THE POWER OF THE BLACK WOMANS SELF LOVE JOURNEY

[Music]

[Music]

if all black women started a self-love

journey

we could heal generations

black women did you know you can heal

did you know you can feel

did you know you can cry and completely

surrender to the tears that are falling

out of your eyes

did you know that the trauma and pain

that you’ve experienced isn’t

essentially normal it’s just been

normalized

did you know you don’t always have to be

strong push through and carry on but

most importantly

did you know that you are not alone

because i didn’t

i didn’t know it was okay to not be okay

i didn’t know i can cry and be

vulnerable and neither of them makes me

weak

i didn’t know i didn’t have to always

have it together i didn’t always have to

have my life together know what i was

doing i didn’t know i can go to church

and therapy

at the same time i worry that if i did

this that the strong black woman trophy

would be taken away from me

but does it even belong to me

see i didn’t know that the strong black

woman

is the healed black woman but i do now

growing up i looked up to the woman in

my family

they were like superheroes to me

they were beautiful independent and

strong

when i grew up i wanted to be just like

them

i wanted to be a strong black woman

the whole idea of the strong black woman

seemed like a character in a folk tale

to me

she was the unspoken rule the

requirement

the expectation she wasn’t personified

just into one woman she seemed all too

familiar to me almost as if she was

family

her mannerisms echoed the pain and

trauma

of her ancestors and her self-silencing

behavior

became almost second nature to me

the ways of a strong black woman was

never directly taught to me

it was shown to me through the behavior

and actions of my mothers

grandmothers and family

the strong black woman trope hurts black

women more than

it helps them it tells them that

they should be strong and resilient but

doesn’t allow them to engage in the

behaviors needed

to preserve their strength and

resilience

if all black women started a self-love

journey

we could heal generations

you may be thinking to yourself how can

something so simple

as self-love have the potential to

heal black women and possibly even their

culture

well the answer to that actually lies

within the definition itself

dr autumn griffin defined self-love as

the will to protect nurture

preserve and celebrate

one’s emotional physical

spiritual and mental health

self-love goes against all that the

strong black woman is supposed to be

where the strong black woman trope says

to be selfless

self-love says to be selfish

where the strong black woman trope says

show no emotion

self love says explore them

and where the strong black woman trope

says we don’t have time

for mental health self love says

make time self-love follows the

hierarchy of cognition

reconstructing our thoughts will then

influence the way that we feel

which will then influence the way that

we behave

and eventually that will change the way

that we treat ourselves

for black women this is essentially

simple

because the only thing that the strong

black woman is allowed to be is strong

she’s expected to push things under the

rug hide her trauma suffer in silence

so this isn’t simple

there’s so much that we have to learn

and so much more that we have to unlearn

but lucky for us self-love is a skill

and with enough practice it can become a

learned

behavior and if mastered

it could be the one missing preventative

measure to fight against

common mental health issues within the

black community

no longer do we need to suffer in

silence with our mental health and

traumas

we can begin to heal them

self-love teaches us how to protect our

mental health

it also teaches us how to preserve it

imagine if we all did this imagine the

change

it will cause

self-love has the power to change our

culture

because as our daughters watch us learn

how to heal

they will learn as well

and eventually it will be normalized as

it is repeated

into our culture because what is culture

if not behaviors

passed down from generation to

generation

it will be passed down from her

daughters to

her daughter’s daughters to her sisters

to her grandmas until it is eventually

taken

and adopted as culture the same way the

strong black

woman trope that silenced us for years

has

we could finally fight against the

common mental health issues that black

women face

by healing the trauma that has been

silenced

by the strong black woman trope

it’s almost as if every time i try to be

anything but resilient

i hear the strong black woman almost

like an elder whispering to me

if i can make it through slavery then

you can make it through anything

so hush it up suck it up push through

pull it together people are depending on

you carry on

i listen as she silences and invalidates

me

if all black women started a self-love

journey we could heal

generations

i would like to share with you my

journey

but first hi my name is denise

i am the founder and ceo of the self

love organization

a wellness club for women of color to

prioritize self-love

and mental health to finally end the

cycle

of transgenerational trauma

i have been on my self-love journey for

10

years but my story starts at age 9.

i’m at my grandmother’s house

all the lights are off downstairs except

for one ambered light

we’re all in the living room and in that

room stands

my mother father grandparents

and me and for a reason i am way too

young to understand

everyone is screaming everyone is upset

jamaican patois is being flown around

the room at a speed that i cannot

comprehend i try to keep up looking left

and right

my head begins to feel like it’s

spinning my heart is pounding my

palms are sweaty i feel weak and tense

all at the same time

their thoughts are echoing in my mind

i close my eyes and by time i can open

it

i’ve ran into the bathroom sitting on

the bathroom floor

next to the cold sink the draft from

underneath the door is

brushing against my bare feet and tears

are running down in my nightgown

and my hands are over my ears and all i

remember is myself repeating

and asking myself what did i do wrong

what what could i have possibly done

the funny part is i’m pretty sure it had

nothing to do with me

but that overwhelming feeling

was there and it was in that moment

that my self-silencing behaviors began

in that moment a nine-year-old crying

clearly and distressed girl decided to

be a strong black woman

i’ve never seen any of the woman in my

family cry

no one has ever acted like this before

something must be wrong with me

so that’s what i did as i started to

hear the footsteps of my family coming

towards the bathroom door i quickly

wiped off my tears and dried my eyes and

when the door opened

i put on a show denise are you okay

they asked i replied you guys were just

being too loud i lied

i knew something was off i knew

something was wrong but i never brought

it up again and neither did they

it just got pushed underneath the rug

fast forward i’m in my prime years of

and i just decided to start my self-love

journey

now this was 10 years ago

i thought self-love was what the media

portrayed it to be

fancy robes face mask maybe painting my

nails and toes

i was sitting in my favorite class as a

freshman at the city college of new york

intro to psychology and as i’m taking my

notes and i’m looking up and down at the

board

i looked up for the next slide and at

the top

written in bold big font

it read anxiety

and as my professor began to explain and

share with us the symptoms of this

disorder

i started to feel a pit in my stomach

a hole in my chest i started to sink

inside of my seat

and i felt like everyone was looking at

me he had to have been talking about me

and in that moment i realized all of

three things

one when i ran into that bathroom

at nine years old nine-year-old denise

was having an anxiety attack

actually i have been suffering from

anxiety

this whole time and i never knew it

because i continuously

decided to push it under the rug silence

myself just so that i can hold

that strong black woman trophy

that overwhelming feeling continued to

visit me but i never

addressed it two

i realized that if i experience this at

nine

and i’m now figuring about it now how

many more things have i silenced

and for how long three

i realized that whatever i’ve been doing

on my self-love journey

with these fancy masks and robes isn’t

working

and if i wanted to see real change that

hierarchy of self-love

changing my behavior changing my

feelings changing my thoughts i had to

do the external

i had to leave the external work and do

the internal work

there was a crying young nine-year-old

black child

hidden inside a bathroom for years

trying to tell me something was wrong

but i continuously decided to push her

away so that i can

push through carry on pull it together

it was in that moment that i realized

the gap in between self-love and mental

health

the two seems to be two separate

journeys but they actually are the same

they hold the same weight

each one reflects the other

it was in this moment that i realized

that if i needed to actually heal

i had to do the work and to do the work

meant that maybe it was time

for me to start to look into my emotions

and learn who they are

and i did this through self therapy

what lies in between self love and

mental health is self

therapy and it is in that space that you

begin to form healthy relationships with

your emotions to actually start speaking

to that crying

inner child to learn who

is this anxiety why is she here what

does she need and how can i help her

it was in that moment i realized that

this whole time i have been coping

and not healing

black women could use self-love to help

themself heal

through self-therapy

by studying themselves questioning

themselves and becoming so aware of

themselves that when anxiety comes to

visit they know who she is

they know what she needs they know how

to heal her

i was able to use this method

of self-love to self-therapy to reach

mental health

starting a self-love journey is the

black woman’s pathway

to mental health

and honestly after doing this journey

for all of 10 years

i feel stronger than ever

self-love is healing and there is power

in healing there is strength in healing

and i’m happy i know something today

that i didn’t know before

that the strong black woman is the

healed black woman

if all women started a self-love journey

we could heal generations

thank you

you