Conversations on Healing

Welcome to the Conversations on Healing podcast, where host Shay Beider speaks with renowned healthcare leaders, practitioners, and thought leaders to explore the world of wellness, the incredible powers of self-care, and what it truly means to heal today. Join us on this journey to become more whole, healed, and connected.

Shay Beider Hello and welcome to the Conversations on Healing podcast. I’m your host, Shay Beider, and for today’s episode, we’re joined by self-help author and wellness educator Nakeia Homer. Nakeia has written three books, including her most recent release called “Habits for Healing: Reclaim Your Purpose, Peace and Power”, which we discuss in our conversation today. Nakeia offers a trauma-informed approach to cultivating well-being and teaches people how to turn pain into power, tests into testimonies, and opposition into opportunities through self-love, self-care, and self-healing. In our conversation today, Nakeia and I discuss her book “Habits for Healing”, as well as the topics of self-care, setting healthy boundaries, and finding acceptance, as well as the importance of all three of those put together in a healing process. In our conversation, Nakeia discusses aspects of her healing journey and relationship with her work, and how it has inspired and supported others through her personal story. She’s come to realize the value of self-care practices and boundary setting as she continues to support others to heal. Nakeia’s approach to working with clients is trauma-informed and based on prior work she has done with individuals who’ve been incarcerated or who’ve gone through their own traumas. In our episode today, Nakeia will help you to tune in to reclaim your sense of purpose, peace, and power in your life. So, I invite you to have a listen.

Nakeia, I’m delighted to have you on the Conversations on Healing podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Nakeia Homer Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited for our conversation.

Shay Yeah, me too. I was reading your most recent book that you’ve released, called “Habits for Healing”, which has been described as a roadmap for healing, which I think is a really cool way to talk about it. And as I was going through it, I thought, it’s such a beautiful thing when somebody takes all of the challenges, heartaches, heartbreaks, and stuff of their own life that led them to a healing course, and path, and journey, and then translates it into a book or kind of a manual, in a sense. This is a book that has questions, and affirmations, and all sorts of things that people can interact with, that allows others to really be kind of guided and transformed by your own course of healing.

And I feel like that’s what you’ve done in this book. You’ve taken your own story, and challenges, and pathway to healing and then created these core principles, which you call, “that you want to invite readers to reclaim their purpose, peace and power”. You’ve actually divided the book into those three sections. Share a little bit with our listeners: What inspired you to write ‘Habits for Healing”, and why is it so important to you that people reclaim their purpose, peace, and power?

Nakeia Thank you for holding space, even for the process that you realize that goes into creating this type of work. One of the things that I’ve seen in my work and even in my personal life is that there are three things, among many, that are at risk when we are not doing what we need to do to recover, to heal, to grow, to focus on our purpose, our calling, to call attention to the things that really matter to us. That is our purpose, our peace, and our power. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t get a question from someone that says, how do I find my purpose? And then when we unpack some of the things that are going on in their lives currently and some of the things that they’ve endured in the past, I realize that there are purpose in quotes is usually buried underneath a lot of trauma, a lot of things that we need to sort of reprogram and reframe for them.

And then the same with peace. It’s difficult to really focus on your life when you have a lot of distractions in our lives and our relationships, on social media, at work. And so, our peace is often at risk. And then, our power to really be who we truly are, to really align and tap into our essence, and to not be swayed by what’s going on around us, what happened to us in the past, to not be defined by those things. Our power is necessary. We have to stand in our power, and I love that. Now we are in a season- I’m calling it a era, an era of healing- where things are trending on social media, even boundaries, and self care, and going to therapy. And there are hashtags for relationship goals and such, but I saw that people were having a difficult time really identifying what that would look like in their lives based on their unique history, their unique journey, and their unique needs for healing, and growth, and et cetera.

And so, when I created this work, I’m calling “Habits for Healing”, I kept those things in mind. How do we reclaim the things that are at risk when we are not doing our healing work? And what does healing, by whatever definition you choose to ascribe to, what does that look like in your life and in our lives every day? And so, my hope was that I would come up with some things that are general and broad, but that would shine a light on the opportunities for you to do things like that in your own life- things that will serve you in your journey.

Shay And you really do a nice job in the book of talking about things like boundaries and self-care. And I loved how you tied in the relationship with your grandmom, who helped to raise you, who was very pivotal and central in your life. And you talk about- I mean she sounds like a magnificent woman on so many levels, working so hard to take care of so many and very deeply service-oriented. But how, at the same time, the one thing that she wasn’t able to teach you, probably because she had not learned or been exposed to it herself, was self-care. And that was something you then had to really come to terms with on your own- the value and importance. And you talk about how you figured out for yourself certain things as simple as going for a quiet drive on your own, where you could do whatever you needed to do in that precious time. And so, I think it might be nice for you to share what you learned about the importance of self-care and even what self-care can look like, because you talk about that in the book too- that it doesn’t have to look like some of the things that people might see in social media, like very outwardly focused. It’s a very intimate experience of what self-care actually means.

Nakeia Well, we do what we see done, right? Initially, I believe it’s until the age of eight, everything that we know about ourselves, believe about ourselves, and assign to ourselves are attached to our parents or our parental figures. For me, that was my grandmother. She was my legal guardian. She fostered me by bringing me home from the hospital and raising me as her own, both her granddaughter and her daughter. I called her “mom” at the beginning of my life. And then, as I got older and realized two women were answering to the title of “mom” in my life- my birth mother and my guardian, my grandmother- I started calling her “grandmom”. And so, that’s why I call her “grandmom”, and you’ll see that in the book. But she raised me while continuing to raise my dad, who was 17 when I was born, my uncle, and my aunt, in public housing, which is government-assisted living, where they’re able to go buy or kind of adjust rent to what you’re able to pay based on your income.

And it wasn’t the best place to live, but it was the best place to live for me. And my grandmother did the absolute best that she could. But one of the things that I’ve grown to understand is that sometimes our best is not good enough. So, although she was doing everything within her power to raise me, to raise my dad, my uncle, my aunt, to take care of us financially, emotionally, and physically, she was not doing those things for herself. And in turn, what happens when we put ourselves at the back of our minds, our efforts, our energy, our attention, is that there is a sense of abandonment and neglect that goes on within us. And there are side effects to that. And that can be moodiness, irritability, issues with your health, somatic issues and responses. And so, I experienced that in real life with my grandmother.

And I also experienced her idea of service and what it meant to be a good woman, and a good Christian, and a good grandmother and guardian, and all of that for her was self-sacrifice. And so, in my mind, to be a good woman, to be a person of service, meant self-sacrifice. And I learned that by just watching her just do everything and anything she could, even at the expense of her health and well-being, finances, and sometimes our relationship- to really just be of service to other people. And so, when I saw that she was different, when we were outside of that environment, outside of those stressors, she was a lot more pleasant. She was laughing, she was singing, she was herself. I thought to myself, ‘Okay, there’s something to this here. Both of these people, or versions of these people, are in one body that I know as my grandmother.”

There has to be a reason why one comes to the surface when we are away and out of a stressful environment and among family, and she’s supported, being catered to by friends and family. And then when we get back home- and I also noticed my changes when I was away, versus when I was at home. And what I realized is that she wasn’t taking proper care of herself. And I took note of how she wasn’t taking care of herself and how that impacted me, and my family, and her work, and all of the things that are impacted by us existing. And I decided that I would redefine what it meant to be a good person, what it meant to be a good woman, a good mother, a good wife, or whomever, and whatever role you play in the lives of others. And what I had to come to realize when I was introduced to the concept of self-care is that self-care is not something that’s optional, and it’s not something that comes from earning it or something that comes after you’ve done all you can for other people.

It really needs to be at the center of who we are as human beings, because I define self-care as anything that you do to support your well-being. And that “anything” can be what you do to support your health, what you do to support your work, what you do to support your relationships, what you do to support yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and to really prioritize those things first. Because what I realized is, when my grandmother was at her best, she also was able to give me her best. I was able to see her and the version of herself that she was when she was at her best and love that version of her. And so we get to offer a loving, a kind, a devoted, a committed, a service centered version of ourselves to people when we really give ourselves what we need. And so, the first chapter is on self-care because I think that’s where we need to start when it comes to healing.

Shay Yeah, absolutely. And I think you do a really nice job in the book. You also talk about boundaries- that’s much later in the book, but you really have some very nice, not only thoughts, but exercises or activities that people can do in the book to think about their boundaries. And one of the things I was thinking, in just listening and reading the story of what your grandmom was facing, it’s like: how do you set those boundaries when you’re dealing with such major things? She was trying to hold on to caring for people that were struggling with drug addiction, and she was trying to take care of you. And it’s such a fascinating thing, like you said, that edge of where somebody, they’re being compromised to try to take care of all these other beings around them to genuinely do their best, but then they’re not at their best because it’s too much to carry.

And I think, actually, that’s a pattern that not only gets passed down in families that have experienced a lot of trauma and injustice, but it’s like part of the healing journey is finding a way to set those boundaries, even when the stakes are high. But it doesn’t make it easy. And my story, my personal story, is certainly very different from yours, but one thing I can really relate to: I have an extremely high ACEs score. I essentially also have a- it’s a 9 out of 10 on a technicality, otherwise it would be a 10 out of 10. So, I get the challenge of what it actually takes, when you’re faced with so much hardship all around you, to practice self-care, to set healthy boundaries. It’s not easy. And even at this stage in my life- and I’m in my fifties now- I still have to contend with those things regularly so that I can wake up and have a good life and show up for myself and others in a balanced way. So, it’s an ongoing, right? Especially when you’ve had a lot of early traumas. It’s an ongoing process.

Nakeia One of the things that happens when you are experiencing trauma, and in particular what is known as C-P-T-S-D, which is layered or consistent over time trauma, is that there’s a switch that’s flipped to survival mode, which is what we’re wired to do- which is to take care of ourselves and protect ourselves from danger or perceived danger. One of the things that I had to see with these habits, and in general with the things that I do to support myself, is that it is also a form of protection. And so, if I’m going to protect myself from emotional exhaustion, if I’m going to protect myself from burnout, if I’m going to protect my relationships from toxic habits or patterns or behaviors that aren’t conducive to the health of the relationship, then I have to also do things that keep me and the relationship safe. And so, just reframing these habits- like self-care, boundaries, letting go, acceptance- as a form of emotional, physical, and spiritual protection kind of reframes it so that we see it not as a way to dishonor others or to cause someone to believe that we are not as invested in our relationship, but to show that we are so invested.

And that is how I reframe boundaries. I don’t see that as something I use to punish others or to build a wall between myself and someone else, because essentially, if someone has harmed me or offended me or is a threat to the point where there are repeat offenders, for me, the boundary is distance. No conversation, no actions needed. I’m just putting some space between me and the person. However, if I’m talking about things that will make our relationship better- like phone calls before stopping by unannounced, or respecting my time by making sure that you are on time for our brunch or our family dinner, or helping out around the house so that I can get to my next call, my next interview, my next point of work- then I see it differently than just punishment. It’s preventative, and it actually heals our connections. And so, I love that I’ve been able to see boundaries in this way. I like to say, “I love a good boundary,” because it means that you are protecting yourself from, or our relationship from, harm, and that you feel safe enough to express your guidelines, your wants, your needs, your desires. I have defined boundaries as anything I do to keep myself safe and supported in a relationship.

And it feels wonderful to be able to support others and to keep them safe in my relationship. And so, just reframing it so that I’m seeing it as a way to deepen or to protect the connection has made setting boundaries a bit easier. You may never feel really comfortable, totally comfortable, being vulnerable enough to say, “This is what I need” or “This is what I want.” But you can do it with more ease when you say, “I am sharing this with you so that you can support me and I can support you.”

Shay And that idea, contained within what you’re sharing, of surviving- that so many people who’ve had a lot of challenge and difficulty for a number of different reasons in their life have developed a really strong survival pattern. And I recently interviewed a woman, Christina Rasmussen, who’s written a book called “Invisible Loss” that’s really lovely. And she talks about how we can go into a survivor mode and get stuck in it for years and years and years. And the language she uses, which I thought it fit actually really nicely with your work, the two pieces seemed very compatible to me, is for her, this idea of how you shift from that constant survivor mode into a thriver mode. And she’s literally developed a process for how you move from one into the other, especially when you’ve kind of been trained in survivor for many, many years. But I like so much of your book; I feel like focuses on the kinds of things that you can do to feel- to put yourself in a space where you can thrive. And you do that through things like self-care, and setting healthy boundaries, and acceptance, and you have a section on accountability. So it’s also really being accountable and also holding other people accountable. So, there’s a lot of healthy limits and negotiation of relationship in the book that I think is lovely.

Nakeia Yeah, like I said in the beginning, there are things that are at risk when we are not in our healing work. And one of the things that we didn’t always have access to, especially those who come from what I call layered histories, is that we don’t have control. You don’t have control over who your parents are, where you are born in the world, how you are born, the resources you have access to during the beginning stages of your life. A lot of times, finances prevents us from being totally in control of our lives. And then there are things like our nationality, our race, our gender. These things can feel like we don’t have control. And so, “Habits for Healing” highlights the things that we do have control over, and these things actually have the most impact in our lives. If I can’t control it… I always talk about this idea of complaining, and I’ve shared this with my children and with my clients: typically, we don’t complain about things we know we can’t control.

We complain about the things that we think have a possibility of being different or changing, even if we don’t think we can do it. The idea that it can be done somehow, somewhere, at some point, brings us to the point where we complain about it. Usually, we just kind of give up on it. It is what it is. And so, what “Habits for Healing” does, again, is highlights the things that we do complain about and have control over, but it also shows us how we have control personal accountability, which I call personal power. And as it’s… to speak directly to the idea of survival mode. When I learned that survival mode is not actually a bad thing, remaining in survival mode over a prolonged period of time can be damaging to our bodies, to our nervous system, to our relationships. So instead of being resistant to it, I allow it to kind of highlight when I need to be at attention when it comes to certain things, and then I identify what habit I need to employ. I talk in the book about my first year of college. My friend Eric and I met, and I was hypervigilant. I was standoffish. I didn’t want anything to do with people or relationships because I had been betrayed. I was heartbroken. I just broke up with my childhood sweetheart, and Eric really was like, you need to calm down.

Shay He sounded like a good friend in reading it, it sounded like he was a good friend.

Nakeia He was, and still it is. He jokes about when I wrote this book, he’s the only person- my grandmother, I don’t use their names- but his name is absolute real. He’s real. But yeah, he was just like, “Turn it off, turn it off. You don’t have to be like that anymore.” But what he also said to me when I asked for his permission to share our story is that he understood why. He understood why I was like that and when I needed to be like that, but he just constantly reminded me that I didn’t need to be in that mode at this time. And so I had to really identify, ‘Well, what else can I do?” Maybe I can be more observant. Maybe I can be reflective. Maybe I can do an investigation- which isn’t a chapter- on not taking things personally and internalizing things, so that I can identify which version of myself is safe in the moment.

Shay Yeah, it’s a lovely story that you have in the book. He was just kind of calling you out repeatedly, but it sounds like it was in a kind, and, I don’t know, he was somehow able to do it in a friendly enough way that it didn’t make you crazy.

Nakeia It really was truly the very first time that I really was met with that type of criticism. And the very first time that I received it in the most loving way. He did call me out, “Why are you rolling your eyes?” And I thought to myself, I told him when the book came out, I was like, “You were tough.” He said, “I don’t remember it that way.” He was just being himself, and that’s the beauty of being who you are and the asset that that can be for someone else.

But yeah, that was a really defining moment for me, and I credited him for bringing out the best in me.

Shay Yeah. You had this piece in the book; it might take me just a second to grab it. One of the things you talk about is how in some cases you have to let a relationship go. And I’ve heard before that expression of, “For each relationship, there’s a season, a reason, or maybe a lifetime,” and it fits into one of those. So, I want to share a little section that you wrote. You said, “I want you to read through the following out loud with me if you can. Whatever comes to mind as you read through, let this be your sign confirming that it is time to let go.” And then here’s the section that you wrote: “When you question its place in your life, when it takes away more than it adds, when just the thought of letting go gives you a feeling of relief, when it’s clear that it no longer wants you, when it stands in the way of your progress, when it depletes you of your good energy, when it steals your peace, when it steals your joy, when it makes you forget who you are, when it blocks your blessings, let it go.”

I thought this was so great because, for people who might be struggling with, ‘Should I let this go? This thing? This person? This, whatever it is?” It’s almost like you laid out this very simple framework of, “Here’s some things to notice, like if these things are happening, it needs to let itself move out of your life.” And it seems like you have developed an interesting relationship about really knowing, sensing, and then acting on, in your own life, when something is no longer serving you and releasing it. So, I’d like to hear more about what you’ve learned about letting go.

Nakeia So, one of the things that taught me to let go is love and heartbreak as well, and all of the beautiful things that create this urge or this need for us to hold on. And if you think about, if you can imagine what it looks like to hold onto something, that is also a bit of a survival technique or a survival mechanism, because you don’t tend to hold on to things that aren’t going to go anywhere. You’re not as vigilant about it, you’re not as worried, not anxious, fearful, et cetera. You just trust that it’s just going to be here when you wake up, when you go to sleep, it’s not going anywhere. It’s when you feel like it might be at risk. And I always say, if you’re questioning something, especially a relationship, then it’s time to do some reflection. And what we tend to do, and this is also a protective mechanism, is we over romanticize life and especially relationships.

So, we only see the amazing things that happen in a relationship and the amazing things that it is done and all of the ideas, the fantasies, the hopes that we have for the future. And so the difficulty of letting go isn’t just the person, it’s also the dreams, the idea, the fantasy of what this could mean. It’s the status, it’s the Facebook post every year. It’s the pajamas during the holiday season and the pictures that we’re also letting go of. So, the invitation in this chapter is for you to see the bigger picture or the whole picture, to be honest with yourself about what it really is, so that you can identify if it’s still serving you or not. One of the beauties of being in a position of letting go is that you’re also in a position to receive. And so, when I had my first and only real heartbreak in my early twenties, what I realized is that if this wasn’t it- the relationship I thought would be my relationship forever- because that’s what you do at 16.

That means it’s still out there. And I also saw that whatever I loved about my life, whether it be a relationship, a job opportunity, a friendship, whatever, I was a contributing factor. And so, although the other person or the other thing is no longer in my life, I’m still here, which means I can contribute to something new and something that is aligned for me in the future in the same beautiful ways. And so, once I realized this wasn’t it, then my intention was toward what is right. And one of the things I write is that just because it didn’t last doesn’t mean it was never meant to be. Heartbreak was the most difficult thing and still is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to heal from. And I’ve gone through a lot. My ACEs score, as you know, is a 10 out of 10. But for whatever reason, heartbreak was the most difficult thing. And I think because I also write that love- and then a relationship- is the most vulnerable place you’ll ever be, right? And because there is so much that is contributed to our lives when we are in love, whether it be platonic or romantic, so even the best friendships you’ve ever had, just having someone that has your secrets…

That won’t betray you, that can laugh with you and cry with you, I mean it is the most amazing thing. And it serves that version of you that is in need of it. And what we need to do is trust that there’ll be another supportive friendship or relationship that comes down the line and to not over-romanticize things. So that invitation you gave, you read for us so beautifully, is an opportunity for us to see it for what it is. Is it actually serving you, or are these things true about the relationship, the opportunity as well? And if it didn’t last, it wasn’t because it was never meant to be. And what you had is not the best you’ll ever have.

Shay Yeah, I think something it took me forever to figure out, and I’m still learning. I think love is something I will be dedicated to learning for my entire life because there’s just so much to learn, and I’m a beginner. But one in particular that really relates to this was I was in a relationship with someone I love just so much- the kind of love that you’re like, wow, this is powerful beyond what I even knew was available. And ultimately, I did have to let that go as a romantic relationship and transform it. We still have a friendship, but when I was in the middle of it, I kept thinking, “If there’s this much love, there’s got to be a way to fix it. If there’s this much love, there’s got to be a way. There’s got to be a way.” And I honestly think I spent years trying to fix and repair and find a way. And it’s taken me more years of life to understand that sometimes you can have such a deep and profound love, but the way that you’re interacting and treating and kind of managing the relationship internally just isn’t working.

And that sometimes you do, you can still love and let go. And I think it took me forever to realize it’s okay to still love and let go.

Nakeia Yeah, same. I can absolutely relate. And I joke with my clients, I always say to them, had I remained in love in that way, I wouldn’t be here servicing you. Because I was so engulfed in a relationship and in a love, it wasn’t enough room for me to have a lot more in there. And I thought to myself, although it served me and it felt amazing, that can’t be the healthiest form of love if it doesn’t leave room for the whole of me. I always say, and again, it served me at the time though. And so that’s why I know, like you said, it took me some time and it took me some- I’m embarrassed by the amount of years it took me to really heal from heartbreak. I used to be embarrassed. Not anymore. I understand the process, but I agree that it is possible for us to love and let go.

We have to have space for both things. It’s possible for us to remain protective of ourselves and to know when to flip the switch to survival, to protect ourselves, to set boundaries for self-care, and then also acceptance and letting go and not taking things personally. And that just really just creates space for the whole of us. And there’s so much about me that I love now. And that’s one thing I always say as well: if we change one thing about our story, we change everything. And although I don’t know who I would’ve been had I remained in a relationship or whatever, what I know for sure is that I love this version of me and the things that are attached to me now. And I wouldn’t want to risk that for something that I don’t know, because we never know. So all we can do is really ask ourselves the questions that we are empowered to answer in the moment, which is why I shared that section.

Shay Yeah, that’s great. And your work is very trauma-informed, which I think is great because anyone who’s got a trauma story, it’s going to show up, and you have to learn how to work with it and heal it. And I was thinking about just in my own trauma story, I had a core attachment wound very, very early. So many people who’ve had deep childhood traumas and kind of grown up in that sort of a context and environment. And to this day, when I am in relationship with someone, I have to be really thoughtful and aware of how that old, early, because it’s so primal, because it was from a very early age, the first few years of my life and beyond. That, my brain in some ways actually kind of wired around it. So there’s a way in which I have to be really conscientious of what am I doing now that’s either coming from an understanding of how to be healthy and well today and without denying that early kind of woundedness, but also really seeing it for what it is and being a better version of myself now.

So capable of that, but also not denying or ignoring what was, because sometimes it can sneak in a little, and I have to be like… I have to catch it when it does. So I think all of what I just shared, even though it’s a personal story, it’s really related to what trauma-informed care and even a trauma-informed healing process looks like, which is that you don’t ignore what happened, but you also establish the full capacity of who you can be in this moment here and now. I am delighted by how much you speak from, and teach from, and create from, that trauma-informed lens. I think it really matters.

Nakeia That was so beautifully expressed, and it’s really just affirmation for me that I’ve actually done my job with the book. I said it’s successful every time someone confirms or affirms my intention. Part of the reason I start each chapter with the story, either mine or a client’s, is because what triggers- and the word “triggers” is layered- and what it means is that it sets in motion other things that impact us in the moment, and in the moments to come. It’s a story. Often we’re silenced. And so the reason the trauma resonates and still resides in us often is because the story is stuck in us. And so, as soon as something happens, the story starts to play over and over again, and we replay the story. The narrative is there. I used to say things like, “I got to do it all by myself. No one supports me the way I support them.”

And I find myself saying these things often. And again, it’s for protection because if I think that, then I don’t rely on anyone and I won’t be let down. But what that also does, Eric showed me, is it prevents people who are healthy enough from showing up for me as well. And so the trauma informed approach in this book starts with the stories because my hope is that you will immediately hold space for your own. And often, when you can’t hold space for your own initially, being in that empathetic space for me, because when you think about the 10-year-old me that you read about, or you think about the young bride who was looking at her father, not showing up for her, or the kid who was trying to tell her grandmother how her words were so hurtful, or the person who was diagnosed with kidney disease shortly after giving birth to her first child, you’re like, wow, Nakeia…

And then hopefully you can go, “Wow, me.” And then you can share your story so that it’s no longer pen up inside of you, and residing in you on repeat, because now you have a space to hold for the truth of who you are. And then these habits kind of empower you to start creating a new story. So for me, not taking things personally helped me to interrupt those narratives. Let’s investigate this. Are they not really there for you or are they just busy? Perhaps they have something going on in their own hearts and in their own lives. Perhaps they don’t have the capacity, and they wish they could, but they’re too embarrassed to tell you that they can’t. There is a story for just about everything. Sometimes the story is, people are jerks, people are sexists, people are homophobic, they’re racist, whatever. And even then, it’s not our business.

We don’t internalize it because that means they are not doing the hard work we are doing, and it’s time for us to get around other people who are. So, I love that you felt the approach was trauma-informed, that’s the foundation of my work, and I love that you’re now able to hold your story. When you share your story I go, “Okay, I wasn’t alone. I’m not the only one holding on to love for dear life. It means I’m not crazy. I’m in community with someone else who feels what I feel.” And together, as we read and work to heal ourselves, we can create new stories about love and life and all of the other amazing things.

Shay And part of the work that you do now is healing through community with others, and I think you’ve created kind of a global network for healing. So it might be interesting for our listeners to learn a little bit about that and how you’ve structured healing together.

Nakeia Yeah. I have created a community I call Healing Grow Daily. And it came during the worst time in our lives globally. From every corner of the world, we were experiencing the pandemic, and we were all online working to survive emotionally, physically, financially. And so questions were coming up. And so I said, “Let me create a class about it.” And so every fourth Saturday, I hosted a class that highlighted a subject on healing, like boundaries and self-care, and then also healing heartbreak, and one of my favorites- and a favorite among the community- a class on purpose. And then, I kept getting questions after the class and questions from people who were in places like Germany or Ireland or some other part of the UK where they’re like, “I can’t make the 2:00 PM class, but I still want this.” And so, I created a membership, and it’s called the Heal and Grow Daily Membership, it’s global. Up until now, I’ve been keeping it kind of intimate because of the work I had to do, and I’m very respectful of everyone’s time and energy. And I want to make sure that everyone felt like they were getting the attention they needed because it’s a solo community- it’s led by solo, just me, but now it’s open to more people. And so it’s called Heal and Go Daily. We have members from all over the world, Canada, India, Ireland, Germany.

Shay And I wanted to give you a chance just to give an example of how you might work with a client to support them as they’re going through a healing process. I know you have different models for your work, and I thought it just might be nice for people to understand what that looks like.

Nakeia One of the reasons- I always get this question- “Well, why are you not a licensed therapist?” Because I know that part of my purpose and calling is to self-disclose. I have to tell my story. It’s a part of the work, my work in the world. I heal so that I can encourage others or to facilitate healing in others. I heal so that people feel seen, heard, and felt. And so, if you have my book, at the end of each chapter, I call it a mini session because there are specific prompts and a space for you to kind of work through the habit and what that would look like in your life. And so, over the past 10 years now, since I think 2014, I’ve been offering consulting sessions, mentoring sessions where I work with people, just like in the book, on their own lives. So, I’ve helped people through heartbreak, through identifying and fulfilling their purpose.

My clients have gone through PhD programs and now they are in their work, and they’ve done this in the face of, and in spite of, a difficult childhood, a difficult past. And it’s one thing to understand what this looks like in theory, it’s another thing to be on the other side of someone who says, “This is how I did it. Let’s look at how you can do something like that in your own life. Let’s work through these things.” We feel vulnerable, often shameful or ashamed when we experience certain things. And so, clients get to tell me things that they’re too uncomfortable even telling their therapist. And sometimes I get to work with therapists because they say, “My client needs support after our sessions or in between our sessions, support that looks like: this is what you do, here’s a worksheet, here’s a download, here’s a daily setup, here’s a community.” And so I get to work with people in that way.

Shay And it sounds like your educational background as well was in social work. Is that right?

Nakeia Yeah, psychology. So I worked as a former social worker. So I worked in child protection for the state, and then I worked in the DOJ as a counselor in corrections, one of my favorite places to work. And so, my job was to help with programming. I taught a class every single day, and I saw hundreds of inmates every week for weekly counseling sessions to prevent recidivism. And even now, I don’t know how they find me, but they find me on Facebook. I absolutely do not respond, but I love to see pictures of them doing their work. There are clients who I work with who own their own tattoo salons. There are clients who are now fathers, there are clients who are now motivational speakers, and they work to help prevent recidivism among others who were in the same position as them. And so, yeah, that’s a part of my background.

Shay That must be beautiful to see that kind of trajectory of someone’s life as they go through their own healing process and redesign their life and what that can look like. That’s a gift that they share back with you, what’s happened for them.

Nakeia It’s true. It’s true. And I get to see my dad, who was once an inmate, my uncle, who was once an inmate, and I was able to treat them with the respect I hope someone who was a counselor or social worker would’ve treated them. We are all doing our very best, even the worst of us. I think about, there’s something I wrote years ago, I can’t remember the exact words, but it’s something to the effect of: Even on your worst day, you are still deserving of love. You are also held accountable for your actions. Personal accountability is in the beginning, section one of the book. There are boundaries that need to be in place. However, none of us should be absent of love and support.

Shay Yeah, that’s so true. I’m curious, as you reflect on your life journey, of healing all these people that you’ve worked with to support them in recreating, rebuilding their own life, and healing from things that have occurred, how has that helped you to understand or create your own definition of what healing is?

Nakeia Great question. So, my definition of healing actually came from all of the questions that I’m asked, which is, “How do you heal? What is healing? When am I going to be healed?” Healing is a series of practices, choices, mindset shifts, and habits that contribute to you being whole. When you look up the definition of healed in any dictionary, a part of it is being mended or back to a place of health, wellbeing, et cetera. And so, healing- when we are on our healing journey- we are creating and really just engaging in the habits, the things that are necessary to contribute to that. Another thing that this work does is that it forces me to be on my work and in my own work. Even writing the book, I was writing the book where I’m talking about myself years ago- there’s this medical diagnosis I get, but prior to that, I think that I’m just lazy.

I’m gaining weight because I’m lazy, and I’m exhausted because I’m lazy. And there was an autoimmune disease living in my body, and it needed to be identified. And when I realized that, I said, “Oh, I was so hard on myself during the moments I needed to be the easiest on myself.” And so I kind of promised myself not to do that again. And what ended up happening while writing this book is that I was met with another medical diagnosis, and I remember how I felt all those years ago, and I thought about how I could feel and how I could use that to serve me today. And so, instead of being hard on myself, I offer myself self-forgiveness, and I’m able to share this story with others who now went and got their blood work, and they’re like, “Nakeia, you were right. I was deficient in Vitamin D. You were right. I had anemia. You were right. I needed to go back on my medication for depression.” It is important for us to continue our work, those of us who are called to, in a way that is transparent enough for others to feel that they are seen and they are heard. I keep my private things to myself, but there are personal stories that really serve others and continue to serve me.

Shay And I think actually in my own life, through Integrative Touch and the healing work that we do, I think a commitment that I’ve actually made is that I don’t have the right to support others on a healing journey if I’m not willing to do the work myself on an ongoing basis. I don’t have the right, because otherwise it positions me above and I’m not above anyone. And the only way we heal, in my mind, it’s through community. It’s through being in relationship, dynamic relationship, and supporting one another. And so I’ve actually really upped my own commitment to heal because, on a regular basis, I’m supporting a lot of other humans around me in a healing journey. And so I have to walk the walk because otherwise what I offer is going to be very thin, and that’s not going to be of value to anyone, really. So I do think when you’re in a position like you are in, supporting people on a healing journey, you got to keep working on your own side of it, because that’s the authenticity that makes it actually valuable in terms of what you have to give.

Nakeia Yeah, I love that it forces me to look at my self-care practices. So even my schedule, I only see clients on Tuesdays or Thursdays, and then I do things like this on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then Fridays are administrative or personal days. Just something as small as maintaining a schedule that highlights and benefits and supports you, also supports other people.

Shay It does. Yeah, it really does. Well, as we kind of bring our conversation to a close, I’m curious if there’s anything else about your work or your book, “Habits for Healing”, that you feel like you want to have an opportunity to share with our listeners.

Nakeia First of all, you’ve done such a beautiful job of highlighting the areas that I feel most people resonate with, so thank you for that. I think that it is important to take tender care of yourself, and there’s an affirmation in the book that says, “I am deserving of tender love and care.” As you are doing your healing work and on your healing journey, whether it be a physical healing, like a medical diagnosis, or an emotional one, like a layered childhood or a layered past heartbreak, perhaps your job or your business or whatever it is that we do. Also, to those of us who are servicing other people, it’s really important that we adopt a trauma-informed approach to care. That includes conversations around self-care and boundaries. Just imagine if I went into a doctor’s office and I complained about chest pain and in addition to an EKG or a sonogram or whatever it is that they would offer me, that they also say, “Do you feel safe in your home? Do you feel supported by your friends and family? Are you working in an atmosphere where you feel like you are seen and heard?” Because these things contribute to somatic expressions of emotional exhaustion that can really trigger a physical one. I found that the thing that I did to survive the most difficult years of my life- I write about my grandmother. She transitioned in 2021, I mean 2020, and then my dad three months later, and then a cousin and then an uncle. I was in survival mode for real. I started businesses, and my hormones had to call me to the carpet, because I wasn’t listening to anything or anyone else. And so it’s a beautiful thing to be on high alert when we need it, to be called to the carpet to say, “Sit down” when we need it. But it’s also important for us to maintain the practices, like I’ve highlighted in the book, to support us during those difficult times. One of the reasons I survived that moment is because I already had self-care in place. I already had boundaries in place. I already had some other things in place, but what I realized is that there are some other areas that I needed to tighten up that showed physically. And so “Habits for Healing” is an invitation for us to take a holistic approach to our healing journey. Hopefully, you will walk away from each chapter feeling empowered to take control of your own life and to reclaim your purpose, your peace, and your power.

Shay Beautifully said. Well, I so appreciate your contribution through your work and through this book, and I think it’s a valuable resource. I think it’s a very valuable resource for people who are on a healing journey. So thank you so much for having this conversation with me today, Nakeia.

Nakeia Thank you for having me. It was beautiful.

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