February is dedicated to matters of the heart, and my guest today, Katrina McGhee, from the American Heart Association is here to encourage us to make sure that we care for our hearts! Shockingly, heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, and too many people are unaware of this. Awareness, education, and even small changes in our eating and lifestyle habits can change this story. Katrina will tell us how it's done. She'll also encourage us to WEAR RED on February 5, to help bring awareness to women's heart health, and to strike up a conversation with those in your circle about the importance of self-care. Additionally, Katrina founded the "Loving On Me Academy" which is your go-to place if you're looking to put yourself in the driver's seat of your life and your health. She'll tell us all about in today's conversation. I'll keep doling out advice on keeping your emotional heart healthy, and Katrina will continue telling you how to keep your physical heart beating long and strong. Join us! ~ Delilah
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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, my friend. We have another fantastic podcast for you today as we wrap up the first month of the new year and head into February. February the month of love, the month of romance, the month of all matters of the heart. And while I have dedicated my entire career, almost my whole life on radio, has been spent talking about the ups and downs, the highs, the lows, the hurt, the healing, the joy of our emotional hearts, falling in love, the love of our children and our grandchildren. Today, I'm going to be joined by a very special guest that's going to encourage us to build a better relationship with our physical hearts. Are actual blood pumping in the chest, that organ that we all need to live. Hearts. The month of February is American Heartment. And when the American Heart Association encourages us to go Red for women, the hope is that by wearing red, it will help to bring awareness to the fact that cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is a leading cause, the leading cause of death for women, number one, ahead of all other illnesses and injuries that's concerning. That's an issue that's something we need to pay attention to because there's a tremendous amount we can do for ourselves to increase our heart health and reduce our chance of leaving our loved ones behind premature ly. I mean, we gotta do what we gotta do to stay as healthy as we can. Write with us today on this podcast is a Force to be Reckoned with Katrina McGee, Executive vice president of the American Heart Association. She has been working to educate folks about women's health issues for a few decades. Now she knows what she's talking about. We're going to get to the heart of the matter right after I give my new podcast sponsor, Laura Geller Cosmetics a little love. They create makeup for women over forty. I've had fun discovering them any beautiful lipstick shades, Their balance and brightened powder foundation is designed to help glide over and blur find lines. It never cracks or cakes. Find all of their products at Laura Geller dot com. At Laura Geller dot com l A U r A Geller dot com. They offer free shipping on foundation returns so you can find the right color for your skin type. Save off when you use promo code Laura at check out, Hello, my friend, how are you? How are you? I'm so excited to get to talk to you today. I got to meet you years ago. I think we were in Dallas or Fort Worth. It would be in Dallas and you as my business partner. Craig says, Remember she is a force to be reckoned with. That was his description, and I laughed. I said, oh, I remember her. She's like energy plus energy. You're like the energizer bunny. Absolutely, I would you know what I believe in Burton with gratitude and ending with grace. So I'm I'm just trying to keep it positive all day long. Though I was, well, if you start with gratitude and you end with grace, how can you go wrong? I learned years ago a little trick, well not a trick, but a little wisdom or a little truth that few people share or teach, and maybe they don't know it because I didn't know it. And that is that every time I've encountered a major issue, a major problem, something that I it was a major heartache, every time, without fail, God used that to push me to a much better understanding of grace, of mercy, of goodness and I stopped looking at problems as problems and started, you know, kind of reframing them as Okay, God, this is an opportunity. This is like back to college. This is the college of hard knocks. What are you trying to teach me? That is the truth? So it absolutely is. I believe that with all my heart. I asked out a long time ago to help me love people like God loves people. And I don't think I knew what I was asking at the time, because what does he do. He doesn't just like supernaturally cover us with that grace and love so that oh we're so happy and and and patient. No, he gives us those life lessons exactly, exactly. Oh my goodness, that is so true. This is you know, this is my second time working at American Heart Association, and I told my team the first time I worked there, I wanted to change the world, like I felt like I could make a difference around the world, and this was so awesome. And now I just want to love people. You know, I want to make a difference to the person in front of me, because I have discovered when I focused on that, it totally just the atmosphere. If you really want to transform community, you really want to transform lives, you have to start with the people that got places in your path and just love them, just love them the life. And so that is that is my passion. Now. It's not about trying to change the world. It's it's one heart at a time for me. And I'm I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful, um to be in that position. And um yeah, even in the midst of all of our chaos, I just feel like they're such opportunity be and story And well, I wrote a book by that title a couple of years ago, just talking about that very thing that in order to change the world for good, I can't see any way to do it on a large scale except by doing it on a small scale, by starting with the people in your house, and then expanding to the people in your family, and then the people in your circle and the people in your community. And if we can do that, if we can be kind and loving and generous and patient, we can change the world for good. Yeah. I believe that too. So I'm going to send you some copies of my book that you can share with whoever you're inspired to share them with. But today Katrina McGee. I want to introduce you to my audience who have not had the pleasure of meeting you, because you are such a beautiful woman. God has graced you with external beauty and internal beauty. But the thing that I love most is that you have spent your entire career helping women to love themselves and take better care of themselves. And that's not a message we hear often enough. It is absolutely true. I believe when women band together and passionate purpose, there nothing we can't do. And it has been my life's pleasure to teach women, equip women, empower them to take care of themselves, of their health, to live their lives with grace for themselves and for each other. And so I am honored to meet your audience. And it's been some time with you today. So we're going to talk about a lot of things. First off, first and foremost, February is American Heart Month and you are with the American Heart Association. And I read a fact before I interviewed you that blew me away. And this is something that my podcast director, my my executive producer shared with me that one out of three women will die of heart diseases. That could that possibly be correct? Yeah, heart disease is the number one killer of women. But the challenges most of them don't know it. I mean, it's really crazy because we think it's all these other things and yet it's heart disease. And so part of what we're doing this February in particular is founding the alarm to younger women, to more diverse women. Um that heart disease is the number one killer and we kind of lived dear, We've got to get into driver's be of our own health. How can that possibly be? When I think of heart attack, If you say the word heart attack or heart disease and I closed my eyes, I see uh an elderly or middle aged man sitting in front of a TV set with a beer in his hand, you know, having a heart attack. That's what in my mind heart disease is. And when I'm reading these statistics and the number of young women, the number of women my age and younger that are leaving us premature lee because of heart disease, how can that speak a trita? Well, part of it is that we just don't know and we think it's something else. Sometimes the symptoms for women manifest differently, so we're misdiagnosed or we missed accused ourselves. Many of us have uncontrolled hypertension, and they call it the silent killers, so you don't know you have it, and things just get progressively worse. And then there, of course, you know the things that we can control, like our diet and exercise, which have been so hard lately in the middle of the pandemic. We prioritize everything else for and our health is the thing that gets pushed to the thigh for I'm raising my hand and giving you an amen, because that's me. That's me. I have high blood pressure. I know I need to walk every day. If I walk two or three miles a day, my health is good, my heart is strong, blood pressure is under control that with my medication. If I don't, and because I'm home schooling the kids now and they're out of school in the pandemic and work, I can't even tell you the last time I had a chance to walk. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, women wear a lot of hats and so this is definitely not a judgment. This is not a you should be doing better type moment for me, because I believe in embracing grace and so that you know the things that we prioritize, they're important, that's for sure. They are still things we have to do. And yet we have to find moments, moments that we can take the kids out and go for a walk together, or take thirty minute time out. You know. I tell people scheduled joy breaks in your day. The other thing that exercise does for you, oh my goodness, it releases those positive Endortman. Then you just you would be so amazed how much a walk outside or just a little bit of exercise will change your mental faith for the better. Amen. That's so so true for me. I have to give myself a time out sometimes because I'm getting fussy with the kids, and then I just have to go out and stand outside and breathe deep. So let's I don't like statistics because I think a lot of people tune out or get lost with statistics. But this is important stuff to share. Uh. The number one killer of women is cardiovascular disease, claiming the lives of one in three. One woman dies every seventy five seconds in the world from cardiovascular disease. Yeah, it's crazy, right, and yet you don't really hear about it. And that's why our Go Red for Women movement is so important because it is you know, women having a conversation just like you and I think, girl, are you taking care of yourself? When's the last time you check your blood pressure? Let's go out and walk together. Let's take the kids and just go out for a walk. You know, it is woman to woman standing with each other and for each other, challenging us to take better care of ourselves. I mean, we we have to do it, because if we don't remind each other be each other's accountability partner, you know, encourage each other to to see the doctor, to take our blood pressure metagin, to do all the things we know to do, we could so easily set it to the side. Here's another fact that blew me away. And because of my eight daughters, six of them are black women, Black girls that are growing into black women. And I read a statistic more than half fifty seven of women of color and close to of Hispanic women have some form of cardiovascular disease. Yeah, that's that's right, not only to have some form of cardiovafter disease, but to have lower outcomes from it. But you know the good news about that is there are things we can do, and so you know, I go back to sharing the words, telling each other, you know, we have to take care of ourselves, ensuring that you know, as as African Americans and Latin active women, that we participate in critical trials, that we speak up, that we get involved in our own health care, because it is possible to survive. You know, most strokes are preventable, and people don't know that. So when people when you think about it, there is so much that we can do to be healthier, that we can do to take care of ourselves. And I really like to focus there because the statistics can be overwhelming, right, like, oh my god, I'm gonna get it anyway. But the truth is there's a lot that you can be to reduce your risk. So obviously walking, um, being healthy, making healthy eating choices, uh, saying no to the extra Cuba butter that I put in the mash but potatoes, Oh man, I made, Katrina, I made the best sour cream mashed potatoes last night. But I know they're they're not hard healthy. I know that. You know what the funny thing is, I tend to look at our diet and say, you know, overall balanced diet. You know, everything in moderation, and so if you are eating lots of leafy green vegetables, lean meat, if you're not having the sour cream masctates every night, you're probably okay. I think that we have to approach our nutrition from a balanced perspective. And it's one of the things that I love about American Heart Association is they don't generally operate an extreme You know, um, there is the balance to everything in life, and so part of it is making sure that you see your health care provider regularly, your doctor and nurse practitioner or whomever takes care of your health with you, and that you be a partner in that, like you ask questions about how to take best care of yourself, that you challenge things that you don't agree with and not just take things for granted. That you take the medication um that is prescribed, and do all you can make sure that you're following an overall healthy lifestyle. You know, moderation in our food, diet and exercise. And I don't mean exercise like ready to fall out every day. You don't have to go to a jam like you said, a great walk of thirty minute walk every day will be wondrous for your health. Okay, So what would you say if you if you lived here closer in my area and we were being safe, you know, taking all the precautions. Uh. Should we get together once a day, once a week. How can we assisters, friends, encourage one another, help one another to stay healthy and build those stronger bonds of heart love the emotional kind. What what would we do, like paint a picture for me? What you would suggest for women who are listening right now and men, because you know we all we all need to have healthy hearts. Just give me some simple tips you said, green leafy vegetables. My husband and I have been making salads every night for dinner since COVID hit because we thought, wow, we really need to have a strong immune system, so let's get more green leafy vegetables into ourselves and the kids. So that's one change that we've made. We have a green leafy vegetable with every meal now. But what are some other little simple things we can do to help ourselves? And so let me just say, you gotta have some fun with it, right because we've been in the house for a while now, or you know, we've kind of gotten in a rut. So my girlfriends and I at the part of this year decided to be like this little recupe slap thing. So every week we have a group text and we're posting in their new recupe. Because I don't know about you, but I got tired of everything that I could cook, so I needed to inspiration and um, the latest thing I've had, I noticed is so corny. But I made the best kale style of the praisings and little raisins, and then I roasted the ponds and oh my god, it was so good. And I had this brilled case and kicking on top of it. It was so yummy. It was so yummy. Um. But it's about eating different things and finding things that appeal to your palette, because it's not just one thing. You know, I love Brussels sprouts. Some people hate Brussels sprouts. So you won't know unless you try some things that you haven't tried before. So that's the first thing I get out of the food rut and try something. News. Do you have a website or something where you can post those recipes from your girl friends for all of us to enjoy. Do you know what I don't have a website, I can post those recipes, but I can give you hundreds of recipes from the American Heart Association. There was a great one I tried that had spaghetti splash in it with some spaghetti us on top of it, so instead of the noodles, you put the spaghetti sauce in there, and it was really super yummy. So we'll have to send you some links to some of those great recipes so we can try something different. Well, we love we We raised spaghetti squash at our farm, so we love doing that. That's when we've been doing for years, is using the spaghetti squash instead of noodles. But I'm just thinking for my listeners, if they go to the American Heart Association website, will they find a plethora of fabulous recipes that they can start incorporating. Absolutely. If you go to heart dot org, there's a healthy Living cab and it will have recipes there for you. Uh. There is a wonderful meditation on there called Calm Abiding when you're feeling anxious or overwhelmed. I'm learning how to do this little five to seven minute meditations is a beautiful thing. Um. There's also some quick, simple exercise videos on what our YouTube and our website, so really anything you need, I'm a like overall healthy lifestyle perfectives can be found our healthy for Good Things. Okay again, that address is heart dot org. Heart dot org and that's so easy, especially since the month of February is all about the heart, so heart dot org and then Healthy Living and Live Fierce are places people can go just for some some tips to get started, because that's the hardest part. I mean for me, once I get started, it's like a ball rolling down the hill. Once the ball gets rolling, I'm pretty good about follow through. It's the getting started. Yeah, it's the getting started, and part of it is just sticking with it. That's why I love that I have, you know, girlfriends who are walking with me during the path during the month of January, just to try different things and get out of my comfort zone, and you know, just to even introduce myself to new foods that I don't normally eat. I mean, I know, you have a firing growth fresh vegetables, but some people don't, you know, I'm always surprised when I talk to people who don't really try a variety of vegetables because there's so much yummy stuff out there. I would have insured to state, there's probably something for everyone. We picked even though it's winter. We picked Swiss shard. I still have Swiss shard that grows in the garden. I picked some the other day and cooked it up for the kids and put a little vinegar balsamic vinegar on it, and they loved it. So introducing more vegetables, more green leafy vegetables in their diet has definitely been a good thing. And again I did that when COVID hit because I thought the best thing we can do is be proactive, and so I just started looking up the things that we need to build our immune system, and it always came back to green, leafy vegetables. Yeah. Yeah, you know, nature gives death virtually everything we need for healthy living. And we've come so far away from eating fresh fruit and vegetables on a regular basis, and most of us have a lot of processed food in our diet. But I find that the more that you eat from the earth, the more you shop on the outer rim of the supermarket in general, the healthier you are. And so if you practice when you go to the store, go a ring around the grocery store first, shot the outer aisle of the grocery store where all the fresh fruit and vegetables are, the fresh meats are, the fresh Jesus are. If you can shop the majority of the time there, you're probably eating pretty healthy. Yeah, don't even go down those aisles with the processed food. Don't even go down because if you go down, you're gonna be tempted. A bag of chips is gonna jump off the shelf into your cart, and before you even get home, it'll be half gone. So don't even go down those aisles. So true, at least us in my house. I mean, a bag of chips might last a day, day and a half, and I can have little kids that live here. See that's a problem with having little kids, as you always have an excuse, Oh, I'm getting this for the kids. No you're not. No, No, When you see me going through the line and I have one of those little little debbies in the cart, or I got one of those little Bama pies, the pecampie, don't let me lie through my teeth and tell you these are for the kids. Uh huh. So we're gonna try and live in healthier lifestyles. We're gonna wear red on the fifth of February to get everybody talking about this and thinking about this and how can we reach the minorities, the population that is underserved and has no clue how important this is. How can we help our sisters to live longer, live healthier, and be more blessed. What can I do? I mean, as a mom, I know what I'm gonna do, and I know a conversation I'm going to have with all my girls, But what else can I do? Well? I think one of the things we all can do is to help spread the words were read on February fifth, but then actively talk about it and share the information that the Heart Association puts out, you know, communities around the country. The American Heart Association has um partnership with faith based organizations, with organizations that serve African American and Hispanic community, and we need volunteers all the time. So if this is your passion point to help spread the word and under resource communities, definitely reach out to your local American Heart Association and find out how you can get engaged. If you're active on social media where read post about it, continue to share it with your friends that elevate the word and then finally, you know, reach out to your circle personally. I really feel like reaching out to the women in your life that you love, reaching out to the women you work with, those you care about, and saying, hey, have you you know done? Have you seen your doctor this year? Are you trying to eat healthy? Can we do something together? I want to help women survive and thrive during this time and be sure that we are safe from cardiovascular disease. You know, I find that the personal touch and really genuinely caring about those people around you and opening the conversation helps you be able to spread the word. I have a young woman who is not one of my adult children. I mean I did not adopt her. She has a family, but she is a daughter of my heart, a beautiful African American woman who went to see her doctor and her doctor said, you know, you need to lose a few pounds because your numbers are going up. And she came over and I had made something, you know that that was not very hard healthy, and she said, Mama, I can't. I really want to take better care of myself and I want to stop the problem before it starts. And I'm so proud of her because she did it like, she followed her doctor's orders and she started changing her diet and she lost the weight. And she not only looks fabulous, but I can tell she feels so much better. Um, and she's like, get those mashed potatoes away from get thee behind me, Satan with those mashed potatoes. I love it. I love to hear those success stories. You know. I think during COVID a lot of us are feeling challenge. I bet if everybody was honest and we talked about how much weight we've put on during COVID, we we've probably gained enough for a football team. You know what I'm saying. And I'm raising my hand over here too. Right, Definitely, we all have. It has been a struggle to stay active and to eat right. You want comfort food, you feel like comfort food when the world around you is in chaos. And again, you know, I I try to handle that all with grace, which means that, you know, if I feel myself game, whether I feel myself pluggish, I used that as a reminder to get up and get moving. I used that as an incentive to say, Okay, tomorrow, I'm going to eat a salad and I'm lean chicken. Yeah, I ate Mexican food last night and it was yummy, And you know, I just can't beat myself up about it. But I think, you know, it is that continuous pursuit of good health that we're most after because you know, none of us are going to be perfect all the time. But Delilah, I believe if we if we keep good health pop of mind, it will always bring us back to those behaviors that we know are in our best interests. And you know what, what your daughter did would make a courageous choice to live fear to do with what was in her own best interests. And it was not easy because she's got you know, three kids at home and her husband and she loves to bless them with food. Our love language is sharing food. So it was very courageous and very fierce for her to say, no, I am going to take care of me. Yeah, yeah, I love that. And when we see people doing that, I mean, how wonderful it is that she has you to encourage her and stand alongside her. That's what we have to do for each other as sisters, right, It's just when somebody is trying to affirm that effort, and um, I be't what go red for women is all about to keep for us all encouraged, to keep us all um on the path in pursuit of good health. Uh, and to share ideas and tips and what's working for each other. So tell me about your loving on me academy. Yes, yes, yes, So I started loving on me because I was really passionate about helping women love themselves and each other more. I had just come out of this um anxiety filled, overwhelming um burnout really and I said, you know, I gotta find a way to do what I love, but to do it differently and paint a picture for us, like what was going on in your life? What were you doing, what choices were you making, or what was your circumstances, Because there's there's two things in life that we have to deal with. One of circumstances that are visited upon us that we have no say over. We have no say over the family were born into, our ethnicity or height, are any of that. And then the second thing is is things that are visited upon us like circumstances of of betrayal or divorce or jobs that are abusive. So what was going on in your world that was leading you to this stressed out situation. I was working at what I thought was my dream job and we had a huge blow up with another nonprofit while I was working at through the g Common, and I started to get in this cycle of every day trying to control everything and everybody. You know how we see something and we feel like, no, don't do that, no, no, say this that You're trying to control everybody, trying to manage situations that are often out of your control, where you've developed codependent relationships and where you want things to just go along as you perceived they should be. And I finally hit a wall where I thought the lot of I was having a heart attack and the struck at the same time, my face was getting numb, my chest was tight, and I instead of going to the doctor right away, I doubled up on my blood pressure medicine because I thought, Okay, I'm in a stressful situation. I know what this is. I'm just gonna take care of it. And finally my son said, listen, I need you to go to the doctor because I only have one mom and I need you to take care of you. And I gotta tell you, I've met so many women who have symptoms who were their body their spirit is telling them something wrong, that they're having a life interrupted moment, but they won't stop and take care of themselves until something catastrophic happens. And so, you know, my son said, I don't want them to be to you. So I went to the doctor. He said, you're not having a heart attack. You're having an anxiety attack. And you're having it all day, every day, and when you feel lightheaded, it's because your body is not getting enough there. And I didn't I wasn't even sure anxiety attacks were real until I had them myself. And he said, you have two choices. I can either put you on medication or you can be courageous enough to change your circumstances like this is not healthy for you. And so I took some time off. In a way, I was suffering from exhaustion, I was having the anxiety attacks, and it really was a life interrupted moment. I just believe, you know, God can use your life interrupted moments and take you from what you know best to get to know him better, like to really focus on what the spirit is saying to you. And that's what happened to me. And I started telling my story of what happened. I realized there were so many other women around me who did not understand how to love themselves enough to make the hard choices, and so I ended up writing this book to take people on that journey with me from being a hot mess suffering from anxiety attacks to unconditional self worth. And um. It was along that journey that I've met a lot of women from around the world actually who had experienced the same thing. And it became this movement, this loving on Me movement, UM. And I realized, I can help you learn to love yourself more, um, but you really needed help, honestly on how to manage your advice in your career too. So I set up a Loving on the Academy, first to help people get in the driver's seat of their life and to set priorities, and second to learn to do what you love, to find a career in what you love, or be curateous enough if you're not doing that, to do something different. And that that became my work for many, many years. And you know, I really still do some element of that even though I'm at American Heart now, because I have always been in love with helping women take charge of their health and their life and to do the things that they are most called to do. So do you have teachers at this Loving On You Academy? I mean, do you have classes at the academy? What does it look like? I do. I have online classes. I have three classes that are out there currently. I'm working on another class because you know, COVID has been a master class for us on many things, and so I want to set up a couple of more classes for that. And I put it online because I found that so many people did not have access to what they needed, and so I wanted to give it to the broadest audience possible. UM. So I set up online courses and occasionally a couple of times the year, I also do group coaching because I believe in women helping women. Uh, And that's you know, that's that's my passion. I love putting women in charge of their lives. I just believe it is so liberating to be who you were created to be and who not who you thought you had to be because somebody else that priorities for you, or you're trying to live up or down to somebody else's expectation. Amen. So if somebody wants to take a class that the Loving on you are Loving on Me Academy. How do they do that, Contrina out? Where do they go? They go to Loving on Me academy dot com and they will find all of the classes there. You know what, I bet probably of my collars every single night are women that would benefit from that because they call me because they're stressed out. They call me because they're trying to control their adult children's addictions, or their partners philanderings, or they're trying to control the finances of their household and it's out of control right now out and they just they call me because their heartbroken, because they're exhausted, because their life is a hot mess. I have been there, and I can so relate, you know. I talk about that in Loving on Me, my first book, because it's so easy to slip in a codependent relationship where we are trying to control another person or live that other person's life for them, And the truth of it is, you know, we think that we are helping people, we think that that's the right thing to do, but you are not called to live anyone else's life but your own, and in truth, those people don't love you. For that. They actually resent for that. And so it is healthy and liberating when you learn to break codependent relationship. But it is not easy. It is not easy. And the minute you you try to set those boundaries, I will tell you, the minute you try to set those boundaries, the minute you start saying no, no, no, that doesn't work for me, Nope, can't do the Nope, not paying that, Nope, you're not taking my car. Sorry, they get really mean because they don't want they don't They don't want you to stop being codependent. They don't want you to take care of you. They want you to fix them. Right. Yes, that is so very true, and yet it is completely unhealthy for you and them for things to stay the way they are. This is why I believe so much in sisterhood. This is why I believe in women helping women and understand the need to have a good group of girlfriends and connections who can speak truth to you and love because often we can't see this in ourselves. And this is whether this is our health. Are like our physical health, our mental health, our spiritual health. You know, we are doing things that we would tell our friends. Don't do that. Now, Oh my goodness, girl, you don't have to live it that way. Of Course, you don't have to pay his rent every month. Of Course you should take time for you. But it sometimes takes somebody outside of your circumstances to say those things to you. Because people see us based on how we're living, how we're showing up the good things that we are doing. We are constantly judging ourselves on what we perceive we should do or it could have done or didn't do, and and it often takes that outside perspective. Today it really is okay, it. This is a good thing that you are not doing that anymore. It is a good thing that you're taking time for yourself. Thank you, Katrina. Thank you for spending some time with us today. Thank you for being passionate about women's health and women's hearts and women's sisterhood. And any time you want to share a healthy recipe call me. Okay, I absolutely will do that. Now. I'm gonna see you when you're red on February right, oh yeah, oh yeah. And you know what, Red is one of my favorite colors. I decorate with it. My house has got red accents, and I am gonna wear red. But more importantly, I'm really going to make it a point to talk to my daughters, my friends, especially women of color, about the importance of paying really good attention to their heart. Thank you, thank you. It's so important and I so appreciate you. Let me spend some time with you today. I loved it, all right, I'll talk to you soon, Okay. Take here. You know, for more than forty years, for more than four decades, I have tried to be a comfort to those suffering from a wounded heart. I've tried to encourage people to live from their heart, to love from their heart. I was a champion. I've been a champion. I've tried to be for the healing heart, a celebrant of the happy heart. I try to pass on all the great advice I can a lot from my own personal experiences. I've been around the block three times maybefore, and I like to share stories other people's stories. Katrina McGhee does the same. The only difference is that my work, my show is about the emotional heart, the joy, the love, the tears in our heart. Katrina's work is about the physical heart, our cardiovascular health. Each of us, me and Katrina wants you to live your best life. Live your life to the fullest, with joy, with purpose, with intent. Please take her advice. Do I dare say it to heart, Live fearce, prioritize your health, live purposefully, live passionately. I encourage you every single day to love someone. That's my motto, my slogan in life. And perhaps I don't say it enough, but the very first person that that applies to is you. You can't love others if you're not taking care of yourself. So take care of yourself, take care of your heart so that you will have the strength and the energy to take care of everyone else that you love. Valentine's Day just around the corner. You know where to tune in for the greatest love songs, the greatest love stories of all time. I share those with you every night this year. When you're making your plans for the loves in your life, your sweetheart, your partner, your children, include yourself. The month of February is a great time to kick start some healthier habits. Where read on February five to help bring awareness to women's heart health and visit where Red day dot org to learn more and to donate to go Red and Ladies. If you're looking for tips and inspirations to take the next big steps in life, in your careers and managing your health, you should visit Loving on me academy dot com Loving on me academy dot com, where you will find amazing, empowering tips and information. Join me next time I Love Someone With Delilah, We're going to have a fabulous podcast season, a fabulous year, and I am excited looking forward to sharing it with you. My friend m