Domestic Violence Stories (Ashanti Family recap)

Published Dec 19, 2022, 8:00 AM

Domestic violence happens more often that it’s discussed, which is every three seconds in America, to be exact. Tracy and Cara share their own shocking stories of verbal and physical abuse, and they welcome Jenny Bean to tell her story of surviving and leaving her abusive relationship. PLUS, therapist Alice Gresham breaks down how not to break down during the holiday season using one magic word: “No!”

This episode discusses stories of domestic abuse. If you or a loved one needs help, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 799-7233, or text “START” to 88788, or visit thehotline.org.

Learn more from Alice Gresham on Tik Tok

Hosts Information:

Cara Pressley

@thecareercheerleader Cara’s Instagram

@TheCareerCheerleader Cara’s Facebook

@the1cheering4U Cara’s Twitter

@FeelinSuccessful Cara’s TikTok

Cara’s Website

Tracy T. Rowe

@tracytrowe Tracy’s Instagram

@troweandco Tracy’s Facebook

@tracytrowe Tracy’s Twitter

@tracytrowe Tracy’s TikTok

Tracy’s Website

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This episode discusses stories of domestic abuse. If you are a loved one needs help, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at eight hundred seven nine nine seven two three three or text start to eight eight eight eight, or visit the hotline dot org. Hey y'all, Hey, what's up? And welcome to Let's Red Table that I'm Tracy t Row and I'm Calledra Pressley. Listen. Like the rest of the season, we are back to the tough topics and have a pretty tough episode ahead of us today. But I'm still feeling successful about it. How are you feeling, Tracy? You know what, I'm happy to hear that you're successful. You know I am. I am grateful. I am everyday amazing of course, but also grateful because we're talking about domestic violence and this upcoming episode that we're going to talk about has some hard hitting stuff in it, Like she all went through it and then it was just her, It was her mom, her sister and all the other family members that we didn't talk about being in a position where you go through something, when you're in a unit, when you go through it, everybody goes through it, whether you know they're going through it or not right, and so to have them at the table and to be able to share that and be in support of Shia was really positive. They let shea have her space at the table first, just come on out here, tell your story, not just a Shaunty's little sister led by a shanty, and then the mom and then this is They just let her have her moment at the table to really relate and really just get it out in her way. It's super therapeutic. That's why I'm excited about our guest today as well. We get to talk to someone who's also gone through it because it's a different experience. It's you're always on the outside looking in. And I fortunately have not had to experience something as physical as what everyone has. I've dealt with someone verbally abusive. I mean that of course has levels to it, verbal abusive teacher or coach to actual partner, but of course that physical hits another level. So I'm gonna tell you something, And we haven't had a lot of opportunity to talk about abuse, but Cara, so many people have had physical, emotional, and verbal abuse in their life. And I am no exception. Okay, I was in a relationship forever and ever ago, and it was physical, and I remember that it wasn't as violent as what we saw on this episode, but it was violent enough for me and for me to have not immediately left. And like Sia and like so many others, I didn't tell my family. I shielded and protected the abuser, and I did get to a point. It didn't take me seven times, but I did get to a point where I left, And that was really the catalyst for me leaving Michigan and moving back to Memphis, in addition to being able to support my dad through some health issues. But it was a fantastic opportunity. Okay, But I want you to know it got to the point for me where it was literally either I'm gonna go to jail or I'm going to go to the more listen, and I need more than four walls, Okay. So I appreciate that you decided that you didn't like eat any of those four walls situations, it was time to go. And so I completely empathize with Shia and all of the other people, and including our guest today. You just think about it could happen to anybody. Yes, nobody's exempt. That's the interesting part because I am happy we have the guest today because more people do need to share their story so that you know that you're not alone out there. You know so many people who think that they're alone. I don't care if you gotta speed and ticket this morning. You think you're alone and you're the only one and the world's picking on you. But I promise you're not alone, and we're really here to help each other. So I had an opportunity to sit down. I had dinner with the abuser some year years after the fact. I did because I had to. It was a healing process for me. But I also realized that I had to let go of some unforgiveness because I was holding onto it and it was just like the baggage that I was carrying when I was in the midst of it, right, and I let go of it, and I had to say, look, I want to apologize for my part in this toxicity. I want to forgive you and know that I played a part in this, whatever the part was, even if it was just being the victim of it. And I know people are gonna say, what do you mean you apologize, But I'm saying for me, you understand what I'm saying that it was to let me off the hook emotionally, to say, Okay, I'm not only healed from it physically, I'm healing from it emotionally and I can release you and surrender my unforgiveness of it. And we don't really talk about that. And the great criscept Michelle made one song that talked about it. Blame it on said, blame it on me, please. I felt that's a in my spirit. I did not have a final dinner. I didn't have a last supper. I applaud your last supper, but baby, I said, blame it on me, and I left another looked back. So I understand the need for that closure, not to do thing. It looks different for all of us. So I'm gonna tell you what it looks Okay, can we talk about it? And looks different for the person I was web to let me tell you what. Carl. She had to nerve to tell me what do you mean see? And I was like, hanckle, Jacqueline, how are you talking about? We're we're in the same chad. We're fighting in the closet, fighting the bedroom, fighting in the dining room, fighting the living room. You're talking about you don't know. So see this goes back to what we're talking about. These people who are narcissistic, they just have these blackouts, and let's talk about let's be honest, Like I think there are a lot of people who enter a relationship with a certain ideal absolutely and then we never, of course, until we never think about, well, how did you grow up? Are you used to violence? Abuse, loud noises, I don't know, like to sit in silence sometimes? Right, it literally could go from eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner to a person who's one meal a day, like something so small a nuance of how we just maybe are not in alignment. Of course, it's a drastic distance when we're really talking about this domestic violence and abuse, right, um, but still there are differences. Yet I shared that not only to be fully transparent and let the listeners know. So y'all hear me, beautiful, bright future, positive, sunny outlook. Happy to support other people. I do it as a business now to help people affirm themselves. But I was in that thing. See, I was in that thing. And she a beautiful, talented she, but she was in it. And so it happens to all of us, and she did get her moment. She did get her moment at the table, and I was grateful for that. And being the sister you mentioned this, being the sister of someone who's a superstar celebrity like Ashanti had his own challenges. That part. She mentioned that she tapped into it at the table of just I didn't even realize because Number one Foolish, that whole album, it was self titled Ashanti, but the Foolish was a song on that album that came out. I'll never forget because I had just had my son, but I didn't realize her sister was thirteen. I remember her sister speaking on the album and talking and I was just like, wow, Tom has definitely passed us. Let me just do a quick shout out to Jada, Gamby and Willow season five, y'all have taught us some stuff this season. Do we not have some turns? We got all the language. I can see me now my next relationship, like number one, you will not gas like me. No love, no love bombing, no breadcrumbing, no dumping. There's so many phrases, but baby, we're gonna be healed and whole moving forward right and we're happy that she is in the process of her own healing and wholeness journey. To shout out to you, Shia and for your support from your beautiful mother and sister Ashanti. And I'm gonna say this, I'm grateful that they went to therapy. That she said that the four of them went to therapy, and that was something. Remember Ashanti was like, oh no, but I love that. She said, but my sister ain't good, so this is good for her, It's gonna be good for me. Like that is the part two that people need to understand. And family like said, I'm fine, we know, but I love that she said, maybe let me just go anyway. Yeah, as a family, as a whole unit. She got the support she needed and that's what so many other people want, is the support. So bravo to them, Bravo to the Douglas family. Now it's time to share with our online Red Table Talk community has to say about this episode. Candice Denis said, as a domestic abuse survivor, I can't describe the feeling I have watching this. I pray for her continuous healing and spreading her story. I love that because healing is definitely ongoing in this situation. So thank you Kadis Steph Beaten, thank you for your comment and all the love and support you said. My beautiful daughter has just come through the same kind of trauma and it has devastated our little family, but we are standing strong and united. We are a long way off fixed, but we are headed in a positive direction now. Big love from Australia, our t t family, Big love right back to you. We love that and see the truly people all over the world, over the world listening. We appreciate y'all last, but certainly not least. Danielle Langford said, I wish there was a therapist at the table to offer hope and resolutions for those watching needing help now. So sorry she experienced such trauma. Listen, we are all sorry that. I think anytime we hear stories to this magnitude, we all wish we could save them or fix them. But I just need y'all know it's hoping help on the other side. But your comment it was and it would have been great to have had a therapist perspective just to kind of support them through that and then to help us through it because there are other people who are learning as they go with the table with every episode, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, we'll be joined by our incredible guests from the Red Tabletop community. We're excited to welcome Jenny Bean to Let's Red table Back. Although I'm super excited because she is someone I personally know the topic with which we're discussing, is not that excited because Jenny, like Sheia, is a domestic violence survivor, and she's here today to share her story and help others who have experienced or who are experiencing this now feel less alone and less ashamed, because domestic violence is never the fault of the victim. Thank you so much for being here with us and being willing to share your story, and welcome again to the Let's Red table Back Virtual table. Jenny, Thank you. Thank you so much, Car and Tracy for having me. I'm so excited to be here. We're excited to have you here. This is the part of the show where we reveal which moments made us pause, rewind and listen again. Wait, wait, and there were on this episode that we're gonna get into. I know we're gonna help somebody as we get into these let me just jump into it. This is probably one of the most powerful moments when she had called herself irresponsible for going back to her abuser, and Jada gam and Willow all stopped and corrected her. Prior to this, I had had a miscarriage, and so it was I believe a play on my mind because I wanted to had a child and have a family. Looking back, it was irresponsible on my behalf. She When we love people, we really want to believe that they can change. Don't beat yourself up for that. Listen. This was an important reminder that everyone's story is more complicated than we might think, and it's never okay to victim blame. Bless her heart. How did y'all feel about that? I think I feel what she's saying, but irresponsible. I feel like it's more maybe like shame or shameful that you went back, And I feel like that's why Jada again and Willow stopped here, like, don't call yourself irresponsible or don't even blame. Did you did you feel like maybe when you were in your situation before you you know how they say hi insight while you were in it, were you even blaming yourself for making excuses? And then you got away and we're like, you know what, I was right. I knew I should have moved in this direction, and now I know, like, as they say, when you know better, do better. Did you feel that at all? I think it's hard in the moment you're blinded. I don't know that I blamed myself initially, but the more your nic domestic violence always comes with manipulation. Also, you justify or you rationalize, like, Okay, maybe if I had done something differently, or maybe if I didn't do this, it wouldn't have triggered that, or it wouldn't provoked that. I shouldn't have said this to keep it going. I'm a woman and this is a grown man older than me, and I wasn't going to accept blame for his actions. But I justified or tried to rationalize why he did what he did and what my part in it was. The other way. What moments was when she has shared that her abuser not to teeth out. After she simply asked like, what are you doing coming home at seven o'clock, he gas lighted her. I kind of came came back to and I'm like, I see the blood, and I was in so much shock. Like, it's like, it's unthinkable. It's unthinkable. It's like you you hit me, you you broke my teeth. And he was like, no, I didn't know. I didn't you. You hit your face on the railing, You hit your face. I pushed you and you hit you. So in that moment, he was trying to manipulate what even had occurred. And a lot of what we've learned this gas lighting goes hand in hand with this. So when you say that you weren't trying to justify it, but you were trying to rationalize and reason with it. What amount of gas lighting do you think played a part in that? So you can't do one without the other, right, I don't feel like you can be a victim of just the violent part. You're also a victim of the mental and the emotional part as well. By the physical abuse is what sticks out the most. So oddly enough, I too actually have had my front teeth knocked out and not completely but broken in half. For the abuser it's physical, but for the victim it is physical, but more than anything is again the mental and emotional. So the gas lighting is what is like the bull constructor around you that makes you tolerate the physical, because the physical will heal. I got a new bottom teeth, right, it goes away. But you replay the mental, You replay the emotional, you replay the words, you replay that part of it. It could be a simple question with no tone to your voice, no attitude, no neck world, no I roll while you're saying it. You approach them as if they're actually somebody worthy to be approached because you're already on eggshells. And nine times out of tenants because she was right, or it's because she called him on his bs, or because she saw through the gas lighting and had something to say about it, or the question was going to have to require an honest answer, and instead they deflect. And that was the deflection because what she's gonna say now, she's got a teeth knocked out and she saw down in hit her head. Didn't do that to the conversation is over anything to take it off of them, And that completely ends the question, right, and yeah, and there is no conversation. That's all that was said. That was it, And then I met you. She won't ask him again, and then guess what that allows him to come home at seven am again because last time she asked, why are you coming home? At seven? She knows what happened. She has a daily reminder, a mental and emotional scar of a reminder, and she won't ask no more. Going to this last wait, what she has said that she doesn't use the language of victim and survivor anymore. And I think that's like a way she's trying to reclaim her own power. It feels like to me, I wanted she wants to change the narrative or direct the narrative, and maybe even not saying she's like the other survivors or victims. I think she just wants to be transparent for her stories. It's interesting that you don't want to use the word victim and survivor because I look at it like this, So when you're labeling yourself as a victim or survivor, in order for you to truly heal, you have to detach from that narrative that this was an experience that's taught me. This is an experience that I've now risen above. So you're taking your power back in that way. Jenny, what terms do you feel are the truest or which terms empower you? Being someone who has also gone through a similar situation. I spent a decade, an entire decade, from the time I was seventeen until twenty seven with the same parson, the same abusic. I have two children with him that are teenagers. Now, I just really came through a whole ten years of some really tragic things. That is not for the week, but to agree with she, I have never been like, oh yeah, I'm a domestic violence survivor. I am a victim of domestic violence. I have shared my story and I have talked openly about it. I have absolutely no shame and what happened to me and how long I stayed and what I tolerated or I left and went Literally what fit the statistics of you leave seven times before you stay gone? I left and went back eight times. I don't like the terms honestly, victim or survivor because I feel like that enables people to look at you like the sympathy. No, I totally get that that you want to you identify that it was ten years in your life's journey, but it was not the same total of your life. Let's continue to talk about this whole episode as a whole. I know we talked about some pieces and moments, but overall, what did you think of this episode? How did you guys feel about it? I can tell you I have a lot of respect for women that are open and are vulnerable to share their experiences with domestic violence. I am grateful that it was at the table because it's important for people to see that even though you may be the sister of or the person connected to a celebrity, or that you're living some kind of lifestyle that people think on the outside end, you can have horrible traumas happening to you. I honestly feel like one it's not openly spoken on enough and regular everyday call ver stations. I feel like women are timid to bring it up. And I'll be honest, it took me a long time, and it took me, I think, just life experiences to develop kind of the confidence or mindset and attitude that this is what happened to me, because I was embarrassed and I was ashamed because anyone and everyone who has not gone through it, if someone knocked your teeth out, you're calling them off. It's not the same with your love or your spouse and your partners. I want to know more about what's happened. You started day, you said, from seventeen to seven. So you started day in your X when you were seventeen and you were together for that full decade. When did the abuse begin? And what point did you realize you were being abused? So at seventeen, I'm he was five years older than me. I moved away to go to college. And when I moved away to go to college, he was totally separate from what I was used to or what I had gone up around what I had been used to, just like wood me off my feet because he was a little bit older, he kind of knew what to do, he knew what to say. He was very smooth, very much to play with it, and it was it just like you were so deep before you really knew it. And during that time frame there was no physical abuse, there was no none of that going on. His charming and love bombing you and just very much yea similar to like narcissic behavior. You know what we found. I mean, just from this season alone for Red Table Talk, Jenny, so many people have an underlying common denominator of narcissism. So at what point did the abuse start? How many years in probably about six months. What was Do you remember what the first incident was? So it doesn't start off like super tough, right, So we were actually like hanging out with friends at their apartment. It was kind of like a college town and stuff like that. I was in college, and so he brought his friends and cousin and then I had too my girlfriends with me, and so we're just a group hanging out and so one on one. I couldn't honestly tell you what instigated the issue. I can't remember, I truly can't, But I remember specifically him asking like can he talk to me, and pulling me to aside in one of the rooms in the home, and when he got in there, he shut the door and then he just smacked the life out of me to where I just fell to the ground. Didn't say anything right away, didn't tell me what the issue was, didn't I mean, I was caught so off guard. I had never had hands laid on me before ever, and so I was so overwhelmed and so shocked, and it was like I froze. I was so numb, like smacked me hard enough to knock me to the ground, and I didn't know. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know what to think of what to say. And I remember being on the floor just like curling myself up and bawling because my for one, it did her. I had never been hit like that before in my face, and I just remember being like scared to the pit of my stomach. He waited a minute and then got down on the ground with me and held me and consoled me. I was like, I'm so sorry. You made me. You made me, Yeah, this is what happened. You made me mad. It was because I was talking too much. So one of the dudes that he brought with him and so or that's what his excuse was for it, and he overreacted and he's sorry and he loves me, and so then I was like, oh, so he was jealous of me talking to someone else. He does love me, he does care about me. I've never had anyone get so angry with me over talking to someone else. And so I was like, in a sick way, took it as like flattering, right, absolutely, And I even want you to say in a way, just like the moment at the table, like you loved him. That was it. And he was abusing that that privilege. You know, it's a privilege to to love on each other, and unfortunately he knew how to manipulate it. This might be a perfect time to tax me talk a little bit about what did you envision your future with your ex to look like I was gonna love him through his hurdles and his habits, and then we would look back on it someday like, oh, we made it through so much right. And so I kept holding on to that delusional fantasy even through ten years that he was going to change, and it didn't change. It got worse. So it went from a slap on the face to me actually having to go to Alter and Support to buy tattoo cover up makeup to cover the bruises on my face to go to work, or the bruises on my neck to go to work, or having to call in because my jaw was who swollen to go to work. I am glad that you are out of that situation. Is a part of your story. Tell us what your future looks like now that you are a part What dreams do you have for your future self? And what dreams are you accomplishing. I don't know if you had told me I was as far as I am now doing what I'm doing now, I would have probably laughed because I didn't think that I was capable of doing more and doing better because again, and I keep referring to it, the mental and emotional last with you, right, I just had a and I'm not going to lie to you. I am actively seeking therapy from a specialized therapist in this area because what happens is it's like a chemical disregulation. And so, after so many years of the trauma, whether it's physical, emotional, mental, sexual, whatever it is, your nervous system become so disregulated. It is literally like you are a drug addict. And so you get so addicted to the disregulation and the dysfunction that if it is not chaos, and if it is not suffering or painful, you feel like something is off, which is the opposite of how we're intended to live. And so, and your body remembers the trauma, it holds it, and it shifts you. It alters you. Posturing forward to just you talking took some of the stigma away from being able to talk to people that have had this kind of experience because you're so free with it, normalize not being okay. It is okay to not be okay. It will not define your future. It does not dictate your future, and it's something on the other side, and it is always, always something on the other side. Always. I think that that is the ultimate way to finish this, to know that it is okay not to be okay. That's phenomenal, Jenny, that's phenomenal. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. We're gonna take a short break right now, and when we return, we'll welcome a mental health expert for our mental health moment. We are back with another vitally important mental health moments today we get to welcome someone I've been a fan of for some time, Alice Gresham. Alice runs an outpatient mental health department as well as her own mental health consulting firm. She's a therapist, trauma interventionist, consultant, speaker, and the reason I know her a TikTok creator. Alice is on a mission to normalize therapy for our black and brown communities, and we are thrilled she is with us today to help further that cause. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for joining us at the virtual Red Table today. Alice, Thank you I'm delighted to be a guest, and yeah, we gotta get folks in tune with how to get healed because I can be all these queens be broken down. I'm like, wa, ain't got no more time? Come on. That's exactly right. You said in a recent TikTok video that we do not have to respond to everyone's expectation that we show up to holiday events and entertain our family members. You were talking about Thanksgiving, but I'm looking ahead to Christmas and all the gatherings of my family will want to have. How do we turn down the invites or set boundaries without hurting our family or worshyet starting an argument. I think it's an important question for this season because primarily depression is up. So it's a time of year where we're supposed to be around those who love us and maybe those who raised us. But for everyone that isn't a great experience. So many of us go through holidays in a performative way and really don't have a wonderful time because they're our folks around who basically trying to dig into our business and always have something called especially the Old Lady Gang, you know who they are, all the aunties, who can't you know? You should? Did you can? Girl? Did you guys away? Are you married yet? So we want to minimize those kinds of experiences, especially if you're on a healing journey, and the way to do that is to set some boundaries about where you will and will not go and what you will and will not answer. If you choose to go to these family events, you have every right to decide not to go and instead focus on self care. And if you do go and you are a people pleaser or an introvert, there are plenty of ways to smile and laugh off a question and to he on into the next room. I like it. I love he took next room. Good. Now take that tip. That's good right there, Listen, I love it. If I don't want to answer that, I just said, I don't think that's my ministry to answer that. I have no problem, So that is right, Alice, Listen. I'm completely on board with your message of taking time to rest to during the holidays because napping is my ministry. I have dames, Okay, I know how to take a nap and then is not a waiver during these holidays. I'm gonna take my nap, But there are other kinds of rest besides the physical, like mental and sensory. So can you share what the different types of rest are and how we can identify which type of rest we need when we feel tired. Okay, that's an excellent question to One of the primary ways to get rest is to learn how to set boundaries using the word no. Because we're superwomen and we have to respond yes to almost everything that we're asked. Or whomever does request help or a favor, or girl, would you cover this for me? We feel obligated to do it just because we can. But I would describe to people three ways in which you can use a boundary to get yourself some rest. And one is to say simply no, thank you, I don't think I'll be coming this year. No, I don't believe that's gonna be for me. And then the third, which is my favorite, is BITCHA said no. Sometimes you got to call it. Everybody doesn't have the same communication style and you have to feel everybody right. I love it in the true form that is Alice all things. I was waiting for it. I was like, okay, well, you know how some people miss the social cues the first time. So the most direct way was number three. D. If they don't get that, it's just time to turn around and walk away. Right Listen, women know like because sometimes we just keep going and going. What are some tell tale signs to let a woman know, you know what you actually need to get some rest? How we know men and women to write cars everybody everybody needed now. So I like to describe the pebble, brick, and the house methods. So the pebble is when you feel a little bit rundown and you decide maybe you need to just stay in your jammie's on a Saturday and watch Netflix or whatever because you're feeling a little rundown. But if you ignore that and you continue to do laundry and housework and go pick up this and do this, and take care of uncle so and so and anti such and such, then the brick will come, which is usually a flu or a cold or in this case, your second round of COVID as the way to tell you you're doing too much. You are only human and so you need some rest. And then the third, of course, is the house. And some of us are already experiencing that, which is really sort of the symptoms of long COVID that have stayed with you because your immune system has been depressed for so long. When you got hit with the first round, it couldn't rebound in the way that it does for some people. So now many of us are down with long COVID and those unusual bothersome concerning symptoms. So you make a decision to sit down before you fall down. That's good because I'm gonna tell you something. I had a pebble moment Sunday. I had a pebble moment Sunday where I was like, Okay, I'm feel a little tired. I got a lot of stuff that I could do, but I stayed in the bed. I was like after bed, and so I didn't know it was a pebble brick or a house because I've been at house mode and it's not what you So when you learn, you don't want to do the house anymore. I remember I heard Oprah describe some things using that metaphor a long time ago, and at this point in my life, I'll respond to all pebbles. So you know, if I have a headache that stays around too long, that makes take some time off. If I have indigestive disorders, which occurred when we have a lot of anxiety and stress. I also, does anybody else get this like lump in the sign of their neck? My goodness, yet you can feel literally feel literally kill it. And I'm gonna tell you that pebble, I get massage out. I go every loving get a therapy. Yeah, so things like that, creating a regular massige schedule. One of the things I've done recently is to redo my bedroom to be surrounded by all things luxury girl. I'll bout one of them hotel mrs. Yes, luxury roma. I have a new life every time I come home and take off my shoes and put on my pajamas and hit that little Mr Nice. Okay, that sounds like we'll take care of us. Car and I were just talking about some of the things that we can do for self care. Car. You were talking about getting a steamer for your face. But I think we need to upgrade and do a mister for the bedroom, right for the whole room, a roll of therapy, because you know how we respond to people who smell good, like we'll walk up the strangers. Yes, okay, like you absolutely Vermons in high gear it's the power of scent to renew and restore. They baked chocolate tip cookies when you're trying to sell a house. So that's right through and just so, there are lots of things, but we just have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do nothing. That's so true. That's so true. But as they say, stop us smell the roses, these phrases that carry us through life, they have some true meaning. I'm trying to see all of it. There's purpose behind that part al was you also shared in that TikTok that I mentioned earlier, the four hours and I love us the four hours of self care and we already you can add our because it was around the way our Roman therapy it right, but you got rest renew, recharge, refreshed, and the extra. That's my little plus or Roman therapy. How can we check that we're keeping these balanced? Okay, So restore means you've been run down for quite some time. I got clients who sit in the chair underneath the blanket on the weekend, even though the law orangery needs doing, and the groceries need to be done and the house is a hot mass because they literally feel like they cannot get up and do another thing. So the restoring is stay in the bed on Saturday, stay in the bed on Sunday too. Then you take that extra ten dollars that you got and you add that to the people who deliver your groceries to your ports, so you can get some rest. Sometimes I buy rest in the form of I don't do no shopping anymore. That's what my industry is. Well, friends, I'm there with your friends, says covid Abit to Walmart says I love it. And then I talked also sort of like about renewed tracy, because renew it is when you do it's right, assist to feel right, that's right. So sometimes it can be just a new renewed based on a hair appointment, or you get your nails done or your eyebrows done and you spend some time getting a pedicure, right, So those are instantaneous. They don't take a lot of time. You can get your nails done, as still go grocery shopping or whatever, but you take pick up the groceries. That that's right to take time out to renew. And the renewing is just a short term intervention. The restoration longer term. It might be a couple of days on the weekend. But this is what I sort of suggest for people with holidays. I think that all holidays are an opportunity for self care. I don't go nowhere. I see you all all the time. Thanksgiving, I didn't go nowhere people begging me because I listen. I take care of people all week that part. I hear that and trust they survived without me. And I stand in my pajamas for three days straight. Popcorn, Netflix, Pinot Griggio girl. I wasn't playing. Think it's important. I think it's important to reinvent these traditions as we go throughout the years. Holidays are not as traditional. I don't even know if we're really supposed to call it Thanksgiving anymore, because you know, we're deconstructing everything. Construct okay, to unlearn and relearn Thanksgiving and or Christmas and New Year's redefine what it means for you. I love that. I love that. Just be okay with it. Let you make your decisions. Stand firm minute, establishing minute, and stand firm minute. That's stop asking everybody for everybody else's opinion. This is your life, this is your journey. Say that one more time. Your life, your journey, your choices, your consequences. So some of us are insecure in that we have to check with everybody. Is it okay if I what do you think about this? When the reality is it's your life, be love it, it's yours. Can you just trust yourself to make these kinds of decisions when you feel tired? Sit down? You did good with that, you said sit down. Now you know we're talking about black and brown community. So what we say and sat down? Paying attention to yourself though, and just come out of the I call people hallucinate. Okay, I know you're fantastic, you're awesome. I'm awesome too, but we're still human. We break down, we wear out, we fall down, we don't feel good. And just pretending that none of those things exists doesn't regenerate, renew, restore or refresh. Stop letting people make you feel guilty because you need to set down somewhere to take my new friend. I'm loving all of it. I feel like people everyone who are we are setting free on this podcast. They're gonna feel renewed and have that permission to do what they need to do moving forward. For these holidays like Alice, thank you so much, such a joy. I'm so delighted that you guys thought what I had to say was worthy and that your work is about lifting up queens and giving queens resources through which they could use to heal. Because we don't have no time to not be well and healthy and strong and fit for our families. That is so true. Anyone listening. You can learn more from Alice about these topics and others on her TikTok just search behavioral intelligence. Thank you so much again, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you, bless you all. We want to know how you are feeling about this new season of Red Table Talk. We are open to talk about anything with you all, so please send in your questions at Let's red table that at red table talk dot com or leave us a voicemail. We want to hear your voice. Speak to us at speak pipe dot com, slash Let's red table that. Yeah, tell us what you had to say. Don't worry about typing, just talking, go to speak talking dot com. Just talking out and why are you talking? We want to talk to you one more time and say thank you, thank you, yes you, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you subscribe on I Heart Radio app and please rate this podcast on Apple podcast. Y'all know we want to five. We'll be back next week for another episode of Let's Red Table Back Special. Thanks to executive producers j D. P Keett Smith, Valon, Jethro and Ellen Racketon. Thank you to our producer colleague and Nehru and our associate producer Yolanda Chow. And finally, thanks to our sound engineer, Stephanie Aguilar's table back Let's Red Table Day, Let's Let's Red Table Back Tay

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