The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
How many of us can say that we have a friendship that is 5, 10, or even 15 years old? If you thought that was rare, how about being friends for most of your lives? For today’s session, we’re joined by lifelong besties of 26 years Lamaya, Aketa, and Keely. Dubbing themselves AMW for ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ this girl group has navigated moves around the country, the raising of children, and busy careers, all while still making time for sisterhood.
In our session today, you’ll hear the AMW crew talk all about their growth as a friend group from college to adulthood, ways to stay connected when your besties live far apart, and how they’ve managed to maintain their sisterhood in the midst of personal life developments.
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Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Maya Cole Howard
Producers: Fredia Lucas, Ellice Ellis & Cindy Okereke
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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session three twenty two of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors. Which friend are you? And your sister circle? Are you the wallflower, the peacemaker, the firecracker or the leader? Take the quiz at Sisterhoodheels dot com slash quiz to find out, and then make sure to grab your copy of Sisterhood Heels to find out more about how you can be a better friend and how your circle can do a better job of supporting you. Order yours today at Sisterhood Heels dot com. How many of us can say that we have a friendship that is five years old, ten years old, or even fifteen years old. If you thought that was rare, how about being friends for most of your lives. Lifelong sisterhood is a rare yet beautiful phenomenon that brings new meaning to the term ride or Die. For today's session, we're joined by lifelong besties of twenty six years le Maya, Akita and Keihley, dubbing themselves AMW for America's Most Wanted. This girl group has navigated moves around the country, the raising of children, and busy careers, all while still making time for sisterhood. In our session today, you'll hear the AMW crew talk all about their growth as a friend group from college to adulthood, ways to stay connected when your besties live far apart, and how they've managed to maintain their sisterhood in the midst of personal life developments. And as a special bonus, the interludes for today's episodes are selected excerpts from my book, Sisterhood Heels, which is available to purchase wherever books are sold. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, Please share with us on social media using the hashtag TBG in session or join us over in the Sister Circle. To talk more about the episode. You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation.
Hi, I'm Maya, and I'm here to introduce my posse, a trio called amw Who are we? A gang member, a soccer player, and a Southern bell. We met in nineteen ninety seven at wake Forest University. Actually only one of these descriptions is accurate. Keeley the Southern bell who wore a sweatshirt that read Southern Girls Don't Sweat. We listen. Assumed that Keita, with her lean, athletic build and muscular legs, must be on scholarship as a soccer player, and that may and me was a gang member from the notorious Tray four because I wore a red bandana. First impressions aside, we fostered a decades long friendship that has helped us navigate some of the most wonderful and difficult times of our lives. Meet Keighley, an attorney and our resident fashion e Stemp Kita, an EEO diversity expert and our resident voice of reason. And me, Maya, a PhD student and teacher and our resident dreamer. Our journey includes cartwheels and espresso shots on the quad annual Wonderful Weekends, moves all over the country, overseas and back, miscarriage and pregnancies, marriage and dating, and more recently, cancer diagnoses in the loss of parents. We're all busy these days with working school, family, yoga, teaching, raising kids and young adults, and of course commiserating on all the bullsh constantly thrown in Black women. We get tired, but we keep going, squeezing every drop out of life. We are America's most wanted a moniker given to us in nineteen ninety eight by the unfortunate girlfriend of a first class boy. But we can tell you more about that later.
I know Drake made it popular to proclaim no new friends, but I have to strongly disagree with this sentiment. Being open to new sister friends at any stage of our lives should be a goal we all aim for. The truth is you probably haven't met all the people who will love you, and being open to finding new people who can add to the rich relationships you might already as a kind and loving act Towards your Own Healing, Page one ninety one.
Well, we're all friends from wake Forest University and we're on the freshman hall together. And wake Forest is a primarily white institution, so when you have three black women on the same freshman hall, it is easy to identify. And so when I saw two women on my hall that looked like me, I was like, oh, okay, well who do we have here? And so le Maya dressed in preparation I guess to do some heavy lifting, had on a bandana. I think you had on like a baggy outfit, maybe like some baggy jeans or shorts or something.
I was like, okay, I'm right because we're moving in too, a dor mega and so I was.
Like, she is got some street cred. And then Akita, she looked very instill. It was very athletic. She was long a lean, had on like I think they were soccer shorts. There's some type of athletic shorts. So I was like, well, huh, is she like on a soccer team?
One?
And I had picked her to be an athlete, and so I am.
The Southern bell.
So those were my initial impressions on the two ladies on the call now that are now to my best friend.
Amw. We will not incriminate those that gave us that moniker, but we have taken it and it has lived with us and it has developed. But we were once greeted on the quad on our way to the cafeteria by someone that said, oh my gosh, it's America's most wanted. Because we had solidified our status on campus by this point, we did not know we were America's most wanted. But we'll take it. As all of our beautiful black women are America's most wanted, we will take that for the sisterhood.
My sister friend, Defisa and I had many conversations while in grad school at the University of Georgia about how it was fun to date and think about married life, but that it was our relationship with one another where sweetness was really found. The conversations we were able to have with one another, the support, laughter, and ease, all felt like what life partnership should really be. I've been so excited to see more people thinking about their relationships with their girls in this way. For all the wonderful things that can come with romantic love, our relationships with our girls are often where we really come alive in many ways. Our girls are where we can exist outside of any life role we're expected to take on. Yes, I am someone's wife, I am someone's mother, I am someone's therapist. But when I'm with my girls, I'm just with my girls as they are with me. Introduction page nineteen.
Oh my gosh, so many really good memories. I'm going to talk about cartwheels on the quad. So there was lots of work to be done at WAKE, and I don't know was it final exam period or some period of time where we all were just like up, like working NonStop, and there was the Starbucks on campus. So we said, we're going to go to Starbucks and we are going to take I don't know how many shots of I was about to say tequila, but not tequila. That was creater.
That was late night.
This was espresso. We had taken all these shots of espresso because we were like, we're gonna be up, We're gonna get this work done. And then we were so wired none of us could sit down at our desk to do any work. So we go out to the quad and we're just like, I don't know, who knows what we're doing but at a certain point we were doing cartwheels on the quad in the middle of campus when we're supposed to all be in our respective door rooms or the library doing all this work. That we took the shots expresso for it. So it's just so many of those hysterical memories that we look back on year after year and just giggle again, like it was that day.
I want to talk about the trash can Wars because we literally just had this reminder a couple of months ago with one of my daughters who had a similar event. But we used to have this annual thing on campus, and I don't even know where it started, but it was annual. It was a water gun fight. So we started with water gun fights. We would surprise each other, not just the three of us, like pretty much it was all I want to say, It was all black people on campus. It was an unspoken organized event where we just knew we had to carry our water guns or we need to be prepared to get got before class. So somehow that war for us escalated with a core group of guy friends who one of us is married to today, La Maid and her husband, he and his roommate, and somehow it escalated to trash can wars, and so this is how you know you were like comfortable and you were with your people because you do stupid stuff like this. I don't think we can get in trouble for this now, but we would take trash cans and line them up against the boy's door, and so when they opened the door, the whole trash can just flooded into their dorm room. Do not ask us where the brainch out for this operation came from, But don't worry. They got us back. But we just found joy in being free and silly and goofy and just connecting with our community in very crazy ways on campus. But we had a good chuckle about trash can wars recently, so I thought I shared that one.
Yeah, that one is one of the ones that we still talk about today. Because my husband was like, I couldn't believe that y'all puts spoiled milk under our door. So my husband and his roommate, they stayed in the dorm across from us, and we poured like I don't know where we got rotten milk from, but we can, yeah, yeah, and we poured it under there like we opened up the cart and I poured it under there. Okay, we were just ridiculous. Another memory that I think of that just always makes me smile is the night we decided, but we're not just gonna go to then, we're gonna go to the Hands fully decked out like we're going I don't even know where we thought we were going and who Hands was a restaurant, I'm not sure it's still in existence. But we got on like all black. One of us had on a crop top, I can't remember who we had on like leather. We did our makeup like we had real special eyebrows that we had drawn on. I think I had a mold that I put out like it was so much and we were just like, yeah, this were we getting ready to do. So we just dressed up and you know, all this real special attire and went out to eat and like that was our Saturday night and we just had so much fun doing.
Stuff like that.
And again, not sure which one of us was like, hey, let's go do this, but we were all down. We were like, yes, we get.
Ready to do this.
We're all gonna do this, and we're all gonna have fun and we're just gonna go out in these streets in Winston looking like this.
Healing can come in surprising ways. It doesn't always have to look like heartfelt, teary, I deeper than deep conversations, although it's okay if it does. What about the year you and you girls headed out of town for a long weekend and had the time of your lives. You remember how refreshed and re energized you felt when you got back home, I mean, once you finally slept. Y'all still talk about it to this day, don't you. That wasn't just a turn up or a really good time. That was healing. Throughout the course of our lives, this pattern of being there for one another repeats itself over and over again. As we heal our sisters, they heal us Introduction, page twenty.
One of the things I think about post college is the times that we get together. They're really special because of course we're living in three different parts of the country and it's been like that for a while. But the times that we're able to come together, they're just they're magic. And I remember using a Kita in Texas when she lived there for her baby shower, and I remember the look on her face because she truly was.
She was surprised.
She didn't know we were going to be there. And I'm sure they have a similar story about my fortieth birthday. But those moments, and it's just like, these are my people, these are my sisters, you know, and I just I'm just so thankful that we have that. But we make it happen even though it's, you know, tough, and everybody has schedules, and we always show up for each other and we need to.
I agree, and I guess may and you brought up your birthday, which is definitely one of the highlights, so we hit. I don't know where we come up with these ideas. I mean, granted, fortieth birthdays are a milestone for most, but for us, we decided we're getting together on each other's fortieth birthday. Did we decide that as a group or Akita? Did you and I decided because what we did was we surprised Lemaya. So we've lived in separate states, like Lemya said, for a long time, and each of us, in our different lives, have different opportunities to get together with other girlfriends, and I think some of us don't have as many opportunities the other because of kids and just where they are physically and where they are in life. But we said, for La Maaya's birthday, we are getting her out. We're going to do something fun. And we also always call every time we get together a reunion, so we said, we're going to have this reunion. So we concocted this entire plan, and we showed up at le Maaya's door on her birthday weekend fortieth birthday, rung the doorbell, and of course her husband was involved in the plan because we needed her to be in place at the right time, and we snuck her away to have a weekend of fun, which ended up only being what a day and a half due to snow, and we went to Ashville and had a great girl's weekend, just like hanging out, doing nothing in particular, but just having a chance to be together and reconnect, which I agree has been so fruitful for me, so rejuvenating to kind of get together with your real good girlfriends, your good good girlfriends, and just remember, reflect, trip out, figure out what's new, what's challenging us today, and to kind of encourage this.
For each other and celebrate each other. I agree, and I think it's important to note. We communicate daily and we do so through an app called Marco Polo. But when we have these retreats, of these reunions, we still have so much to talk about. And so that's just again, it's just like a reiteration of these are my people and they give me life. And you know, we've talked about wonderful moments getting together, and we've had some tough times too, We've had some significant loss And Toequila's point, there's not an event, there's not a moment. When I lost my mom about three years ago, they were right there. They were right there and it wasn't a question of when or if or how. And for them, I am always forever grateful because it never is a question of winter for how, they will always be there and I know they will.
Be Longevity within a sister circle is often a blessing, and it also means that you've likely experienced some significant life stuff together as well. Research indicates that having a strong support system is a significant factor in being able to rebound following a life stressor To ensure that our systems stay intact, it is important to know how to support each other through difficult experiences. Page one.
Having lost my mom, just even just difficult decisions that we've gone through in life and had to make. And I'm raising two children as a single mother, and you know, I need my village and they are absolutely the city hall of my village. Right, But the form of support doesn't always have to be physical. The form of support, you know, is certainly through the phone. It's certainly a phone call. I am probably the last one on the screen to answer my phone. I'll acknowledge that. But when I see the missed phone calls and when I see the text messages, I know that they're there. I know that they're thinking. I'll get random cards in the mail right, and it's just the acknowledgment that, hey, you're going through something, so okay to be stressed out, it's okay to be tired. Just know that I'm here, And just to even pull a card like that from the mailbox and know that Lemey was thinking about something I probably hadn't even talked to them about, right, Keeli will send me a quick note on the side and just say, you know, Keita, I know you're not going to respond. I know you aren't, but you know, just know that I'm here. And that's to your point. Twenty six years of that, a lot of people don't have that in their families, they don't have it in their lives, and so we are incredibly blessed and we realize that. So just being and showing up in any kind of way possible is what I can say we've done for each other.
I agree. And I feel like the other thing is you feel fully invested, Like these aren't just my friends. I'm so invested in how they're doing, how their children are doing, their children's accomplishments, their children's stumbles, like all of it just feels like, oh gosh, we are going through this now, we need to get it together. Now, we need to figure this out. Now, we need to celebrate this. And so there's a lot of joy in that. And like you said, when you come to the those times where it's challenging or where you're dealing with a true loss or sadness, you know that it's also a safe space to come and share that, or even when you're just upset and you want to vent. Because parenting, marriage, like all that stuff, being a member of a family, like all of that comes with challenges and you need to be able to come to a place and be like, you know what, today I am upset about this and everybody's like yep, yep, yep, or they're like, now, you know, you need to calm down a little bit, but we understand how you feel. So just being able to have a safe space for that, I think is so healthy. And again, I just feel so invest it, so it doesn't ever feel like it's an effort, like it's like, Okay, we got to make this work because we need to be there for this. We need to be there because the babies are graduating, we need to be there because someone has passed. It's what we do not you know, they expect us to come, so we need to be there. It's no, we need to be present. We want to be present. And I'll just.
Echo that with the whole concept of the safe space, like we're one hundred percent there for each other. But there is something about having the space to come in and say what we need to say and not be judged or like ke they said say well come on now, else so you're doing too much or maybe you should feel this way. It is so for me, it's extremely like it's vital. There are times I'm like, you know, we haven't been on Marco Polo in a while, like what's going on? Like I need to know what's going on, what's going on in right his life. And then there are times when I'm so stressed or I'm so down, or I'm so frustrated about something and I need to just talk to them and say, like, this is what's going on with me, and to have them we say, just give us a hell yeah, just a hell yeah.
Girl.
It's enough sometimes to be like Okay, I got it, I can move on. It's so important because I feel like, especially for me, I'm here in Virginia. We moved here a couple of years ago, and I don't have a strong network of friends here or anything, you know, like to hang out with. And when I first came initially, I mean I had nobody, and so to be able to talk to my girls like I've always have made that transition.
Too much easier for me.
Even though physically they're not always with me, I'm not alone. I always have them if I need to, and if again, if something really was stressful, I could call either of them and they would make it happened. They would come, they would do whatever they need to do just to make sure that I was okay. And I want to say this too, my father passed this year and I wasn't even ready to be around people.
I wasn't.
I was managing and grieving and trying to get things together and saying busy, and they were like, nope, we're getting together. What we can works for you when we getting together? Like where are we going? And it was just like, no, we're not going to let you kind of power through this without like taking a moment. And I appreciate that even though I wasn't. I wasn't fully ready, they were just like, oh, we're getting together, Come on, where we're going? You know that type of thing. So it's just that knowing that they're going to always be there, that knowing that they're always riding with me, supporting me, all that stuff. It's incredible and it shows how much we have grown in this friendship since the late nineties.
How might your circle look and feel different with everyone showing a similar level of commitment to showing up. I get it. Schedules get hectic, we are often busy being takers, and life otherwise continues to life in those instances. The first thing we tend to drop is time with our girls. But if our sister circles are the lifelines we often know them to be, it is important to treat them as such. While weekly get together as may not be possible, I want you in your circles to think about what is possible. How active is the group chat? Are you marking important dates on your calendar so that you're less likely to forget someone's important event? What plans are you all making to get together soon? And how are you planning to protect that time Page forty five.
So we don't let a year go by without seeing each other. That's something I think is unspoken, but it is absolutely a dedicated thing. Like we call those reunions retreats, we'll pick somewhere. We've been mostly eastside for quite a bit. I believe we're supposed to be having the Arizona at some point by way of like what, I don't know. There's a couple of islands we're supposed to be making, But at the end of the day, we picked places to go to. I want to say the last time we got together it was aside from being here with me, we were in Virginia, Lansdowne so we were picking a resort because we realized we weren't going to make it to the Salamander. But we do that. We're intentional about that. We're intentional about sending cards in the mail. They are I'm not a card person, so I'm not even gonna take credit for that, but you and Lamy are very nuch about sending cards in the mail, text messages, gifts here and there. You know, sometimes something will pop up in the mail and I'm like, where does T shirt come from? I hadn't even thinking about you, Like, or oh my god, we mentioned this T shirt, but now I got one to wear.
I will add to that. I think after undergrad we came together most times on homecoming. So Lamiya is a native of Winston Salem, where we went to school at Wake Forest, and so when she graduated, she and I didn't move too too far from school. So when we came back for homecomings, we would always stay. We would call it the Williams Retreat.
We'd stay at the Williams.
Where do we call it the Williams, not the retreat in the State, the Williams of estate. Yeah, we're going to the Williams of State. We're going to hang out there so we can really all be together. And then you know, other folks that came in town for homecoming would join us there. And then I think when Maya moved away from Winston is when we were like, Okay, well now we've got to really get ourselves together because there's no kind of set event that we all know that we want to attend. And so once she moved away, we were still very intentional about, like you said, not having a year ago, by having retreats and getting together. And I think the other thing that happens is just by happenstance. When i have to travel up to the DC area, I'm pretty close to Ketas, I'm like, hey, coming up for a meeting. You know you got time this weekend?
You know?
Or I'll stay over an extra day just to see her and the girls. So I think that's how we physically have made sure we got together.
More from our conversation after the break. So many of the spaces we inhabit require us to put on armor, and that can take its toll on us mentally, emotionally, and physically. If you watch the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, It was clear that she too had to wrestle with herself before sitting before a group of people who obviously were trying to catch her slipping. The way we often have to steel ourselves in order to be sure footed in the face of criticism, and often flat out disrespect is way too common. After adorning ourselves in armor to face the world. What a respite it is to figuratively take off your brawl in a safe space with your girls, with one another. There is no need for hardness page twenty two.
We call it mountain up. And I think for me, the first thing that comes to mind our work lives, and how a lot of times, particularly for me, I need to vent and I need to send an email before I actually send an email. And so in the world of just managing workplace conflict, being a black woman in the workplace and dealing with microaggressions and not being valued and being questioned about your expertise and things of that nature, we have to be mindful that our responses are on and everlasting, and so I know we lean on each other a lot in the world of taking our earrings off and using our words right and getting the power of the email or the pen together. I would speak to that in general and just say we're always there to help each other through those very difficult times.
We all appreciate how different each one of us are. I think we value that. I know what to expect from Akida, I know what to expect from the Math. They know what to expect from me. And I don't think that we judge each other for that. I think we lean on each other for our strings. We laugh, and we tell each other about what our weaknesses are, not even our weaknesses, but our traits or characteristics that can pose challenges in certain situations. We do serve as a bounce, like as a mirror, as a sounding board for each other to check ourselves and to see when we're operating in this world where sometimes we are faced with challenges, do we need to lean on somebody else's strengths so that they can help us channel our communications or tell us to you know, simmer down, take a seat, let it go. And I think that's how our group has dealt with conflict is leaning on each other's strings and then you know, hyping each other up when we're like they say hell yeah, like you're right, that was a mess, you shouldn't have to deal with that, you should respond in writing. I think that's how we deal with conflict and use our friendship to help us individually and collectively.
In my experience working with black women in groups, sisters tend to fall into one of four roles, the leader, the wallflower, the firecracker, and the peacemaker. These roles are not at all standing are absolute. We actually may find ourselves moving in and out of different roles depending on the setting our situation, but they do give us some information about how we show up in communal spaces. Here's a little more about each role. The leader is the one who offers organization to the group. She is typically the one making sure y'all are getting together regularly, and she's the one who probably organized the last get together. The wallflower is the sister within the group who generally sits quietly and listens as others talk. However, when she does speak, it's super impactful. She is often paying more attention to what's not being said than what is. The firecracker is the sister who will say the thing that needs to be said, but not always gently. They, along with the leader, tend to take up most of the space in the group. She's likely the life of the party, but if the party goes off the rails, she's probably the one involved in that too. The peacemaker is the sister who will send the text message that says we need to talk. If two other sisters in the group are having a conflict, she's likely to have individual calls with both of them and encourage them to hash out their issues. Page eighty four.
So I'll start.
I got the Wallflower, which I think is partially accurate. Like I feel like absolutely like in the way in the EXCEL group, I probably would have been Savannah. But I speak up when I need to. It's just that I don't always feel the need to speak up, you know what I mean. I fore got to say what I need to say. I need to say it, but I don't necessarily feel the need to be the one making all the statements. But I do think that I tend to be more passive. I think they would agree, but I just kind of lay low until I need to lay low.
I just say that, go Kita. I knew you were gonna make me go.
Man.
I agree, and I did take to heart that there's a spectrum to the quiz and to the findings. I got the leader. The part of it that resonated most with me were the things that I know I need help on in my friendship, being seen as the strong one, or letting my friends check in on me, or letting them in more like not obviously they're in, they're all the way in, but if there's something I'm going through, I'll tend to just back off a little bit, be a little quiet, and I need to always remember and I know, but you know, it's just the type to pull in before I push back out or share what's going on. So I would say all the things that I need to remember as a leader resonated the most.
I got leader as well. And I think it's because I'm always like, come on, y'all, let's do it, let's get on here. If we're not on Marco, I'm always popping on there, like get out here, what y'all doing? What's going on? So that's the part I think for the leader that resonated most with me. I think that's why I got the leader. And I think it's more so just like the cheerleader, like let's get together, let's do some some things. Let's go buy these outfits. Let's go put probably I probably say, let's put this eyeliner on, like I don't know, I hope like light and levity and keeping us in a space we can have some.
Fun more from our conversation after the break. So not only is forming strong connections with others physical, mental, and emotional bonds that can withstand time and change valuable to many areas of our lives, but it is also integral to our development as humans and connected to our very survival. For Black women, this is especially true. It is why I believe that the best way for black women to thrive is through our healthy relationships with other black women. Page eight.
It's say one of the biggest changes that, of course have occurred in both of their lives is their parents and so seeing how they raise kids. You know, that's been fun to watch and be a part of. But I think Maya, you had kids first, and I think you were full fledged motherhood, and then it was a shift back to like self and the dreams that you always knew that you wanted to have for yourself, And that's been beautiful, beautiful, beautiful to watch and to see your talent life as an author and you're working on your PhD. Like that's been incredibly fun to watch and encouraging. And then with Keita, I think the same thing, just raising these two beautiful, wonderful girls with challenges face. But also I think the biggest thing that resonates with me about Keda is professionally, Like I remember lots of discussions about the move from home a safe space with mom and with family to taking a big leap and moving to Maryland in DC and kind of taking a step that you really wanted to take, but knowing there was so many things that had to be considered and houses to be sold, family members to think about, and just the level of kind of thought and planning and maturity, like it reminds me. It tells me like when do you think things through, take time to be deliberate about certain certain things that you want to do in your life. So I think those have been kind of phases in life where I've really watched my friends and been amazed at how they have mastered these life phases. But I think at their core they've remained the same, And I think that's why our friendship has remained. Of course grown and matured, but we stayed so connected. I feel like sometimes when you're disconnected and you come back, you see this, you may see this big change. But for us, I feel like it's been a growth that we've experienced together over time.
I'm kind of the same way. I don't see like a big core shift in the KILLI or Akita in terms of their personality. Kelley was a boss in ninety seven. She's a boss today in terms of just having her stuff together, knowing what she wants and going after Keita. I've always been impressed by her strength. And I know we, of course are tired of the strong black woman trope, but Keita has gone through so much and has withstood and it's still going. And I look at her and I'm marvel because some of the decisions that she's had to make would call somebody else to crumble, and she doesn't. And she has these beautiful girls who are killing the game. And I just, you know, I'm just in all. And Keta also taught me way back when it's so random that I remember this date, but in nineteen ninety eight, she told me that friends serve different purposes and I so needed to hear that, and it just shifted how I thought about friendships. And I had the best friend from high school and I wanted to be like, well, I can't have other friends because I have this best friend. And it just it was just like she was always so much more together. She was always so much more focused and mature, and she's still that way. Again, I was terrified to move away from Winston Salem. Keta was like, I've been all around the world. I mean, she's been everywhere. She moved to Texas. So I've always admired about her. And again, I think with Keeley, I'm just like fangirling. But with Keeley I have always admired. Again, I think in large part because of the family that she comes from, just the confidence. Both of them are really confident women that I feel like didn't have to cultivate confidence, whereas I had to cultivate confidence because I was taught to be humble, I was taught to be you know, all sorts of things right. And I just admire those qualities in them, and I think they helped show me a different way of being. And it started way back then and it still goes to now. I'm still in all both of them.
What I'd like to contribute to this. And what I'm hearing is I feel like I am now looking at how you all have the lack of a better word imprinted on me. Right, So you know in the way of how I am I changing because of their friendship and their love and their being there. And we talk about strength, but strength in times of where we need that confidence and lame you hit the nail on the head. What would my inner Kelly say? Right? And my killy voice? We do our killy voice sometimes and it's like, no, I'm not standing for that, or you know, with a full Paul's period at the end, and what we're going to do next, right, and just being resolute in an opinion and standing true to it no matter what. We have these things called kj's Keeley justified and anything goes if you put a kJ behind it, right, And so I take that with me every day and when I needed the most, La Maya loves love, and La Maya is La Maya loves all things. Some things you want to have can may be loved. But I need that in my life. Right. There's a lot of softening that I think has happened for me over the years from the both of them to be quite honest with you, and just different perspective of key. You can't go in there with that perspective where you can't go in there carrying yourself in that way, or sometimes you do kind of open up the people, right. You can't just stay with us, And so I really do get different perspectives from both of them that have just making me a better person every day. Every time we grow, I'm growing with them and they're stretching me and growing me. So thank you.
There is no one size fits all model for how to be a good sister, but I do think there are some things that we can do to start hype your sister friends up. You know how we do yes, hair girl, you look amazing. Black women have this on lock. It's our superpower. Compliments are known to uplift the giver and the receiver. Practice giving verbal compliments daily to your sisters, and don't forget about our little sisters. Page two fourteen.
Has already given us one for Maya. It is positive she gets the positivity of war for ams of your friendships.
Because to the.
Point where we have said, if Lea, Maya gives you a compliment, it's nice, it's sweet. But I'm gonna wait on that because she may compliment you on song that's not quite a cute Lamna you will, o man, you will. But she's always looking for the post's. She will always give you the positive and find the positive, and she is a lover of love. Keita. I want to give her the Planned and Precise Award, Like I'm out here, like, let's do it, Let's do it. He's like, what's the time, what are the dates? Did you get the tickets? Do you have your stuff together? And I'm like, oh, well no, but we're going. We're going. So she gets our Planning Precise Award, and may it gets our Positivity Award, and we need all of that medium.
I have to give you the most likely to justify whatever it is she wants, whatever it is, because there's always a way, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. She is again has taught me there is always a way to make a decision. And if you make a decision and it ends up being not the outcome you want it, guess what, Kelly, gonna justify another pathway and it's gonna be fine. So I'll give you the kJ Award.
The most Powerful and long lasting sister friendships are the ones that allow us to feel safe. We've been sharing our hearts and stories in many ways. We've been doing this all along. Introduction, page eighteen.
I would say, and this is specifically for black women. Value your black sisters, value them, see them, show up for them, but most importantly value them.
I'll say, make time and make space. And I guess that's two. You want me to give you a justification for two. But I would say, make space for people in your life and for who they really are. I think that's what creates a friendship. You be a safe space for someone else. And and make time, like take time like it's a priority for us to see each other, Like eventually, we don't need to see each other every day, every week, every quarter. It's important for us to have the space and the time to pour into each other every now and then in person. And so I think those are important things if you want to have a long lasting.
Friendship, I would say being vulnerable and being honest with yourself about your vulnerabilities and knowing what you need and knowing that you can't and you shouldn't right when you find your people and when you find someone that fulfills you in whatever kind of way that you're learning from, you're growing with, you're not stagnant around, then open up to them. And Tequila's point, leave that space and dedicate that time to being nurtured, but just also putting yourself out there to connect with people. Right. I certainly don't know if I would have been friends with somebody I thought was going to be a gang member, But there was something in Killy that said, no matter what, this gang member needs love. Yes, but I mean just again being open and being willing to just or into and to be poured into.
Black women are big dreamers, and the beauty of our dreams is that they are so expansive that they are not only about how our individual lives might be different, but about how the world might be different. Page fifty six.
Oh, I got this one. So we've already talked about somehow we are going to build a lunai that's gonna intersect all of our homes will be connected, and we will meet on the luni. Like the Golden Girls don't happen one day. I don't know what state we're gonna be in, says She's never leaving Atlanta. Georgia's way. It might have to be there, but that's what we're gonna have. Yep, that's right, not to days, that's not today's on the Lemni.
But before we hit the Lani, we're gonna take these trips, a big trip uninterrupted where we can just kick it and chill and relax. I'm gonna have my permanent residence in Atlanta, but I do think our Lani can be at Batsack.
Yes, yes, agreed.
I want to thank Lemea, Akita and Keeley once again for joining us for this episode. Don't forget to grab your copy of Sisterhood Heels at Sisterhoodheels dot com to explore more themes like the ones we discussed today, and be sure to text two of your girls right now and encourage them to check out the episode. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women. You can join us at Community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was produced by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care. Which friend are you and your sister circle? Are you the wallflower, the peacemaker, the firecracker or the leader? Take the quiz at Sisterhoodhels dot com slash quiz to find out, and then make sure to grab your copy of Sisterhood Heels to find out more about how you can be a better friend and how your circle can do a better job of supporting you. Order yours today at sisterhood Heels dot com.