March 19, 2025 • 57 mins
Have you ever sat in a doctor’s office filling out forms, just guessing your whole medical history? Same!
This week, Good Moms are joined by community healer, author, friend, and founder of Precious Dreams Foundation, Nicole Russell Wharton! Nicole shares how she found out the hard way that family silence isn’t just frustrating, it can actually be dangerous.
After six surgeries in one year and a diagnosis that should’ve never been a surprise, Nicole started asking questions that her family had never talked about (It’s likely yours hasn't either!) This led her to start asking hard questions, uncovering hidden family histories, and ultimately writing her book, “Breaking Generational Silence: A Guide To Disrupt Unhealthy Family Patterns and Heal Inherited Trauma”
Share this episode with a friend so we’re not all out here putting “I don’t know” on every damn medical form!
What you can expect to hear:
(3:10) Come see Good Moms at Black Effect Podcast Festival!!
(9:30) Why the ‘good woman’ stereotype is outdated
(14:45) Nicole shares how her lung collapse was connected to her menstrual cycle; ultimately leading to her endometriosis diagnosis
(27:30) The importance of asking your family uncomfortable questions and some things to keep in mind while you do it
(34:15) Bad Choice of the Week Segment
(41:20) How Nicole got her dad to finally open up, by showing him death certificates and family records. In her own words…"I had to ask my dad questions with receipts—because Black families don’t just volunteer information."
(49:55) Why generational trauma shows up in our bodies, and how breaking silence is the first step toward healing
(1:02:40) Nicole talks about her infertility struggle and reveals some surprising information with Erica and Milah
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaks to the planning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'll go by the name of Charlamagne of God and
guess what I can't wait to see y'all at the
third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right, We're coming
back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April twenty six at Poeman
Yards and it's hosted by none other than Decisions, Decisions
May Be Be and Weezy. Okay. We got the R
and B Money podcast with taking Jay Valentine. We got
the Women of All Podcasts with Saray Jake Roberts, we
(00:22):
got good Moms, Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be there
with her next sports podcast and the Trap Nerds podcast
with more to be announced. And of course it's bigger
than podcasts. We're bringing the Black Effect Marketplace with black
owned businesses plus the food truck court to keep you
fed while you visit us. All right, listen, you don't
want to miss this. Tapp in and grab your tickets
now at Black Effect dot Com Flash Podcast Festival Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Guess what the good Moms are coming to your city
on April twenty six, We're pulling up at the Black
Effect Podcast Festival.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
That's right, We'll be hitting the stage with other hot
podcasts like R and B, Money Trap Nerds, Naked Sports,
and Sarah Jakes.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And if you've ever been to a Good Mom's Bad
Choices show, you know it gets real, real bad, and
we have some special guests. So I'm so excited to
meet our Atlanta tribe. Make sure you pull up April
twenty six to the Black Effect Podcast Festival and get
your tickets at Black Effect dot com Slash Podcast Festival.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
See you there.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Once upon a time there was a good old traditional housewife.
She cooked, she cleaned, cared for her children and the
man of the house, and of course she didn't talk back.
She was both obedient and soft by nature. She was
a good woman who always made good choices.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
That shit off.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
We're Good Mom's Bad Choices too, single mom who said
fuck the patriarchy, shared all their bad choices and sound
out they were so bad after all, we're expert oversharers
and your new bestie.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Sit back and near the ride.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I can do a mom. Welcome back to Good Mom's
Bad Choices. I'm Erica and I'm Nila.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Happy Monday, It's Wednesday, Beaches, It's margin.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
It's all about the women. This month. It's all about
the woman all the time, all.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
The time, three six, five, twelve months a year, every season,
every day. And do you know why it's always about
us because we made all this shit, because we birth
you bitches and you sons, everybody everything. Let them know, honey,
everybody came from a woman. Unless you're a unicorn. That's different.
I mean, not unicorn corn. What's the fish a sea horse?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
You know?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
The fiar set be the boys be having babies.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
It's baby having babies.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Uh? Why I keep on calling a unicorn horse? Sea
horses are.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Unisex sea horses.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
The men birth, they can carry in birth the babies.
I don't have all my schooling, all the millions of
dollars and years are spent in school. That's what I
took with me. Sea horses, the male can have babies.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Interesting, some strong fishes.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Are those of Is it a fish a sea horse?
Speaker 5 (02:59):
A fish?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
I think it's a fish. Somebody looking up.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
It has to be.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
It lives underwater.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Sure, how are you? I'm great?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I'm great too. Uh yeah, I feel good. It's March. Yeah,
everything's good. Prepping to go to Jamaica. I'm very excited
about that. I'm getting very excited about tapping into my
Jamaican roots. I don't be surprised if I get to
Jamaica and get an accent. I don't want you to
say shit. I just want to tell you right now,
(03:33):
yeah man, don't. I can't guarantee that I'm telling you
right now. I'm telling you right now to shut your
fucking mouth. I'm tapping into my roots on Shockley side,
and I don't want anybody to say ship when I
start talking with accent. Not you either, Land.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
I think you just start practicing now. Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
The other day, I was on the phone with uh
shout out to Francine, who's been helping us a part
of our tribe in Jamaica, and she was can be
like yeah man, and I will I hung up. I
was like yeah man, and Orlando looked at me and
was like, what did you just say? Shut the fuck up.
You know I'm Jamaican on my daddy's side, tapping into
my roots.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Okay, okay, you know what a friend says.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Okay that open mouth?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Okay, okay, Well that's time blood, you know in advance.
I don't want to hear one open mouth. Okay, Okay, like, yeah, man, y'aman, Yeah,
I'm excited too.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I'm excited because I think my daughter is gonna come
at the end. I conceived Iri in Jamaica, hence her
name being Iri, so I'm excited to hang out with
her after the group leaves too. And I was like,
talking to my friend, she was like, so you told
your daughter that you conceived her in Jamaica, so now
she knows that you were fucking there. And then she
was made you think your daughter really gives a fuck
(04:50):
about that and needs to know that.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I don't think they know what conceived means.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I think well, after my Love is Blind sex talk
with Iri where I revealed the birds in the bees
via Love is Blind, I think she might know what
conceived means.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
You know what this brings us to today's guest. This
is all about silence and honesty. And this is coming
from two moms that probably say too much, but you know,
fuck it, the truth is better than a lie. And
I you know, I was the type of child I
was raised kind of honest to default, and I think
it was it was good for me. But sometimes I
(05:24):
tell Luna shit and I'm like, should I have said that?
And so today we welcome our very good friend, author extraordinaire, wife.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Founder of the Precious Dreams Foundation.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And our second time on our show, and of course
our friend Nicole Russell, Oh the Wharton's new Hedy.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
You were just a col Russell the first time.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Okay, well, Nicole for me was n Y because like
I knew. I met Nicole when I was seventh seventeen
living in New York my first year of college. Nicole
was my end to all the clubs. We would go
to the clubs underage. She was the plug. I don't
know how she became the c the plug, but back
then you were n Y c L E. And I
still have you in my phone as bad.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Wait is that is that not your you spell your name?
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Oh it's not. I always was like, why is.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Nicole splawn it with Y? But I always knew how
to differentiate because it was ny.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Because I was in the city, she was that we
were outside girl falling off tables and ship.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Nicole with a Y because I'm in the city, bitch. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I literally didn't know that her name wasn't spelled with
a Y until maybe like.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Six years ago.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
It's still on my phone with the Y so' seray,
I love it.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Do you know where to find me?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I remember one day you changed your Instagram name and
I was like, wait what, I got real professional?
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Yeah, I can't even I know, I wasn't the only
one confused.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I can't even imagine in the streets, Nicole, because you've
always been kind of like professional, Like you've always had
your shit together.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Even when I was in the streets, I was making money. Like,
so I was like, Erica, come out, but I'm getting
paid because you'll be there, because I need this many
people at my team, not.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
The underage the underage bitch getting underage dollars for promoting
the club.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was a good
stare Rio stair yo oh wild.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Shout out to anyone in New York who remembers the
days of stereo and those are the times.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I'm just, I'm just I think it's so beautiful. It's
such a blessing to see like your friends expand and grow.
We're just talking about all these different boyfriends and faces,
and like also to get to know friends through other friends,
because I would never known Nicole was for Erica and like,
because you moved to New York, when you were seventeen.
So it's such a beautiful like transfer of friendships and
like expansion of clicks. You know, sometimes you're like because
(07:29):
I've called Nicole when I always with you, like, hey, Giryl,
what you doing, I'm coming over? Yeah, So I always
think that, like it's beautiful to find friends through other friends,
and it's also like it's kind of like built in,
Like I only got to go through a lot of
a lot of he ha ha, a lot of small talk.
If you like her, I like you.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, we've done so much growing together. So podcast has
done so much growing since my first time on it.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Nicole was one of our first podcast guests, like early
on first year, my one Mike sharing one mic in
my dining room. I think the episode was Healing your
Inner Child and we're talking.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
About your book.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Then iPhone with an iPhone, yes, now iPhone five, maybe three.
I don't even know, girl, but we made it work somehow,
some way, And I'm so incredibly proud of you and
all that you've been able to accomplish from from stereo
till now being a mom, being an author, like creating
so many like beautiful opportunities for like inner City youth
(08:30):
and just people in foster care. If you don't know
anything about the Precious Dreams Foundation, please please go check
out the Precious Dreams Foundation.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
The work you do there is so important, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah. I was just telling the ladies off camera that
we have to create some type of group where we
can get the good moms together and even just do.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Stuff with Precious Dreams.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I mean, like the kids that we're working with, a
lot of them do not have parents, they don't know
their moms, So like we need to get together and
have your tribes come out and volunteer. I would love
to bring some love and good energy to our kiddos,
so we would love it.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
We would love it.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I have big Mama Bear energy. I want to love
on everybody that like you're sad, come here, let me
give you a hug. Such a cancer so that as
that resonates with me.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yeah, sopeak of Mama Bear.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
We have a segment on our show called Bad Choice
of the Week, shout out to our Facebook group. If
you're not part of our Facebook group, make sure you
go check us out on Facebook Good Mom's Bad Choices.
It's a private page, so you have to be approved. No, no,
weird non mom men. Weirdos are allowed to make sure
you go check that out. But we have a chat
on there called bad Choices of the Week where people
(09:35):
are sharing our bad choices weekly. But since we have
you here, I would love to know what is your
bad choice of the week?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Bad mom not a bad mom.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
But a bad mom so good I'm living.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I wouldn't call it a bad choice, but I know
many moms who are judgmental would. So I'm an eight
month year old at home named Cash and the whole
sleep training thing is just not working for meat or him,
and I am okay with getting him out of his
crib and taking him to be with me and be
(10:16):
in the bed with me and sleep with me whenever
he needs it or wants it, and that might not
always be what his dad wants, and I'm okay with that.
So this week we literally cried together, like I was like, Okay,
you don't want to go to sleep, fine, And I
was like, well, We're just going to cry together and
go to bed, And so I took him to bed
with me and that's just what we did. And his
dad was not happy about it, but he loves me still.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Okay, he's gonna love you.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We're gonna get through it, and he just might be
in the bed with us for a little bit and
that's okay.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Oh it's a small window anyway. I mean, I know
a lot of moms are like really hardcore, but I
think you're right. I think it's trauma to just leave
your baby in there and shut the door. I tried.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I try to do it and did it worked? No,
because I could take it. It was horrible, like, and
my daughter is stubborn. She was she was gonna cry
for hours and hours. And then I remember one time
I let it go for like forty minutes and then
I went in there and she'd thrown up everywhere.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
It's just fucking traumatic.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
She threw up.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, And I was like, this doesn't feel like good
parenting yea to me. And I'm not saying len, I
shout out to the moms who you know, they've figured
it out and it's worked for them. But like, I
just think that not every kid is the same, Not
every kid is going to respond to that type of
I guess like behavioral adjustments.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And I don't know. I yes, that just wasn't what
IRON needed. There's levels to independency. And I just don't
think all newborns and babies are ready for it. Some
might be like, oh they're not coming, okay, well I'll
go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
But God bless them.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Oh no, mine was. Irine was holding out. She was like, okay,
watch I'm awake.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I was like, oh hell no, Yeah, who coined sleep training?
What it really is is when mom said it, fuck
this shit o'clock. She was like, and then I'm gonna
call it sleep training and I'm gonna tell the other moms,
but it's really called.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Child sleep training is generational trauma. Somebody left me by
myself and made me cry myself to sleep, and you
gonna do Sue.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
They're gonna figure it out. Which brings us to your book. Yes,
your your book that you're releasing your new baby into
the world, breaking generational silence.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I posted this book on Instagram, and just the title alone,
I got so many people damn me, like I need
that book.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
They didn't even know what it is.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The title alone was enough for people to be like,
I don't know what it is, but I need it.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
So I'm just so excited for it.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
To learn about the journey to writing this book, Can
you tell us, like, Yeah, what was the inspiration behind
writing it? So breaking generational silence? I, as you guys know,
I do a lot of healing work with young people
and teaching children at foster care and homeless shelters how
to co how to self sue, teaching them ways to
(13:02):
sustain healthy habits and make good decisions. And as a
master in this whole field of like here's how to
get by when you have a bad day.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I learned.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
When I had a very challenging health year in twenty
twenty two that as much as I know what my
mental health needs are, I don't understand what my physical
health needs are. And it was because of two things.
A lack of understanding what was in my DNA and
what I was carrying, and a lack of conversation within
(13:35):
my family, a lack of understanding the reasons why my
elders had passed away. There were so many people that
I thought they died in their sleep, and that was
the final that's all I knew. That person died in
their sleep. I didn't know if there was any health
complications or challenges leading up to that, or that person
used to have heart issues. But what type of heart issues,
(13:57):
what were they diagnose with, what surgeries did they have?
We just were not sitting around the table talking about
health and preventative measures and things that I should be
testing for.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
And so.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I found myself having six surgeries in one year and
battling to understand what was going on with me and
looking for a diagnosis, and then after I received one,
I learned that there were other women in my family
struggling with the same things, with the same symptoms, and
what I was carrying is something that I was probably
(14:32):
born with, and I could have prevented everything that happened
in twenty twenty two if those conversations were had so
that I could understand what was going on with my body.
So it was inspired from a very frustrating place, but
also this desire that I had to start documenting what
(14:53):
I was dealing with so that future generations would not
have to And I just thought about my niece, and
I thought about all the women that would come after
me who might experience some of these things, and I
wanted them to have something. Initially it was a journal.
I wanted them to have something that they could look
to and say, oh, well, my aunt or my Grandma,
you know, experienced this and this is what she was
(15:15):
told and these were the practices, the holistic practices, the
things she ate, the things she did, and how she
breathed through it, and this is what worked for her,
And let me try some of these things. I just
literally wanted to document this experience of trying to heal
from these health health challenges. And as I was documenting
all of this, I was like, other people need to
(15:36):
be doing this work.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Like asking the questions of their family.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, every time we go to the doctor, they asked,
does this run in your family?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I got to go text somebody like, hey, are you
to be making sit up? I literally have to text
my parents every fucking time. And I'm like, I don't
know shit, yeah, And it's such a like it's such
a like the tip of the iceberg of if you
don't know the physical medical things, what the fuck else
don't you know? And I think in black families, especially,
(16:06):
like there's not a lot of conversations about real shit, yeah,
or shit that nobody wants to talk about, and like
it just happens. People die and then that's it. And
then you're like, oh, yeah, uncle, Barry, Dad, Like but.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
How yeah, and what were those hard issues or what
was the how did he get the cancer and how
did he respond to it? Just we don't sit around
and talk about these things. It's just like inevitable. Death
is inevitable, and this person died from this, and we're
just going to move on.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
But we could all live longer.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Lives if we look back at our elders and our
ancestors and see what they faced and what they carried
which we're now carrying in our DNA, and do the
work on ourselves so that we could have better outcomes.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Can you share what it was that you What was
the medical.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So my lung collapsed and I had no idea. I
thought I had COVID. I was like, is this what
COVID is? It's like hard to breathe, my chest is hurting. Erico,
you were actually at my house.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
And you're picking up from the airport and you're like,
I'm not feeling good. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not that breathing.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Picking of her from the airport.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It felt like I had been underwater and like there
was water trapped and I just knew something was wrong,
but I didn't know what. And I was hoping each
day would get better. I went to the hospital and
they checked my heart and then they did an X ray,
and the doctor rushed in the room and was like,
(17:34):
you have a lung collapse and we need to cut
through your chest and put a chest tube in right
now to save your lung. And I'm like okay, and
he's like, what are you confused about? People die from this,
and I'm like, so my mind might die.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Okay, I guess that was zero to one hundred really quick.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Yes, I have so.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I have no idea what is happening. I have no
idea why or how my lung would collapse in the
first place. And so my first experience with a chest
tube was so traumatic. I was treated so poorly. I
don't know if it was because of the color of
my skin, or because I am a woman, or because
the physicians and the people who were working on my
(18:15):
body were uneducated. So I was not giving any type
of painkillers, any numbers. They literally cut me with a
knife and stuck a chest too in between my ribs.
It was the most and I've had a child. It
was the most painful experience of my life.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
They didn't put you under no, oh, my Are you
kidding me?
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And I literally tried to fight, Like there was at
one point when they like jabbed the chest tube in me.
I remember like like trying to grab the nurse and
they held me back and were like, you have to
let us.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It was because of just the timing. It was just
it had to be happening so quickly. They didn't have
time to put you under, Like what the hell?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
There could have been a lot of reasons. I have reasons.
I think I was treated the way that I was.
But twenty eight days later, after having the first lung collapse,
my lung collapsed again. I went to a different hospital
so I can get better treatment. And the first question
the doctor asked was are you on your period? And
(19:16):
I was like, yeah, actually I got my period yesterday.
And he was like, the last time your lung collapsed,
were you on your period? And I was like, yeah,
it had just started the day before.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
You wouldn't even think these two things are so far
anything to do with each other.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And he was like, I'm going to bring in a specialist.
He's like, we're obviously gonna, you know, have to put
in a chest tube and do the whole procedure. He's like,
don't worry, it won't be painful. We'll numb the area.
We'll give you pain medicine will make you feel comfortable.
But we're going to bring in a specialist just so
they can take a look and see what's going on.
And an endometriosis specialist came to the hospital and told
(19:52):
me that what they see is endometriosis. It was something
I had never heard of in my entire life, but
apparently endometriosis is a disease, a chronic disease that can
spread through the body, and mine had spread to my
lungs and it was attacking my lungs with every menstrual period.
And so that is how I came to find out
(20:13):
that I had endometriosis.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Can you can you explain what endometriosis is?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yes, So it's when tissue similar to the tissue in
your uterus, starts to form outside of the uterus, and
so when you have your period, typically the blood would
come out for this type of tissue. With endometriosis, the
blood is trapped because it's outside of the uterus, so
it starts to just spread and it attaches to different
(20:39):
organs on the body, and it causes damage, It causes scarring,
it causes all types of issues. Mine unfortunately had spread
to multiple organs, but was able to somehow get up
into my lung cavity and cause the collapse. Endometriosis is
(21:01):
something that affects ten percent of women and girls. So
if you are a young girl who is fourteen years
old and you have your mental period, you can have endometriosis.
It's something that runs in the family.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
And these are obviously like you've had this probably your
whole life, and I had no symptoms or no or what.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Are the symptoms that they had? Symptoms like life.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So when you have endometriosis, a lot of times you
deal with difficult mental periods, severe pain, long periods sometimes
that's seven days or more, extremely heavy bleeding. And I
have so many family members who have this, have these symptoms,
but they think it's normal, or even after I got
(21:43):
my diagnosis, they're like, oh, I know, I don't have endometriosis,
but I'm like, but you're changing your path every hour.
You don't think that's abnormal. So there's you know, during
your mentrual period, there are signs there, painful sex, that's
something that I didn't start to experience until my third
and I was gas lit when I told my gynecologists,
(22:03):
she was like, are you sure it's not mental? You
sure you know you're not dealing with difficulties with sex
because of some past trauma. And I'm like, I've been
having sex my whole life. Fine, So why would this
just suddenly it happen out of nowhere. It could be
back pain, it could be shoulder pain. Shoulder pain is
something I dealt with in my twenties and I didn't
(22:25):
know why. I thought it was because I was always
carrying heavy stuff. So there were so I had all
of the symptoms of endometriosis, but none of my gynecologists
caught it.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And now with this information, did you find out that
there's other people in your family who also have this
or have had this condition?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Which is very frustrating to be someone who had to
pick up the phone and ask other people like what
are your periods? Like have you ever been checked for endometriosis?
And finding out that on both sides of my family
there are women with endometriosis. It's so common, it's so common,
and a lot of people have it but don't get checked.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
For it, we would say that's probably more than ten percent. Yes,
because I feel like so many women and like I hear,
I've heard so many women with these symptoms in general,
and it's it's women. I don't want to make it
a race thing, but there is a racial thing here.
Whereas Black women, we're so used to dealing with pain and.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
We gaslight ourselves.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
We're so used to dealing with pain, and that goes
back to slavery, is just dealing and numbing ourselves. And
then we're gas lit when we express our pain and
we're like, oh, it's not that big of a deal,
or maybe or maybe it's that it's anything but what
it could possibly be by just deeper, taking a deeper dive,
a deeper look into whatever it is. Yeah, And I
just think about so many women probably listening to this
(23:44):
right now that are like.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
It sounds like me, yeah, or thinking my periods are bad,
but oh, they're not that bad. Like I don't think
I'm not experiencing all of those symptoms until you're in.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
The one day with a collapsed look.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, So one person of women with ENDO will have
the racic endo and that's the type that I have Unfortunately,
if this is something that I caught sooner, I could
have done different procedures. There's no excision surgery where you
can have it removed.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
There's just different.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
There's preventive like what if you know early, if you
catch it, and you can kind of do preventive measures.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
So yeah, this point, yeah, but I mean I would
be on the floor crawling and pain on the first
day of my period.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
I would call out of work.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I was taking as many pain pills as I possibly
could to get through that first day. And I thought
that was normal. I was like, some women just have
bad periods. But one other symptom of ENEMYTROS is this infertility.
And there were times where I said to myself, Wow,
I got away with that one, Like how did I
(24:47):
not get pregnant? Just like many women, I've made mistakes, oh.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Right, thinking that you just like, oh, I'm just And I.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Was like, wow, I got lucky. And then I found
the person that I wanted to be with and I
wanted to spend my life with who's now my husband.
And I was like, wait a minute, are we going
to be able to have children? Am I able to
have children? Like just looking back, it's so weird that
some of my other friends got pregnant so easily and
(25:16):
all of these things happened and I've never been in
their shoes. And so after learning about endometriosis, my doctor
had to sit with me and she's like, if you
want children, I can help you. There are ways that
you can still conceive and have endometriosis. So don't think
that this is the end and you have to have
(25:37):
a hysterectomy and like life is over.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
It does not have to be God.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
For that doctor, because I'm sure there's other doctors that
would have advised differently. Yeah, oh there are there at
are ready to just take take it out.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Oh yeah, that's the.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Whole thing of the hysterectomy is just with no effort,
just taking women to uteruses, especially black women.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, so that was something that I prayed on. I
was afraid. I didn't know what the outcomes would be.
I literally had to talk to my husband and say
we might not be able to have children, and I
need to know that you're still gonna love me and
want to be with me even if I can't do that,
And he was like, I stuck with by your side
through all these surgeries.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I'm gonna be here right.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
So, yeah, it's been a journey, and this book kind
of documents that full journey, but also just getting to
the root of it's bigger than health, Like there are
so many issues that I've had to deal with, things
I've had to unlearn, reasons why my healing has been
(26:38):
challenging as an adult because of childhood trauma, but also
because of epigenetics and because of things that I don't
understand about my mother or my grandmother or the women
who have come up before me and what they carried,
not just health, but like you know, their finances, just
thinking about like limited dreams and aspirations, what they we're shown,
(27:00):
what we've been taught since the beginning of time in
this country is as black people, any oppressed people, like
what we are taught about ourselves.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Or not taught or not spoken about.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It exactly, and why we handle things the way that
we do. And so silence is the consistent factor in
this book with every different topic, because it all stems
from us suppressing our stories, our emotions and all of
the things that we.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Were told.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Needed to be kept to ourselves. We needed to just
move on, We needed to just deal with it, and
that's not that's not actually how we heal or help
future generations have better outcomes.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
When you think about it, like on a metaphysical level,
you know, I'm a firm believer of like trauma that's
held in your body, it becomes physical if it's not treated,
you know, like emotional illness, and like you know, it
eventually will manifest physically. But then you think about something
like a secret, you know, and like something like in
(28:07):
demetriosis that essentially spreads. It's like it's if you're something
is ignored or suppressed or a truth is kept from you,
then it gets bigger and bigger and more problematic. And
I think we, uh, this isn't like this is a
really good way of having a like a visual, a
physical visual of what that looks like. Like you know,
we think like, oh, hushah, don't top up Auntie so
(28:29):
and so or Daddy so and so, don't say this,
don't mention this because it's not favorable even though it's
the truth. But then what happens when over generations and
generations and generations and generations, those truths are suppressed. We
are dealing in things that we have no fucking idea
we're dealing in, and like we're showing up in a
way that we don't even know where we're showing up
that way, and like just to even know the stories,
(28:51):
know the truth, It's like it kind of is like
a representation of how shit spreads and becomes such a massive,
big something collapses essentially because you weren't told, You didn't
even have preventive measures. You couldn't if you don't know
something exists or something happened in your family, how do
you go about healing that thing? So like that is
like this is one example of that, but I'm sure
(29:12):
this is there's other ailments and physical things that manifest
in families all the time because we're not talking to
each other or we're not in tune with our bodies
enough to identify and then get the help to tell
our children. So it's just like and you don't or
you don't know, you don't even know great Grandma to
even fucking ask, and you know, and like your mom
didn't tell you.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, And I think as children we are told not
to ask too many questions and to stay in a
child's place, And so when we become adults, we forget
to go back to those questions that we have that
we wanted to Now, can I ask when we were seven?
Speaker 5 (29:47):
Any airmark that right?
Speaker 7 (29:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:50):
And I'm eighteen ask this question? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
And So as I was writing this book, I started
to ask my mother about her tears. I wanted to
know what were some of the few she had when
I was in her womb and she was carrying you know,
what were her insecurities and what were her biggest challenges
when I was a baby, and who supported her and
what lack of support and resources did she have? Just
(30:13):
questions that we would have never had when.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
They're in the room. When you gave birds, did you
have was your labor? It was your label easeful, labor, easeful?
What place where you're in because all of that matters
where you're conceived, and people are always like, what the
fuck you're talking about? Like no, like energetically, like realistically, cellularly,
if you're in your mom's womb and she's going through shit,
you're already carried.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, How because this journey really started from the place
of extreme pain, discomfort. How how did your family and
your mother receive all of these questions because they've been
locked up because there it hasn't been discussed because it's
almost been normalized, and the silence is kind of just like, yeah,
(30:55):
a normal, normal experience in your family, Like, was your
mom open to like answering all of these questions and
then even just like, I'm sure you've gone down the
path of now not just stopping with your mom, your
father and other people and your family.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, So I had to take very different approaches with
both of my parents. My mother is someone that I
can have uncomfortable conversations with.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
My father is not.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
He's a silent one. From my mother, going through this
experience was very freeing.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
She probably like was not waiting, but like didn't even
know she needed to be asked these questions.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
She was so grateful that I was asking these questions
that she would hang up the phone with me and
then call. She was finding that there were things she
couldn't answer because she didn't know the answers, and so
she would call other people in her family to try
to find the answer. She learned so much about herself,
and she learned about her parents, even my grandmother who's deceased.
(31:52):
She learned so much just from this journey of us talking.
My mother went her whole life and didn't know her
father's real name because she had never questioned anything until
I started questioning everything, and yeah, yeah, no, so what's
his real name? I never thought to ask, you know.
I said to my mom, do you think one of
(32:12):
your parents struggled with any mental illness or were they
diagnosed at any point? And she's like, oh, I would
never ask my parents that. I mean, I saw signs
and symptoms, but I would never.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Ask because he's just respectful. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So from my mother, it was extremely healing. And it's
still challenging accepting the truth because not everybody is ready
for it. Some people are okay with the stories they've
been told and what they don't know. And from my father,
I found that I needed to approach him differently. I
(32:49):
couldn't just walk in the door with some open ended questions.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, Like, I feel like that that dynamic is probably
more so what people face. So I am curious how
what were the questions or how did you lead up
to that, because there's a lot of people I'm sure
listening that are like, I don't even know where to
how I would even begin to frame a question like that.
That's deeply personal. Yeah, perhaps even triggering.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So I think the one thing that I learned immediately
is that my parents don't know a lot about themselves
and about their parents and where they come from. And
so for my father, I saw this as an opportunity
to educate him and teach him things about the family.
And so I would call him. I was pulling up
death certificates. I was like doing DNA testing, and I
(33:36):
would call him and say, hey, Dad, did you know
that your grandmother had nine kids?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
And he's like, no, she didn't.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
I'm like, yes she did, and I'm reading off the
names and he's like whooo yes. And so it started
with me just sharing information and that just kind of
opened up the door of him responding to things like oh,
well I was told this.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
And so you know, we would had to come out
the fact had the receipts.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, I had to lay out the papers on the
table printed.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Like, no, this is real, right yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
So for him, he started to see the benefit in
having conversations because he was able to learn some things
about himself. And so for me, I was teaching, but
I also had to be really gentle. I had to
gently challenge both of them. And that's what therapists do
really well, right They gently challenge you with open ended
questions to help you get unstuck. And that's why you
(34:31):
pay big money for therapists. And so I gave myself
this role of being that person in my family. Did
you feel like I had to step outside of being
nicole and like get into a different role to do
that because I feel like being gentle with I feel
like asking questions in a gentle way to people that
you've known all your life or that you have all
these other like I don't know just you have history
(34:53):
with can feel a little bit different than like, Okay,
I'm not your I'm not your daughter in this moment,
I'm actually like your therapist in per se. Yeah, you
have to put on like another hat to do that,
or no, I think it's really thinking about what you need, right,
Like you think about like what you need from a
therapist or what you need from a girlfriend, from a sister.
(35:14):
You want someone to create a safe space for you
in order for you to be vulnerable, and you have
to do the same thing when you're having these conversations
with family. You have to put your emotions to the side.
You cannot go in with your feelings on the table
of how you feel about the decisions that you made.
You have to be able to ask the wise to
(35:35):
understand the behavior and be okay with whatever those responses
are and not take it personal. And so I really
wanted to figure out how to create space. It was
a challenge that I had put on myself, like how
do I create space for my dad where he can
feel okay speaking for the first time to someone about
(35:56):
how it felt to have a father that was murdered
when he was a child become a father that didn't
have the tools and figure it out, you know, like
questions that no one had ever asked him. I wanted
to ask that I knew they were things that he
had thought about. And so, yeah, that was one of
the most challenging things and trying to figure it out.
(36:16):
But I think learning people's preferred communication style is the
most important thing when you are having these conversations with family,
because some people will open up to you more through
text or an email or a letter than they will
face to face. And so I would ask my mom, Hey,
(36:39):
are you comfortable with us getting on a call or
would you rather like FaceTime or text like what do
you want and she's like, oh, you could just call me,
And my dad's like, well text me what you need.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Yeah, let me read it out loud, right, yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
Let me mentally prepare.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
So yeah, it was getting comfortable with other people's preferred
communication styles, because if you want to break through, you
have to meet them where they are, and.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Also probably understanding and accepting like with this experience, this
traumatic experience that you went through in this like physical
you know, at thirty five, you think you know you
know everything about yourself, especially medically. That's so it's so
you have to deal with yourself gently. So then when
you go talk to your parents, you can only imagine
how confusing it is for them to be like the
(37:26):
person I birth is coming to me with things that
I don't have the answers to, you know, and like
going about it in a gentle way, and like being
compassionate because it's it's like, yeah, like damn, I didn't
know this about my dad. Damn I didn't know this.
I actually had a reading recently from god Iss Jesse
because we're in this queen healing program and it's all
about like lineage and your ancestry and something came up
(37:48):
for me. It was like, do you have like a
relative like that just showed up back in your life?
And I was like no, and she I was like, actually,
before my grandmother died, like maybe a year or two
before she if, she mentioned like a fourth child that
she had given up for adoption. And I was like,
what the fuck are you talking about? And she's like yeah,
I try to look for her, but I couldn't find her.
(38:09):
And everybody seemed to know, like my parents were like
oh yeah, But like I was just like, what are
you talking about? And she had told me like back
when you're in a certain which is just as my grandmother,
so it's not like my great girt grandmother. She was
pregnant young, like a teenager. They pulled out of school
and this is what they did to teenage girls who
got pregnant at the time, because abortion was not an option.
She stayed in the house with other teenage girls who
(38:30):
were pregnant, and she was like, yeah until they had
had the baby, and then they gave the baby away
from adoption and then they'd take them back to school.
But she expressed to me that she was the one
responsible for cleaning up the labor and delivery room after
each girl gave birth, and I was like, did you
get therapy? And she was like no, and I was
(38:51):
just like looking at her. She was looking at me,
and I was like, that's crazy. And this reading she
was like asking me if there's a like a relative
that I didn't know that came back. And then that
she also is like there's something with you in birth,
and I was like, well, then I told her this story,
you know, and it's like, these are things that you
wouldn't even think that consider that resonate to you personally,
(39:12):
are on a cellular level. But that's some rough shit
to even have to experience, as you know, as a human,
like as a woman, you know, and then you're cleaning up,
you're scared, you're teenager, you have to give birth, you
have to be rid of your baby, especially for Black
women who if there's such deep history with having to
separate from your child. And I've always had like a
very deep connection with birth and like labor, I love it,
(39:33):
oddly enough, but just having these conversations it just like
it was so you know, like having the conversation with
somebody else put like a lot of light on things
that I hadn't acknowledged that live inside of me too,
and like yeah, asking my mom, like where were you?
Like my mom gave birth alone because she gave birth
in Alabama, it was super racist, and because my parents
(39:54):
weren't married, they made my dad sit in the waiting room.
And she's like twenty one years old in CA giving
birth with a bunch of people she doesn't know, And
like I just can't even imagine, but like this lives
in me because I was there, but just not in
this realm yet and so you know, and just even
having regrets about like my grandmother being here and not
(40:14):
having these conversations and having a microphone, having a computer,
I could have just been like, hey, what's up, you know,
and like just just assuming they're always going to be there,
assuming you're going to get the answers, But then you
start looking and maybe you don't have access to the answers,
maybe your mom or your dad doesn't know, and just
like taking the time to have the conversations now and
(40:38):
remembering like you're not a child and you're allowed to ask,
you know, even if it's uncomfortable for you and uncomfortable
for other people, but just understanding like you don't always
have all the time.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, it's one of the biggest things that we that
we resent during grief. It's the hardest challenge with grief.
It's the words that were left unsaid and the questions
that weren't asked. And we get so hard on ourselves
about not being able to have just one more conversation
(41:12):
with someone. And it's like, I'm looking at you right now,
and I'm like, but this is such a teaching moment
for your daughter of showing her, you know, how to
take advantage of you while you're here and your mother
while she's here, and how you guys can sit around
and talk about all of the things that you can
share with her, everything that you do, know, all of
(41:33):
the pieces that you have been able to put down
to put the puzzle together.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
I feel like I'm going to cry now too, because
because this is something too that I know I've mentioned
I was supposed to interview my grandmother January of this
last year, and I haven't, And I think part of
it I keep putting it off too, because it's like
you want to know, but then there's like there's a curiosity,
but then there's like a resistance, and there's like this
(42:01):
weird resistance and fear of even knowing what could potentially
be stored inside of inside of you that you don't
even know is stored. And like you said, like a
lot of people, are you are okay with just living
with the stories that they've been told and not diving
deeper into the past. I know that my even my
own grandmother has a very like a similar story about
pregnancy and hiding it and getting sent away and giving
(42:24):
her baby up for adoption. And she refuses to even
talk about this, Like she told my mom, when when
your grandfather dies, I'll tell you he's dead. We're still
refuses to talk about it. So it's like, how that
stores in your body? How that then stored in my
mom's body? How that then stores in my body? Yeah,
and so on and so on and so on and
so and.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
Like how popular was this story that this is happening
everybody's grandma? Apparently?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, But I mean, even look at you two and
where you are right now. A lot of times people
say you are your ancestors wildest dreams. And when we're
trying to find our purpose, sometimes it's looking back at
the stories of our ancestors, and like just hearing this
story that of what your mother had to deal with,
and now seeing that you advocate for moms, that you've
(43:06):
created this space and you just said that there's something
about birth that you love, that you want to see
the beauty and the joy and the experience, and like
that didn't just start with you.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
It's all of.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
The things that the women before you wish they could
have done and how they wish they could have shown
up in the world. And so there's just so much
gratitude I think that we need to hold space for
on a daily basis of looking back, all of those
sacrifices that those women made and the mistakes that they
made have taken part in who we are as women today,
(43:42):
all of it, all of it. Like we're carrying so
much of it. And it's a beautiful thing when you
look back and now you see they're smiling down on you.
Your grandmother is so proud of you, she really is.
I mean, if I can sit here and say I'm
proud of you, imagine how what do you think is
(44:02):
the biggest lesson or takeaway from writing this book throughout
this process of an earth thing? I'm sure so much
information about your family and your history. I think the
biggest takeaway is that although you can choose silence, the
silence can harm you, and it will at some point.
(44:23):
Everyone is not ready for the truth. But the truth,
as difficult as it is to face, is what helps
you heal, and their healing is a very trendy thing.
We talk about self care, we talk about going to
the spa, but you are not truly healing if you
are not willing to uncover the things and have the
(44:44):
difficult conversations and interview your grandmother. You are becoming complacent
with what you know and you're okay with what you
don't know. And it's not enough if you want to
thrive in this life and be your best self for
yourself and also for your children. They deserve to know
(45:06):
everything that you have been through and everything you have
worked on to be the best version of yourself for them.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
I mean, accept the truth so that you can heal
from it. And like just sitting here with my like
my peers, my friends, and like we all have things
in the world. We all have written documented stories, memoirs
of our deep seated family things that you know, you know,
like you're not supposed to write about you're not supposed
(45:37):
to talk about, and how medicinal that is, you know,
how beautiful it is, and like even going back like
not very far. And you know, in our history, women
aren't even allowed to write, let alone record their stories.
Like there are so many women's stories that we will
never know. They just live inside of us. And so
there's like even for us, I think, and I know
(45:58):
for you too, like having a platform and talking brutally honestly,
like we were told not to do that, Like that's crazy.
You don't say certain things like why do you have
to talk about these things? And just for some reason
just knowing like fuck it, I'm going to keep doing it,
Like something about this feels good and necessary for me.
And so like having a having given that gift to
(46:19):
my child of like it's not not inheriting silence, not
keeping secrets for anyone, you know, Like it is such
a huge, tremendous thing. And it's like sometimes we look
at our lives and we think that they're just our
own and it's not. It's so much deeper than that.
Like we're in a very delicate time in history. We're
in a very weird time. It's very strange times, but
(46:41):
we have all been given the gift of our voices.
We've all been given the gift of the pen, We've
all been given the gift of publishing. You know, like it,
it's much deeper when you've been your people have been
silenced or told not to say anything. And even like
when you have family members that may not accept or
be happy about what you put in the book, at
(47:03):
the end of the day, it is the truth and
it is necessary, and even if they don't recognize it
now or ever, it is actually healing them too.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Something I would just add to that is protecting your
words wherever they live, because with the times that we're
living in right now, we have to think about erasure.
We have to think about book bands. And there may
be a time where future generations cannot access your book
or my book if there is a mention of slavery
(47:33):
or what we have been through as African Americans in
this country, those books may not be available at some point.
Good Mom's Bad Choices is available on every platform right now,
that might not be the case in ten twenty years,
you know what I mean. So holding on to recordings,
holding on to books, holding on to your journal, locking
it away somewhere, just making sure that protector generations can
(47:56):
access this information.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
Important.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, it is such a scary time right now, and
it is important, and it is important for the people listening.
Like you can be the catalyst to so much healing,
But you have to unsilence yourself.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
You have to be brave enough to ask the questions.
And what I love.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
About your book, Breaking Generational Silence is that you actually
do pose the questions to ask. So it is in
a lot of ways a guide for people that don't
even know where to start, that don't know what questions
to ask. You have to get this book, you guys,
please get this book and start asking the questions, if
not only just for yourself, but for your family, for
(48:36):
your children, for the future generations, because if you don't,
and it just becomes you just perpetuating the cycle and
not understanding. Why is why do people in my family
always seem to die in their sleep? Why is it
that you know I have inherited depression? What is this depression?
What is the source?
Speaker 5 (48:55):
What are these.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Physical ailments that keep coming up in my body that
I've seen up and my cousins or my grandmother, Like
it's not by chance, like these are these are real
things that can be unearthed by not staying silent.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
What a gift. And I think sometimes people forget, like
what are the questions that I would even ask? But
then you can like get inspired.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
Yea, you have it right here, right here.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
Well I have a final question, so I know, like
we were talking and we're talking about this in the
car about just like I know, this journey really started
because of your endometriosis and asking even your doctor, like
posing this question of whether or not you're gonna have
children or any more children. Obviously now you have an
eight month year old, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (49:41):
You can't have any more babies? Are you gonna bless
us with any more babies?
Speaker 2 (49:46):
You know?
Speaker 1 (49:47):
The hardest part of dealing with health battles is and
now I'm gonna cry, the hardest part of dealing with
health battles is thinking about your future because you can't
imagine it when you're in survival mode. And for so
long I was in survival mode of not being able
(50:07):
to think about the future because I didn't know if
I were to make it through each surgery, and having
my son Cash was such a miracle. It felt like
such a miracle, and I was like, I was meant
to have this baby. And I don't know how many
more years I have here, but I was meant to
have this baby. And God is really good because I'm
(50:30):
pregnant now and we're having another.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Yes, congratulates you. Wonder too. I'm doing it.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Maybe that's a bad decision, but I'm a good mom.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
I'm so excited for you pregnancy announcement.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
We heard it here first, and now you came and
made all the good mom's cry.
Speaker 5 (50:56):
Crying therapy session.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Well, I'm I'm so happy for you, Nicole, and I've
always been inspired by you. You've always been kind of
a mother to so many.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I think in our first episode you said you didn't
want kids.
Speaker 5 (51:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
I think in that first episode you're like, I don't
really want kids. I mother all these other children. And
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
You've been a mother to so many, including Miracle, and
including all the children that you support and also your friend.
I feel like you just have a motherly energy just
in general. When I was in New York, you took
care of me. Yeah, but I didn't know. I'm not
talking about the first time. I'm talking about the second
time when I came back and I was like help,
I needed help, and you're like I got you.
Speaker 5 (51:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Like, and I was telling myself that I didn't want
kids because I wasn't sure if I was capable of
having them, and I was trying to train myself to
believe that I would be okay either way. So now
that I have kids, I can look back and admit
that that I just didn't think I would be able
to have kids.
Speaker 4 (51:54):
And you're not even knowing the diagnosis, just just just
knowing that something was wrong. And also like don't don't
underestimate the innate thing, like even things in childhood, things
that you love, things that you draw to, things that
you know knowingly if something's wrong, like go check it out.
If someone tells you you're fine and you know something's
(52:14):
not fine, go fucking ask somebody else. Like you keep
going until you know because no one knows you like yourself,
and like instinctually, like don't downplay the things that on
a like intuitive level, you know about yourself, Like there
are things like even in this reading again, she was like,
you're part of the fairy people. You have like a
feline spirit. I was like, bitch, I am a cat,
Like I feel this way. I know this is silly,
(52:35):
but there are things that, like whatever you felt in
childhood or whatever you feel deeply in your body, there
are things that that you belong to and that you know.
There's a knowing because your ancestors live inside of you.
You never know your lineage. A lot of us don't
know as black women, as black people, but like trust that,
trust that, and like, don't let anybody tell you shit
(52:56):
about yourself that you know to be true. Yeah, I'll
pick out a card. Nikki, Did I call you that?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
H one?
Speaker 4 (53:18):
It's too masive one?
Speaker 5 (53:25):
Nicole, you've always been kind of a witch. I am.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
Yeah, I remember all of our friends are witches.
Speaker 5 (53:30):
She would she was.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
She's really good at like knowing what sign people are
like immediately when she meets them.
Speaker 6 (53:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
I used to have this thing in my early twenties.
I was bartending, and I would just walk up to
people and tell them their birthday. It was so I
used to just be like January third, if you like, who.
Speaker 6 (53:51):
The are you?
Speaker 4 (53:52):
It's real you'd be knowing.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:55):
Yeah, I had something the other like a couple of
weeks ago, and I was like, I'm thinking of something,
figure it out, and we like it was so on
and it was like only like two guesses and I
was like I knew, like when you talk like telepathically,
we are always exchanging energy, always speaks before words do
and like, don't underestimate that shit. And I think especially
women like we again, we rebirth all this shit. We
(54:16):
are the womb. We are the portal between heaven and
like life. So yes, the Ace of Wands as an ace,
this Wan's card brings you pure potential. This time is
the spiritual, energetic realm. Ideas are flowing to you, motivating
and inspiring you to pursue a new path. You're open
to receiving new opportunities that align with your higher self.
(54:38):
A whole world of possibilities available to you. The Ace
of Wands encourages you to follow your heart and live
in your passion. If you feel a strong pull towards
a new project or path that are questioning whether it
will work, this is the card that gives you gentle
nudge to pursue your passion. You can always start out small,
treating the project or idea as experiment or trial. Then
then if it feels good, keep doing it and if
(55:00):
it doesn't, make a judgments and try again. Let your energy, dedication,
and motivation be your guides. Love it, Listen to your
fucking self.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (55:11):
And also, that new project is brewing inside you know,
tell me too, girl, the project is, the project is
are brewing. How many months are ye? I'm three and
a half months.
Speaker 4 (55:19):
Yay. Oh my god, I'm so excited for you.
Speaker 5 (55:23):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
I am so excited and scared. So all of the
moms who've done two under two please centips.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
I got pretty honey. I don't know nothing about that life, Nicole.
I love you, I love you. Thank you for coming
on our show. You guys, make sure you get Nicole's book,
Breaking Generational Silence, available.
Speaker 5 (55:43):
Everywhere old places, Yes, everywhere. And can you tell people
where they can find you on social Yes? You can
find me at Nicole Russell with an idol.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (55:55):
But if you're looking for me.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
With the way I see what is it Nicole Russell?
What just at Nicole Rust at Nicole Wrestle.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
Maybe you know where to find us, y'all at Good
Mom's Bad Choices. Make sure you go subscribe to our
YouTube channel. Make sure you download this episode, leave us
a review on Apple. Check out The Good Vibe Retreat.
We have a summer retreat coming up July thirty first
and August eighth.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
And postford that. I also have a couple's retreat with
our men's and with the couples, because you know we're
want to be more loving to the world. That's a
tangent retreat called the Good Lover Tree. We're gonna do
so much fun. We have a lot of play, a
lot of tips and tools to deepen your connection with
your pat net. That's in June, So drop those kids
off and compail and pick the mumps a man, and.
Speaker 5 (56:43):
We'll see you next week.
Speaker 7 (56:44):
Ye please? Yeah, I'm living so good.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
Can't you tell?
Speaker 7 (56:49):
I went through it drought. That's until I find a
well maym have been known art? I used to be
broken tail now got the blues hands and might be
Yon say just sell throat shots or pop and it's
car We're in our voices. Patriarchy kept it in the
box to it's for this. Women put the pee in power,
so what's pointless? They want me to be good, so
I make that choice.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
It's bad mom.
Speaker 7 (57:08):
Not a bad mom, but a bad mom. Itters in
on p Cannapus in her bath. Bon walked in Boston's
cap and I.
Speaker 6 (57:14):
Blew his cat balls.
Speaker 7 (57:15):
Hot dog.
Speaker 5 (57:16):
Now I'm immune to the cat calls.
Speaker 4 (57:18):
Her being no waisted straight to it like a dollar sign.
Speaker 7 (57:21):
Mother, rent the lover, when too what It's like a
water summer where you're rent the winter essential will when
the summertime, I do what all ain't no one that
needs to run it by
Speaks to the planning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'll go by the name of Charlamagne of God and
guess what I can't wait to see y'all at the
third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right, We're coming
back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April twenty six at Poeman
Yards and it's hosted by none other than Decisions, Decisions
May Be Be and Weezy. Okay. We got the R
and B Money podcast with taking Jay Valentine. We got
the Women of All Podcasts with Saray Jake Roberts, we
(00:22):
got good Moms, Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be there
with her next sports podcast and the Trap Nerds podcast
with more to be announced. And of course it's bigger
than podcasts. We're bringing the Black Effect Marketplace with black
owned businesses plus the food truck court to keep you
fed while you visit us. All right, listen, you don't
want to miss this. Tapp in and grab your tickets
now at Black Effect dot Com Flash Podcast Festival Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Guess what the good Moms are coming to your city
on April twenty six, We're pulling up at the Black
Effect Podcast Festival.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
That's right, We'll be hitting the stage with other hot
podcasts like R and B, Money Trap Nerds, Naked Sports,
and Sarah Jakes.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And if you've ever been to a Good Mom's Bad
Choices show, you know it gets real, real bad, and
we have some special guests. So I'm so excited to
meet our Atlanta tribe. Make sure you pull up April
twenty six to the Black Effect Podcast Festival and get
your tickets at Black Effect dot com Slash Podcast Festival.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
See you there.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Once upon a time there was a good old traditional housewife.
She cooked, she cleaned, cared for her children and the
man of the house, and of course she didn't talk back.
She was both obedient and soft by nature. She was
a good woman who always made good choices.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
That shit off.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
We're Good Mom's Bad Choices too, single mom who said
fuck the patriarchy, shared all their bad choices and sound
out they were so bad after all, we're expert oversharers
and your new bestie.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Sit back and near the ride.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I can do a mom. Welcome back to Good Mom's
Bad Choices. I'm Erica and I'm Nila.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Happy Monday, It's Wednesday, Beaches, It's margin.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
It's all about the women. This month. It's all about
the woman all the time, all.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
The time, three six, five, twelve months a year, every season,
every day. And do you know why it's always about
us because we made all this shit, because we birth
you bitches and you sons, everybody everything. Let them know, honey,
everybody came from a woman. Unless you're a unicorn. That's different.
I mean, not unicorn corn. What's the fish a sea horse?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
You know?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
The fiar set be the boys be having babies.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
It's baby having babies.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Uh? Why I keep on calling a unicorn horse? Sea
horses are.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Unisex sea horses.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
The men birth, they can carry in birth the babies.
I don't have all my schooling, all the millions of
dollars and years are spent in school. That's what I
took with me. Sea horses, the male can have babies.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Interesting, some strong fishes.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Are those of Is it a fish a sea horse?
Speaker 5 (02:59):
A fish?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
I think it's a fish. Somebody looking up.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
It has to be.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
It lives underwater.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Sure, how are you? I'm great?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I'm great too. Uh yeah, I feel good. It's March. Yeah,
everything's good. Prepping to go to Jamaica. I'm very excited
about that. I'm getting very excited about tapping into my
Jamaican roots. I don't be surprised if I get to
Jamaica and get an accent. I don't want you to
say shit. I just want to tell you right now,
(03:33):
yeah man, don't. I can't guarantee that I'm telling you
right now. I'm telling you right now to shut your
fucking mouth. I'm tapping into my roots on Shockley side,
and I don't want anybody to say ship when I
start talking with accent. Not you either, Land.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
I think you just start practicing now. Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
The other day, I was on the phone with uh
shout out to Francine, who's been helping us a part
of our tribe in Jamaica, and she was can be
like yeah man, and I will I hung up. I
was like yeah man, and Orlando looked at me and
was like, what did you just say? Shut the fuck up.
You know I'm Jamaican on my daddy's side, tapping into
my roots.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Okay, okay, you know what a friend says.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Okay that open mouth?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Okay, okay, Well that's time blood, you know in advance.
I don't want to hear one open mouth. Okay, Okay, like, yeah, man, y'aman, Yeah,
I'm excited too.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I'm excited because I think my daughter is gonna come
at the end. I conceived Iri in Jamaica, hence her
name being Iri, so I'm excited to hang out with
her after the group leaves too. And I was like,
talking to my friend, she was like, so you told
your daughter that you conceived her in Jamaica, so now
she knows that you were fucking there. And then she
was made you think your daughter really gives a fuck
(04:50):
about that and needs to know that.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I don't think they know what conceived means.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I think well, after my Love is Blind sex talk
with Iri where I revealed the birds in the bees
via Love is Blind, I think she might know what
conceived means.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
You know what this brings us to today's guest. This
is all about silence and honesty. And this is coming
from two moms that probably say too much, but you know,
fuck it, the truth is better than a lie. And
I you know, I was the type of child I
was raised kind of honest to default, and I think
it was it was good for me. But sometimes I
(05:24):
tell Luna shit and I'm like, should I have said that?
And so today we welcome our very good friend, author extraordinaire, wife.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Founder of the Precious Dreams Foundation.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And our second time on our show, and of course
our friend Nicole Russell, Oh the Wharton's new Hedy.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
You were just a col Russell the first time.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Okay, well, Nicole for me was n Y because like
I knew. I met Nicole when I was seventh seventeen
living in New York my first year of college. Nicole
was my end to all the clubs. We would go
to the clubs underage. She was the plug. I don't
know how she became the c the plug, but back
then you were n Y c L E. And I
still have you in my phone as bad.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Wait is that is that not your you spell your name?
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Oh it's not. I always was like, why is.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Nicole splawn it with Y? But I always knew how
to differentiate because it was ny.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Because I was in the city, she was that we
were outside girl falling off tables and ship.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Nicole with a Y because I'm in the city, bitch. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I literally didn't know that her name wasn't spelled with
a Y until maybe like.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Six years ago.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
It's still on my phone with the Y so' seray,
I love it.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Do you know where to find me?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I remember one day you changed your Instagram name and
I was like, wait what, I got real professional?
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Yeah, I can't even I know, I wasn't the only
one confused.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I can't even imagine in the streets, Nicole, because you've
always been kind of like professional, Like you've always had
your shit together.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Even when I was in the streets, I was making money. Like,
so I was like, Erica, come out, but I'm getting
paid because you'll be there, because I need this many
people at my team, not.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
The underage the underage bitch getting underage dollars for promoting
the club.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was a good
stare Rio stair yo oh wild.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Shout out to anyone in New York who remembers the
days of stereo and those are the times.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I'm just, I'm just I think it's so beautiful. It's
such a blessing to see like your friends expand and grow.
We're just talking about all these different boyfriends and faces,
and like also to get to know friends through other friends,
because I would never known Nicole was for Erica and like,
because you moved to New York, when you were seventeen.
So it's such a beautiful like transfer of friendships and
like expansion of clicks. You know, sometimes you're like because
(07:29):
I've called Nicole when I always with you, like, hey, Giryl,
what you doing, I'm coming over? Yeah, So I always
think that, like it's beautiful to find friends through other friends,
and it's also like it's kind of like built in,
Like I only got to go through a lot of
a lot of he ha ha, a lot of small talk.
If you like her, I like you.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, we've done so much growing together. So podcast has
done so much growing since my first time on it.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Nicole was one of our first podcast guests, like early
on first year, my one Mike sharing one mic in
my dining room. I think the episode was Healing your
Inner Child and we're talking.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
About your book.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Then iPhone with an iPhone, yes, now iPhone five, maybe three.
I don't even know, girl, but we made it work somehow,
some way, And I'm so incredibly proud of you and
all that you've been able to accomplish from from stereo
till now being a mom, being an author, like creating
so many like beautiful opportunities for like inner City youth
(08:30):
and just people in foster care. If you don't know
anything about the Precious Dreams Foundation, please please go check
out the Precious Dreams Foundation.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
The work you do there is so important, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah. I was just telling the ladies off camera that
we have to create some type of group where we
can get the good moms together and even just do.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Stuff with Precious Dreams.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I mean, like the kids that we're working with, a
lot of them do not have parents, they don't know
their moms, So like we need to get together and
have your tribes come out and volunteer. I would love
to bring some love and good energy to our kiddos,
so we would love it.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
We would love it.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I have big Mama Bear energy. I want to love
on everybody that like you're sad, come here, let me
give you a hug. Such a cancer so that as
that resonates with me.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yeah, sopeak of Mama Bear.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
We have a segment on our show called Bad Choice
of the Week, shout out to our Facebook group. If
you're not part of our Facebook group, make sure you
go check us out on Facebook Good Mom's Bad Choices.
It's a private page, so you have to be approved. No, no,
weird non mom men. Weirdos are allowed to make sure
you go check that out. But we have a chat
on there called bad Choices of the Week where people
(09:35):
are sharing our bad choices weekly. But since we have
you here, I would love to know what is your
bad choice of the week?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Bad mom not a bad mom.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
But a bad mom so good I'm living.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I wouldn't call it a bad choice, but I know
many moms who are judgmental would. So I'm an eight
month year old at home named Cash and the whole
sleep training thing is just not working for meat or him,
and I am okay with getting him out of his
crib and taking him to be with me and be
(10:16):
in the bed with me and sleep with me whenever
he needs it or wants it, and that might not
always be what his dad wants, and I'm okay with that.
So this week we literally cried together, like I was like, Okay,
you don't want to go to sleep, fine, And I
was like, well, We're just going to cry together and
go to bed, And so I took him to bed
with me and that's just what we did. And his
dad was not happy about it, but he loves me still.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Okay, he's gonna love you.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We're gonna get through it, and he just might be
in the bed with us for a little bit and
that's okay.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Oh it's a small window anyway. I mean, I know
a lot of moms are like really hardcore, but I
think you're right. I think it's trauma to just leave
your baby in there and shut the door. I tried.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I try to do it and did it worked? No,
because I could take it. It was horrible, like, and
my daughter is stubborn. She was she was gonna cry
for hours and hours. And then I remember one time
I let it go for like forty minutes and then
I went in there and she'd thrown up everywhere.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
It's just fucking traumatic.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
She threw up.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, And I was like, this doesn't feel like good
parenting yea to me. And I'm not saying len, I
shout out to the moms who you know, they've figured
it out and it's worked for them. But like, I
just think that not every kid is the same, Not
every kid is going to respond to that type of
I guess like behavioral adjustments.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And I don't know. I yes, that just wasn't what
IRON needed. There's levels to independency. And I just don't
think all newborns and babies are ready for it. Some
might be like, oh they're not coming, okay, well I'll
go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
But God bless them.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Oh no, mine was. Irine was holding out. She was like, okay,
watch I'm awake.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I was like, oh hell no, Yeah, who coined sleep training?
What it really is is when mom said it, fuck
this shit o'clock. She was like, and then I'm gonna
call it sleep training and I'm gonna tell the other moms,
but it's really called.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Child sleep training is generational trauma. Somebody left me by
myself and made me cry myself to sleep, and you
gonna do Sue.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
They're gonna figure it out. Which brings us to your book. Yes,
your your book that you're releasing your new baby into
the world, breaking generational silence.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I posted this book on Instagram, and just the title alone,
I got so many people damn me, like I need
that book.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
They didn't even know what it is.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The title alone was enough for people to be like,
I don't know what it is, but I need it.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
So I'm just so excited for it.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
To learn about the journey to writing this book, Can
you tell us, like, Yeah, what was the inspiration behind
writing it? So breaking generational silence? I, as you guys know,
I do a lot of healing work with young people
and teaching children at foster care and homeless shelters how
to co how to self sue, teaching them ways to
(13:02):
sustain healthy habits and make good decisions. And as a
master in this whole field of like here's how to
get by when you have a bad day.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I learned.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
When I had a very challenging health year in twenty
twenty two that as much as I know what my
mental health needs are, I don't understand what my physical
health needs are. And it was because of two things.
A lack of understanding what was in my DNA and
what I was carrying, and a lack of conversation within
(13:35):
my family, a lack of understanding the reasons why my
elders had passed away. There were so many people that
I thought they died in their sleep, and that was
the final that's all I knew. That person died in
their sleep. I didn't know if there was any health
complications or challenges leading up to that, or that person
used to have heart issues. But what type of heart issues,
(13:57):
what were they diagnose with, what surgeries did they have?
We just were not sitting around the table talking about
health and preventative measures and things that I should be
testing for.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
And so.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I found myself having six surgeries in one year and
battling to understand what was going on with me and
looking for a diagnosis, and then after I received one,
I learned that there were other women in my family
struggling with the same things, with the same symptoms, and
what I was carrying is something that I was probably
(14:32):
born with, and I could have prevented everything that happened
in twenty twenty two if those conversations were had so
that I could understand what was going on with my body.
So it was inspired from a very frustrating place, but
also this desire that I had to start documenting what
(14:53):
I was dealing with so that future generations would not
have to And I just thought about my niece, and
I thought about all the women that would come after
me who might experience some of these things, and I
wanted them to have something. Initially it was a journal.
I wanted them to have something that they could look
to and say, oh, well, my aunt or my Grandma,
you know, experienced this and this is what she was
(15:15):
told and these were the practices, the holistic practices, the
things she ate, the things she did, and how she
breathed through it, and this is what worked for her,
And let me try some of these things. I just
literally wanted to document this experience of trying to heal
from these health health challenges. And as I was documenting
all of this, I was like, other people need to
(15:36):
be doing this work.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Like asking the questions of their family.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, every time we go to the doctor, they asked,
does this run in your family?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I got to go text somebody like, hey, are you
to be making sit up? I literally have to text
my parents every fucking time. And I'm like, I don't
know shit, yeah, And it's such a like it's such
a like the tip of the iceberg of if you
don't know the physical medical things, what the fuck else
don't you know? And I think in black families, especially,
(16:06):
like there's not a lot of conversations about real shit, yeah,
or shit that nobody wants to talk about, and like
it just happens. People die and then that's it. And
then you're like, oh, yeah, uncle, Barry, Dad, Like but.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
How yeah, and what were those hard issues or what
was the how did he get the cancer and how
did he respond to it? Just we don't sit around
and talk about these things. It's just like inevitable. Death
is inevitable, and this person died from this, and we're
just going to move on.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
But we could all live longer.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Lives if we look back at our elders and our
ancestors and see what they faced and what they carried
which we're now carrying in our DNA, and do the
work on ourselves so that we could have better outcomes.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Can you share what it was that you What was
the medical.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So my lung collapsed and I had no idea. I
thought I had COVID. I was like, is this what
COVID is? It's like hard to breathe, my chest is hurting. Erico,
you were actually at my house.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
And you're picking up from the airport and you're like,
I'm not feeling good. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not that breathing.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Picking of her from the airport.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It felt like I had been underwater and like there
was water trapped and I just knew something was wrong,
but I didn't know what. And I was hoping each
day would get better. I went to the hospital and
they checked my heart and then they did an X ray,
and the doctor rushed in the room and was like,
(17:34):
you have a lung collapse and we need to cut
through your chest and put a chest tube in right
now to save your lung. And I'm like okay, and
he's like, what are you confused about? People die from this,
and I'm like, so my mind might die.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Okay, I guess that was zero to one hundred really quick.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Yes, I have so.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I have no idea what is happening. I have no
idea why or how my lung would collapse in the
first place. And so my first experience with a chest
tube was so traumatic. I was treated so poorly. I
don't know if it was because of the color of
my skin, or because I am a woman, or because
the physicians and the people who were working on my
(18:15):
body were uneducated. So I was not giving any type
of painkillers, any numbers. They literally cut me with a
knife and stuck a chest too in between my ribs.
It was the most and I've had a child. It
was the most painful experience of my life.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
They didn't put you under no, oh, my Are you
kidding me?
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And I literally tried to fight, Like there was at
one point when they like jabbed the chest tube in me.
I remember like like trying to grab the nurse and
they held me back and were like, you have to
let us.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It was because of just the timing. It was just
it had to be happening so quickly. They didn't have
time to put you under, Like what the hell?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
There could have been a lot of reasons. I have reasons.
I think I was treated the way that I was.
But twenty eight days later, after having the first lung collapse,
my lung collapsed again. I went to a different hospital
so I can get better treatment. And the first question
the doctor asked was are you on your period? And
(19:16):
I was like, yeah, actually I got my period yesterday.
And he was like, the last time your lung collapsed,
were you on your period? And I was like, yeah,
it had just started the day before.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
You wouldn't even think these two things are so far
anything to do with each other.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And he was like, I'm going to bring in a specialist.
He's like, we're obviously gonna, you know, have to put
in a chest tube and do the whole procedure. He's like,
don't worry, it won't be painful. We'll numb the area.
We'll give you pain medicine will make you feel comfortable.
But we're going to bring in a specialist just so
they can take a look and see what's going on.
And an endometriosis specialist came to the hospital and told
(19:52):
me that what they see is endometriosis. It was something
I had never heard of in my entire life, but
apparently endometriosis is a disease, a chronic disease that can
spread through the body, and mine had spread to my
lungs and it was attacking my lungs with every menstrual period.
And so that is how I came to find out
(20:13):
that I had endometriosis.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Can you can you explain what endometriosis is?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yes, So it's when tissue similar to the tissue in
your uterus, starts to form outside of the uterus, and
so when you have your period, typically the blood would
come out for this type of tissue. With endometriosis, the
blood is trapped because it's outside of the uterus, so
it starts to just spread and it attaches to different
(20:39):
organs on the body, and it causes damage, It causes scarring,
it causes all types of issues. Mine unfortunately had spread
to multiple organs, but was able to somehow get up
into my lung cavity and cause the collapse. Endometriosis is
(21:01):
something that affects ten percent of women and girls. So
if you are a young girl who is fourteen years
old and you have your mental period, you can have endometriosis.
It's something that runs in the family.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
And these are obviously like you've had this probably your
whole life, and I had no symptoms or no or what.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Are the symptoms that they had? Symptoms like life.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So when you have endometriosis, a lot of times you
deal with difficult mental periods, severe pain, long periods sometimes
that's seven days or more, extremely heavy bleeding. And I
have so many family members who have this, have these symptoms,
but they think it's normal, or even after I got
(21:43):
my diagnosis, they're like, oh, I know, I don't have endometriosis,
but I'm like, but you're changing your path every hour.
You don't think that's abnormal. So there's you know, during
your mentrual period, there are signs there, painful sex, that's
something that I didn't start to experience until my third
and I was gas lit when I told my gynecologists,
(22:03):
she was like, are you sure it's not mental? You
sure you know you're not dealing with difficulties with sex
because of some past trauma. And I'm like, I've been
having sex my whole life. Fine, So why would this
just suddenly it happen out of nowhere. It could be
back pain, it could be shoulder pain. Shoulder pain is
something I dealt with in my twenties and I didn't
(22:25):
know why. I thought it was because I was always
carrying heavy stuff. So there were so I had all
of the symptoms of endometriosis, but none of my gynecologists
caught it.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And now with this information, did you find out that
there's other people in your family who also have this
or have had this condition?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Which is very frustrating to be someone who had to
pick up the phone and ask other people like what
are your periods? Like have you ever been checked for endometriosis?
And finding out that on both sides of my family
there are women with endometriosis. It's so common, it's so common,
and a lot of people have it but don't get checked.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
For it, we would say that's probably more than ten percent. Yes,
because I feel like so many women and like I hear,
I've heard so many women with these symptoms in general,
and it's it's women. I don't want to make it
a race thing, but there is a racial thing here.
Whereas Black women, we're so used to dealing with pain and.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
We gaslight ourselves.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
We're so used to dealing with pain, and that goes
back to slavery, is just dealing and numbing ourselves. And
then we're gas lit when we express our pain and
we're like, oh, it's not that big of a deal,
or maybe or maybe it's that it's anything but what
it could possibly be by just deeper, taking a deeper dive,
a deeper look into whatever it is. Yeah, And I
just think about so many women probably listening to this
(23:44):
right now that are like.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
It sounds like me, yeah, or thinking my periods are bad,
but oh, they're not that bad. Like I don't think
I'm not experiencing all of those symptoms until you're in.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
The one day with a collapsed look.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, So one person of women with ENDO will have
the racic endo and that's the type that I have Unfortunately,
if this is something that I caught sooner, I could
have done different procedures. There's no excision surgery where you
can have it removed.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
There's just different.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
There's preventive like what if you know early, if you
catch it, and you can kind of do preventive measures.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
So yeah, this point, yeah, but I mean I would
be on the floor crawling and pain on the first
day of my period.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
I would call out of work.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I was taking as many pain pills as I possibly
could to get through that first day. And I thought
that was normal. I was like, some women just have
bad periods. But one other symptom of ENEMYTROS is this infertility.
And there were times where I said to myself, Wow,
I got away with that one, Like how did I
(24:47):
not get pregnant? Just like many women, I've made mistakes, oh.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Right, thinking that you just like, oh, I'm just And I.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Was like, wow, I got lucky. And then I found
the person that I wanted to be with and I
wanted to spend my life with who's now my husband.
And I was like, wait a minute, are we going
to be able to have children? Am I able to
have children? Like just looking back, it's so weird that
some of my other friends got pregnant so easily and
(25:16):
all of these things happened and I've never been in
their shoes. And so after learning about endometriosis, my doctor
had to sit with me and she's like, if you
want children, I can help you. There are ways that
you can still conceive and have endometriosis. So don't think
that this is the end and you have to have
(25:37):
a hysterectomy and like life is over.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
It does not have to be God.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
For that doctor, because I'm sure there's other doctors that
would have advised differently. Yeah, oh there are there at
are ready to just take take it out.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Oh yeah, that's the.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Whole thing of the hysterectomy is just with no effort,
just taking women to uteruses, especially black women.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, so that was something that I prayed on. I
was afraid. I didn't know what the outcomes would be.
I literally had to talk to my husband and say
we might not be able to have children, and I
need to know that you're still gonna love me and
want to be with me even if I can't do that,
And he was like, I stuck with by your side
through all these surgeries.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I'm gonna be here right.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
So, yeah, it's been a journey, and this book kind
of documents that full journey, but also just getting to
the root of it's bigger than health, Like there are
so many issues that I've had to deal with, things
I've had to unlearn, reasons why my healing has been
(26:38):
challenging as an adult because of childhood trauma, but also
because of epigenetics and because of things that I don't
understand about my mother or my grandmother or the women
who have come up before me and what they carried,
not just health, but like you know, their finances, just
thinking about like limited dreams and aspirations, what they we're shown,
(27:00):
what we've been taught since the beginning of time in
this country is as black people, any oppressed people, like
what we are taught about ourselves.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Or not taught or not spoken about.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It exactly, and why we handle things the way that
we do. And so silence is the consistent factor in
this book with every different topic, because it all stems
from us suppressing our stories, our emotions and all of
the things that we.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Were told.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Needed to be kept to ourselves. We needed to just
move on, We needed to just deal with it, and
that's not that's not actually how we heal or help
future generations have better outcomes.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
When you think about it, like on a metaphysical level,
you know, I'm a firm believer of like trauma that's
held in your body, it becomes physical if it's not treated,
you know, like emotional illness, and like you know, it
eventually will manifest physically. But then you think about something
like a secret, you know, and like something like in
(28:07):
demetriosis that essentially spreads. It's like it's if you're something
is ignored or suppressed or a truth is kept from you,
then it gets bigger and bigger and more problematic. And
I think we, uh, this isn't like this is a
really good way of having a like a visual, a
physical visual of what that looks like. Like you know,
we think like, oh, hushah, don't top up Auntie so
(28:29):
and so or Daddy so and so, don't say this,
don't mention this because it's not favorable even though it's
the truth. But then what happens when over generations and
generations and generations and generations, those truths are suppressed. We
are dealing in things that we have no fucking idea
we're dealing in, and like we're showing up in a
way that we don't even know where we're showing up
that way, and like just to even know the stories,
(28:51):
know the truth, It's like it kind of is like
a representation of how shit spreads and becomes such a massive,
big something collapses essentially because you weren't told, You didn't
even have preventive measures. You couldn't if you don't know
something exists or something happened in your family, how do
you go about healing that thing? So like that is
like this is one example of that, but I'm sure
(29:12):
this is there's other ailments and physical things that manifest
in families all the time because we're not talking to
each other or we're not in tune with our bodies
enough to identify and then get the help to tell
our children. So it's just like and you don't or
you don't know, you don't even know great Grandma to
even fucking ask, and you know, and like your mom
didn't tell you.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, And I think as children we are told not
to ask too many questions and to stay in a
child's place, And so when we become adults, we forget
to go back to those questions that we have that
we wanted to Now, can I ask when we were seven?
Speaker 5 (29:47):
Any airmark that right?
Speaker 7 (29:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:50):
And I'm eighteen ask this question? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
And So as I was writing this book, I started
to ask my mother about her tears. I wanted to
know what were some of the few she had when
I was in her womb and she was carrying you know,
what were her insecurities and what were her biggest challenges
when I was a baby, and who supported her and
what lack of support and resources did she have? Just
(30:13):
questions that we would have never had when.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
They're in the room. When you gave birds, did you
have was your labor? It was your label easeful, labor, easeful?
What place where you're in because all of that matters
where you're conceived, and people are always like, what the
fuck you're talking about? Like no, like energetically, like realistically, cellularly,
if you're in your mom's womb and she's going through shit,
you're already carried.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, How because this journey really started from the place
of extreme pain, discomfort. How how did your family and
your mother receive all of these questions because they've been
locked up because there it hasn't been discussed because it's
almost been normalized, and the silence is kind of just like, yeah,
(30:55):
a normal, normal experience in your family, Like, was your
mom open to like answering all of these questions and
then even just like, I'm sure you've gone down the
path of now not just stopping with your mom, your
father and other people and your family.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, So I had to take very different approaches with
both of my parents. My mother is someone that I
can have uncomfortable conversations with.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
My father is not.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
He's a silent one. From my mother, going through this
experience was very freeing.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
She probably like was not waiting, but like didn't even
know she needed to be asked these questions.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
She was so grateful that I was asking these questions
that she would hang up the phone with me and
then call. She was finding that there were things she
couldn't answer because she didn't know the answers, and so
she would call other people in her family to try
to find the answer. She learned so much about herself,
and she learned about her parents, even my grandmother who's deceased.
(31:52):
She learned so much just from this journey of us talking.
My mother went her whole life and didn't know her
father's real name because she had never questioned anything until
I started questioning everything, and yeah, yeah, no, so what's
his real name? I never thought to ask, you know.
I said to my mom, do you think one of
(32:12):
your parents struggled with any mental illness or were they
diagnosed at any point? And she's like, oh, I would
never ask my parents that. I mean, I saw signs
and symptoms, but I would never.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Ask because he's just respectful. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So from my mother, it was extremely healing. And it's
still challenging accepting the truth because not everybody is ready
for it. Some people are okay with the stories they've
been told and what they don't know. And from my father,
I found that I needed to approach him differently. I
(32:49):
couldn't just walk in the door with some open ended questions.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, Like, I feel like that that dynamic is probably
more so what people face. So I am curious how
what were the questions or how did you lead up
to that, because there's a lot of people I'm sure
listening that are like, I don't even know where to
how I would even begin to frame a question like that.
That's deeply personal. Yeah, perhaps even triggering.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So I think the one thing that I learned immediately
is that my parents don't know a lot about themselves
and about their parents and where they come from. And
so for my father, I saw this as an opportunity
to educate him and teach him things about the family.
And so I would call him. I was pulling up
death certificates. I was like doing DNA testing, and I
(33:36):
would call him and say, hey, Dad, did you know
that your grandmother had nine kids?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
And he's like, no, she didn't.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
I'm like, yes she did, and I'm reading off the
names and he's like whooo yes. And so it started
with me just sharing information and that just kind of
opened up the door of him responding to things like oh,
well I was told this.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
And so you know, we would had to come out
the fact had the receipts.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, I had to lay out the papers on the
table printed.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Like, no, this is real, right yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
So for him, he started to see the benefit in
having conversations because he was able to learn some things
about himself. And so for me, I was teaching, but
I also had to be really gentle. I had to
gently challenge both of them. And that's what therapists do
really well, right They gently challenge you with open ended
questions to help you get unstuck. And that's why you
(34:31):
pay big money for therapists. And so I gave myself
this role of being that person in my family. Did
you feel like I had to step outside of being
nicole and like get into a different role to do
that because I feel like being gentle with I feel
like asking questions in a gentle way to people that
you've known all your life or that you have all
these other like I don't know just you have history
(34:53):
with can feel a little bit different than like, Okay,
I'm not your I'm not your daughter in this moment,
I'm actually like your therapist in per se. Yeah, you
have to put on like another hat to do that,
or no, I think it's really thinking about what you need, right,
Like you think about like what you need from a
therapist or what you need from a girlfriend, from a sister.
(35:14):
You want someone to create a safe space for you
in order for you to be vulnerable, and you have
to do the same thing when you're having these conversations
with family. You have to put your emotions to the side.
You cannot go in with your feelings on the table
of how you feel about the decisions that you made.
You have to be able to ask the wise to
(35:35):
understand the behavior and be okay with whatever those responses
are and not take it personal. And so I really
wanted to figure out how to create space. It was
a challenge that I had put on myself, like how
do I create space for my dad where he can
feel okay speaking for the first time to someone about
(35:56):
how it felt to have a father that was murdered
when he was a child become a father that didn't
have the tools and figure it out, you know, like
questions that no one had ever asked him. I wanted
to ask that I knew they were things that he
had thought about. And so, yeah, that was one of
the most challenging things and trying to figure it out.
(36:16):
But I think learning people's preferred communication style is the
most important thing when you are having these conversations with family,
because some people will open up to you more through
text or an email or a letter than they will
face to face. And so I would ask my mom, Hey,
(36:39):
are you comfortable with us getting on a call or
would you rather like FaceTime or text like what do
you want and she's like, oh, you could just call me,
And my dad's like, well text me what you need.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Yeah, let me read it out loud, right, yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
Let me mentally prepare.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
So yeah, it was getting comfortable with other people's preferred
communication styles, because if you want to break through, you
have to meet them where they are, and.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Also probably understanding and accepting like with this experience, this
traumatic experience that you went through in this like physical
you know, at thirty five, you think you know you
know everything about yourself, especially medically. That's so it's so
you have to deal with yourself gently. So then when
you go talk to your parents, you can only imagine
how confusing it is for them to be like the
(37:26):
person I birth is coming to me with things that
I don't have the answers to, you know, and like
going about it in a gentle way, and like being
compassionate because it's it's like, yeah, like damn, I didn't
know this about my dad. Damn I didn't know this.
I actually had a reading recently from god Iss Jesse
because we're in this queen healing program and it's all
about like lineage and your ancestry and something came up
(37:48):
for me. It was like, do you have like a
relative like that just showed up back in your life?
And I was like no, and she I was like, actually,
before my grandmother died, like maybe a year or two
before she if, she mentioned like a fourth child that
she had given up for adoption. And I was like,
what the fuck are you talking about? And she's like yeah,
I try to look for her, but I couldn't find her.
(38:09):
And everybody seemed to know, like my parents were like
oh yeah, But like I was just like, what are
you talking about? And she had told me like back
when you're in a certain which is just as my grandmother,
so it's not like my great girt grandmother. She was
pregnant young, like a teenager. They pulled out of school
and this is what they did to teenage girls who
got pregnant at the time, because abortion was not an option.
She stayed in the house with other teenage girls who
(38:30):
were pregnant, and she was like, yeah until they had
had the baby, and then they gave the baby away
from adoption and then they'd take them back to school.
But she expressed to me that she was the one
responsible for cleaning up the labor and delivery room after
each girl gave birth, and I was like, did you
get therapy? And she was like no, and I was
(38:51):
just like looking at her. She was looking at me,
and I was like, that's crazy. And this reading she
was like asking me if there's a like a relative
that I didn't know that came back. And then that
she also is like there's something with you in birth,
and I was like, well, then I told her this story,
you know, and it's like, these are things that you
wouldn't even think that consider that resonate to you personally,
(39:12):
are on a cellular level. But that's some rough shit
to even have to experience, as you know, as a human,
like as a woman, you know, and then you're cleaning up,
you're scared, you're teenager, you have to give birth, you
have to be rid of your baby, especially for Black
women who if there's such deep history with having to
separate from your child. And I've always had like a
very deep connection with birth and like labor, I love it,
(39:33):
oddly enough, but just having these conversations it just like
it was so you know, like having the conversation with
somebody else put like a lot of light on things
that I hadn't acknowledged that live inside of me too,
and like yeah, asking my mom, like where were you?
Like my mom gave birth alone because she gave birth
in Alabama, it was super racist, and because my parents
(39:54):
weren't married, they made my dad sit in the waiting room.
And she's like twenty one years old in CA giving
birth with a bunch of people she doesn't know, And
like I just can't even imagine, but like this lives
in me because I was there, but just not in
this realm yet and so you know, and just even
having regrets about like my grandmother being here and not
(40:14):
having these conversations and having a microphone, having a computer,
I could have just been like, hey, what's up, you know,
and like just just assuming they're always going to be there,
assuming you're going to get the answers, But then you
start looking and maybe you don't have access to the answers,
maybe your mom or your dad doesn't know, and just
like taking the time to have the conversations now and
(40:38):
remembering like you're not a child and you're allowed to ask,
you know, even if it's uncomfortable for you and uncomfortable
for other people, but just understanding like you don't always
have all the time.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, it's one of the biggest things that we that
we resent during grief. It's the hardest challenge with grief.
It's the words that were left unsaid and the questions
that weren't asked. And we get so hard on ourselves
about not being able to have just one more conversation
(41:12):
with someone. And it's like, I'm looking at you right now,
and I'm like, but this is such a teaching moment
for your daughter of showing her, you know, how to
take advantage of you while you're here and your mother
while she's here, and how you guys can sit around
and talk about all of the things that you can
share with her, everything that you do, know, all of
(41:33):
the pieces that you have been able to put down
to put the puzzle together.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
I feel like I'm going to cry now too, because
because this is something too that I know I've mentioned
I was supposed to interview my grandmother January of this
last year, and I haven't, And I think part of
it I keep putting it off too, because it's like
you want to know, but then there's like there's a curiosity,
but then there's like a resistance, and there's like this
(42:01):
weird resistance and fear of even knowing what could potentially
be stored inside of inside of you that you don't
even know is stored. And like you said, like a
lot of people, are you are okay with just living
with the stories that they've been told and not diving
deeper into the past. I know that my even my
own grandmother has a very like a similar story about
pregnancy and hiding it and getting sent away and giving
(42:24):
her baby up for adoption. And she refuses to even
talk about this, Like she told my mom, when when
your grandfather dies, I'll tell you he's dead. We're still
refuses to talk about it. So it's like, how that
stores in your body? How that then stored in my
mom's body? How that then stores in my body? Yeah,
and so on and so on and so on and
so and.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
Like how popular was this story that this is happening
everybody's grandma? Apparently?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, But I mean, even look at you two and
where you are right now. A lot of times people
say you are your ancestors wildest dreams. And when we're
trying to find our purpose, sometimes it's looking back at
the stories of our ancestors, and like just hearing this
story that of what your mother had to deal with,
and now seeing that you advocate for moms, that you've
(43:06):
created this space and you just said that there's something
about birth that you love, that you want to see
the beauty and the joy and the experience, and like
that didn't just start with you.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
It's all of.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
The things that the women before you wish they could
have done and how they wish they could have shown
up in the world. And so there's just so much
gratitude I think that we need to hold space for
on a daily basis of looking back, all of those
sacrifices that those women made and the mistakes that they
made have taken part in who we are as women today,
(43:42):
all of it, all of it. Like we're carrying so
much of it. And it's a beautiful thing when you
look back and now you see they're smiling down on you.
Your grandmother is so proud of you, she really is.
I mean, if I can sit here and say I'm
proud of you, imagine how what do you think is
(44:02):
the biggest lesson or takeaway from writing this book throughout
this process of an earth thing? I'm sure so much
information about your family and your history. I think the
biggest takeaway is that although you can choose silence, the
silence can harm you, and it will at some point.
(44:23):
Everyone is not ready for the truth. But the truth,
as difficult as it is to face, is what helps
you heal, and their healing is a very trendy thing.
We talk about self care, we talk about going to
the spa, but you are not truly healing if you
are not willing to uncover the things and have the
(44:44):
difficult conversations and interview your grandmother. You are becoming complacent
with what you know and you're okay with what you
don't know. And it's not enough if you want to
thrive in this life and be your best self for
yourself and also for your children. They deserve to know
(45:06):
everything that you have been through and everything you have
worked on to be the best version of yourself for them.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
I mean, accept the truth so that you can heal
from it. And like just sitting here with my like
my peers, my friends, and like we all have things
in the world. We all have written documented stories, memoirs
of our deep seated family things that you know, you know,
like you're not supposed to write about you're not supposed
(45:37):
to talk about, and how medicinal that is, you know,
how beautiful it is, and like even going back like
not very far. And you know, in our history, women
aren't even allowed to write, let alone record their stories.
Like there are so many women's stories that we will
never know. They just live inside of us. And so
there's like even for us, I think, and I know
(45:58):
for you too, like having a platform and talking brutally honestly,
like we were told not to do that, Like that's crazy.
You don't say certain things like why do you have
to talk about these things? And just for some reason
just knowing like fuck it, I'm going to keep doing it,
Like something about this feels good and necessary for me.
And so like having a having given that gift to
(46:19):
my child of like it's not not inheriting silence, not
keeping secrets for anyone, you know, Like it is such
a huge, tremendous thing. And it's like sometimes we look
at our lives and we think that they're just our
own and it's not. It's so much deeper than that.
Like we're in a very delicate time in history. We're
in a very weird time. It's very strange times, but
(46:41):
we have all been given the gift of our voices.
We've all been given the gift of the pen, We've
all been given the gift of publishing. You know, like it,
it's much deeper when you've been your people have been
silenced or told not to say anything. And even like
when you have family members that may not accept or
be happy about what you put in the book, at
(47:03):
the end of the day, it is the truth and
it is necessary, and even if they don't recognize it
now or ever, it is actually healing them too.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Something I would just add to that is protecting your
words wherever they live, because with the times that we're
living in right now, we have to think about erasure.
We have to think about book bands. And there may
be a time where future generations cannot access your book
or my book if there is a mention of slavery
(47:33):
or what we have been through as African Americans in
this country, those books may not be available at some point.
Good Mom's Bad Choices is available on every platform right now,
that might not be the case in ten twenty years,
you know what I mean. So holding on to recordings,
holding on to books, holding on to your journal, locking
it away somewhere, just making sure that protector generations can
(47:56):
access this information.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
Important.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, it is such a scary time right now, and
it is important, and it is important for the people listening.
Like you can be the catalyst to so much healing,
But you have to unsilence yourself.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
You have to be brave enough to ask the questions.
And what I love.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
About your book, Breaking Generational Silence is that you actually
do pose the questions to ask. So it is in
a lot of ways a guide for people that don't
even know where to start, that don't know what questions
to ask. You have to get this book, you guys,
please get this book and start asking the questions, if
not only just for yourself, but for your family, for
(48:36):
your children, for the future generations, because if you don't,
and it just becomes you just perpetuating the cycle and
not understanding. Why is why do people in my family
always seem to die in their sleep? Why is it
that you know I have inherited depression? What is this depression?
What is the source?
Speaker 5 (48:55):
What are these.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Physical ailments that keep coming up in my body that
I've seen up and my cousins or my grandmother, Like
it's not by chance, like these are these are real
things that can be unearthed by not staying silent.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
What a gift. And I think sometimes people forget, like
what are the questions that I would even ask? But
then you can like get inspired.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
Yea, you have it right here, right here.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
Well I have a final question, so I know, like
we were talking and we're talking about this in the
car about just like I know, this journey really started
because of your endometriosis and asking even your doctor, like
posing this question of whether or not you're gonna have
children or any more children. Obviously now you have an
eight month year old, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (49:41):
You can't have any more babies? Are you gonna bless
us with any more babies?
Speaker 2 (49:46):
You know?
Speaker 1 (49:47):
The hardest part of dealing with health battles is and
now I'm gonna cry, the hardest part of dealing with
health battles is thinking about your future because you can't
imagine it when you're in survival mode. And for so
long I was in survival mode of not being able
(50:07):
to think about the future because I didn't know if
I were to make it through each surgery, and having
my son Cash was such a miracle. It felt like
such a miracle, and I was like, I was meant
to have this baby. And I don't know how many
more years I have here, but I was meant to
have this baby. And God is really good because I'm
(50:30):
pregnant now and we're having another.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Yes, congratulates you. Wonder too. I'm doing it.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Maybe that's a bad decision, but I'm a good mom.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
I'm so excited for you pregnancy announcement.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
We heard it here first, and now you came and
made all the good mom's cry.
Speaker 5 (50:56):
Crying therapy session.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Well, I'm I'm so happy for you, Nicole, and I've
always been inspired by you. You've always been kind of
a mother to so many.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I think in our first episode you said you didn't
want kids.
Speaker 5 (51:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
I think in that first episode you're like, I don't
really want kids. I mother all these other children. And
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
You've been a mother to so many, including Miracle, and
including all the children that you support and also your friend.
I feel like you just have a motherly energy just
in general. When I was in New York, you took
care of me. Yeah, but I didn't know. I'm not
talking about the first time. I'm talking about the second
time when I came back and I was like help,
I needed help, and you're like I got you.
Speaker 5 (51:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Like, and I was telling myself that I didn't want
kids because I wasn't sure if I was capable of
having them, and I was trying to train myself to
believe that I would be okay either way. So now
that I have kids, I can look back and admit
that that I just didn't think I would be able
to have kids.
Speaker 4 (51:54):
And you're not even knowing the diagnosis, just just just
knowing that something was wrong. And also like don't don't
underestimate the innate thing, like even things in childhood, things
that you love, things that you draw to, things that
you know knowingly if something's wrong, like go check it out.
If someone tells you you're fine and you know something's
(52:14):
not fine, go fucking ask somebody else. Like you keep
going until you know because no one knows you like yourself,
and like instinctually, like don't downplay the things that on
a like intuitive level, you know about yourself, Like there
are things like even in this reading again, she was like,
you're part of the fairy people. You have like a
feline spirit. I was like, bitch, I am a cat,
Like I feel this way. I know this is silly,
(52:35):
but there are things that, like whatever you felt in
childhood or whatever you feel deeply in your body, there
are things that that you belong to and that you know.
There's a knowing because your ancestors live inside of you.
You never know your lineage. A lot of us don't
know as black women, as black people, but like trust that,
trust that, and like, don't let anybody tell you shit
(52:56):
about yourself that you know to be true. Yeah, I'll
pick out a card. Nikki, Did I call you that?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
H one?
Speaker 4 (53:18):
It's too masive one?
Speaker 5 (53:25):
Nicole, you've always been kind of a witch. I am.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
Yeah, I remember all of our friends are witches.
Speaker 5 (53:30):
She would she was.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
She's really good at like knowing what sign people are
like immediately when she meets them.
Speaker 6 (53:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
I used to have this thing in my early twenties.
I was bartending, and I would just walk up to
people and tell them their birthday. It was so I
used to just be like January third, if you like, who.
Speaker 6 (53:51):
The are you?
Speaker 4 (53:52):
It's real you'd be knowing.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:55):
Yeah, I had something the other like a couple of
weeks ago, and I was like, I'm thinking of something,
figure it out, and we like it was so on
and it was like only like two guesses and I
was like I knew, like when you talk like telepathically,
we are always exchanging energy, always speaks before words do
and like, don't underestimate that shit. And I think especially
women like we again, we rebirth all this shit. We
(54:16):
are the womb. We are the portal between heaven and
like life. So yes, the Ace of Wands as an ace,
this Wan's card brings you pure potential. This time is
the spiritual, energetic realm. Ideas are flowing to you, motivating
and inspiring you to pursue a new path. You're open
to receiving new opportunities that align with your higher self.
(54:38):
A whole world of possibilities available to you. The Ace
of Wands encourages you to follow your heart and live
in your passion. If you feel a strong pull towards
a new project or path that are questioning whether it
will work, this is the card that gives you gentle
nudge to pursue your passion. You can always start out small,
treating the project or idea as experiment or trial. Then
then if it feels good, keep doing it and if
(55:00):
it doesn't, make a judgments and try again. Let your energy, dedication,
and motivation be your guides. Love it, Listen to your
fucking self.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (55:11):
And also, that new project is brewing inside you know,
tell me too, girl, the project is, the project is
are brewing. How many months are ye? I'm three and
a half months.
Speaker 4 (55:19):
Yay. Oh my god, I'm so excited for you.
Speaker 5 (55:23):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
I am so excited and scared. So all of the
moms who've done two under two please centips.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
I got pretty honey. I don't know nothing about that life, Nicole.
I love you, I love you. Thank you for coming
on our show. You guys, make sure you get Nicole's book,
Breaking Generational Silence, available.
Speaker 5 (55:43):
Everywhere old places, Yes, everywhere. And can you tell people
where they can find you on social Yes? You can
find me at Nicole Russell with an idol.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (55:55):
But if you're looking for me.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
With the way I see what is it Nicole Russell?
What just at Nicole Rust at Nicole Wrestle.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
Maybe you know where to find us, y'all at Good
Mom's Bad Choices. Make sure you go subscribe to our
YouTube channel. Make sure you download this episode, leave us
a review on Apple. Check out The Good Vibe Retreat.
We have a summer retreat coming up July thirty first
and August eighth.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
And postford that. I also have a couple's retreat with
our men's and with the couples, because you know we're
want to be more loving to the world. That's a
tangent retreat called the Good Lover Tree. We're gonna do
so much fun. We have a lot of play, a
lot of tips and tools to deepen your connection with
your pat net. That's in June, So drop those kids
off and compail and pick the mumps a man, and.
Speaker 5 (56:43):
We'll see you next week.
Speaker 7 (56:44):
Ye please? Yeah, I'm living so good.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
Can't you tell?
Speaker 7 (56:49):
I went through it drought. That's until I find a
well maym have been known art? I used to be
broken tail now got the blues hands and might be
Yon say just sell throat shots or pop and it's
car We're in our voices. Patriarchy kept it in the
box to it's for this. Women put the pee in power,
so what's pointless? They want me to be good, so
I make that choice.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
It's bad mom.
Speaker 7 (57:08):
Not a bad mom, but a bad mom. Itters in
on p Cannapus in her bath. Bon walked in Boston's
cap and I.
Speaker 6 (57:14):
Blew his cat balls.
Speaker 7 (57:15):
Hot dog.
Speaker 5 (57:16):
Now I'm immune to the cat calls.
Speaker 4 (57:18):
Her being no waisted straight to it like a dollar sign.
Speaker 7 (57:21):
Mother, rent the lover, when too what It's like a
water summer where you're rent the winter essential will when
the summertime, I do what all ain't no one that
needs to run it by
Hosts And Creators
Erica Dickerson
Jamilah Mapp
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