – 00:34:06:10 Unknown I feel like the people sometimes a little close to see, you know, how to ask you to do the most impossible tests. And it will always be in conflict with something that I was either I wanted to do, I would be giving up things that I really wanted to do to take up 2 hours to go to the market.
00:34:06:12 – 00:34:41:23 Unknown Three honestly to go to the market. Or it would be crazy things like like watching people’s kids I love kids, but honestly, I would just be saying yes sometimes because I would mean meaning to say no. But saying yes just so used to saying yes. And honestly, I feel like I am like two weeks ago. Yeah. Last week I had a doctor’s appointment because I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and that was in June.
00:34:42:01 – 00:35:10:06 Unknown And I actually listened to his podcast. my goodness. I was listening to T let me back up. I was listening to you. And what does that mean? And it’s something that you guys were talking about. How is linked to people who are constantly like in the zone of people pleasing? When I tell you I was like washing dishes and I had it on, I had you.
00:35:10:06 – 00:35:38:01 Unknown I normally don’t have my podcast on speaker especially. Well, my, my younger cousin is they have this news now. You listen to your podcast, she always make me feel like a baby boomer, but I was like, It was playing in any. We’ll talk about that. And that’s I wrote a blog post about there. I was like, my goodness, that I let my sister, who has a wellness pretty much like a wellness collective, it’s called Mother Nature.
00:35:38:02 – 00:36:08:14 Unknown She like, came down the steps, right? We all would talk about it. I was like, Why would they say that? It’s connected to people who they couldn’t physically, given giving given. She’s like, And I said, Eastern Medicine. And I was like, Yes, what? I say that was like game changer for me because last week, a few day, a few days after I listened to you talk about it, my doctor told me I don’t have hypothyroidism.
00:36:08:16 – 00:36:37:12 Unknown She told me that I and one of those people whose levels are just so all over the place that something is going on. But it’s not either. I’m not either hypo or hyper because honestly, before I had this new doctor in January, I thought I was hyper. Honestly, I think that’s what my old doctor told me. But when I came to this new doctor, I’ve only had her for a month and she told me that I probably am hypo.
00:36:37:12 – 00:37:10:23 Unknown So she started putting me on another medication. Well, anybody who has thyroid situations is like the medications is what it has been for me. So just having a doctor and then having her tell me last week that I don’t have either, I was like, that is like a game changer. Game changer for me. Because honestly, I do know that my body used to ache when I did not say no to people.
00:37:11:00 – 00:37:41:21 Unknown It’s like I could feel it burning in my stomach and it and now that I’m older and have been more exposed to certain things and no, I like doing the research. I know that that time of my life where somebody said to insert that time in my life where I was not saying yes to me, I was in pain, I was in a lot of pain, I was in a lot of pain.
00:37:41:23 – 00:38:12:00 Unknown Like I don’t even know how to explain how much pain I was in. And there was it’s like, how do you cure emotional pain? It wasn’t like taking ibuprofen. I didn’t have massive migraines. It was just a lot of pain. It just used to sit in my gut. I used to sit there and just I know that there’s lot of healing that I need to do in that area.
00:38:12:02 – 00:38:42:22 Unknown But honestly, if I wasn’t in therapy, if my sister didn’t get diagnosed with cancer in 2019 and later 2019, well, mid 2019, if I didn’t find out, I also found out my sister had cancer. In July of 2019. I found it. I was pregnant. August of 2019. I signed up for therapy September 2030 and all those things. They’re like teenage.
00:38:42:22 – 00:39:06:16 Unknown That’s why I’m like, I’m not same person at all. There’s no way I could be the same person. How could I possibly be the same person ever? No, I was like four months pregnant. I was when I had my first sonogram on that sonogram. Yeah, my first all were I was 22 weeks, and I knew I felt something on my stomach.
00:39:06:18 – 00:39:36:11 Unknown It was like I felt like a thump, but I’m like, Ooh. Then I was just telling, is there like, something is? So we went to the emergency room and they’re like, the little feet. I’m like, feet. I’m thinking that. I mean, you know, there’s like a little tadpole, this thing, feet and legs. Well, I, it’s like a it was like one of those horror films where you hear the music like, did it, did it.
00:39:36:11 – 00:40:04:06 Unknown And I was like, what? And I looked over and I was by myself because nobody could go with me in the little sonogram room. And I see I saw knees. I was like, my God, my God, what in the world? And then she was like, You never saw this before? Like, no. And because they kept trying to say I was like, lying that I didn’t know I was crying because I wanted the sonogram like, I know.
00:40:04:06 – 00:40:28:10 Unknown Was it I’m already scheduled you the sonogram next week. I just was trying to find out what was going on with this stop and say because it was feeding in like, that’s what I just feel like I was so disconnected from my body. yeah, it’s like a symptom of all these. I just feel like it’s a symptom of just me.
00:40:28:12 – 00:41:10:18 Unknown It’s like chronic people pleasing syndrome. That’s what I’m recovering from. So. my goodness. I can relate to so much of what you said here and you know, you’re recalling what I told Jenna in several episodes ago, and I actually spoke with my Eastern medicine doctor yesterday again. And, you know, we were talking about my hypothyroidism and she basically dropped another gem and she was like, this hypothyroidism, you know, happens to people who swallow their anger.
00:41:10:20 – 00:41:38:09 Unknown And basically it stays in your gut, too, like you said, you know, and it wreaks havoc on your system because you say yes to all these other things and you allow people to take your energy so that you can help them. But when you actually need the energy to power what you want to do, what you need for yourself, you don’t have any.
00:41:38:11 – 00:42:13:11 Unknown And you know, our thyroid is what gives us and what regulates, right. Or I don’t exactly know the actual I think what it does is it regulates where our energy goes and so you know, it just kind of and I think my Eastern medicine doctor said that I think a very large percentage of people who have hypothyroidism, it’s not genetic or hereditary it’s basically autoimmune.
00:42:13:13 – 00:42:55:17 Unknown And, you know, there are so many different kinds. But I think she was saying that the majority of them for people who cannot say no and, you know, you’re talking about when you were younger and not getting the attention that you needed and maybe being ignored. And I know for me and I don’t know if this is true for you as well, but it kind of sounds like it that because I wasn’t getting the attention that I needed or wanted, I was basically telling other people, you know, please give me attention.
00:42:55:19 – 00:43:45:01 Unknown I will do everything that you ask or meet all of your needs so that I can feel safe. So, you know, it kind of has carried through most of my life saying, yes to so many different things, hoping that they won’t leave me or abandon me. And so it is very sad. You know, it is it is very sad to think about the little us when we were younger who didn’t have the attention that we needed, that we had to give away all of who we were so that people wouldn’t abandon us.
00:43:45:03 – 00:44:17:12 Unknown And it it really is sad. And I’m just wondering, like, you know, and it’s so embedded in our nervous system and and, you know, like when I became a mom. All right, I knew like, I am not going to raise my daughter to be a chronic people pleaser, Right. To have to find in order to say, please love me.
00:44:17:18 – 00:44:47:08 Unknown And it’s scary because I’m still emotionally disregulated all the time. And, you know, she’s still so young. And being a mom, it really does change you. I wanted to ask you, like, what? What do you think we should be teaching our children, our students, our youth about reserving some of that energy for what we need and what we want.
00:44:47:09 – 00:46:00:10 Unknown I love that reserving some of that energy, because honestly, that makes it an action. I just feel like that. Love. Yeah. Yeah. I just feel like love is needed. Self-love is needed rest. Rest is needed for all women. And and on top of that, I’m a black woman. Hundreds of years of not being allowed to rest for a number of reasons, just from being kidnaped and you know, umpteenth whatever it was times and then well being freed in the 1860s then dealing with all the great depressions and wars and civil rights movement and the crack epidemic, and even now where I’m living in my childhood home with my parents and my sister, because it’s
00:46:00:10 – 00:46:28:19 Unknown just that’s how life just turned up for us right this moment. And for the first time in my life, living in this house in over 20 years, a young man was killed across the street from me. I have to park. Like literally, I’m sitting not even ten feet away from this memorial. That’s a whole other type of like, when am I going to rest?
00:46:28:19 – 00:47:19:20 Unknown Like like. And it has to do to me with self-care and self-love. And that’s why I like my first book project was a journal to girls based off of Wings, actually. So like, help them navigate smells and taking care of their house surroundings. Simple things like if you feel a little rough, maybe try picking up a small group of clothes or sweeping the floor or cutting a lemon smells touch cooking, just like there are all these coping mechanisms that I’ve been so blessed to learn through so many women and men in my life who have been on the work of self-care and self-love.
00:47:19:22 – 00:47:50:11 Unknown And I literally cling to those things any time I’m reminded that we’re in this structure where even in the school system, self-care is not please time. There’s no reason a kid like me should have been expected to do some of the things I was expected to do at home, but also at school. and that yes, to that effect.
00:47:50:11 – 00:48:11:10 Unknown Melody Yes. When I was a little girl in the classroom daydreaming some of the time, I was probably danger about the things I saw my neighborhood and that was I moved to this neighborhood and now which people excuse me people used to call the neighborhood I’m in now. The suburbs is really around the corner from where I really grew up.
00:48:11:10 – 00:48:57:05 Unknown Old patterns and and chase in East Baltimore and where I really grew up. I grew before my sister came around, which was 1990. My mom and I will be reading a story on the floor while we read the story on the floor because people were shooting and we could not stand up. When I was down, time. And then I’m talking to women that are close to my age, my girl cousin, she is about 19 years old to me.
00:48:57:07 – 00:49:23:16 Unknown Talk to her all the time. She’s a little and I’m I’m a writer now. I’m claiming that I’m all right in there. I’ve been writing forever, but that’s my new career move. I’m a writer and I’ve been writing blog posts over a coach helping me to, like, push myself out there. My last one of my last blog posts that I’m most proud of is called Living by Rest.
00:49:23:18 – 00:49:48:18 Unknown And I just talk about how I’m tired of black women dying from stress. And then she’s telling me, my cousin is telling me, Well, I don’t have time to rest. Well, I’m not going to find time to rest. It’s it’s just wrestling so many different levels. And then the moments when we’re talking about that, I want to break down the different ways you can give yourself rest.
00:49:48:20 – 00:50:18:21 Unknown But that’s for me. I’m only 38. I’ve only been planning for 38 years. She’s experienced way more than I have. I cannot imagine the amount of rest I would need at her age. I cannot imagine how much rest my mother needs moving to this neighborhood, thinking that she’s making a better way for us. Being here, watching it erode and not being able to leave or not seeing the options to leave.
00:50:18:23 – 00:50:50:04 Unknown That is something so small that I feel like our education system can do better with helping kids like me who actually had a privileged experience. I was always in Catholic schools. I never got an opportunity to go to a public school, my own school. My mother always had me and my sister in other types of environments, but I still had this trajectory of where I came home to.
00:50:50:06 – 00:51:22:01 Unknown My mom had a a community organization based basically she had a store and she would feed the community for free. And, you know, people would pay. But it was in the heart of East Baltimore, like Rydal, Patterson and Shay. So me coming home from school was me going to the store. Sometimes it was me coming home because we were definitely latchkey kids, but a lot of times it was us going down the store and just, you know, seeing all of life.
00:51:22:01 – 00:52:01:22 Unknown There’s something about being in the mix of like just all of this systematic mess. It’s like you see everything. But then people were surviving and laughing and joking and calling her mama Dee and tell her how green, how grains of fried fish are so good. You know, it’s just so much joy. But also it’s in the background of constant police sirens and helicopters and testing lines and people slumped over either drunk, just Athens doing drugs, whatever.
00:52:02:00 – 00:52:22:02 Unknown I remember this one time there’s this black woman that lived down the street from us. She passed. Now she was we were inside the store. I don’t know what we were doing. The store was so open and people were like running into the front of my mother’s store, which was it was not barricaded, but it was like a normal bodega type look.
00:52:22:04 – 00:53:06:18 Unknown So there was like a huge glass. But she can still talk and interact. And it was like a lot of young people are coming in large and they were saying like that one of our neighbors was outside next. She was heavily addicted, just wasn’t used to her heavily addicted outside, zonked out, walking around Lena and doing whatever, still talking, still making jokes, no clothes on, like that book with a man who like pedals and who also is like, that was what I was experiencing.
00:53:06:20 – 00:53:41:05 Unknown But in school and I went to Catholic schools, there was no space for me to be that person ever. I would rather me going to a public school where at least I could talk to the people in my neighborhood about what happened. But school gives you no emotional connection to yourself. It’s like constantly like meeting a quota. Being someone who is is like playing that role is people pleaser in the house with a family who has all this other stuff going on.
00:53:41:05 – 00:54:10:21 Unknown And I was also meeting the quota. There was absolutely no I don’t even know how I was able to release you know, I know I didn’t have a town address. I mean, we’re just talking about these are like basic things, school to school and feel and seen and heard basic things being home and feeling seen and heard. But then you top that with other things that come into our lives, like sexual traumas.
00:54:10:23 – 00:54:41:22 Unknown I had sexual traumas before I was six years old. My sister, my older sister was killed by her husband when I was five. Like, all of these things are awful. I’m just so tired and I hate hearing that black women are dying from stress is bad for black women in my life who have either tried to take their life or actually passed away recently.
00:54:41:22 – 00:55:02:23 Unknown Not too long. It’s been in the last five years. Actually, there’s five, including my sisters, and I can’t take it anymore. I can’t. That’s why I’m not the same because I cannot continue. Before I even knew I had this thyroid stuff, I was on the wave where my therapist is imagining, Do you want to do this for yourself?
00:55:03:04 – 00:55:35:15 Unknown What do you need this moment? I need to rest. And. And it just so happens that the way that I am finding ways to address this is just outside of what I want to do. But I’m making it work with what I have. I have to go for a walk. You know, I have like my little patch of soap that I got from because, like, I need oils or something around me to shock my senses.
00:55:35:15 – 00:55:54:17 Unknown Sometimes me and my son, we sing so much. I feel like those are ways that I’m giving my body like rest from like what I would normally be doing. But then there’s also actual sleep, which does not happen when you have a toddler, but it will happen eventually.
00:55:54:19 – 00:56:19:18 Unknown And then this also like me giving myself risks from this trajectory of violence. And like two years ago, I heard my first boyfriend ever be killed. I heard like nine gunshots. And then I found out the next day it was him that died. Is like when I say I’ll just. I just want to rest. I don’t even want to live where I live in.
00:56:19:19 – 00:56:54:22 Unknown Like, I love the fact that I have a safe place inside of my home for my son to live. So I love the fact that I get help because I have to pay for daycare, you know? But I just sometimes I imagine myself being in a space where there’s grace when I don’t have to hear not one helicopter, where I don’t have to hear anybody being gunned down, where I don’t have to come outside and see an involuntary memorial to someone who who died from it.
00:56:54:22 – 00:57:23:09 Unknown Probably an argument like that’s the process and I’m looking for now. And I just I really just is like I’m trying to do so many things to get to that point where I’m allowed allowing myself to live that life. And then I can fully say, like I feel at peace and at rest, I hope I get to that point where I can save it.
00:57:23:11 – 00:57:58:19 Unknown I mean, I know my mother’s always wanted to move. I just think about why is she still here? And I and that me being a single mother at this moment, I hate seeing that. I understand why she’s still here. Like is so terrifying. But yeah, I do have hope. It’s good that I guess I’m 38 too, because I still have hope that okay, she, I can get through this and I’m saying this as a person who I consider myself privileged as as a person from my neighborhood.
00:57:58:21 – 00:58:21:02 Unknown My family has access to family land. I always grew up knowing that my grandmother had a lot of land. My grandmother owned the the place where my mom had a business she owned like acres. They so given to her by her her mother. She had a lot of like little collateral, you know, She always was like trying to stay.
00:58:21:06 – 00:58:54:12 Unknown She always gave me $20 of gas, you know, things like that. But I get into places that are like institutionally different and I’m like, even going to college, it’s like, a bare minimum for y’all is is not making, what, 37,000? That’s not even enough to survive, much less they can thrive. And I’m just trying to say is just I just feel like I’m a like a track player in my head to do those things.
00:58:54:13 – 00:59:18:08 Unknown We got to jump over those of those things like hurdles. That’s how I feel. Yes. It’s like every time I’m like, I got to figure it out. Okay, I want to get it done. Nope. Slowly here. That’s not the way for you to do it. So I have to find these little nuggets of rest for me and what I have available.
00:59:18:10 – 00:59:54:02 Unknown So that’s what therapy is really helping me to do, see what I had in front of me. But I just said it to say, like, I just I realize that a lot of the things that I’m going through sometimes are more mental and me getting over them than actually like what’s in my face sometimes. Because I do think that I have a lot of resources in the world, but it’s like sometimes, like these things are easily graspable, seem like they’re more accessible.
00:59:54:04 – 01:00:24:04 Unknown that’s just a long way for me to say. And I just feel like schools, education, educational institutions, including college, need to allow all people to have space to find themselves, because school is one of those things that we do for it feels like ever forever we in school for ever. And that’s why not have that be the opportunity.
01:00:24:04 – 01:00:51:01 Unknown We learn to take care of ourselves. Why not there be the opportunity we learn to test? It’s like when we’re feeling some type of way or or stretch. Simple thing is stretched so much stress in my arms and release and tension in my shoulders. Simple things like like giving myself a foot massage or my foot aches instead of taking ibuprofen.
01:00:51:03 – 01:01:15:23 Unknown Simple thing like knowing I have a headache. Okay, maybe I need to drink some peppermint tea or drinks and gentle tea, but those things are not ingrained in our educational system, especially living in America, because we have so much like little nuances, like weird stuff going on that those things to me should be like first on the list.
01:01:16:01 – 01:01:49:09 Unknown But I’m sure they probably are for all these other reasons because it makes money, right? Which is why I see this on my mind. Like just me thinking about mass. My thyroid is a healing process, a mass healing process, and thinking about my sister being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2019. it was a time when she was in the hospital.
01:01:49:11 – 01:02:13:11 Unknown I remember when she first got to the hospital this Sunday and I had a rough work week the week before, so I was managing a a surrogate and it was not the best experience for me. The kids were amazing. My staff was amazing. It was my leadership that was what is going on. And I had been a part of that organization for a long time.
01:02:13:11 – 01:02:44:02 Unknown I come back because it has to, and I just stepped into like little shit like, okay, what am I doing? And then after having a rough week doing that, I literally was resting all weekend because I was pregnant. I didn’t know though. And that Sunday my sister’s like crying, like I missed us going to the bar on that Friday, thank God, because I didn’t go to no balls.
01:02:44:04 – 01:03:12:07 Unknown And she’s crying like she’s in the emergency room. And then I get there and the the physicians, not necessarily the doctor, but the the other physician in the room like, you might have cancer. I might have cancer. How dare you tell somebody they might have cancer and not know for sure. So, you know, my sister’s like, I’ve been in this table so long and I got cancer.
01:03:12:07 – 01:03:35:12 Unknown Like, you don’t have cancer. And then so I leave because my boyfriend is there was, you know, they they spend the night there in the emergency room. The next day her mother calls me because my is my sister. But you know, we’re so connected, she’s blood related. So my little sister, her mother calls me and says, yeah, Danny has cancer.
01:03:35:13 – 01:03:59:23 Unknown And I was like, shit. Okay. So I go to the hospital and there are all these white coats talking to her. Tell her allies that I know allies not talking to her about prepare her body for surgery. She has stayed for colon cancer. Why wouldn’t you be talking to someone who’s in Buffalo wings by before she got here about prepare her body for surgery?
01:04:00:01 – 01:04:33:01 Unknown Come on now. I mentioned some things that I’ve learned. The white coats take precedence. Is this how it goes? So they operate on her as an emergency? We have to. It was like in a matter of a week and find out that it’s inoperable to them. Her cancer was wrapped up in veins that are essential, but you guys have already gone and saw her body.
01:04:33:01 – 01:05:07:02 Unknown So, you know, someone went stage for cancer, was already a little frail is like you don’t have many charges to keep going in her body. So it was like that whole like medicine, like game that they play. And even though they a lot of like physicians that are great is just that wasn’t the best experience. And then I just went to the I feel like all the weight of the world, all the systematic structures of the world just fell over me and I could not get out of bed.
01:05:07:04 – 01:05:31:03 Unknown I saw the TV on and I couldn’t get out of bed. I heard my boyfriend talking. I couldn’t get out of bed. I had to eat her ass. Need to wash up. I heard them ask me was was I going to be okay? I couldn’t really hear him. Nothing you said was important. It was like he was talking like the lady and Charlie Brown.
01:05:31:04 – 01:05:53:03 Unknown It just like, my phone was ringing. My phone was dead. It I didn’t care. I was just in it like slump. And I’m surprised I can even remember. And then somehow now, like, my girlfriend got to me and she’s like, you need to go to the ocean and you need to let those waves wash that stuff out of you.
01:05:53:05 – 01:06:14:16 Unknown That she was kind of demanding that. And honestly, I don’t even know how she got in contact with me because honestly, I wasn’t paying attention to my phone. So I got in the car over, drove to New Jersey and went to the beach. And when I saw those waves and knocked me around like I had been to that beach with her before.
01:06:14:18 – 01:06:37:23 Unknown But those waves like up, it was one thing. It was like a it was like a heat wave. And I was rolling out of it. Now I’m not a ocean swimmer, so I wasn’t even close to the age I was already pregnant. So that’s probably why my son went all over the place, like, so excited about life. He was like, who’s just round the waves?
01:06:38:00 – 01:07:06:08 Unknown Anyway? I know that that saved me to like, just it in not my brain back in the place. You just having like people in your life to tell you things like that. Like, you having a rough time? Maybe you need to go to the beach. Maybe you don’t need to be looking at the memorial of somebody that just passed away.
01:07:06:10 – 01:07:28:15 Unknown Maybe need a change. Like your scenery for a little while and make you be a shocking change. So those are things that I’ve been trying to do with what I have to I mean, I’m just get a car that I could drive out of town with. But before I was spending whatever money, I had rented a car like we were on a trip.
01:07:28:17 – 01:07:46:01 Unknown And I’ve been taking my little cousin with me. She’s now little. She’s in the twenties now. I mean, she’s like, she just turned 21. But I would be like, What are you doing? Do you do class? Do you do class virtually? Because we’re trying to go on a trip. We will have a road trip. We’re going don’t worry about where we going, okay?
01:07:46:04 – 01:08:12:01 Unknown We are not here. It’s not like those kind of things are really helping me. Without that be, I wouldn’t be thinking like this. Like my therapist is like, Yeah, girl, I spent all the money you are going to trip. She probably like, fall out. You know, I did that, but it’s like life or death for me now. Like it is either, like, the same way I used to ride it that the other people say yes for other people, like stomaching uncomfortable truth.
01:08:12:01 – 01:08:33:13 Unknown So other people are going to do that for me now. Like, I got to do that for me. I Don’t have the option to do that because I cannot allow myself. So like you said, like we can’t allow ourselves operate in that existence anymore. Our bodies are saying no, our bodies are screaming to us no. So we have to answer.
01:08:33:13 – 01:08:52:11 Unknown And if I have to do a radical thing like empty my bank account out to go on a trip that’s going to, like, change Magic three and get me on the right path when I get back. That’s what I want to have to do. Like, you know, So why, why are we learning those kind of things in in school?
01:08:52:11 – 01:09:15:20 Unknown I don’t know. I mean, yes, kids need to know how to balance their being so but just saying, like learning how to radically do what you want to do, giving kids time to scream, it doesn’t matter what neighborhood you’re from, you need to scream. You need to say yes to yourself. Practicing saying yes to yourself. Why don’t we have activities like that?
01:09:15:20 – 01:09:34:22 Unknown I mean, that could simply be add and it’s a calm, cool, whatever you’re doing now. And I understand. I never understood when I was in the school system, working at the school programs. I never understood why we didn’t let the kids take time to be kids. We didn’t even have space. We had 30 minutes for the kids to play outside.
01:09:35:00 – 01:10:07:13 Unknown And, you know, with kids is 10 minutes lining up less time with you in a school where the kids fight. Because as soon as a fight breaks out, everybody got to stop. What they doing is when the kind of educational system that we operate in. And now my son is four and I’ve forgiven myself for saying that I’m not the favorite that wants the home school right now.
01:10:07:15 – 01:10:33:23 Unknown I appreciate kids, like, been a blessing to me. It’s been a second parent for me. I don’t even know what his life is going to be like out of the daycare room. So there’s a concern in a nurturing he gets in daycare that is not present in school at all. No one’s wiping your butt in school. Nobody’s like saying, you had a rough day.
01:10:34:03 – 01:10:55:04 Unknown Not really. Unless you get a really good teacher, then I give you naptime. When the world is too rough, they don’t let you walk past a little boy. Today, he’s like the same age as my son. He’s an had you crying because he’s having a temper tantrum. Anybody let you do that in school? What kind of sandwich man is that like?
01:10:55:06 – 01:11:40:10 Unknown you have a rough day, okay? Even though you three feet are going to sit in their highchair in ages two egg out. When I say he was screaming this morning, that’s it. well, best answer. I hear that because I want to scream right with you. Like it just scares me. It doesn’t scare me. But because I have a lot of people in my life who’ve chosen to keep their kids kids, especially black kids like kids, but it’s like I just got to make sure my son is in a good environment, you know, nurturing environment when he gets to school because he’s the type of kid who needs that emotional side of school.
01:11:40:12 – 01:12:02:12 Unknown I believe all kids needs. But some kids can step into the systematic structure easily. You know, they’re like, one plus one. You see, my son is like one. He got a beat on a drum and two, then he got he played guitar, then he got to sing out equals three. Like, that’s my son. Okay. And you might do a backflip while he’s doing it.
01:12:02:12 – 01:12:36:20 Unknown That’s my son. Like, I don’t know where he’s going to school, but education needs to change to is probably I’ll have hopes that it will change systematically. But I do have hopes that because there are a lot of parents who are exposing their kids to more things, if they have to go into those systematic structures. So I’m excited about building a life around him like what he wants to do, what he wants to experience.
01:12:36:22 – 01:13:01:12 Unknown And honestly, I’m open to him. So us figuring out intestinal environments and seeing which one is good for him, you know, if he has. I had to switch daycares because socially it was not good place for him. My son is is these pandemic things so like over there I don’t know the baby’s born within the lockdown or around that time.
01:13:01:12 – 01:13:30:00 Unknown They have a different type of intuition. So like they need that social. I feel like they’re going to be the ones to change everything as far as being touched back into us, like humanness. That’s right. I just really hope the educational system changes that will try to say, I just want to be a part of helping that change, be a part of the collective of people.
01:13:30:02 – 01:14:00:01 Unknown I just want to be a part of the collective of people that’s already helping the educational system feel less systematic, feel less like try and disconnected. I just wanted to be a part of that wave. So again, thank you so much for listening. If any part of this episode resonated with you, please connect with us on social media at the links in the show notes.
01:14:00:03 – 01:14:01:02 Unknown Until next time.