Session 395: Finding & Sustaining Community with Yolo Akili

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 ninety five of the Therapy for Black Girl podcasts. We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors.

can trust and how do I maintain these relationships. Helping us to answer these questions is writer, activists and founder of Being the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective Yolo Achilling. For over twenty years, Yolo has led and designed mental

and emotional health workshops, experiences, support groups, and training. His expertise includes facilitating anger management and anti violence groups with black men and boys, HIV AIDS, case management, and peer counseling, training community members on CDC behavioral health interventions such as personalized cognitive counseling, teaching mental health literacy to black communities, leading yoga and embodiment experiences, and healing justice centered organizing.

During our conversation, we unpack some of the many ways that we can approach mental health practices and principles as community members to better show up for one another and curate the sort of support systems that we need for ourselves if something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation. Please share with us on social media using the hashtag TBG in session or us over in the Sister Circle. To talk more about the episode, you can join us

at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Yolo.

in community violence work. I spent a great deal of my career working with men who had been either court mandated or church mandated to go through a behavioral and learning process around anger and violence right. So that was a big part of my work. Through that work, I saw gaps. I saw gaps around healing, I saw gaps around mental health. I saw how our communities, many of

the first responders, particularly in the rural South. I was outside of Atlanta and then in Atlanta at one point, the people who were responding they weren't always therapist and social workers. They were have big mamas and the teachers and the coaches and the pastors, and didn't always have

great skills for it right, didn't always have tools. And so after years of witnessing that, I was like, Okay, I want to create this thing that takes an approach that not only helps resource people like therapists and social workers, but also the other folks who are doing the other kind of immediate crisis care support. And I didn't see people really holding space with those folks to get better

tools to do that. Not for them to become therapists, right, but for them to have better skills of listening, of affirming, of knowing their limitations and their boundaries. Because in addition to them offering crisis care a lot people who were not trained, sometimes they were also making choices that maybe

weren't the best choices that help the people. Right. So that kind of led me to want to build an institution they could respond to that they can really center healing and care for our folks in a way that I think that black people will respond to or hope. So, so that's the long version of how I got to the moment of creating being.

so it's across the world. Excuse me, I'm getting used to that. I ain't been that fancy. I'd just been in the hoods, so I didn't know I could go into thatglorhood. We do that in three different ways. One is training. We have our training programs which are designed for anybody wherever you are. It doesn't matter if you're

a teacher, you're a parent, you're an activist. Many therapists and social workers come to our trainings to get tools, skills, and resources from a healing justice lens to support your community. And so we have a Black mental Health and Healing Justice program. I call it a really kind of a radical response to the limitations of mental health first aid.

I get in trouble for that. Sometimes mental health first aid and my experience just didn't hold the history of why black people had the concerns that had about mental health, and we created a training program that actually gave that context. This is why, right, this is the legacy of how mental health has been used against black people. And here's also legacy of healing that black people have done in the context of that. Let's hold both of those and

get people really skills and tools we think about. Here's what you can do through your daily choices that help cultivate wellness in the world. Here are some tools for crisis support, the centered dignity. Now, you have a role in creating healing and wellness with the community. Your role is important as an actor wherever you are in the community. So we have trainings like that. Our Black Masculine and Reimagined Program, which I always say is really bell Hook's inspired.

It's a program for Black men and masculine folks to unlearned rigid masculinity and how that has contributed to their mental health and the stress in our communities, right, which is bell Hooks coded all day. So we have our training programs which do that piece as well as our healing circles will happen every month, which hopefully you'll be

doing one for us soon. And then we have our grant programs which essentially fund and reset source or network of institutions that are doing some dynamic dope work, but the underresource right, So Black Worness Innovation Funds, selling homeless Support Fund. Our Parents Support Fund gives economic cash directly to parents who are struggling with mental health conditions. But those funds are really saying that we need to sustain

these efforts. And most of our grantees are like small organizations Mom and pops doing work around supporting survivors of gun violence, right, mom and pops doing stuff in the churches right in the Deep South, trying to hold mental health space. Those are the folks who want to make sure they have money to do their work. And so those are the two big components of our work, the training and the grand making.

the word mental health mean to you? And the responsible would get quite often where people would say, when I hear mental health, I think about my cousin who got taken away when he had an episode and he's been in the prison system ever since. Or they would say I remember my sister who is now in the system because they said she had X y Z XYZ. Right.

And so one of the things I started learning really quickly about community, particularly when it comes to Black folks in mental health, was that most Black people don't experience the prison industrial complex as separate from the mental health

industrial complex. I think some of us have these really beautiful experiences with therapists like yourself, but a lot of our folks who are and under resource communities, that is the first connection they have with it, and so that fuels the ways in which they feel comfortable in community to disclose about their mental health challenges. Right, because there's an ever pressing fear of incarceration as a possibility of

demonization of I'm living with borderline personality. I'm living with bipolar, I'm living with depression, whatever that reality may be for someone, right, And so I realized that that was a big fear that we had to acknowledge and hold in the space. We couldn't fix it, but we could acknowledge and say, hey, we want to acknowledge. Yes, there are systems that sometimes use these things against us and are also our individual actors.

I call them the black healing justice underground railroad of therapists, of psychiatrists, of practitioners who are also going to help you get these systems and take care of you. How do we find those people elevate them? So I've learned a lot about that with community, and that's one piece that's really clear to me is that people are afraid and it's legitimate from real ways on which unfortunately some

of them are toxic. Elements of this dominant system have impacted to people around mental health.

a mental health professional. I hear people talk about community a lot now, and I think, especially as we're thinking about a new Trump presidency, there will be I think a need to lean more into community. So in the context of that, like people creating their personal communities and you know, communities in their neighborhood, what does that mean to you, and like, how do we get started in creating community.

coming happens in the community, n't prepared right. And the reason I want to talk about that is because we know, in this particular moment, we need to be aware of how to best support each other. And when I say where about best support each other? The community care plan is really splicific. It's like, tell me about your allergies, tell me about medications you're on. Where's your doctors, what

are your children's allergies, what's your pets? In case something happens that you need support and you cannot be able to manage that for whatever reason, how do we show up for you? Right? And so doing that and sharing that in community builds a level of trust, right, the people you got to discern who you're going to trust with, right, you can share them everyone. But how are you building

community intentionally to say that? Like join me and you say you're hypothetical men, you look close to each other. Do you know if something goes down, how to best support me? Do I know how to best support you? How we're being thoughtful and intentional about our friendships and our networks and saying, I need folks who actually know what I'm going through, what's going on with me because in this political moment, we don't know what will shift

and what will happen. Right, So I think that we need to get really intentional and discern who those folks are in our community, right and use those tools really thoughtfully. So that's one piece differ me stands out, and I think we've also got to engage our fear of community, you know, our fear of being seen. I think that's a big piece to it. I know you probably see this also in the community cultivate, like you know, everybody, I don't want nobody in my business. Everybody gotta be

in all your business. But sometimes in this culture of instagram perfectionism, we're trying to always project this image that it's not real. We're trying to like hide behind the image, and that image becomes a prison where we cannot connect authentically what people we care about. We're so afraid of people seeing our blemishes and our flaws or the reality

is those things make us beautiful. But in order for people to really care for us, we have to lean into the fear of being cared for and the fear of being seen, which a lot of us have. Right, we got the nice pictures up, but who am I really? I think those are big pieces I think.

difficult to them. If we don't begin to cultivate more skills and tools to relate to conflict differently, we can't build intimacy and we can't build community. Right. But the reality is, when somebody starts to see you, you're gonna sometimes mess up. Somebody gonna push sugar in your grads. It's gonna be a whole crisis. How are you going

to manage the conflict? Right? You need to have some skills and tools and some thinking around why do I show up in this way and conflict and what's the opportunity for me to build different skills because one things I see happening in our communities and people trying to build community, And addition, the fear of being seen is the fear of being quote unquote wrong or doing the wrong thing right or being the wrong thing, and then

also the fear of somebody sees me. If there's a conflict, I don't know how to manage it or I don't want to manage it. So a part of what we have to do is really begin to look at our conflict history, so well, what do we learn from the people who raised us, who around us, What do we want to show up in when conflict shows up? How do I learn to manage that in my body? And how do I learn to speak my truth and not make myself smaller when I'm in the midst of conflict,

but not denigrate other people as well. I think that that's a big piece of community building that I see social skills deteriorating around right, Like people just don't know how to say I did not like that. And you know, we do a lot of training in our programs around like helping people understand when you're in conflict. A big part of what we have to sometimes learn to do is make a distinction between the person and the behavior,

the idea and the choice they did. Right, me, and you are a confident might be like Yolo, it's not you, it's a problem, but it's this behavior. You are welcome here. This behavior is not. And I'm making that distinction right and naming that explicitly the people so that like I love you, I don't love this behavior. I don't love these choices, and I don't like these ideas you are presenting.

And that creates a little bit greace because maybe I can look at my behavior, you know what I mean, I can put some salt in butter in a grace next time, you know what I mean, I can do a different behavior. But if you attack the core of me, if Yola is a problem, if joys a problem, most of us just go on to defense mode.

Awards dot net and vote for Therapy for Black Girls. So, Yola, what you're talking about is very messy, I think, right, like being able to hold space for each other's humanity in that way, right, But I think it is important if we are looking at building intentional community, right, which I think is going to be critical. It has always been critical, but I think especially in this moment in history, like us leaning into one another in this way I

think will be really important. And so another piece of this community conversation I think is like accountability, which it feels like you are talking about a little bit like this idea that if something happens in community. What is the accountability like, what does that look like for a community to hold the members of the community accountable to one another.

and figure it out. Because we're so in a rush to make sure nobody sees it that we don't actually examine the texture of it, get clear where it came from, who we inherited, from, where we learned to practice right. So that's an important piece about mess management because it's really not about not being messive. We all messy in some ways, right. It's about mess management. How do you know how to hold it right? So this piece about accountability is really something I see happen a lot in

community and people are really in conversation about this. I come from school of thought that really comes out of the work of Miro and Kaba and many other transformative justice practitioners. We talk about accountability as not something necessarily I can do for someone else, but someone has to hold themselves accountable. What I can do with someone else is create the space for them to own and take

accountability for their actions. Now that's different from saying, here are consequences of your actions, right, Like, we can create consequences, but the accountability as an emotional experience is something that you can only cultivate space for people to do, but they may not be able to step into. I spent a large part of my career working with many men who had internalized deep patriarchy and sexism around their relationship with women, and therefore did not always have the willingness

to take accountability for their choices and how they hurt people. Right. And so even though we made their consequences, they never took accountability because they didn't have the inner resources to name and this own I did that I was wrong for that, right, And so I think that we need to recognize when we talk about this accountability conversation, there's two dimensions that think are really important. One naming what is happening, right, naming the behavior the things that are happening.

Understanding that sometimes when we're coming to people when you name those things. They may not be prepared to take responsibility for it. They might not have the inner psychological emotional resources to take responsibility for We all know this. We got a relative of our hunting that do a certain thing. But because we see how her trauma her stuff shows up, she can't take responsibility for says, you've been putting raisins in the potato salad, and we know it,

but she can't take responsibility for it. Right, She's not in the place to own it because of where she is in her own psychological life. Right, But that doesn't mean that we don't need to put some parameters up to make sure the potato salad is safe in the future. So that means the community we come around it and be like, guess what, you ain't coming over this play. You ain't coming over here and putting another play. You

don't cook in this kitchen this time. We can create consequences if she continues the behavior, but we can't force her to take responsibility if she is not psychologically prepared and ready to do so. We can only put consequences and name it loving and supportive. As much as we can. That process not the survivors of it, but the people who are outside of that process can be I think they need to be people who are holding that space, if that makes sense.

And then you find out things about your husband or your partner, are your best friend that you didn't even know, And it's like if I had known these things, I probably would be a better prepared to support them in that moment. Right, So we need to like have those depth conversations. What are the in what you feel like best resource and supported when you're in distress? What are the needs things that calm you? What are your strategies? How can I support your strategies? How can we be

in collaboration around those strategies? Right? Because it's not about self care to me, it's about community care practices. If I know that taking a walk every day helps my mental health, I need to be calling joy and joy can you take a walk with me every day? Can we take each other in mind o the own medication, our blood pressure medication, our mental health medication, like really making sure people are involved in supporting us and not isolating it's all on me to do with u's all

on you. I think those are the things we need to be asking questions about. How can we be in interconnectedness and interrelated in that way and not be so this is my family and I got to care this all on myself as opposed to well, hold on joy. You and your kids are also important to me too, you and your husband. I how do I support y'all? How do we support each other? Which I think doesn't happen a lot in our culture as much as they can.

we are responsible too and for one another. What's the balance there of being in a society that really stresses individualism and wanting to build very intentional communities.

the same challenges. Well, and as opposed to being like, I'm like, what would it mean for y'all to be like, hey, let's trade weekends, right, y'all gonna get the kid? We go you'll get your kids on this weekend, so y'all get a break, and then we get the kids on the break, get on the weekend, and then what I see happiness bari aus to that is it. There's a lot of internalized, particularly for mothers, a lot of internalized

misogyny because the culture shame's mothers so much around. You should want to be the child, should be the center of your world all the time, and you should never like what and then like you got a whole husband you try to navigate, or a whole partner you're trying to navigate. We're thinking about how do we building intentional practices that breaks space for us? So we're like, you know what, every other month, every month, I got the kids this week, can you get a kiss? And then

you and your husband and your partner get a break? Right, that's a mental health support system, right, Like thinking about how do we build in practices together that help each other but also interrogate those ideas of shame that say that we should be able to do it all ourselves, which we know in a capitalist context, this world is making it harder and harder economically for us to do that.

And there's so many practices we can do. Like I think about in Caribbean culture, they have the lotteries where you like to be put money in a pot and then every month a different family against the pot. Those are the practices we need back again, right, we need those kind of wellness practices again, those kind of money practices. And so I think about leaning into having the real conversations about says, ain't got it. I'm struggling here. Okay, well here's what I can do. What can you do?

You know what I mean. I'm gonna drop a cancel role and surprise checking over on that day because I can cook on that day. Maybe that's my jam. Maybe that's not your jam. Maybe your jam is you can do something else. You will support me. Let's start the barter system of care system to support each other.

But I think what has happened is that people are working longer hours, people are traveling further to work, So there has been this real breakdown and like the community kind of taking care of one another. So what creative practices maybe can you offer for people who want to maybe do some of this but because of long commuting times and those kinds of things, feel really strained to be able to practice some of this.

to the Meganisign concert. I make time to like work on tuesdays, like you know what? But like, are you making time to say? What are my regular ritual practices and how am I drawing my community and intentionally for my long term wellness? Right? Am I making the hour that thirty minutes, that forty five minutes, and then we got to switch our mind around that, right and understanding

it's an investment. So just when you invest in that friendship and then that connection and then those collective support, as you invest in it and you build it grows can grow, right, And so I think that's really one thing I want to invite people to think about and also just honored that, like I understand the fear of letting people get too close to you that many of us have. Right, We're going to practice to as much

as we can. We're going to recognize that also sometimes a part of the journey is that people will disappoint you, people will let you down. You will have to teach people how to love you and care for you and your family. They will have to learn how to practice. You have to ask that they are worthy of being able to practice with you. Nobody's going to get it right first time. And Buddhas and they have this idea of the good bodies south of the courageous warrior with

the heart. Right, we have to be courageous with our heart to know that we put our heart forward. Sometimes it's going to get bruised and hurt. But how do we still keep our heart open in the midst of that holding and manny of the other person and draw those boundaries as we need to. But let them practice, right And I think that's the piece of the work that I really want to invite us to do when we talk about building communities each other. We got to

practice the honey, because aha'mn know you know what I mean. Joey, you come over here and you putting sugar in migris. I'm like, lord, joy now I'm just like I'm trying to do it. No more. We're done, We've done it. I don't tell her she did this and we ain't done it, and I ain't talking and she should know. She should. You know, wherever they're should they're shamed. Stop assuming what everybody else knows, and start talking to folks and engaging folks and give them a chance to practice

loving you and caring for you. And the more we practice, you'll see who will show up in the practice right right, You'll see who's committed to the practice. Who some people gon be. Mookie might not make it, you know, Niko might make you know who go you and find out okay.

piece that it is. Now it feels like it has gone a little further than I think maybe we intended with the conversation around at the first sign of trouble or conflict, as you mentioned, now we're saying like okay, I don't want to be in community with you anymore, or I'm cutting you off now. What would you say about some of the rush to kind of severtisee with folks wo joy?

And how do we discern that this person is worth in the context and investment in our relationship? Right? It's cutting people off things like this is perfectionist. It's just like this inverted perfectionism. Right. You should know I'm cutting them off because I ain't. It's like, well, hold on, did they give you some feedback that you don't want to hear that you are called with? Were they not able to meet your unsustainable standards of how a man

woman person should be. Did you actually come back to them and say, hey, this is what I experience. Okay, experience this happening, and I want to know what you experience and see you and see what we can get some understanding as opposed to this happened. I made up a story about it in my head, and I didn't engage you about the story. I just disappeared. So my trauma narrative is taking control. I got this whole story, like, well, you know, Joy did this because jord Band had be

for me. Since Joy's like, I don't even know what you're talking about, you know what I mean? You know, made a whole story in your mind. Because we know we all have myths and fairy tales we tell ourselves on time. Me and Michael B. Jordan's been dating for years. He don't know that Joy, that's a story. That's a story, the story, right, and so we have to be mindful of stories we tell ourselves. Our feelings are always valid, but our stories sometimes are not fully round. They be

missing pieces. And sometimes when we've been through so much, we have this impulse to be like, just cut it off because I don't want that thing to happen to happen last time, right, But sometimes it's actually not that thing. It just felt like that thing or activated that thing. But if we don't stay around a long enough to

figure out, we might miss on something really beautiful. This happens a lot of the dating, like a lot of so that's the work who work doing data, they're always like, well, I just cut him off because he did this like that da Dad. I'm like, well, hold on, did you have a conversation with him about what he did? Did

you talk to her about what she did? Well? No, I ain't finna talk Okay, So how do you expect to be an intimacy and relationship if you aren't having conversation, if you aren't confronting your fear around naming your truth.

That's the behavior gonna tell the truth about what you value. And so I think that what we need to do is really like one spend time like listening and paying attention to people's behavior and their context. I'm always curious about people I'm sharing space with, like how do they talk about other people? They talk about people with compassion and grace, other they talk about people with shame and judgment, because that'say, they gonna talk about me, right, because everybody

processing somebody? How do they show up? What is their standard for integrity? Some people standard for integrity is more about let me hide and get sneaky until nobody can find me out. Some people stand up of integrity is this don't feel right? Let me name any come to you. You're gonna learn by watching right and understand that intimacy is a slow burn. Right. It's not a quick like

you know, like our coaches like we married tomorrow. It's like, okay, well you can do that, but it's gonna have consequences. You're gonna circle back. Right, Intimacy can be a slow burn. That it's like, let me watch you and see what you say and what you do and then see how they connect or don't connect and let me honor that like, hey, you might be a beautiful person, but I see where

you are in your journey. Don't fit for what I need in my journey, like you know, don't fit for what I need in terms of integrity, don't fit for what I need in terms of how you talk about people, how you approach things. We have to watch and pay attention and discern and trust that gut when our body is reacting right, got trusted like m Some don't feel

right about so and so, so and so. It might be a lovely human being who also is navigating some real deep challenges with this trust because they learn to lie to protect themselves, and so now they're lying about a lot of things. It doesn't mean they're not human and beautiful and powerful. It means, like where they are in their journey might not be able to support you where you are in yours. So a boundary needs to be drawn. That's the club friend. Now you don't be

telling them your business. You go turn up, have a cocktail, all right, But well, I see you later. Sometimes we get confused. We try to make people global friends where they actually fit a certain arena of our life, right, and I

think that's really an important piece of right discernment. Pay attention to your body, how your body reacts, how your spirit feels around them, what feelings they evote, what they do, what they say, and make a boundary with them off of that in terms of what they've shown you they can hold and you know, you have that conversation with them if you need to. Some people don't know it, and I'm seeing themselves, so you have to be mindful of that too.

find those folks. If you want to learn how to play the piano, then go to a piano group of people who do play in a piano and cultivated relationships with those folks. Right, there's a lot of thing about shared interests and shared values. Find the spaces where those people will be reflected. I think it's really important if you're deeply into sisterhood, right, finding a spaces about sisterhood

and like exploring that as a concept. Right, take some time understand what are your values and things that you like to do, and then finding people who also share some of those things is a great place to start.

that conversation. Sometimes the actual situations will provide the opportunity to learn how somebody shows up in conflict and give you the practice of figuring it out. Because when people intellectual say like I'm gonna tell them like it is, and then it comes to a thing telling them like it is right, So sometimes it's actually in the moment. How do I show up in the moment when the thing is happening to name this is happening and seeing

how people respond to react that is a piece. But I think that like when it comes to conversations with family and community, and I've had these conversations, this is the intervention I get to people. I tell people when you want to have different conversations, particularly in black communities, I'm like, if you have meal that you like to prepare together, if you have a place you like to go get some off, y'all go to Popey's and get

y'all buscus. That's y'all cham. I want to invite you to center food and nourishment and then open up a conversation and see what comes there. And people are always like WHOA. It really works because I was able to say, like, hey, I want to talk about this thing because the food can be a source of nourishment and support. But it's

also a ritual we have. I think it's in our genes around coming around food for conversations that because people are ease a little bit more then they might be in other situations, right, And so I think being thoughtful about that. But also I think the other piece too,

joy this is what I do. You have to be clear when you're going into a situation where you're trying to disclose something that's uncomfortable with someone that I'm sharing this for me with the understand that I have no control over how they may react or respond to this, right, Like, I just need to let you know this so I can do this for me. So it's helping me build the muscle to own my boundaries, protect my peace. You may not agree with it, you may not see it

like that way. I might have to say, hey, mom, when you did this, it was really hurtful for me, and I need you to understand that's how I experience you, and it's okay if you didn't experience it like that. It's okay if that's not your truth. This is where it was for me and that just need you to know that. And I love you no less, but that behavior that hurt me. You got to center yourself in that right and understand that you can't control how they

will react or respond. That you might not have this fairy tale ending, but it's more about taking care of yourself in that moment that that's what you need. So those are some things that just think about in the condext goes conversations.

the complications. There are situations where the passive is a strategy. For example, like we just talked together. Example of like having that direct conversation. Lots of people in our family, I'm not finna go have that conversation because that person's gonna act as a fool. So what often to passively do is you know, you ain't invited to the family cookout

no more. And that is the communication that's going to be very clear to you that a boundary has been crossed and now you have a choice about how you want to do it right. It doesn't always have to be direct, right, you know what I mean? All of a sudden you be like, well you wasn't invited when there's the potatoes this time?

So just want to hold confident. Management isn't always about a serv and sometimes it is about drawing boundaries that are actual disbehavioral boundaries that are just like I don't pick up the phone when this person calls immediately. I might call them back two hours later. Those are real clear communication that don't have to be so confrontational in the same way that might be introverse might not be as comfortable with. And I think they're legit.

not be the community. So what are some kind of signs or questions people can ask and like, how do you know maybe when it's time to leave a community.

you something. What is that in the context of what's happening? Because there are times in which you just need to remove yourself from situations want to shown you that they don't have the skills, the capacity, the inner resources to show up for you the way you have asked them to honor that they just don't have it. Sometimes we don't have it right and then draw your boundary accordingly. But like getting out of that fairy tale thinking well maybe they will and they just mean and justify the

baby as supposed to. Like, this is what this person has shown me who they are. My angel has said it to Oprah and it's one of the best courses ever. Its like when people show you who they are the first time, I will add this, I will have this in if I can, my angel worshipe. So I would say, when people show you who they are, inquire, check, double check, and once you double check, honor that is who they are.

Let you don't mean this. Sometimes it's sometimes we think we're seeing something that's actually what we're seeing through our own lens, which is a little foggy and filter through our trauma, and we think we see it clearly, but we're not. So just double check and then once you get the fog off your lens, you'd be like, girl, that's what that was. Praise cod.

look like. So people have talked about like getting to know your neighbor's names, and I think that there are lots of reasons why in your community you would want to kind of know who your neighbors are, just in terms of can we pick up each other's packages, or like can people drops up off here for you? What other may be small ways can people get started with kind of building community in their local areas.

I'm like very clear, going back to example ease earlier, I know that's my club friend. We go to club, we turned up. I know that's my friend I can trust to watch my kids, but I can't trust that friend to watch my kids, to hold space for me emotionally because they ain't got it. I can't trust that club friend to call the middle of night to help me fix a flat tire because they ain't That girl that's not who she is meeting people and understand they

might not be that global thing for you. There's different parts of your life and your journey they hold. Right, My gym buddy who I work a at the gym with, right, not the same person that I call to when I'm in trauma and distress in the middle of the night. Right, those are different people. And so I think they're like beginning to want to talk to people, but also to examine these high expectations of friendship that we put on people.

Like we're in this cultural moment where everybody's the expectations of friends and romantic relationships are that's really high. Like you know what I mean, the rents high and soul the expectations, right, you know what I mean? And like, you know, you gotta like realistically ground around what can people do, Like you know what you can do because you can't be all that in them people you be like I'm gonna be your gym buddy, we're gonna say whatever.

We're gonna live somewhere. I'm gonna holler at you tomorrow. Right, you know, So think examining our expectations. Are they so high? Are they human centered? Are they perfectionism coded? Which is a lot of our stuff is it's like android coded. I call it's like everybody got to be getting it right and know none of us are like that.

I think about so many black women I know they are their husband's only friend, emotional confidant, and they are holding all of that, right, think about masculinity as a barrier because so many men and not just men, but many women and people are taught them only hold with this one person, and I hold them to hold all of my emotional labor right, And I feel that's one big barrier that I see happening the create community. I'll talk to some couples and I'm like, so does your

husband have friends? Oh, I don't got no friends. I just talked to her about things. That's why. Well me and my boys, you know, So did you talk to your boy about when it's happened at work? And I will talk about that. Why, Well, I don't need to be talking about him with that. I'm just talking to my wife about that. Well, like, why is she the

only person that's holding that. So there's a level of fear that gender and all these different places come into place of what does it mean to engage that and share more with the men in your life or the people other people in your life who might be friends. So we gotta look at gender as a barrier and encourage more men and masculine people to venture out into the world emotionally with your colleagues and your friends and take that labor off of so many Black women or

holding that's solo and I have unrealistic expectations of holding that. Right, that's one piece of it too. You want to think about it with men, it goes to engage in what I call the father wound, right, because father or dad was never an emotional nurturer. So I never learned how to nurture and emotional spaces with men. Right. I never learned how to do that, and I don't do that. I don't try to do it because it's too much

of a wound. But we got to start opening that up with gentleness and softness, engaging it because men are really lonely. And what's happening is that men are putting out that emotional labor and blame and unrealised expectations on women because of their loneliness and their despair emotionally. It's like, bro, you need to get in community of masculine people are men and figure this out and stop making black women have to do all this for you because you can't own anything for yourself.

It's just really quick, like all of a sudden, Oh well, let me help you. No, no, let him figure it out. Let him figure it out. He got it, you know what I mean. Because there's also there's a dynamic there

right like you know what I mean. So I do believe that we need spaces with more Black men and masculine folks who are thinking, thoughtful about emotionally supporting each other, on learning patriarchy, and also believing black women from holding all the emotional labor they hold in our communities, whether it's the emotional labor raising the children, like there's a different dynamic there, like who's going to all process with your daughter and your son? Oh well she got it? No,

no hold up? Take you behind and their dude, like you know what I mean? Like you know what I mean? Or like you know, just all those pieces that men in masking folks who don't engage that fear. And I think when they engage that fear of being betrayed or hurt by other men emotionally, it's going to free up and create so much space for black women to not have to hold that. And black women also have to learn how to step back from that too, because so many black women have been doing it for so long

tint times. I literally been in workshops where sisters will be like, oh, I want to help them know, let them figure it out, step up to the plate because you on it. And also using that care to avoid the fact that Sis, you need support because you've been so busy being a caretaker. What's your care? So many Black women who need care who are hiding behind being the super caregivers. I'm like, Sis, but who took care of you emotionally? Who's holding that space for you? And

I don't need nothing. And I was like, and I don't believe that. I refuse to believe that you don't have needs. I'm not going to engage in that misogynist live that black women don't have needs, that big Mama is okay, she don't need nothing. I don't believe that. And so we got to start saying that as black men, the people of all genders start saying that, actually, I don't believe that she don't got no needs, and I'm nothing to buy it to that. We're finna go over there,

Let's see what's up right. You need something right, And so I think that there's all those layers that we have to engage too for our communities to really find more healing, support and more equilibrium.

an afterthought. They have to repeat after it. My care is not an afterthought. My healing does not come last. I will not disrespect my ancestors by demeaning the care work that I give to the world. Right and so like those are call and repeat affirmations because I think that we have to speak to ourselves that truth that your care is not an afterthought, you don't come last.

That's not acceptable, and that it's disrespectful to the sacred work we do, particularly talking about healers and wellness folks, or any kind of nurturing care, family work. It's just suspectful to think that that work is not worthy of care, that your body and your spirit is not worthy of care. So I want to invite people to think about that, to think about how arrogant it is to assume that you are above needing care. That's roan, that's so arrogance,

Like you above it? Really you above it? Who are you? You are above that humanity? You're not a human? What does that mean? And so just encouraging folks who are listening to think about that. We all need care, we all need community. Community is messy, life is messy. If we lean into the mess and find our flow, we can manage it and smooth through it if we find our folks. But if we try to make the mess all by ourselves, it's lonely, it's sad, it's hard out

of here. So we need each other. So and just remembering that we all have the power to heal. We all have the power to learn new skills, learn new behaviors, unlearned things. Just because your mom and your day to dayd don't mean that's the right way to do it. Now. Everything that is gentle and loving as a practice behaviorally go to do with whiteness. I hate people say its all time, not so white. I'm like, just so we'll

have a reminder. White people culturally have destroyed most of the planets, Okay, I have literally there is nothing soft about white violence, capitalism, structurally like land missiles, like there's nothing. I don't know why y'all make that equification when we say we want to do care for our folks, like, oh I feel so white. I was like, does it? Because that's not this says a different story, you know. I want to get honest about it. So just really understanding practicing softness.

because we want to build community. And you can follow me at Yoloachille dot com. I'm pretty sure I'm one person with that funny name, So y'all gonna find me while eloakil beautiful.

for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just being 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 Elise Ellis and Tyree Rush. 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,