- 2 months ago
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00:00So let me first introduce you to coming to the stage, Tanya Sam, known as It's Tanya Time,
00:05co-founder of Elizabeth and Many, an independent publisher amplifying underrepresented voices,
00:11particularly women of color. She is the host of Tanya Time Book Club.
00:17Up next, seen on Good Morning America in the Los Angeles Times, author of Fighting for Our Friendships,
00:25Danielle Bayer Jackson.
00:27Woo, Danielle.
00:30Yes, they all look so beautiful.
00:32Up next, we have international speaker, preacher, author, and the head of global faith-based partnerships
00:38at Facebook. Welcome, Nona Jones.
00:44I love all these bright colors, right?
00:46I know.
00:46Black women look so good in bright colors.
00:49And lastly, award-winning activist, journalist, former Washington Post columnist, and the founder
00:54of Urban Cusp, a cutting-edge online community highlighting faith and social change.
00:59Rahel Tesfamario.
01:02Woo!
01:07Good morning.
01:08Good morning, Essence.
01:09You guys, it's 30 years.
01:11It is Sunday.
01:13You are exactly where you are supposed to be.
01:16How are you this morning?
01:18Woo!
01:19Yes, yes.
01:20Walking in here with such a vibe.
01:22We walk through church.
01:24We walk through food.
01:25We walk through everything.
01:27So we are here with these beautiful, intelligent, smart, sparkly black women.
01:32And we are going to talk about mental health.
01:34We are going to talk about love and abundance and community.
01:38So I just want to welcome you all to the stage.
01:41I'm so excited to be curating this panel today.
01:43And number one, this beautiful author stage.
01:48You know, I love black books.
01:50I cannot lie.
01:52I literally get paid to read books all day.
01:56And I can't tell you about what a dream that is for me, what a dream it is to sit on this
02:01stage.
02:01So if you are one of my book besties and you're in the Tanya Time Book Club, even if
02:06you are not, you are welcome to join.
02:07Everyone can sit with us.
02:09We use conversations like this to deepen our friendships, to build community, and to cultivate
02:14connections.
02:15So I'm really excited to be here on this panel today.
02:17And let's dive in.
02:19The three of you are all incredible authors.
02:22Some of you have written multiple books.
02:24But we are taking the conversation of all of your books to really talk about how we can,
02:30again, talk about wellness, bring tactical strategies into how we can make deeper connections
02:36and just live a better, more beautiful, abundant life.
02:39So I'm going to start off with you, Rahel.
02:41Good morning and welcome.
02:43Good morning.
02:44Good morning.
02:44Your book, can we hear it?
02:45Let me see.
02:46Can you hear me?
02:47A little bit louder, if that can go.
02:50Okay.
02:50Can you guys hear her?
02:51Okay.
02:51Okay.
02:52Wonderful.
02:53So in your book, Imagine Freedom, it was so beautiful.
02:56You discussed the need to decolonize our minds.
02:59These are wonderful statements and very big statements.
03:02But how does that process contribute to cultivating love and feeding the soul, particularly for
03:07people of African descent?
03:09Okay.
03:10So is this loud enough?
03:13Here, I might switch your mic.
03:15Let's try that.
03:16Okay.
03:16Perfect.
03:17Perfect.
03:18So I'm going to put on my preacher hat for a second and say that the book of Genesis
03:23in the Bible starts with the enemy coming to Eve and he comes for her mind.
03:30Immediately, the attack is on her mind.
03:32And one of the things that he wants to do is come between her and God and come between
03:38her and her man and have a multi-generational effect on her and her children, that her children
03:44are cursed and generations of people are cursed through the decision that she makes in that
03:49moment.
03:50Right?
03:50So the well-being of a woman's mind is integral to the well-being of our families, our children
03:57and humanity.
03:59Right?
03:59So we got to fight for our minds like it's the most important fight we will ever experience
04:04in life.
04:05And the reason that it's so important is the lie that he told was that God did not love
04:11them, that God did not have their best interests at heart.
04:14And that's the same lie that is fed to us, that we are not worthy, we are not enough, that
04:20nothing we do is enough, that no matter how hard we work, it's not enough.
04:25And so we live this lie that we are not enough.
04:29And black people whose labor has defined their worth for all of our time in the United States
04:36have to decolonize our minds from that lie that we are not enough.
04:40And it starts with the black woman.
04:43When we are told our bodies are not beautiful enough, when we're told that our hair is not
04:47beautiful enough, we got to get over this lie that whatever we do is not enough.
04:53So that is the journey that I think starts for African people decolonizing their minds.
05:00Oh, I see what I'm going to have to talk really loud.
05:02But trust me, I'm very good at this.
05:04I hope you guys can still see me.
05:05Danielle, I'm going to take it from Rahel's question to yours, as we're talking about enough.
05:10And in your book, Fighting for Our Friendships, it's a really beautiful book because I feel
05:14like my female friendships and the community I build around them are so integral to feeling
05:19enough.
05:20Talk to me a little bit about how our relationships impact our overall feeling of wellness and
05:26love.
05:27Yeah.
05:28I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book.
05:30You know, oftentimes when we're talking about women's friendship, a lot of times it comes
05:34in these articles that are very cushy and it has tips on like how to go to brunch and
05:39all that's really great.
05:40But we have to have a certain urgency around pouring into our friendships with other women
05:47because the research, oh, thank you so much, because the research doesn't lie.
05:52And the research tells us that the number one thing that determines your overall well-being
05:57and life satisfaction is the quality of your relationships.
06:01But that's not just reduced to our romantic relationships, but to our platonic relationships
06:06as well.
06:07And so the research tells us that when women have healthy friendships with other women,
06:12women who have female-dominated circles, they are paid more than women who do not have
06:16them.
06:17Women who have female friends have better emotional regulation.
06:21So there are a lot of benefits to specifically having relationships with other women.
06:26But the question becomes, how do we tactically nurture those friendships to be healthier?
06:32All right.
06:32We might be switching mics back and forth because this is the level we want so that you guys
06:36can hear us out there.
06:38Nona, if I have to give you this mic, I will pass the mic.
06:41In your book, Killing Comparison, which was really fascinating to me as well, because I feel
06:46like in this age of social media, in this age of pressures to be like the Joneses next door,
06:52to wear what someone else has, to want what someone else has, that killing piece really
06:57takes a piece of our soul.
06:58Talk to me about how we can overcome this urge to kill and to kill this comparison and find
07:07peace within ourselves.
07:09All right, Tess.
07:10Okay, come on, volume.
07:11First of all, y'all look so beautiful.
07:14So I wrote the book, Killing Comparison, because I think that we often walk into the successful
07:20chapter that a person's life is on, and we just assume that's their whole story.
07:23Like, we assume that if a person is up here on this platform that they've got it all together,
07:28that they're never concerned about what other people think or say.
07:31But that is not true, because you can be the most beautiful, the most handsome, the most
07:35wealthy, the most powerful, the most well-known person on earth and still be insecure, because
07:40insecurity is not a function of what you have.
07:42It's a function of what your identity is secured to.
07:46And if your identity is secured to an insecure foundation, which is anything that is subject
07:51to the approval or the opinion of another person, you will be insecure.
07:56And so sometimes what happens is we secure our identity to our possessions, to the type
08:01of car we have, the house we have.
08:03We could even secure our identity to our marital status, to our bank account balance.
08:07And all of these things are subject to other people's assessment and evaluation.
08:12And so the contention that I make in killing comparison is that the first step you have
08:16to take to kill comparison is you have to accept the truth that before you were even formed
08:23in your mother's womb, you had purpose.
08:27Before your mother and your father even met, there was intention.
08:31You are not an accident.
08:32You are not a mistake.
08:33And therefore, you should not submit your value to the approval, the opinion, or the
08:37assessment of another human being who is only as valuable as you are.
08:42And it starts with that recognition.
08:44Oh, thank you so much.
08:45And it's a lot of these times things are easier said than done, right?
08:50Because we know this.
08:51We know the gram will have us up on Sunday morning looking at Instagram before we look at
08:57our scriptures.
08:57We know that we're going to be like, well, look at that.
09:01They worked hard.
09:02I was in that same job.
09:03So I want to talk about some practical tips because we hear this all the time, but I want
09:08us to leave and be like, how did you really do it?
09:11What are the things that really fill your cup and feed your soul so that we can all leave
09:16here just a little bit bigger, bigger in spirit, bigger in heart, bigger in light and bigger
09:22in love?
09:22I'm going to come back to you, Rahel.
09:23Tell me some of the practical tips that you've used to really fill your cup.
09:29I'd be lying if I said I had good spiritual practices.
09:33I'm not that person that wakes up and does daily devotional and does meditation.
09:37I give you props if you do.
09:39That's not how I operate.
09:41I walk through life with a spiritual lens.
09:44I'm in conversation with God every minute of the day.
09:47I'm thinking and reflecting about God and Christ.
09:50Right before I spoke, I went into the bathroom and I prayed.
09:53I mean, every minute of my life is filled with prayer, is filled with reflection.
09:58I'm in conversation with God because God's my best friend, right?
10:02So I don't have practices.
10:05It is my way of surviving this world.
10:09I see spiritual practice as a survival mechanism.
10:12And if we looked at it like that, right?
10:14Because now there's this new age terminology about spiritual practices.
10:19Black people have been using faith to survive for centuries in this country.
10:23It is how our ancestors made it so that we're sitting here today.
10:28It is their prayers.
10:30It's Harriet Tubman looking to the North Star.
10:33It's Nat Turner looking to the Bible.
10:35Our ancestors fought for our liberation rooted in spiritual practices.
10:41So there is no distinction between black people, faith, and liberation.
10:46We have always connected faith and freedom.
10:50If black people want to be free, it is so intimately tied to their lives of faith.
10:55And the last thing that I would say is that we've gotten too obsessed with luxury, right?
11:01This capitalistic country makes us think that our consumption is what matters.
11:05It is not what we consume.
11:07It's who we are.
11:08It's who we're becoming.
11:09It's our connection to God.
11:12It's our prayer life.
11:13It's how we make other people feel.
11:16If somebody doesn't feel better because you were in their space, then what day have you lived?
11:21What experience have you had?
11:22Somebody should feel better because you were in the room.
11:26Oh, thank you.
11:27That's a word, you guys.
11:31And you know what's really interesting about what you said?
11:33It's the practice.
11:34And listen, as we're all getting a little bit older, I'm in my 40s now, my practice and
11:40how I view my practice of spirituality, of meditation, it is ingrained into me in a way
11:47that is so different than I think my parents taught me culturally we thought to do.
11:52You know, you had to get down on your knees and pray before you go to bed.
11:55I walk every day in prayer.
11:57I walk every day in light and I try to spread that light to the world.
12:02But as we talk about practice, one of the things, as I said, I'm so grateful for is
12:07my female friendships.
12:09And, you know, I always say your vibe attracts your tribe.
12:13So, Danielle, when we talk about how you look at, in practice, being a good friend and therefore
12:20finding good friends.
12:21Talk about, in your book, when you talk about the pieces of friendship and how you go about
12:27being a good friend.
12:31So, I love that we're having more open public discourse around being a better friend.
12:38Oh, okay.
12:40Can you hear me?
12:41I was saying that I'm so excited that we're having broader, open conversations about friendship
12:46because the romance aspect has taken so much of our time, energy, and money.
12:51So, I'm so glad to see people kind of elevated to the same level.
12:54When it comes to being a good friend, there are so many different tips and tricks people
12:58give.
12:59But I always like to say, let's start with that list that you're crafting of what you
13:02want your bestie to be.
13:04Am I showing up in the same way?
13:05Which sounds very simple, maybe even reductive, but it really is that simple.
13:10And when it comes to having good emotional, social health, I recently learned this formula
13:16that I wanted to share with you because it's very practical.
13:18If you're trying to be a better friend and more social, there's a framework.
13:23It's called the 5-3-1 framework for people who want better social health.
13:28And I know that's kind of a new term, but they're hoping that it becomes just as common
13:31as the term mental health.
13:33So, if you want better social health, which is directly tied to how long you live and how
13:38satisfied you feel with your life, they're saying that it's 5-3-1.
13:41Meaning 5, you interact with 5 different groups of people every week.
13:47Meaning like your romantic partner, your neighbor, your co-worker, your gym friends,
13:53your happy hour friends, right?
13:54So, 5 different kinds of people.
13:573 means you're maintaining 3 close relationships.
14:00And 1 meaning 1 hour of social interaction a day.
14:05So, for those of us asking how can I be a better friend, how can I be socially plugged
14:09in for my health, that 5-3-1 formula is a practical guide to help us get there.
14:14I'm going to ask one more question because I want to talk a little bit about conflict
14:17and friendship too.
14:18Some of y'all might know me from The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
14:24And I like to say I was on that show and I prefer to like read books instead of read
14:29people.
14:30I just, I'm not good at it y'all.
14:31I was horrible.
14:32I cried on national television.
14:34But conflict in our female friendships and especially in black, for black women, oftentimes
14:39it's normalized.
14:41Like, oh, we're supposed to read each other.
14:44We're supposed to tear each other down.
14:46It was funny that she snapped on you.
14:49I was asserting myself.
14:51It breaks us, y'all.
14:53That is not, should not be part of our baseline.
14:56It should not be part of our friendships.
14:59Tell me how we're supposed to deal with this and how we can flip this narrative.
15:03How do we deal with conflict?
15:05Or is it something that we can just walk away from and say, I'm not doing it?
15:09Yeah.
15:10Okay.
15:11Yes.
15:11Okay.
15:12So there's a difference between healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict.
15:16And the research tells us that on the other side of healthy conflict lies the platonic
15:21intimacy you've been looking for.
15:23So we do have to anticipate some kind of tension, right?
15:27It actually functions to bring us closer.
15:30The problem is the reading, the bringing you down, the this and that, because I'm trying
15:34to assert myself and my dominance that you're not going to walk all over me.
15:38And many of us came up in a household where we were told, you don't let her talk to you
15:42like that.
15:43You don't let her run you like that.
15:44And I believe some of us might be over-correcting for that and being strong in that way, but
15:50it's not healthy.
15:51And so the first way to have healthy conflict is to ask ourselves right now in this moment
15:55of tension, are we working to come together?
15:57Are we trying to solve a problem?
15:59Am I trying to meet a need?
16:00Or am I trying to assert myself over you, let you know you're not going to run me?
16:04And doing things that keep us from harmony, like the silent treatment, or I'm talking
16:11to a third party, but I'm not talking to you.
16:13Those things are not functioning toward bringing us healing and reconciliation.
16:18And so the last thing I would say is I know that sometimes conflict is like a staple of
16:22women's friendships, but you have to ask yourself if it's functioning to be a healthy
16:27situation.
16:28But it is inevitable.
16:29So on the other end, for those of us who leave and we cut people off at any sign of
16:35attitude or misunderstanding, I do get concerned about the degree to which we will experience
16:41platonic intimacy if I'm leaving every time you turn me off.
16:45So I think the key is maybe kind of finding that balance.
16:49Hi.
16:50Okay.
16:51So we actually bonded over so many different things that fall into the wellness and self-care.
16:56We had a whole conversation about running back there.
16:58And you've been very candid about your journey with weight loss, finding God.
17:03I want to talk a little bit about toxic comparison, but also I want you to tell us some of the
17:09tools that you use to really make sure that you can incorporate wellness, both in your
17:13friendships, but just in your life as well, too.
17:17Sure.
17:17No, thank you for the question.
17:18I will say, and I think the point you made about toxic and healthy, there is a distinction
17:22that's important.
17:23Comparison in and of itself is not a bad thing.
17:26It's natural.
17:27If you have eyes to see, you will compare.
17:31But in the medical community, when you inhale air, that's considered inspiring.
17:40You inspire air, right?
17:43So when you look at somebody and you see them doing something that is amazing, it can inspire
17:49you.
17:49It invigorates you.
17:50It enlivens you, right?
17:51A lot of times social media gets blamed for causing comparison, but two people can look
17:56at the same post and respond to it two different ways, depending on the position of their heart.
18:01So a person can look at your post, right?
18:02And be like, oh girl, you doing it.
18:04You doing it.
18:04Another person will look at it and be like, oh, she thinks she's all that.
18:07It's not because of you.
18:08It's because of them.
18:09And so toxic comparison causes us to look at somebody else's success as our failure.
18:14Toxic comparison causes us to see somebody else's win as our loss.
18:18And the key to getting free from toxic comparison, again, goes back to identity.
18:22When you compare yourself to somebody else and feel that you are lacking, it's not because
18:27they are more.
18:28It's because you believe that you are less.
18:31It starts within the mind and you have to believe the truth that you were born on purpose
18:36with purpose.
18:37You are not an accident.
18:39Their win is not your loss.
18:40There is not a scarcity of blessings.
18:41There is not a dearth of favor.
18:43Everything that you need and everything that you are designed to have, you have access to.
18:48That is the key.
18:49And the second thing I would offer, we have to stop denying insecurity.
18:56We will say, oh, I'm fine.
18:57I'm fine.
18:57No, no, no.
18:58I'm glad she's winning.
18:59No, you're not.
18:59Because when you see her winning, you feel some type of way.
19:03We spend more energy denying it than simply confronting it.
19:07When you start to feel that insecurity rising up, instead of saying, no, no, no, I love it
19:11that she's winning.
19:12You need to say, you know what?
19:13There's something going on inside of me that I need to do some work on.
19:16Surrender it to God and begin to do the work to change the beliefs that made you think
19:21that you are less because it seems like she is more.
19:24Oh, thank you.
19:27This idea of do the work.
19:30Y'all, I hear it all the time.
19:31Do the work.
19:33I wanted to talk a little bit.
19:35And sorry, guys, I'm going off here.
19:37But I want us to leave and know how to do the work, right?
19:39Because I recognize that.
19:41I've had people say to me, oh, you know, when you see something and it triggers something
19:45and it's some sort of emotion, whether it's super positive or super negative, tap into that.
19:50How do you do the work for you?
19:52And it could be as easy as meditation.
19:54Meditation, I found during the pandemic, I got into meditation.
19:58I meditate every day.
19:59I didn't know how to meditate.
20:01To be honest, my Peloton app taught me how to meditate.
20:04And it was like a light went off in my life.
20:07And I am so grateful for it.
20:09But that has also helped me to learn how to do the work.
20:12I tap into those feelings, those funny feelings.
20:15I sit with them and go, how does this make me feel?
20:17Why am I feeling like this?
20:18I write about it.
20:19I journal about it.
20:20But talk about how you do the work for yourself.
20:23Yeah, this might be a very on-brand answer as a person who, like, studies friendship and community
20:28and what the research says.
20:30But one part of doing the work is being in community.
20:34And that might sound like an obvious answer.
20:36But the reason I stress that is because sometimes as soon as we are going through it
20:40or when we are coming off of maybe being hurt or harmed,
20:44a lot of us, especially us in our strength, will say,
20:47you know what, I'm going to do me right now.
20:50You know what, I need to go heal right now, like in hibernation.
20:54And I get that.
20:55And alone time is very necessary.
20:57But healing happens in community.
20:59I need to position myself to experience what therapists refer to as corrective experiences
21:05to show me, oh, I am something.
21:07Or, oh, people can be trusted.
21:09I can't do that doing the work by myself in isolation.
21:13And so I would just say as we all kind of put together our respective toolkits on healing
21:18and doing the work, I would just urge all of us to make sure that being in community,
21:23even though we're tempted to go and isolate, is something that we prioritize.
21:28I'm going to shameless plug the Tanya Time Book Club because y'all healed me when we didn't
21:32even know.
21:33We were locked up during the pandemic.
21:35And I meet women all the time who come up to me and say, being in a book club, reading
21:39this book, it really healed me.
21:41And it's just about community because sometimes the people immediately around you aren't the
21:46ones that you can go to to talk about these things.
21:49So I do think there are positive aspects to social media because you can be at home, in
21:53your bonnet, in your closet, talking about a book and using the lens of fiction or books,
21:59find healing.
22:01Yeah.
22:01You know, I wanted to add one of the most practical ways to deal with insecurity is a
22:07process called reframing.
22:09So if you think of a frame, a frame causes you to focus on something, right?
22:16But if you change the position of the frame, it will change your focus.
22:19So let me give you an example.
22:20For years, I was insecure about the stretch marks on my arms.
22:25I would not wear sleeveless shirts.
22:27I would look at people who had those perfect, you know, chiseled tone arms and be like, man,
22:31I could never be like that.
22:33Until I visited a hospital where I saw a woman who had lost her arm in a motorcycle accident.
22:39And I realized in that moment that my arms may have stretch marks running up and down,
22:43but guess what?
22:44I can still work my arms.
22:45And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to honor this woman who can no longer use her
22:49arm by wearing my arms out.
22:51So what happened in that moment is I became free because I reframed the problem from a
22:57problem to a blessing.
22:59And so what I would encourage you to do is consider whatever it is that triggers your
23:02insecurity, how can you reframe it so that it's no longer something to feel defective
23:08about, but now it's something to celebrate.
23:10Oh, I love that.
23:12Everyone here has some tiny little thing that they need to reframe today.
23:16Let it go.
23:17Let it go.
23:19I mean, I have to say there's power in humility.
23:23Oftentimes we have a false sense of security rooted in ego.
23:29And ego is actually not healthy for us at all because ego breeds comparison.
23:33Ego breeds looking at the world and seeing the cup always half empty.
23:38I think there's a way in which you humble yourself by following.
23:42For me, it's following Christ as a model.
23:45Let those who are amongst you understand that, you know, they may not be like us, but we're
23:51striving to be like him.
23:53All right.
23:54They not like us, but we're striving to be like him.
23:57They not like us is rooted in comparison.
24:00It's rooted in seeing the inferiority of other people.
24:03You can't take pride in making somebody else small.
24:06You can't become big because you make somebody else inferior.
24:09There is power in looking to a God for myself who taught me that the greatest thing that
24:18I can do is sacrifice, right?
24:21Christ became who he became in the world because he was willing to go on the cross.
24:26The problem is we all want the resurrection without the crucifixion, right?
24:31You can't get the glory without the grief.
24:33It all comes in a package.
24:35And sometimes you've reached a mountaintop after you've seen it from the valley.
24:40And so a lot of us rush to the crucifixion.
24:43We rush to the resurrection.
24:44But the power is being able to survive and thrive in the valley moments of life.
24:50So humility is powerful.
24:52And you know what?
24:54Pride is not power.
24:56Pride is not power.
24:57You may take pride in yourself, right?
25:00But there's something so much deeper than that, which is a love for self and a love for the
25:05collective.
25:06So much of our insecurity is rooted in American individualism.
25:11We are taught that we matter, that our family matters.
25:14It is all about us.
25:16But we come from an African tribal people who are driven by collectivity.
25:21So one of the ways in which you come out of the narcissism is to not just see yourself,
25:26but to see the power of the collective.
25:28Oh my, yes.
25:32Thank you, Raheel.
25:34So what you said was so powerful because I know I was in the Superdome last night.
25:39My voice sounds like this because I blame Usher.
25:43And I am going to sort of say something funny because I am Canadian and I support Drake all
25:50the way.
25:50That is the sixth God.
25:51I grew up in Toronto.
25:52And I do find it funny how we're really trying to trample that man down.
25:57But that's just what we do, right?
25:59They're not like us.
26:00They're not like he's in hiding.
26:01And it's the rap game.
26:02We get it.
26:03But those are really tough comparisons.
26:06And we laugh and we go, ha, ha, ha.
26:08I mean, we are destroying that man publicly.
26:11And he's, I'm not vouching for him.
26:13I'm not saying that.
26:14But that's just what we do out of sport or humor for people that are humans.
26:18Okay.
26:19So I'm glad you brought this up.
26:21Oftentimes when we think about wellness, we don't think about how wellness is affected
26:26by white supremacy.
26:27Right?
26:28Our wellness is deeply tied to a system designed for us to be suicidal, designed for us to
26:36be unhealthy, designed for us to be making it to the grave and not to graduation.
26:42Right?
26:42We are a part of a system designed for our failure and our despair.
26:46And so even what you see with Kendrick and Drake, I applaud Kendrick for bringing up a
26:53conversation about colonization because black people don't often think about how we're colonized.
26:58We're not the Africans who had our land invaded, but we have our own forms of psychological, emotional,
27:04and spiritual colonization.
27:06But what we do not think about is that this fight between Drake and Kendrick is the same
27:13fight that brings brown people against black people, right?
27:17That tells us that they got the black jobs and that the immigrants are coming for the
27:22black jobs.
27:23There's no difference.
27:25It's class division.
27:26It's social division.
27:28It's racial division.
27:29Because the more divided we are, the more powerful they are, right?
27:33The more divided we are, the more powerful they are.
27:38And it's a real word.
27:39We have gone off like our topic, but it comes back to mental health and mental health, mental
27:45wellness.
27:46And you couldn't have told me 10 years ago, we'd be sitting up here openly talking about
27:51our struggles with mental health, mental wellness, and sometimes even the terminology and the
27:56words that we use when I'm on a panel talking about mental wellness or my mental insecurity.
28:02So just even tweaking the words and standing up here, being vulnerable, sharing through
28:08your books.
28:09Let's go back a little bit quickly to, I want you guys to tell me as we wrap up here, remind
28:17everyone the name of your book, where to find you, and give us your 60 second elevator quote
28:23on your book.
28:24Because these are incredible.
28:25Listen, we love our black authors.
28:27We want you to support and buy their back authors.
28:29So as we close out, please, like shameless plug, because this is the community that cultivates
28:34support.
28:35This is the community that will share about your book so that others can learn from the
28:39lessons that you painstakingly wrote about.
28:43Looking at the clock, 30 seconds.
28:45Okay.
28:45My book is called Fighting for our Friendships.
28:47And if you are interested in the research around women's connection and conflict specifically,
28:52what does the research say around how we can have friendships with more depth and longevity?
28:58And I think that it's perfect for anybody who is realizing that their friendships could
29:02be healthier, but you don't really know how to do that.
29:05The research is showing you how to do that.
29:07So for people who take an interest in that, I think it could be really helpful.
29:11Awesome.
29:12Nona Jones, my book is Killing Comparison.
29:14It's available over there.
29:16And I would tell you, I am so vulnerable in this book, y'all.
29:19Y'all, I will give you just one quick, quick, quick peek.
29:24About six years ago, I don't know about y'all, I was born with my, my mom has very voluptuous
29:31breasts.
29:32My father had a flat chest, of course, but my mom had a flat booty.
29:36I had my father's chest and my mom's booty, all right?
29:39So some years ago, I decided that I was going to fix it.
29:41I had worked out, done the squats, done the Romanian deadlifts, all that girl didn't
29:45didn't build a booty, so I decided I was going to buy me a booty, right?
29:48I was flying to California to get the procedure, and I heard the Lord say, if I wanted you to
29:53have a booty, I would have given you a booty.
29:54I didn't give you a booty to keep you humble.
29:56I said, well, Lord, I'm going to be humble with a booty.
29:58So I went, got the procedure, six months later, y'all, my booty was gone, all right?
30:03Now, I'm telling you this because the reason I did that is because of insecurity.
30:07And if this is something you struggle with, Killing Comparison is for you.
30:12Oh, thank you, Nona.
30:14My name is Rahel Tesmeri, and my book is Imagine Freedom, Transforming Pain into Political and
30:20Spiritual Power.
30:22I have to say to the black women today, keep in mind that a black woman is in the second
30:27most powerful position in the world, Kamala Harris.
30:30And you know what?
30:31They're pretending like she doesn't exist, just trying to figure out who's going to replace
30:36Biden.
30:37We are the most disrespected people in the world.
30:40Black women are.
30:41There is an entire empire designed to pretend like our wombs don't matter, our breasts don't
30:47matter, our minds don't matter.
30:48And we got to reclaim our power in our families, in our bedrooms, in our relationships, in the
30:54voting polls.
30:55We got to reclaim power.
30:57My book is about reclaiming power.
30:59Because you know what?
31:01They made us think that everything's about how we look.
31:04It's not about how we look.
31:06It's about the change we can make in this world.
31:08We get one life to make a change in the world.
31:11To make a change in your family, in your community, in your own self.
31:15That's what my book is about.
31:17Transformation, baby.
31:19Transformation.
31:19Thank you, Rahel, Nona, Danielle.
31:23Thank you so much.
31:24Thank you, Essence.
31:25We love each and every one of you.
31:28You are enough.
31:29You are the light.
31:30Go where your tribe finds your vibe.
31:33And have a beautiful Essence weekend.
31:36Bye, y'all.
31:37Bye, y'all.
31:37Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:38Bye, y'all.
31:39Bye, y'all.
31:39Bye, y'all.
31:39Bye, y'all.
31:40Bye, y'all.
31:40Bye, y'all.
31:40Bye, y'all.
31:41Bye, y'all.
31:41Bye, y'all.
31:41Bye, y'all.
31:42Bye, y'all.
31:43Bye, y'all.
31:43Bye, y'all.
31:44Bye, y'all.
31:44Bye, y'all.
31:45Bye, y'all.
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