- 3 weeks ago
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How It Works: Guests will have the chance to submit their questions anonymously, whether they’re navigating family conflicts, relationship challenges, workplace stress, or burnout. Our panel of expert therapists will then address these real-life concerns live, offering fresh perspectives, actionable advice, and strategies for healing and growth.
No judgment. No pressure. Just real talk and real solutions—because everyone deserves support.
Come with questions, leave with clarity.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, hello everybody. Hey. Hello everyone. Thank you for being here this day, this morning or afternoon and putting yourself first. Okay? That's really, really important. So the first thing we're going to do is I'm going to ask everybody to stretch your arms out really wide.
00:26Just stretch your arms out really wide. Come on, as wide as you can get them. And then I want you to take and wrap them around yourself and give yourself a hug. Feel how great you are. Come on, feel that greatness. Feel that love. Feel it. Feel it. All right. That's your first exercise that was free. What would you say to that?
00:50Yeah, so I just want you to really quickly stand on your feet just for one second. Stand on your feet really quickly. I know you guys have gotten comfortable. Come on.
00:58But stand on your feet. And all I want you to do really quickly is put your hand on your heart real quick. And at this point, your hand should actually be able to feel your heartbeat. Give it time to get there. I'll give you like two seconds. Give it time to get there, right?
01:13That heartbeat that heartbeat that you feel. That heartbeat is your life. And we're on this stage today to speak to that and that alone.
01:21We want to let you know and realize that as you feel that heartbeat, every beat, every step, every rhythm of your life, we are here to speak to. So we're open to your questions and everything.
01:34We want you to leave with more than you actually sat down for. All right. Give yourself a big hand.
01:41So now when you do that, it's no longer I pledge allegiance to the flag. It's I pledge allegiance to myself.
01:47All right. So let's get started. I'm Dr. Jacqueline Jones McKinney. I am a medical psychologist. I've been practicing for over 20 so years.
01:58My specialization is trauma and African-American people, particularly black women. That's a condensed bio of who I am.
02:07Yes. And I'm Leroy Scott. I'm a psychotherapist with over two decades of practice. I have worked all elements of trauma and my specialty is working with black people.
02:16So I am excited to be here with y'all. I am excited to hear what questions you have because I don't want you to leave unanswered. Okay.
02:23That's right. And so we're starting off in all seriousness because both of us are very, very in tune and very serious about mental health.
02:33And what we don't do enough as people of color is take our mental health and make it a priority.
02:39So today, out of no day ever in your life, you will make your mental health a priority.
02:45So this is how this conference is going to go today. So what we have is we have people in the black who have little sheets of paper.
02:55If you can wave your hands, folks, with the little sheets of paper. All right. There you go. And we're taking questions.
03:02You can write your questions on a piece of paper and Leroy and I will answer those questions for you.
03:09And so I know my mic is tripping, but I can, you know, 10 years in the military, I'm going to make it work anyway. Right?
03:16Okay. So we're going to go ahead and get started with the questions. All right. Yes. All right. Let's go.
03:21You want to get started? Why don't you go first? I think that question you got to do.
03:24All right. So it says, hi, please tell us what to do on days you do not feel like talking to clients.
03:34I'm going to assume that this question came from a provider or maybe a person who works with clients in any type of capacity.
03:44The first thing I'm going to tell you is take a time out for yourself. Take a mental health day for yourself,
03:52because apparently if you are asking a question in regards to you not feeling like interacting with your clients,
04:01that means that you need time to rejuvenate yourself. You might be getting close to burnout, fatigue, agitation, irritability, or just feeling overwhelmed.
04:14So what the first thing I'm going to tell you is take some time out for yourself.
04:19And what I mean by that is maybe doing something you always wanted to do, but you just maybe not had the time.
04:27Learn something new that you always wanted to learn, but you might not have the time.
04:32Take time to really do some self-care, maybe some self-reflection, some meditation, some gratitude journaling.
04:39I mean all of these things that can be beneficial to you and your mental health.
04:44Wow.
04:45I hope that answered your question.
04:47Yeah. Wow. Wow. Incredible.
04:49So I guess the first question I've got is how do you know if you need a therapist, right?
04:54How do you know that, right?
04:55I just, I don't know what the question came from, but if you think about it, right, you know you need water because you get thirsty, right?
05:02You know what therapists do. You know why therapists exist. How do you know if you need one?
05:07The simple fact that you would ask yourself if you need one is a clear indication that you need one.
05:13Now, let me do this, right? Historically for black people, we didn't have therapists, right?
05:17So just you asking the question whether or not you need a therapist or not, I get it.
05:21Like if I ask my grandmother, do I need a therapist? She said, baby, go pray.
05:25Or baby, go do this. Or you can do this, right? So I want you to get this, right?
05:29One of the, one of the limitations to our access to mental health is that we've gotten it all wrong.
05:34And I hope I get the opportunity today to talk about why we've got it wrong.
05:37But one thing that society has held us back from is access to our mental health care.
05:42They'll give us jobs and give us this and give us that.
05:45But they never really wanted us to get familiar with depression, anxiety, and trauma.
05:50Could you imagine that? Black people, we just, we don't even know what trauma is in our own life
05:55when we have a history, a historical history of trauma.
05:58Listen, if you're black, you, I don't even call myself a therapist.
06:02I call myself, I call myself Leroy. Like I'm here to help.
06:07And I think when we think about therapists, we think about medication.
06:10We think, we think you've got to be sick. No, that's not the case.
06:13Some of the best, most successful black people in the industries they're in, they have someone with them.
06:20And that's how I see myself in practice. I see myself as joining your journey in your life and not leaving that journey until you decide you are better.
06:30That's right. Thank you for that Leroy. That's amazing. All right, let's go. We got more questions.
06:40All right. How do you keep intimacy alive when you have menopause?
06:47Let me tell you, it's a challenge. The challenge is because you're going through hormonal changes.
06:59And when you're going through hormonal changes, sometimes that can affect your intimacy.
07:05It may affect your intimacy because hormonally you might experience agitation, depression, just feeling isolated, not really wanting to be touched.
07:18And then there is cases where there's painful intercourse because you have a decrease in estrogen and then you start feeling maybe more depressed and more anxiety.
07:28So how do I treat that then, Dr. McKinney? How do I get to a point where I want to engage in more intimacy?
07:35First and foremost, there are going to be some things you might need to do because physiologically there might be things that might be interfering with your ability to be intimate.
07:44So I'm going to first refer you to your gynecologist, your OBGYN, not necessarily your primary care doc, but your actual gynecologist, because there are things that you can do.
07:56Women of color, you can actually get a hormonal patch that you can put on your body.
08:01You can actually get estrogen inserts that you can put in your vagina.
08:05You can actually get lubricants that actually work.
08:08And then you start working on your cognitive behavioral skills, which is learning coping strategies.
08:13So that you can now feel better about interacting with the partner you're with.
08:18But before you do all that, you want to make sure you're with the right partner.
08:24That'll get a hand clap right now.
08:26All right.
08:27Yeah.
08:28No, I like you said that, right?
08:29Make sure you're with the right partner, right?
08:30Because, and I just want to piggyback on that really quickly, because think about it, right?
08:34Life changes, there are phases and stages in life.
08:36So if I'm with somebody that, and intimacy is much more than sex.
08:41Yeah.
08:42So the reality of it is, if I'm with somebody who is intimate with me, they're going to understand the physiological changes that I'm going through.
08:48And they'll make that transition and adaptability very, very easy.
08:52And probably very, very good.
08:53And be a little more patient.
08:54And be a little bit more patient.
08:55That was good.
08:57All right.
08:58Here we go.
08:59So how do I stop bedtime rumination?
09:05Well, I like the word rumination.
09:07It's like a fancy word.
09:09Like, yeah, it's basically like, how do I make my brain cut off so I can go to bed, right?
09:14How many of y'all got that?
09:15Like, I know the question came from it.
09:16Yeah.
09:17So this is the deal, right?
09:18That is, that is, that is directly, there's a whole lot I can talk about, right?
09:22But let me do this for it.
09:23So that's directly related to anxiety, right?
09:26Being at your brain being able to slow itself down, and your thoughts.
09:30So if you, if you think about it, it's a very, very complex situation.
09:35So what do I do to stop it from happening, right?
09:38Some very practical things you can do to kind of help your brain slow down.
09:42I also want to say this, right?
09:44When you're falling asleep, and don't miss this part.
09:47When you're falling asleep, everything you've gone through, through that day,
09:52your brain is going, is actually going to try to help to resolve your daily life experiences, right?
10:01And my mic is tripping.
10:02But your brain is going to try to help to resolve your daily life experiences.
10:06That's why sometimes you have dreams about something that happened.
10:10It's not specific.
10:11It was kind of scary and off.
10:13But think about this.
10:14While you're sleeping, your body is doing its best work.
10:18I need to say that to black folk again.
10:20While we sleep, because we work so hard.
10:23I come from a generation of people that work very hard.
10:26And sleep was never on the agenda.
10:29And what we understand now about brain science is that sleep is the most important element of your existence.
10:36You know why people go into psychotic episodes, and they go into having delusions and hallucinations.
10:42A lot of times, Dr. Jack, that's a direct reflection.
10:45I haven't slept in three days.
10:48So how do you do that?
10:49Number one, you have to make the decision that sleep is going to be important.
10:56I love this.
10:57Even theologically, God created stuff for six days.
11:00And on a seven day, he...
11:02I wish I had somebody around here, yeah?
11:04So if God went to sleep on the seventh day, you have to prioritize it, right?
11:08Because I know this, right?
11:09I've been working with people for over two decades.
11:11If I gave you a one, two, three step to help yourself get to sleep,
11:15I know you're not going to do it because you haven't prioritized it yet.
11:19So the first thing out the gate, when you leave this Essence Festival, you prioritize your sleep.
11:24It's better to have a sleep... create a good sleep cycle for yourself, going to sleep at a certain time,
11:30making sure that you put your music on, relaxation, meditation.
11:34You can do all those things.
11:35But guys, listen.
11:36Until you prioritize sleep in your life, chat GPT this stuff.
11:41Once you prioritize it, I promise you, you'll find a way to go to sleep.
11:45And can I add just a little bit to that?
11:47Yes.
11:48Because my thing is science, right?
11:50And the actual function of the brain.
11:52So there's a part of the brain, it's called the DMN, which actually functions on why you might be ruminating at night when you go to sleep.
12:01That's because you have encountered a whole lot of stress.
12:05The stress increases the cortisol in your body.
12:08When it increases the cortisol in your body, your brain is not able to function the way it is supposed to.
12:13What happens is the neuroplasticity in your brain is not able to function that well because you're so overwhelmed with all of the cortisol and stress that you're experiencing.
12:23And let me just say a little bit piece to that, Leroy.
12:26Is that when you're under that much stress, when you have that much cortisol in your body, it actually shrinks your brain.
12:34Yeah.
12:35So now you need to look at the person you went and you need to ask yourself, are you worth my brain shrinking?
12:41If that person is not worth your brain shrinking, you need to exit stage left.
12:49Because that is a true fact.
12:52No, that's real.
12:53That's very real.
12:54When you were, just what you were saying that, right?
12:56I'm thinking to myself, my previous question was, how do I know when I need a therapist?
13:00You should let sleep be your first therapist.
13:04Because sleep, I'm going to tell you guys, you'll pay to come see me, sleep is free.
13:09And sleep, there's so, you check GPT, Google this stuff.
13:13Sleep doesn't cost you a penny, but it does so much for you physiologically and psychologically.
13:19If you get good at that, you might not need to see me.
13:22Well, I ain't going to say all that, Leroy.
13:29But I can appreciate what you said.
13:32All right, I'm going to go ahead and give you another question.
13:35Hey, you guys keep the questions coming because Leroy and I, we like this kind of stuff.
13:40This is what we do for real, okay?
13:43I got a whole dissertation on this one, but I like it.
13:46I find that a lot of people may know they need help for their mental health, but due to their mental health, they are not able to continue working.
13:55So what do you do if you need to help, but you don't have insurance?
13:59Oh, my God.
14:01And it's getting worse.
14:02Go.
14:03So let me just put this in a concise manner.
14:05I don't have the money to come because I don't have insurance, but I know I need the help.
14:09Can I summarize that?
14:11Yes.
14:12You're absolutely right.
14:13So the first thing I'm going to tell you is that you have all the power to do some self-reflection.
14:21Meaning you can go out, buy books that are self-help, read those books, start to learn more about what your symptoms are and things that you may need.
14:32There are community resources out there who are willing to take you in and help you and things like that to kind of help you mitigate some of those symptoms.
14:41Yeah.
14:42And let me tell you, insurance companies are not out here for you to get help.
14:46Hmm.
14:47They really aren't.
14:49If you look up, your insurance is canceled.
14:52You done paid your bill and everything.
14:54Or you get least amount of coverage.
14:56You can't even get covered for behavioral health services.
14:59So what I'm saying to you is having a good, strong support system around you.
15:03Decreasing the negativity that you might be exposed to.
15:07Separate yourself from gossip and all kinds of unpeaceful things that'll interrupt your peace.
15:13Getting the sleep that you need.
15:15I'm going to add something else.
15:16Getting some good physical activity, which is exercise or even walking.
15:21I'm going to add something else.
15:23Make sure you're watching your nutrition, what you're actually eating.
15:27Because what you feed your body and what you feed your brain will actually affect your mental health.
15:32And I'm telling you, separating yourself from negativity.
15:36Because when you separate yourself from negativity, then you actually help yourself not interfere with the neurotransmitters you need in the brain that's going to help you feel better about yourself.
15:49So if you feel negative when you're around people, that means you don't need to be around those people.
15:58And I mean family included.
16:01Because you know black folks, we like, oh, just put up with them.
16:04Oh, just put up with them.
16:06They didn't call me out my name.
16:08They didn't molested me.
16:09Oh, that's a whole other topic, ain't it, Leroy?
16:11They didn't molested me.
16:12They didn't, you know, mess with my mama, my daddy, my kids.
16:17They, and then we still want to put up with them at the family reunion.
16:22Separate yourself from that buffoolery.
16:25And you will find that even on your own, without us, you'll be better.
16:31Yeah.
16:32Yeah, wow, incredible.
16:34Oh man, listen, God, you guys are bringing some incredible, incredible questions, right?
16:39Whoo, I might have to sit down on this question.
16:42Okay, come on.
16:43Can I sit down?
16:44I'm going to sit down.
16:45We're going to sit down.
16:46All right, come on, what you got?
16:47Oh, the chair is comfortable, too.
16:48Oh, it is.
16:49I might go to sleep, y'all.
16:52All right, so this is the deal, right?
16:55How to know if you're raising children, your children, the right way?
17:00I don't know, I don't know who the question came from, right?
17:07The first thing I would say is this, right?
17:11I have a very deep passion for black parents, raising black kids in a society that works strategically
17:19to work against the culture and your life, right?
17:24So to have a parent ask a question, you know, how do I know if I'm raising my child the right
17:31way?
17:32I think the first thing I would say to that is just the mere fact that you would ask yourself
17:38that question, am I doing a good job?
17:41I want to let you know that you are in a group of a very, very large population of black
17:47people when you ask a question like that.
17:49You are not alone.
17:52I think it's very reasonable and it's very sensible for any good parent to ask themselves,
17:58am I doing it right?
18:00Now, this is the part that gets tricky, right?
18:03As your kids grow up, your kids will face challenges that you can no longer, like you
18:09can no longer protect, right?
18:11You can no longer guide.
18:12And that gets really, really hard for parents, right?
18:17So what you've got to understand is the first thing as black people, we have always
18:22historically raised our kids in community.
18:25We've always raised our kids in systemic family systems.
18:29Even before there were therapeutic terms to describe the way we do it, we do it with our
18:34kids.
18:35We've always raised our kids within their culture and within systems.
18:39And when you've got a support system like that, sometimes when things go wrong or your kid
18:45doesn't do things the way you would want to see that outcome, the first thing we do as loving
18:51parents is we blame ourselves.
18:56And listen, me telling you to stop doing that is not going to fix that problem.
19:02The reason you blame yourself for your children's outcome and your children's behavior is because
19:08you simply love your children.
19:10So how do you know you're doing it right?
19:12You do it one day at a time.
19:15And to do it right or to do it wrong, it's really a matter of you not looking for perfection
19:21in the way you raise your kids, but just looking to do everything you can that you know to do
19:27for your kid while you have that type of influence in their life.
19:31And I say this to parents all the time, and particularly parents within our culture.
19:35Sometimes you do all you can for your kids, and they don't go in the direction that you wanted them to go in.
19:43That's not your fault.
19:45Your children get the opportunity in their life to make independent decisions about their life,
19:52and that is not necessarily a reflection of your parenting.
19:56So it's not about right or wrong.
19:58It's about joining the journey with your child and riding it out.
20:02I've seen many grandparents hang on jail cells with their grandkids.
20:06I've seen kids falsely accused getting themselves into all kind of trouble.
20:10I know kids that went to jail and served years for marijuana distribution,
20:14and now everybody's smoking it, right?
20:16And I've seen those parents hurt.
20:18I've seen kids make wrong turns in life and make decisions that the parents didn't agree with.
20:25But this is the deal.
20:26It's always a journey, and one bad choice and one bad decision is not the end of that journey.
20:32So you've got to be patient with yourself.
20:34You've got to be focused on what you're doing.
20:36And at some point, you've got to realize that God's hands are much bigger than yours.
20:40That's right. That's right.
20:42And I would say to that, Leroy, that parenting, there's no perfect manual.
20:46We're going to make mistakes as parents.
20:50Everything is not going to be right.
20:52But we have to have the right intention.
20:54As people of color, I think we have to also be careful of what we say to our children.
21:00We tell them we're going to beat the black off of them.
21:04Well, now we might have started some kind of self-concept, low self-esteem situation.
21:10We're going to beat them until they do it right.
21:12Now we may have increased aggressive behavior.
21:16We have to understand that maybe some of our children might suffer from mental health issues.
21:21So we have to be mindful of that.
21:24And I think if you go into parenting with mindfulness, then your intention is right.
21:30Even if you make a mistake.
21:32All right. Let's go.
21:34Let's go.
21:38How do you know if you self-sabotage or you just have high standards in relationships?
21:46Oh, Lord.
21:47We're going to stand back up, Jackie?
21:49Now I've got to stand up on this one.
21:51Because they didn't went to the relationships.
21:55Jesus, be a fence.
21:58Let's go. I've got to read this again.
22:01How do you know if you self-sabotage or you just have high standards in relationships?
22:10First and foremost, I think you need to know yourself.
22:14You need to know who you are first, even before you want to engage in a relationship.
22:22Let me know a little bit more about myself first.
22:26Do I like being with people?
22:29Am I afraid to be alone?
22:31Am I settling for every...
22:34Let me just tell something I say to my women when I see them in session.
22:39Every man you meet is not your husband.
22:45Every man you meet, or let me be politically correct.
22:49Every partner you meet is not your partner.
22:54That's good. That is good.
22:55That is good.
22:56So understanding that, understanding who you are.
22:59So now we talk about self-sabotage, right?
23:03When we engage in self-sabotage, that means that we might be aware that we are hindering the relationship from it progressing, or we may not be aware that we are doing this, right?
23:17And then we got to look at the factors of why we are doing it in the first place.
23:20Maybe we are afraid of commitment.
23:22Maybe we are afraid of having that one-on-one with somebody.
23:27We feel like we can't be monogamous.
23:29Maybe we actually learned that while we were growing up, and we kind of are mimicking the behavior that we learned.
23:36I think the more prevalent question is, how can I sustain a healthy relationship?
23:44How can I ensure that the relationship that I am in is healthy?
23:51That means putting forth the effort to ensure that the relationship you are in is healthy.
23:58We are communicating effectively.
24:00We are engaging in, we might disagree, but we're still communicating even when we're disagreeing.
24:09That means we are able to set goals and plans together as a couple.
24:15Yeah.
24:16I, I, I, yes, yes.
24:18And, and you think about it, right?
24:20Um, self-sabotage, to destroy self, right?
24:24Or to destroy the outcomes that you are expecting to have.
24:29And you do it yourself.
24:31I think there are two ways to do it.
24:32One, you do it conscious.
24:33And I think this is the question, am I doing it consciously or am I doing it subconsciously or unconscious?
24:37Am I aware that I'm self-sabotaging or am I not aware?
24:40I think if you're not aware, you give her office a call and then you can figure out, she can bring it to consciousness and you can figure those details out, right?
24:47If you are aware that you are sabotaging something that you know or your mama know or your grandmother knew is not good for you, you ought to give yourself some praise and a hand clap for that, right?
24:58Because a lot of times the reason people stay in the wrong relationship too long.
25:03Too long.
25:04Some people stay in the wrong relationship too long is because of some of those psychological elements that Dr. Jackie was just talking about.
25:12Some of those elements are getting your way for you to be able to say, look, I'm setting a boundary and I don't want to be in this.
25:17And then you wonder why you get in this one, you get in the next one, it feels like this one.
25:21You get out of that one, you get in the other one and it still feels like the first one and you're never able to break that cycle.
25:27God, that's what, that's what I do like for a living.
25:30Like you want that cycle broke?
25:32And I believe that everybody, this is the unique thing Dr. Jackie, I believe that we, and particularly black people, we are a culture of love and relationships.
25:41We are a culture of love and relationships from our music, to our dance, to our conversations, right?
25:46So if you are black, the desire you have to have someone in your life, that just systematically makes a lot of sense.
25:53You should have that desire in your heart to be with someone.
25:57And if that's going to be a part of my psychology, like I want to find someone that I can build the rest of my life with.
26:02I just don't want to be with them, but I want to build my life with.
26:05If that's my psychology, guess what?
26:07I'm going to try to get all the skills that I can to develop that healthy relationship building stuff in my own personal life.
26:16I'm not just going to jump in the club and do my thing or go to church and sit on the third row because he sit on or she sit on the fit.
26:22You know what I'm saying? I'm not moving like that. Why?
26:24Because my relationship life is significant to me, my family, my children, and everything else.
26:28Most of the stress. That's why you got excited when they jumped in the relationship.
26:32Because in our culture, man, we are systematically designed for relationships.
26:37We do this thing, right? We just got to determine and develop the skills to be able to do it effectively. I love that.
26:43I love that. Yeah. Now there are some things that can get in a way.
26:47A person can be actually depressed. A person can be anxious.
26:52A person can be in a situation where they don't feel like they can financially take care of themselves.
26:58There are a lot of different factors that can get in a way of actually contributing to someone sabotaging a relationship.
27:06And for women of color, I'm going to speak to you because I think sometimes we get so independent
27:12that we don't allow anybody to actually come into our lives and actually help us be the best that we can be as a cohesive collective unit.
27:25I have coined a phrase called toxically independent.
27:29You're so independent, you're toxic. You're toxic.
27:34So that's not where we want to be. But you also don't submit yourself to a fool.
27:42Because when you do that. You're in trouble. You still in a toxic situation. You're in trouble.
27:48So I'm all about relationships. I'm all about relationships in our community. I'm all about healthy relationships.
27:56But you have to be healthy. Come on, black people.
28:02That's, wow. Wow. All right. So I've got one here.
28:05Oh, and I think we are down. We're down. Oh, my God. Can we do one more question?
28:11Okay, come on. All right. Let's do this. I am a mom with two new babies.
28:18Sometimes I feel bad when I can't be around them because of overstimulation. I do know now to talk, to take a break, but does the feelings ever resolve?
28:32Okay. Overstimulation, overwhelmed.
28:35Yeah, stress.
28:36All right. So what I'm going to speak to there, you said you have two new babies.
28:41What that really leans towards is postpartum depression, right? Come on, black women. I know somebody didn't experience this, right?
28:49Let her know that she is not by herself. So when women typically have babies, sometimes we experience postpartum depression.
28:59That might be where we're super overwhelmed, super overstimulated, may have irrational thoughts about how we're taking care of our babies,
29:07feeling like we might hurt them or hurt ourselves. I mean, there's again a hormonal change, just like we talked about menopause some time ago.
29:16Now we're talking about, you know, the hormonal change after having a baby.
29:20That's why back in the day, your grandmama and them would say, you got to stay in the house for about seven years until the baby can't have any more germs on them.
29:32And y'all know this. You're not going to the store. You're not going to the mall. You're not going to church.
29:38You know, when they say you ain't going to church, they serious about that thing.
29:41They ain't let nobody touch the baby. They watching you and don't have no C-section.
29:47In the name of sweet Jesus, what they say, you still open.
29:52Now that people didn't sold you up 35 times. But this is the point. This is the reason they did this because maybe our people didn't know it was postpartum depression, but they knew it was something.
30:05So I would tell you for whomever submitted this question, one, you're not alone. Two, have a good support system. Three, make sure you got some trustworthy people around you.
30:15Some sisters who are really going to be there with you to be a connection. Make sure your partner is present.
30:23Yes. Yes. And just to piggyback and then I'm done. Right. Yeah. You got two babies and you feeling overwhelmed.
30:28And in my mind, I'm just thinking, what does your house look like? Is it a husband? Is it some older other kids or whatever? Right.
30:35But this is what I know about moms. Right. Especially moms. We have babies and you got two of them. Right.
30:40You nobody on the planet can tell you to like withdraw or draw back from your kids because I already know, like, you're not going to do that. Right.
30:47You're not going to do it. Right. But this is what I say. If you're stressed out and you're overwhelmed and your stress and your overwhelm, this is a direct reflection of the labor you're putting in to taking care of your babies.
31:00You really got to pull back, mom. You have to pull back and you have to examine and look at the rest of your system. Right. Right.
31:07Like Dr. Jackie, you said, what is he doing? Is he there? Because I'm going to tell you one of the best ways to relieve that type of stress when you're pouring out all of your medicine,
31:17on your family and you don't have any love for yourself. One of the best ways to do that is to engage the rest of your family.
31:24Tell them. I know moms moms are always like, oh, I got to get a me day or I got to get some me time.
31:29Don't do that by yourself. Let that older son help you think through how you need to be enjoying your day.
31:35Bring your husband alone and say, you know, guys, listen, I've been doing this and doing that.
31:39And I've just been trying to figure out what to do with myself to get a break.
31:43And let them have a meeting to figure out how you can get some time off.
31:47You would be surprised when you engage your family and your kids in helping you create some me time.
31:55You will be amazed. And they'll also what I find is that they'll also support you. Why? Because it was their idea.
32:02And we're going to finish this up because we started it with two exercises, right?
32:09We started it with a hand stretched out wide where you gave yourself a hug.
32:14Leroy said, put your hand over your heart so you understand the pledge allegiance to yourself.
32:19And I'm going to show you a way that's going to help you.
32:23So we're going to prevent you from shrinking your brain from dealing with all these nonsense that you might experience with other people.
32:30This is real simple. And we're going to do this all through the rest of Essence Fest.
32:34All I want you to do is look at the next person next to you and just smile.
32:39Come on. Just smile at the person. Give them a big old smile. Come on. Give them a big old smile.
32:45Come on. Let me tell you what's going to happen. For the rest of this conference, I want you to just walk around smiling at people.
32:53And you know what that's going to do? That's going to increase your dopamine and your norepinephrine and everything in your brain, your GABA and all of that.
33:01You're going to start feeling better about yourself. They're going to start feeling better about theyself.
33:05And when we walk out of this Essence Fest, we are some bad black people. Come on, y'all.
33:12Thank you so much for your time. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you.
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