speaker-0: We bridge everything. We bridge society. We bridge families, we bridge careers, we bridge opportunities. But every bridge has a weight limit. How many 16-wheelers can I pow on this bridge before it falls? That's how women often, especially high-achieving ones, successful
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: running, we doing the things. How many 16-wheelers are you trying to pack onto your bridge? Because it has a capacity. And at some point the bridge is going to Great.
speaker-1: So, this is a West African dish, specifically a Nigerian dish. So, this dish is not about restriction, it's about replenishing what our body needs, especially when we're chronically depleted, when our nervous systems are just running on fumes chronically. This is gonna replace and replenish all those things and then give you some lasting power beyond that. So, she's about to do her on-screen live taste test and give us her absolutely honest opinion. Somewhere between the promotion and the breakdown, most women stop asking whether something was actually ever theirs to carry. Today I'm sitting with a woman who has built her entire practice around one radical permission. You are allowed to be unavailable. Stay with me or we find out what that permission actually does to the body that has forgotten how to rest. Welcome to the Informed Choice Podcast, where natural healing meets practical truth. I'm Innie, the Niger Goddess, and this is where we simplify holistic wellness. So you can stop guessing and start healing. My guest today has spent years in rooms most women only see from the outside. Backstage at fashion shows, on television sets doing makeup for some of the most photographed women in the industry, and on stages performing as a spoken word artist. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, she knows the same thing happening to almost every woman she worked with. They were achieving everything and still apologizing for existing and for their tiredness. For their bodies for needs that were actually never theirs to explain. She built an entire coaching practice around a different idea that a woman does not have to do more to be successful. She has got to be honest about what was never actually her responsibility in the first place. She calls this work confidently unavailable. The practice of stepping back from what does not serve you without guilt and without apology. She's a self-preservation coach. a former Q Curve Confidence Course Creator and a Keynote speaker, building her own podcast and coaching program under the confidently unavailable name. Please welcome to the show Alisa Law Brown. Hey, welcome. Hey girl
speaker-0: That was such a good introduction. I'm like, I want to meet her. Who is this woman you talking about? hey. Hey girl. Hey.
speaker-1: This one Hey. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much. You're awesome. As you all can tell. Well, La, you've built your work around a phrase and your keynotes confidently unavailable. Where did that specific language come from for you? So
speaker-0: for me it really started with me. Okay. my first coaching program was called Cute, Curvy, and Confident. So I really focused on women empowerment and women feeling very confident about themselves. I was so keen on making sure that program went well and was successful. Girl, I burnt myself out. I was available to them ladies all the time. They had my real number. not my not my coaching number. Not my not my they had my real cell phone number. And they would use it. And I would ask because I felt responsible for them. Yeah. And I really wanted them to have, you know, the s the success that they were looking for in the experience that I promised. And then I learned I was giving a little bit too much. And when you give too much, you can become resentful at the situation that you set up.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: So I realized that, okay, confidence is one thing, but I also have to learn to be unavailable at times. And then I was like, confidently unavailable. Because it's not just about disappearing, but it's about being very intentional, intentional about where you spend your time, with whom you spend your time, and and how you wanna divvy that up. Cause that has to be a confident decision.
speaker-1: That makes total sense. So you describe your clients as successful on paper but exhausted in real life. Yes. Walk me through what that actually looks like when a woman first sits down with you.
speaker-0: Okay. So walk with me a little bit okay. Okay, let's Okay, when you have a long day at work, when you
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: come home, what's one of the first things you want to do?
speaker-1: Take off and work.
speaker-0: Baby. Baby, you wanna take off your bra. So when one of my clients or potential clients first tips with me, I liken the experience to coming home from work and taking off your bra.
speaker-1: Does everybody say that? Everybody's the first thing I
speaker-0: It could be the prettiest bra in the world, it might make you feel really good, really confident, but it's coming off. Absolutely. So when a woman sits down with me, the first thing I want her to feel is, girl, get comfortable. Cause I'm about to make you uncomfortable. So at least take off your bra and stay a wow. You know, so I want that feeling to to be there because we talk about some really serious stuff. And it's it's a lot of times a woman She has no idea how much is on her plate. And she doesn't even know that she has permission to take things off. So when we start diving in, it can get uncomfortable. It can get rough. So I need you to first get comfortable. I need you to relax. I need you to be honest. Girls take your breath and stay a while.
speaker-1: I like that. Cause I'm automatically moved far more comfortable with that thing off. Mew. Especially with these big old things.
speaker-0: Listen, baby. I I mean, I gotta get it right when I get home. I'm I'm a certain way in the office, but when I come home, I I you 'cause you have to prepare. You have to prepare the scene. So I like to set the scene. When a woman meets with me, she's already probably a little bit nervous. Right? She may already have some conceived conceptions about herself where she's like, you know, as you kinda mentioned in the intro, apologetic. That we'll get into that. But there's just so many things that when you first meet with me You already have in your head and I need you to let all of that go. I need you to relax. So I I liken it to that feeling because I wanna make sure we set the tone so we can have a successful session.
speaker-1: I love that. And from a clinical perspective, there is a name for that in like the physiology, which is called allostatic load. If you're familiar with it, it's the cumulative wear on the body that's in like a chronic low grade state of stress. Yes. And instead of short bursts that the body's actually designed to, some people are just in this low grade, chronic, elevated state. And the HPA axis, which is the body's central stress pathway. It doesn't distinguish between an actual emergency and just continued just stress for ten years every day. And so that wears on the body. And so the body is actually calmed down. It just keeps firing.
speaker-0: Yeah, I call it the the lion or the deadline.
speaker-1: Mm.
speaker-0: Your body doesn't know if the deadline is coming. Yes. Or the lion is chasing you. Correct. Either way it's an emergency and we gotta go right now. That can only last
speaker-1: Right. For so long. Right.
speaker-0: You you can't do that consistently and be successful at the same time. It's
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: impossible.
speaker-1: Right. That part. But
speaker-0: Okay, well.
speaker-1: you said a lot of women are apologizing for things that don't even belong to them. Their looks, their tiredness, their inherited things from family or community. What does that pattern like? Where does that usually start? Ooh, girl.
speaker-0: So research is extensive about that. Okay.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Okay. So that the number may vary, but what doesn't vary is the fact that it's in childhood. So usually it starts around eight years old and it could end around fourteen. So from eight to fourteen generally is when a girl becomes aware of her differences from those around her and she learns the patterns to be rewarded for. So if I and I'm kinda getting to another subject here, but if I make myself pleasing, if I find ways to keep it calm, to not ruffle feathers, I am rewarded for this behavior. So the more I do it, the better I am received, the happier my mom or dad is. Right? So we take that on consciously as our responsibility. Now, some in other households may have been assigned that responsibility. Right, but in let's just say a home where no assigning is happening, we may assume it as a child, as a girl. So by the time that we're in our 20s, 30s, 40s, unless we have actually intentionally taken steps to unlearn that behavior, we'll still carry it on to our careers, into our marriages, into our adulthood.
speaker-1: That is so true. Okay, we're gonna keep unpacking that. Okay. Here we are. But you spent years in modeling and doing makeup for television before doing this particular work. What did being in rooms full of accomplished women teach you about how success and depletion tend to travel together? Yeah, it's crazy.
speaker-0: because so when I first started doing actually both makeup and modeling. So I spent way longer doing makeup than I did modeling. Modeling was very short standing in my life. I enjoyed it, it was great, but it ain't listen, it's not for me.
speaker-1: That's what she said.
speaker-0: Being paid to be on a runway is no longer part of my life. Unless you want to pay me to But
speaker-1: Except the app.
speaker-0: I mean, I'm just saying, call me. At Elisa La Brown. But no. So I work with a lot of great women, beautiful women, accomplished women. And when they would sit in my chair, take one example. I used to work at the Matt Counter. Everybody used to come to the Okay, we grew up on Mac. All right, Ruby woo to the day I died. So they would come and sit in my chair, beautiful women. And the first thing they would say, I'm sorry about my face. I'm sorry about my face. I'm sorry about
speaker-1: I'm like, I'm sorry, wait. Sorry about your
speaker-0: my freckles. I'm sorry about my big nose. I'm sorry about my big lips. my lips I can't wear red. Who told you that?
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: So they would always be so apologetic. And I'm like. Ma'am, we're on a movie set. I mean, ma'am, you are the star of this film. Like, why are you apologizing to me? Like, you are beautiful. And so early on, before I thought of anything about coaching or speaking, I'm in a chair doing makeup. Like, why is this beautiful woman apologizing to me? For what and it was young girls. Older women. I mean we we run the gamut here. And I'm like, why? So I started understanding that this is not dependent on your age, your occupation, your financial status. This is something that's mental that keeps showing up in my chair. Now, we all have bad days. We all have days where I'm like, nothing. You know, girl, the bags is bagging. Right. I mean, we have those days. So I'm not saying that we should all wake up like I'm glorious every day. No, we may not feel glorious every day. But the constant need to apologize for being you, there's something psychological that happens to a girl because it starts in girlhood, that becomes a woman that carries this all along. So specifically when I was doing makeups and also doing modeling, you know, I was a full figure model. I was never a skinny chick. So I'm in rooms with a bunch of skinny chicks and then a few of us full size plus size models. So oddly enough, most of the plus size women who were models weren't doing that. Huh? They had already learned, baby. This what you see is what you get. It is what it is. Okay, these triple D is gonna be what you gonna get on this runway. But the smaller size women didn't necessarily carry that same confidence. And again, this is not across the board. I'm speaking about specific scenarios where I was in backstage rooms about to walk a runway. And not to say that every plus size woman had that confidence, because that's not true either. But it's just oftentimes when you go through certain adversities, if we're talking about size and body positivity, you've already had to unlearn certain things that were negative.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: If you never experienced that, let's say if your body fit the stereotype of what's typically considered beautiful, you may not have had to go through that problem.
speaker-1: Uh-huh. That makes sense.
speaker-0: So I've seen it both in the modeling world and in the makeup world. And to be honest, it's just been very sad.
speaker-1: I always tell people because you know you don't hear my accent anymore, I'm Nigerian and so culturally the women tend to be larger. Mm-hmm. And so if you're f we will say fat, it's not taken as like a shameful thing. It's just like of course you're you're not skinny, you're fat, right? So it was never like I never had c at at four hundred pounds, I never felt a way about being fat. Wow. I just felt a way like I have no energy. Okay, 'cause I
speaker-0: Health came in.
speaker-1: d could care less, right? 'Cause like the face was still here. Face was still
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: here. So I wasn't tripping, like I never felt less than and so in the American culture when I hear girls who are already thin, like, my my this and my that and I don't look at her like, what is wrong with you? Like confidence, like you I don't you don't find too many Nigerians that lack confidence.
speaker-0: I wanna I wonder if my business would even work there. I don't even know.
speaker-1: That's not our issue. It's it was always weird. That's why even being when I was like v very like morbidly obese, I just never had that emotional part to it. And I always saw the people that had the stereotypical nice bodies really struggle. And I didn't understand like first of all, you are beautiful, you have to accept you for where you are. You always want to be as healthy as you can. And if you're not in your top health space or or s or state, strive for that, but don't down where you are in the process. You're still here, value where you are, you're up. you're able to breathe and live another day. So it's not to say don't be healthy, don't achieve a ideal body weight and metabolically to be healthy for you. We're saying you're not there yet. Still you still have to love who you are. You still need clothes. You still need
speaker-0: You still gotta go outside and be dressed? I never understand it. They're
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: just like, uh-da. What do you you want the person to be disappearing until am I to to hide in myself? Baby, we not the build How long is this podcast?
speaker-1: Mint don't care. Mm-hmm. And he could care less and he has no problem getting a woman or anything like that. It's not the same. So I I feel like it's cultural. Like it is.
speaker-0: But it's taught.
speaker-1: it is definitely hot and reinforced with magazines and now with social media and previous T V shows. Because like in the nineties, like growing up in the late nineties, like, you know, it was like ultra thin. And that was like for my culture, that's not attractive. No. You know, it's just not, right? Not hating on anybody who is ultra thin naturally or like it's just not seen as attractive. So I just couldn't understand or relate to it, but I it but it always pained me to see their pain. You know, because I I what because I didn't understand, I would try to lend them. I'm like, you are gorgeous. You have to love you for where you whatever stage you are, love where you are. And the health journey is separate from loving yourself.
speaker-0: And the other part to that is that notice earlier when you asked about what age is this introduced, it's introduced to girls.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: It is not introduced to boys. Okay, CNN actually did an article about this called the triple bind.
speaker-1: Okay. Okay.
speaker-0: Girls are taught to be one, caring and nurturing.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Above all.
speaker-0: But also, you must be driven. and competitive. But also you must be desirable. The triple bind, it is like an impossible fee that you are taught very early you need to fit these categories, but also do them seamlessly.
speaker-1: No c
speaker-0: complaint because this is what you are here for. You're here to be all of these things, but also look good and be pleasurable to be pleasurable to me while you do it. So when you're already in an impressionable age and state, you're trying to figure out life yourself. You're new to this thing. But you have these things already being put on you socially, it sets you up for failure.
speaker-1: Yeah. Okay. Well confidently unavailable pushes back on a culture where everyone is expected to be reachable at all times, right? Yes. What actually happens in a woman's body and mind when she stays on that for a long time without a real off switch?
speaker-0: Okay, girl. It's it's I mean, it goes beyond mere exhaustion. Like, everybody knows that feeling of I'm tired. I've done too much today or this week. So you're exhausted. We're not talking about that. Right? That happens, we all know it. When you constantly run this marathon with no end, 'cause even a marathon runner has to walk sometimes. Get to the finish line and then you stop. A woman on this burnout treadmill never stops. It's the treadmill. So
speaker-1: I like the trap mill it all. Yeah.
speaker-0: what happens? The the one of the biggest things is this consistent fight or flight mode. Again, the deadline or the line. Which one are we? It doesn't even matter. Because my
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: body reacts to it the exact same way if I'm in this mode.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: So I'm in this constant state of fury. I Can't calm down. That translates into my sleep. So now I have non-restorative sleep where I go to bed tired and I wake up just as tired because my body has never shut off while my eyes were closed. So now my body is not resetting as it's supposed to do every night. Now my jaws were clenched, I have bad posture. I'm carrying all of the stress in the weight in my shoulders, in my neck, in my lower back. Right? I can't. Now my gastrointestinal system is messed up. Mm-hmm. Right? Now I got all of this stuff happening. My cortisol is raising. Like your body is literally telling you, hey, hey, we
speaker-1: Red flag. Red flag.
speaker-0: about to I consider women bridges, right? We bridge everything. We bridge society. We bridge families. We bridge careers. We bridge opportunities. But every bridge has a weight limit. How many sixteen wheelers can I pile on this bridge before it falls? That's how women often, especially high achieving ones, successful running, we doing the things. How many sixteen wheelers, sister, are you trying to pack onto your bridge? Because it has a capacity. And at some point the bridge is going to break. So the goal is to not break. And a lot of us are are consistently working in a mode of we we are broken down. We're calling it things like, I'm just tired. I just need my wine tonight to relax. No, sis. You you don't. I just if I could just take one little vacation and you might even take the vacation. But if you come back Wednesday
speaker-1: And you exhaust and you need a vacation from the vacation.
speaker-0: And and nothing's changed. Your definition of success hasn't changed. Your capacity assessment hasn't happened. So when you come back after that sabbatical, after that vacation, since you're just running yourself right back into the same situation. You're piling 16 wheelers on your bridge all over again, nothing's changed. So it's not just a a thing of being exhausted. We are literally tearing down and killing our body.
speaker-1: So what you're saying is very measurable. So when the nervous system never gets the signal to like power down, like, hey, we're safe, your cortisol stays elevated and it doesn't taper off naturally like it into the evening, like it's supposed to. When your cortisol doesn't taper down like it's supposed to in the evening, that delays your melatonin release, right? Which fragments your sleep architecture, which means the body never fully reaches a deep restorative sleep stages where the repairs actually happen when you're sleeping. So the woman wakes up tired, not because she did anything wrong, but because her body was never given the signal that it had permission to stand down. And that's why that chronic stress, that's why they call stress the silent killer. Because it's low grade chronic for years. And then all of a sudden you just just it just you just crumble. You crumble and you're like, what happened? The bridge broken. Right.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But all the signals your body's been giving you along the way, they're either like you felt like it was a reflection of you not doing enough.
speaker-0: Correct.
speaker-1: Or you just ignored them. Or you didn't recognize them.
speaker-0: The above. Yeah. Because again, this starts in girlhood. Doing it for
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: so long, this feels like normal.
speaker-1: Right. Yeah. Well you talked about your acute curved confident course and how something as simple as the right shapewear or bra size can change a woman's days. Why do small physical adjustments carry so much physiological weight for the women you work with?
speaker-0: So the small adjustments that you have to make in your life, girl, they they accumulate. They accumulate. So I I often think I was I can't remember where I was, but there was somebody who was doing some kind of demonstration and she's holding a glass of water. And the glass is not it's not heavy. But the longer she holds it, it gets heavier and heavier and heavier. So little things like putting the glass there, it helps us in the long run. So very small daily incremental changes, they add up. If you think about things like losing weight, right? Or building muscle or anything, nothing's gonna happen overnight. That's huge. That's huge. There's a book called Atomic Habits. I love the book. Okay.
speaker-1: So
speaker-0: So in the book, if you remember, he talks about I wanna say the degree at which ice changes from water to ice, ice to water. Okay. So in the time, for those who haven't read it, maybe in the time period where that temperature is increasing, it looks like nothing is happening. You're
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: just like, my God, this is never gonna melt. It's never, never, never gonna melt. And then you get to that degree, whatever the degree is, because I forget. It's not mine, but it's true. Whatever degree that is, you get there and all of a sudden it melts. And then you think, it should have been here all along. But no, it had to get there. And if it had never done the incremental steps it needed to do, then it never would have melted. So in our in our daily lives, we have to do the incremental things. Everybody wants to see the ice melt, but nobody wants to do the work to get that temperature where it needs to be. Patience, discipline, and not even just motivation, because motivation fails. No, what are you supposed to be doing? Let's do
speaker-1: Put the systems in place so that you can't that's what his book talks about. Put the systems in place so that you can have the discipline and can have the correct
speaker-0: Correct. And things like habit stacking. So putting those together. All of that helps this these small incremental changes, they do make a difference. The same way, incremental things that you do in a negative way also make a difference. So skipping breakfast, let's say if you're not intentionally fasting, right? Skipping breakfast or
speaker-1: Not good for women. Please don't skip records. We're not men. That research is based on men. Right. Okay. That's like one of my things. Like, please.
speaker-0: And see, I do intentionally fasting based on a doctor. Skip dinner. Intentional. Skip dinner. So it just depends on your body. Right. But you you do things unintentionally. I'm just gonna skip this. Or I'm just gonna go to bed this late. I'm just gonna no and so you're pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. And you said incremental changes in the wrong direction and they also add up.
speaker-1: And it really erodes your internal I don't say confidence, but your internal something. I can't think of the word. Because you're making these promises to yourself and you're constantly letting yourself down these little ways. Because no one else, no one else is holding you accountable to what you've told yourself, like, okay, I'm gonna make sure I go to bed by ten o'clock. I'm gonna make sure I have a healthy breakfast that's full of healthy fats and protein. I'm gonna make sure I work out at least four to five days a week. And then when you don't, it's just like you keep eroding your own trust.
speaker-0: You're teaching yourself not to trust teaching yourself not to trust yourself.
speaker-1: Yeah. Right.
speaker-0: So you're already allowing yourself to be like, we're not gonna do it anyway. So I say whatever you want. We're gonna stay up late because we ain't waking early to work up anyway. We ain't gonna work it in the morning. Girl, you girl, you we ain't gonna work out tomorrow, man. Whatever. Netflix
speaker-1: We got that.
speaker-0: says, are you still watching? Yeah. Yes. Cause we ain't waking up in the morning anyway. Keep paying. That's a good one. Yes, I'm still watching. When am I supposed to be going to sleep when I'm not waking up in the morning to work out? So yeah. Keep watching.
speaker-1: though okay if a woman audits her calendar yes the way you coach her tooth what tends to surprise her most about what she finds there
speaker-0: She's amazed. She's amazed. Here's the disconnect. A lot of us will write out a to do list, but it'll never make it to our calendar. Meaning we can have a list of 10, 20 things that we write out and we're like, look at me. I am so organized, honey. I baby. I wrote a to do list. But the to do list doesn't have times on it. Now, if you put that to do list on your calendar. The way I teach you to. You're like, what? I where is that supposed to go? W I d I can't like it don't the times they don't add up. The math ain't math.
speaker-1: Then it encroaches on your sleep. On everything else, yeah.
speaker-0: So w we do great with li I am a list girly. I love a good list. I'm working on a journal to publish right now. But So the list is great, but it has to have some accountability, some time slot. Because otherwise, you're setting yourself up for failure again. And that's just what that's the cycle that we run into. Right? We we we think we're doing something good in we are. But when you don't have it aligned with your actual day and your actual capacity, then you've you're setting yourself up with unrealistic expectations. Now you're in the day trying to achieve these expectations that were never realistic in the first place. Then when you don't achieve them, you're beating yourself up because you didn't achieve the thing that was never achievable anyway. And
speaker-1: It's just like
speaker-0: then you go to sleep with your non restorative sleep and you wake up tired and you put yourself right back into it again.
speaker-1: And you're waking up always in a deficit because you feel like you don't You can't get up. Yeah.
speaker-0: You can't catch up. Whereas you might have actually achieved a good amount of things yesterday. But because you wrote down twenty, you feel like a failure. And that's what's lodged in your mind.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. That's so true. And I definitely have lived that life. As have I. Okay, so you mentioned that burn burnout and caregivers can spill over into how they treat people, depending on them, even elderly family members. Talk to me about that connection. So
speaker-0: Yeah. This was one that I kinda had to make I didn't I mean I I did, but what was happening was that I was asked to speak at an event about elderly abuse. And I was like, okay, let me let me search that. And dig a little bit. You know, let
speaker-1: Let me do a little
speaker-0: me know, I I don't know all. I'm not opposed to a little research. this makes perfect sense. Oftentimes we as the women are caregivers. No, that's not across the board. There are lots of wonderful male caregivers. Absolutely. So shout outs to them. I am not trying to shoot them down, but in this conversation, in this context, women who are caregivers who are burnt out, who are doing too much, who are who are running on fumes, while the people who we are working so hard to care for end up getting the brunt of what's happening with us. So that's how a lot of times this elder abuse ends up showing up in our lives. You don't mean to deal with grandma this way. Right? Grandma done
speaker-1: We cracked.
speaker-0: said this thing so times and is getting on your nervous and get burnt out. So now you're a little snippy. Yeah. Right? So this can affect more than just you. It affects people in your life. We we end up having attitudes or worse, bad behavior towards people that we love. in in this instance elders because they are the ones who are usually not able to defend themselves, right? You're not gonna break bad with your boss and she can go toe to toe with you, right?
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Thanks a mean but but but grandma won't have that same reaction. So oftentimes unfortunately that stuff rolls down to the people that we're caring for, especially those who may not be as as able to care for themselves.
speaker-1: It's true. And there's a lot of research behind what you're describing. So sometimes it's called compassion fatigue or secondary stress. And it so shows up physiologically, not just emotionally, because again, that chronic depleted nervous system has less capacity for patience, emotional regulation, or an empathetic response. And so the exact resource that we're that you need for caregiving are depleted. So are depleted. So it's not a character flaw. It's a resource problem like within your body. So when the body has like nothing left to get, like you said, running on fumes, patience is often the first thing to go.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: It's very unfortunate. So it's like a a yellow flag, red flag to pay attention. If you if you know you don't wanna do that but that's happening, look internally because it's something going on with you since you don't take it out on people you love.
speaker-0: And and if you do recognize it, it's good to to be able to tag somebody else. Because what you don't want out I mean really, because now you're in a position where you could potentially Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Right. And that's what we don't wanna do. Usually it's gonna be children or LW. They're the ones who are gonna get it first because again they're they are in a position to technically challenge.
speaker-1: Good champion defenseless.
speaker-0: Correct. Correct. To a degree. So if you find yourself in that situation It's it's a safety issue and it's it's out of love to go ahead and say, you know what? I probably need to leave. Or I need to maybe hire help or family has to step in, whatever has to be done. But you may need to remove yourself from that situation, even if temporarily, to have a reset.
speaker-1: Yeah. So for the woman listening now who feels guilty every time she says no, what's the first small unavailability she should practice this week? What does that look like?
speaker-0: Pausing. Looks like asked me to go out.
speaker-1: Would you like to go out?
speaker-0: Let me check my calendar. Ask me to go to happy hour. Girl, I love it.
speaker-1: You like the little happy Iron this Friday?
speaker-0: Let me see what I got going on, and I'm gonna hit you right back. Ask me something that I ask me anything that I didn't just say. Surprise me. Ask me anything.
speaker-1: There's a there's a concert coming up this weekend, such and such coming to town. You wanna go? Yeah. Ooh
speaker-0: Give me give me like 15. Let me just see what I got going on. Let me see what I got going on. So in all of those instances, I didn't say no.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: But I also didn't say yes. Yes. So
speaker-1: That takes the pressure off of certain people, yeah.
speaker-0: because some people can't say no right away. That is a that is a learned. It
speaker-1: Behaving.
speaker-0: causes anxiety to say no, to physically say the words no for some people hurts them. So if if that's too much for you right now.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: It's okay to to pause your no. It's okay to type your no. Let me t let me let me text you later. Baby, stop where you are. Start where you are. But for everything, please stop saying yes. Stop saying yes. Because a couple things are gonna happen. You're gonna say it and immediately resent it. You're gonna say it and resent the person. You're gonna say it and not show up. Or worse, you're gonna show up and your capacity's already done. So now you're gonna take it out of where my
speaker-1: And see, and I used to personally suffer with this because I have been a lifelong introvert, so my social battery doing goes quite quickly. And so for me, the best thing is a cancel plan. They're like, Girl, I ain't gonna be able to make it like, really? Okay. And I'm like
speaker-0: Be in pajamas by the time the phone call ends, okay? I didn't want to go anyway. Thank you. We're
speaker-1: is hard
speaker-0: off. What? We didn't go in. girl, that's okay.
speaker-1: you can't okay I understand that that has been that has been me I am so much better now I I now consider myself an ambivert ambivert yes but
speaker-0: Me as well.
speaker-1: my true nature is an extreme introvert
speaker-0: The truth of matter is because of where you recharge, right? Yeah. I'm an introverted I people
speaker-1: In solitude.
speaker-0: drain me. Exhausting. And I work with people.
speaker-1: I feel like I ran a marathon going to it's like, you should come out. There's gonna be all these people and all that and the more they're saying I'm like the more I'm like I'm c I'm clicking down, down.
speaker-0: So it's and for me it depends, right? Because if I'm charged, I'm ready to go. See that's what I'm saying. That's why
speaker-1: not I have to get myself.
speaker-0: I'm But but but I'm not but I know that going is still going to train me. So I'm going to have to retreat. Yeah. When it's time.
speaker-1: That's why I always drive separately, because I'm out. I'm That's right, girl. And I do
speaker-0: designated I can
speaker-1: a group cr car ride. Cause y'all gonna be Y'all be taking too long? I'm just going home,
speaker-0: She said.
speaker-1: I ain't gonna do anything. I just
speaker-0: to go.
speaker-1: I just know myself. We always say any's she's ghosts. Like she's gone, like I came, you
speaker-0: Down!
speaker-1: saw me, I made my appearance.
speaker-0: Conqueror.
speaker-1: Yes, it's true. It's true. But in in my current age I am much better about
speaker-0: So
speaker-1: that. Yeah, it's all I'm only about a year into my recovery of introvertedness. But yeah. I I had to recognize it's like any gotta be better.
speaker-0: Pause. The pa the the the pause is so
speaker-1: I like how you phrase it. Like let me yeah, because I it used to hurt me to say no, but I know like I don't have the social battery. I do have a whole lot of my plate that they're not taking to account. But I I I want to invest time in this person, this relationship. I don't really feel like it the same time.
speaker-0: It's
speaker-1: And it sounds horrible to say 'cause it's not the person, it's me.
speaker-0: One of the first things I do when I teach boundaries, it's so funny, my I have a free workshop and in the workshop one of my slides says boundaries are not about you, they're about me. That is a big misconception. My boundary has nothing to do with
speaker-1: Nothing.
speaker-0: it's about me. Okay, you want access to me? Here are my boundaries that make me comfortable. It's a lot, it's a lot, we're gonna pack a lot. But I'm just saying, so if that pause is super helpful. Because I'm not trying to throw you into the deep end. Especially if you're coming to me and you've been running on these feelings for a long time and you and let's just add this what it is. A lot of it comes from us trying to be good people.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: It's not like we out here trying to be Miss America. No, we just want to be good friends, good daughters, good wives. So we want to do the thing and be available to you. The problem is that we can't do that for everybody at all the times because we have a capacity, just like you. So allow me, if you love me, allow me to check my capacity first and get back to you.
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: And that's why I said throw something at me, because the way you respond. May need to be rehearsed.
speaker-1: Yeah, I'll ha I had to practice that for sure. My phone is always blowing up. Yep. 'Cause I don't think about stuff to ask 'cause I'm like, I don't ask. I'm like, 'cause I'm good. Yeah.
speaker-0: Be often dope. So you you may have to rehearse what to say when somebody asks you something out of the blue. It's so funny because sometimes our calendars are empty. It's like, nobody asks me nothing. And then it's like, Good Lord, how many invitations did I get this week? You know, and you have to practice the balantary, practice the pause. And you also have to refra I'm not teaching I'm not doing all this teaching up here, but one more thing. Go ahead. You gotta reframe the guilt. You gotta reframe the guilt. Okay. Okay.
speaker-1: You got Let's do it. Let's talk about
speaker-0: Okay. There are two different reasonings, definitions for guilt. So when you want to say no to something and you feel a guilt, you have to ask yourself, Am I guilty because I've done something wrong? Or am I guilty because I've been conditioned to think that I need to be available? Two different lines of thought. Because sometimes when we feel guilty, it automatically says, I'm doing something wrong. I need to stop and do the other thing. The other thing is to say yes. That's not accurate guilt. In that moment, you might just be conditioned to think that you have to say yes. So you have to reframe the guilt. When I feel guilty, which one is it? Did I actually do something wrong or am I being conditioned? Okay, if it's not that I've done something wrong, it's the conditioning one, which means now I have to look at that guilt as progress. Okay, I am reconditioning myself to give myself permission to check with myself. So now that's the good guilt. I'm happy I feel that guilt. I'm proud of that guilt because it tells me that I'm finally choosing me.
speaker-1: I love that. I like how you frame that. Reframe the guilt. Yeah, reframe the guilt. Okay, that's a framework. Links below. Okay.
speaker-0: Come to my class, I'll you the rest.
speaker-1: Links in the show notes. Okay, so if a woman cannot picture what enough looks like anymore because she's been running on more for so long, where does she start?
speaker-0: Visualization. Visualization. So this is when the spa is good. Right. This is when that that moment is. Baby,
speaker-1: I love a good inside.
speaker-0: I am a spa girly to my husband husband's detriment.
speaker-1: here she goes.
speaker-0: Baby, can you rub me that $80, please? Listen, visualization. Sometimes you have to take yourself out of the environment to really see where you want to be. Sometimes we are too much in it. We can't get out of it. We we just we in it. So sometimes you to take yourself away. Now, let's say a situation where you just you can't. I'm not so who got spa money? Not me. So okay, maybe not spa. But can you go to the coffee shop down the street? Can you take yourself out of your environment for 30 to 45 minutes? Just step out. Whatever it is that you in, step out. Please. Okay, step out. Can you go to your car? You know, you go home sometimes. Yeah, and you don't want to get out 'cause you know what's inside the house.
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: So you just you just sit in the car for a second until somebody realizes it didn't come up. You coming in? Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I'll be I'll be in. Yeah. Go to the car. Just step out for a second. And then don't think about your schedule. Don't think about your day. Don't think about your to-do. Just envision what would you like your day to look like? You may be a long way from it. That's kind of we ain't talking about that right now. I'm not asking you about the distance between where you are and where you want to be. Doesn't matter in this context. Step out and visualize where do you want to be? Because once you have that star, that north star, now we can work backwards. Right? But if you can't, if you're so in it that you can't even visualize what you would like your day to look like.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: We might need a one-on-one.
speaker-1: Yeah. And I live there for so long. Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: So just visualize. Give yourself permission to visualize. Sometimes we don't even you know, when you're a kid and you want something, maybe you're shopping with your mom and you go past the aisle of candy and what did she say? Don't even think about it. Don't even think about it. As adults, sometimes we're scared to even think about it. We're not we're not kids passing the candy aisle anymore. You have permission. To think about it. So give yourself a moment to think about it. What would you like your day to look like? What would you like to wake up and happen? What would you like to go to bed to? I can't give it to you right now. I don't have a wand. But just think about it. Give yourself permission to think about it. And then we got something to work with.
speaker-1: Yeah, that's super powerful. I love that. And another simple step is like vagal tone. it's the strength and responsiveness of the vagus vagus nerve governs the body's ability to shift in and out of high alert. So slow extended exhales or box breathing, right? Time in nature, calming plant friends around me. or the I allies we'll have to talk about like later in this episode, support this pathway. Yes. So it doesn't require an overhaul. Like you said, it requires consistent, small changes, small signals to the body that it is safe to like calm down, stand down. Yeah.
speaker-0: that intentional breath work is I mean I am not I don't go into it because I you know not my ministry again I get you I'm the stopgap girl I'm gonna help you stop right now and figure out that you need to do something but things like that intentional breath work what is it the the hot water cold water I mean just it's just
speaker-1: Plunge in
speaker-0: things that you can physically do to stop it. And and just tell your body it's safe. Because that's the thing. We've just told our bodies have gotten so used to this run, run, run, run, and run, we don't feel safe in our own bodies. So you have to do the certain things that you said to start to feel yeah safe again.
speaker-1: Yeah. What did you have to unlearn about your own worth before you could teach other women to say no?
speaker-0: You know, that's a great question because I was talking to a girlfriend literally this week. So, okay, I I had to do some identity shifts. And this is huge because there are things that we do, there are things that we have, and there are things that we are. So in the past, I somehow came to confuse my identity with what I could give a person. So I took pride in being the girl. When we went to Happy Hour to be like, Hey, next round's on me. Right? Or sending my parents on a cruise for their anniversary. I I considered that a part of my identity. And then I hit a a page where was like, Who got the next round? I'm gonna give y'all this handwritten, handmade gift for your anniversary, you know?
speaker-1: From the heart.
speaker-0: So it really took a hit to my identity because I'm like, well, wait a minute. If I'm not the next round on me, girl, who am I? Right? And it was like, why? So I had to shift my mindset and be like, no, no, no, no, no. My identities are not tied to what I can give, but the the characteristics of me. So my characteristic is I'm gonna give you all I have. But that going to vary depending on what season of my life I am in. And that's okay. So my identity doesn't shift because of where I am on the timeline of my journey. Cause I'm still going to be kind no matter what. Right. I'm still going to be helpful no matter what. And I'm still going to be confident no matter what. I'm going to do it scared. I might cry. But I'm going to do it. Yeah. Right. And that's my I that makes me not what I can give a person. So that shift. Help me. And so when I'm coaching women and they say, but I'm the strong friend. Okay, friend. I get it. I mean, I get it. I get it. But but that was sad on you. And sometimes we take pride in that. When my girlfriends get upset, they call me and it's two in the morning and they know I'll answer. But why, sis? Because you need to be asleep too. Who?
speaker-1: And who's second on you?
speaker-0: Right? Probably nobody. Ain't nobody else got the rounds. They they came, they left their wallets at home because they knew you had it. Right? So when we assume these identities, and then we start to take pride in them, because that we see that it makes other people happy, sometimes we don't realize what it's doing to ourselves. So that was a shift that I had to make for myself. And that made it easier for me to say, hey, I recognize this in you. And this is something that you may want to give attention to, to see if this identity still currently suits you where you are. I'm not gonna tell you to change, but I'm gonna tell you that this could result from that. And you may wanna reassess who you choose to be. And and that may help you navigate this successful life a little bit better.
speaker-1: Is there a version of yourself maybe the one doing makeup backstage or performing as a keynote speaker that you had to let go of to build this work?
speaker-0: Yeah, just the version that sounds so bad
speaker-1: It has to be
speaker-0: when you say it all loud. The version that cared. Meaning I I want you to enjoy, you know, when I'm on stage and I'm giving a keynote, it's it could depending on where it is and what it is, it might be stressful for me, right? But I kind of have to remove that in order for me to give you what I what I prepared for you. And so it's another mindset ship, right? It's not about whether you like my shirt, whether you like locks, whether you like brown skinned girls, whether you like big girls. It doesn't matter. Because you're there and I'm here. Not in a condescending way, but in this particular context, you have a job and I have a job. Right. And my job is not dependent on whether you like me.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: Right? Right. So I can't care what you think about my shoes and if they match my belt. I can't care about that. I only care that the knowledge that I have for you in this moment gets to you in a way that's consumable. That you leave this room better than when you came in. Because that's my job. That's why I'm here. So that identity, that thought that I had before, that I that I had to get rid of. I hope they like me. I mean I do. But if you don't I mean listen,
speaker-1: Four.
speaker-0: because somebody's gonna get what I came here to bring. And that's my job. I'm gonna always try to do my job, regardless of whether you do yours or not. Because your job is to listen. Mm-hmm. Your job is to take in this information. Your job is to find why you're here and leave transformed in one way or the other. If you decide not to do your job, I mean okay. But I would do mine.
speaker-1: I like that. setting boundaries. You guys can get sounds such a common phrase that it risks become could becoming like empty advice. Yes. What makes your approach different from what everyone else tells women to do? Okay.
speaker-0: Sustainable boundaries. Example, right? Have you ever had a situation where say somebody made you really mad and you're like, never call me again? You ain't mean it. You just said a boundary you didn't even mean, right? So boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, no healthy boundaries, sustainable boundaries, boundaries that you mean, boundaries that you can actually stand on. There's a difference in just of the and plus. People think of boundaries often as doors, but boundaries can be gates. Yeah. Right? That open and close. So boundaries can tell you not just how to stay out, but how to come in. For instance, when I'm dealing with my coaching clients, let's say you have one of my packages that includes Voxer service, that little walkie-talkie service. I tell you, hey, if you need me, hit me on the Voxer. Between the hours though. Because this boundary,
speaker-1: Right?
speaker-0: I want I want you to communicate with me. So my boundary is telling you the best way to do so. So my voxer cuts off at let's say 7 PM and you want to call me at 7 30 and I hit a little church, because maybe I forgot to cut it off. I'm not gonna pick it up. Two reasons. For you and for me. Yes. Right? Because I don't want to resent this relationship that I have with you. And I want you to respect me as your coach. So I have to set boundaries that make sense for both of us. Mm-hmm. Because the worst thing to do is to resent somebody for overstepping a boundary you never bothered to set. Hello. Now don't call for me for a boundary that you ain't set. Okay? I don't wanna hear that. Why you call me at nine? Because you usually answer at nine. Well, that's early. We're done stop answering. You know what I mean? Like the trust
speaker-1: Tell me that's a how to treat you.
speaker-0: and it's not even a bad way because sometimes people think that's so negative. It's positive. I want you in my space. So I'm giving you the parameters. That makes sense, so you get the good me.
speaker-1: how to do that. Right.
speaker-0: At six a.m. you might not get the good me. So let me save you. The good me turns on at seven. So call me at 7 for 10. Right. This is saving you and for me. So boundaries have to make sense. Right, you we don't just go around making arbitrary boundaries because boundaries is a key word and we're supposed to do it. No. It gotta make sense. Why you why are you making this boundary, sis? And sometimes the boundaries is is too harsh. What are you what are you you're you're blockading yourself in from the world for what? Right. Somebody hurts you? Do we need to go have therapy? Do we need to because sometimes that happens, right? We we Self-preservation coach. Self-preservation. Right? I'm all about preserving self. But you gotta make it sustainable. So you gotta look at all of the sides of the boundaries. Why is it here? Is it even enforceable? Don't look at me. It's a boundary. Well, you can't control nobody's eyes. That's not an enforceable boundary. So you gotta take
speaker-1: Right, right, right.
speaker-0: a look at it. They gotta be healthy. They gotta be sustainable.
speaker-1: Two things. Okay. Zero point where confidently unavailable tips into avoidance, where a woman uses it to dodge responsibilities that are actually hers.
speaker-0: Yes, I call that consistently unavailable. Sis, be confident, not consistent. As a coach again, right? I have to show up. I can't say I got you and then don't got you. So we have to honor commitments, right? We have to be a reliable person in our life. But there are times when I am available. And I'm confident about those times. So that I can give each segment of my life the proper amount of attention. But if you're consistently unavailable, you consistently miss deadlines, you consistently don't show. There's a part of my life that I I kind of I was going really hard for some goals. And I eventually learned that I had hurt a family member. Because apparently I had kept missing her immense. Now she never said nothing to me. I didn't know. I hadn't I had no clue. And then some time some a good amount of time had passed. So we had a situation where we're having a conversation and she blew up on me. And I was like, I had no idea what she was. I'm like, what?
speaker-1: if I just come out left field. Blindsided.
speaker-0: And I felt horrible because I I love this person and I just had no idea that I had hurt them. But I had become consistently unavailable for them. And I did not recognize it. So in my work of measuring out your capacity and looking at your agenda. One of the questions is, am I making time for the people that I love? Because in our pursuit of success, sometimes we neglect aspects of our life that may need more attention that we're getting at. And when that happens, it may go into the realm of being negligent, even if unintentional. And as you said, avoid.
speaker-1: Right. Well, the last question I ask every guest on the show is if you could tell the guests just one more thing they could do to have an informed choice this week, what would it be?
speaker-0: ACS. Okay.
speaker-1: What's that?
speaker-0: A C S. This is a line. This is a line. Do I have the capacity? That's the C. And then if the answer is yes, what needs to shift?
speaker-1: A C S A C S
speaker-0: Yes. Does it align to I have the capacity? And if yes, what needs to shift? Because sometimes it aligns, sometimes you say, I figured out. But we don't shift anything. And that's how we constantly went into this thing where we got too much on a to-do list. And so we we we get ourselves in that cycle. A C S honey.
speaker-1: I like this AC. Well before we move on to the herbal spotlight, please tell people where to find you and how they can work with you.
speaker-0: Alright, so elisalabrown.com. So it's two L's, one S A L L I S A, La L A Brown.com. And that's my name for my website. That's my Instagram. And soon my YouTube will be launching Confidently Unavailable. So my YouTube and my podcast. So
speaker-1: That's awesome.
speaker-0: I'm working on those two things. But till then, girl. And you can reach me email too. Hello at alisalabrown.com.
speaker-1: Okay. All of the links will be down in the show notes below. Please be sure to reach out to her. Please thank you for being an amazing guest. I love this conversation and I think you're gonna you get some clients out of this one.
speaker-0: I'll tell you this too, for those who who also are like, I ain't got no money, but I need something. A free resource. I have I have a thing on my website. It's called 12 signs you're doing too much. Okay. It's free. You just go, you download it for free. You'll get I think you put your name, your email, and your number in. You'll be subscribed to my list. So you'll get some, you know, health information every now and then. But just go and make that assessment. Again, I like to be that stop gap. So yes, it's nice to be paid. But even if we can't do that, at least make the assessment. So you realize, hey, I need to do some things.
speaker-1: That'll be linked below as well. Yeah. Wow. That'll be linked below as well. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you so much. We'll be right back with our herbal spotlight.
speaker-0: Rise and shine, it's time both naturally.
speaker-1: All right, so we are back with our Ergo Spotlight and based on all the beautiful conversation we just had, we talked a lot about nervous system exhaustion. So I I always have to pick an herb that parallels the conversation we just had. And so this herb I picked for this week is called skull cap. Are you familiar with that?
speaker-0: Absolutely am nuts. Okay.
speaker-1: All right, for those who are familiar with it, they might think of it as a sedative. Okay. but it's actually not a sedative. It's something that helps your s your immune system, not your immune system, your nervous system from overreacting or being overstimulated. it doesn't have any of the adverse reactions for like anti anxiety medications. So it's tradition used by North American herbalists for people that have like a nervous system that's completely exhausted. Okay. Okay. So the skull cast flavonoids, bind to the The benodiazepine sites of the GABA A receptor sites. And that's the same receptor sites that anti-anxiety medication that people take binds to. I'm sure you're familiar with that. Damn. And so we have a lot of research to back up the herbs because a lot of times you have all these herbs and you have you have decades or millennia of people using it, but there's no science to actually back it up. But it's actually some science on this. And so I'll read those. We had a in 2014, there was a random double blind placebo controlled crossover trial. Of about 45 adults, healthy adults, that found a significant reduction in their total mood disturbance after two weeks of taking skull cap, just drinking as a tea or taking as a capsule, with no reduction in their energy or cognitive performance. And then in 2025, so just last year, a randomized double-blind placebo controlled crossover trial found that skull cap-based supplements improved sleep quality, which we talked about, sleep efficiency. wakefulness in adults with mild to moderate insomnia with effects researchers described as carrying over supplementation ended. So once they even stopped taking the supplementation, they still had positive effect. And this is without taking the prescribed versions of medication. So the science has actually come to back up what people have known for thousands of years or hundreds of years concerning skull cap. And it's a very unique looking flower in in in nature. This is the dried sifted version of it. So Skull cap increases how much GABA and GABA is the brain's calming chemical. And so it stays active, how long it stays active at the receptor site. So it does not sedate your nervous system. It helps stop your nerves from overfiring. So that's why it's a really great herb. people take it as a tea or tincture. It's taken consistently over a couple of weeks. You can drink one to I mean two to three cups a day is more than sufficient. And all you need is like a tablespoon, a teaspoon or two of dried herb in the water. And I have some for you to try. Yes, please. So I have a nice c here.
speaker-0: Whole cup.
speaker-1: I made this earlier so it's been steeped for a while. And I just put a little bit of stevia leaves in it so it's not totally just grass. But
speaker-0: Thank you for that.
speaker-1: it's still still very natural tasting. that's true. I mean that's true. Hey
speaker-0: whole lot for a taste. Hey. My God we're gonna be real good.
speaker-1: Gabby's gonna be cooking.
speaker-0: Okay, you ready for me to say? Yeah, go ahead. it's good.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I'm not even faking.
speaker-1: It's genuinely well tolerated. It's not very many contraindications, but of course on take it if you're breastfeeding or in or pregnant. make sure you get it from a reputable source as all your herbs. And if you're taking currently taking pharmaceuticals, make sure you talk to your health care team before you add on any other pharmaceuticals because there could be contraindications, especially if you don't get from a replicable source. There are some rare cases of liver interactions when you buy it from crappy places, right? But other than that is very well tolerated and it gives you that calm. It just just restores without having to have the drug.
speaker-0: So me being newly introduced to this, right? How would I know if it's a reputable source? Like how would I because if I go home and I'm like, this is great and I actually really do like it, so I probably will be drinking it continuously, how do I know where to get it from?
speaker-1: Yes. So you can go to your local herbal herbalist. so like do a cursory Google search or a chat GBT or quad search of that. or if you buy it on somewhere like an Amazon, make sure it's been third party tested or buy some like a Mountain Rose herbs or a stardust. They are they are like leaders in the industry of bulk or bulk herbs. Okay. But the main thing is make sure it's third party tested and look at the reviews and and at the back. Don't just buy for some sketch. Right. Someone just grew in their backyard and the dog was pissing all over the herbs and stuff. We don't want that. Okay. We don't want that. So the main thing is make sure it's been third party tested and there's some type of oversight and organic. You do not want pesticide laden, dried herbs that you're gonna drink from medicine because now you're also drinking those chemicals. So that's what's looking for organic, third party tested, reputable, like I can say like a mountain rose herb. So like this one I got from mountain rose herbs because I don't have passion flower in my in my garden.
speaker-0: And you can just like use the little tea balls to steep it. Like you just put the little down in there and
speaker-1: You can do that. So I like to use like a something like that for loose leaf. What you don't wanna do you don't wanna put in a tea bag 'cause that's plastic, micro plastics, right? So you can use like the metal balls, you can use you can use that, or strainer, but just make sure it's not plastic. I like it. Okay. So that's the that's the main thing when that question You asked a great question.
speaker-0: I want to do it right and I'd ask the right question. Perfect.
speaker-1: So yeah, so this is used for nervous system exhaustion like we talked about. It's so it's not for just one night of bad sleep. This is like knowing like you've been deficient for a while. Right. And so just drinking this and it's very easy to drink. Very easy to drink. It's nice, it's calm. It's not overwhelmingly grassy or earthy. It is
speaker-0: I would tell you if it was. I'd be like, girl, this was a nice thing. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not a hanger.
speaker-1: But yeah, it's so it's really great to that's a great parent. So if you're not at the point where you feel like you need to take a pharmaceutical, this is something that if you and you know you've had chronic stress for a while, this is a great herb to supplement with. Also passion flower. Passion flower more for like I need a hit right now to calm down, like right now. Okay. And skull cap's more for the sustaining type.
speaker-0: Hello.
speaker-1: So yeah. It's so so much medicine just growing around this natural living brand. Yes.
speaker-0: I know. I use essential oils in a specific I won't plug it here. But you know I do that oil.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I I I use them and I promote them.
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: because I'm very much so into being able to trace where that bottle of oil came from, where was it sourced. So that's why I was asking about where to fry the tea because where I can tell you about essential oils through and through, I'm not familiar with herbs. So this is great. I'm I'm happy you introduced me to this. Thank you. Yes. You're welcome.
speaker-1: So that's Skullcap. So now we're gonna go into our Be Wealthy Nigetian Kitchen segment. All right. Well, welcome back to our night, our Be Wealthy Nigerian kitchen. And as always, we like to do a dish that connects to what we talked about. So we talked about nervous system exhaustion. So this dish will actually replete, replete. This dish will actually replace and replenish the nutrients that are the first to go when the body's under chronic stress, like magnesium and B complex and vitamin E. And then it also will give you other things to help you sustain, so like you know, good proteins and all that and healthy fats. So this is a West African dish, specifically a Nigerian dish. Hint hit. called Efo Riro. And efo means like leafy vegetable. Okay. And rero means stirred or stewed. So it's like a it's a vegetable soup. Okay. Efo riro. Efor. Okay. All right. And so traditionally we eat this with like a pounded yam or fufu or amala or eba or something like that. But today we're gonna serve it over millet. Are you familiar with millet?
speaker-0: Ham, I mean I wouldn't have minded a little foo foo, but it is what it is. I guess I can do millet today.
speaker-1: Well, Milly is still an ancient West African grain. Okay. I'll take it. It's one of the only alkaline forming grains because most grains are acid forming. So it's it means it's it's naturally gluten free. It's it's not gonna spike your insulin levels. It's is it's very slow releasing and it's very versatile, it's great rice replacement. So this is the it's very easy. It's in most grocery stores. You walk right past it. If it's not where your rices are are kept, it's on the gluten free section of your go of your grocery store. All right, so we're gonna start off with some red palm oil because that's the staple of most of our soups. And I'm starting here with a tablespoon of red palm because we don't need to bury it in oil. Because like I always say one tablespoon of oil is 120 calories. And this is a saturated fat, so it's 130 calories for just one tablespoon. So when you put too much oil in there again you're adding like five six seven hundred calories that don't even result to anything. Okay. So while that warms up We're gonna go ahead and add in some red onion. Okay. That's what we do. While that's all heating up, I pass that to you. I will take it. And something that is specific to us. Now you this can be optional, but if you want to make it more authentic, okay, you want to add this is called Iru in Nigeria or Dawa Dawa in Ghana. And it's a fermented locust bean. It adds a depth of flavor in umami. It's it's very important. So I was told by my class, my students, they say it smells like chocolate, cheese, and feet. to them, so let's see what she thinks it smells like. Quite
speaker-0: That is quite the introduction.
speaker-1: the
speaker-0: Okay, okay. god.
speaker-1: But it adds a depth of flavor and it's like you know what's missing and it's not there.
speaker-0: So that is oddly accurate.
speaker-1: Is that Oddly I can Yeah, but
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: if it's not there, you know it. Don't look don't be scared. I'm already don't be scared.
speaker-0: scared we're gonna eat a chocolate feet
speaker-1: Chocolate cheese
speaker-0: dish
speaker-1: and for me it smells delightful because I know goodness is coming. Contest is everything. Contest is everything. But that's what they told me in class. I was like But not only because it's fermented it's good for your gut. Correct. it's one of the things like if you have like diarrhea, especially with this explosive diarrhea going around the country, this actually helps with that. And it's a natural pre and probiotic.
speaker-0: Okay, well all that makes up for
speaker-1: Yeah, so it has like the bactylus and the lactovaxillus strains in them. So it helps with gut microbiome diversity and gut health. So a lot of good is it? This is called Eru. All right. Yes. Yes. And you can smell it, right? So we've got our palm oil, we have our red onion, we have a little bit of Eru. So I'm gonna put our tomato paste. 'Cause you always wanna kinda fry that off in the beginning. Okay, little gnat, you need to go somewhere. Where are you fun for? What's up? Okay. I'm just gonna break this up. Turn this up a little bit. Now, red palm oil, I love it because like I don't cook with oil a lot. I cook it with intention. So if I'm gonna bloom spices, you need a fat because the fat, the the volatile compounds are fat-soluble. That's where you can really smell the spices. So you need some type of fat, but you don't want go overboard with it. so I do love it for that. But it's also one of the highest things on the planet that has vitamin E in this full packaging, not an extract and vitamin A. So it's very, very helpful. They've done studies on it where people in like third world or emerging countries that were having night blindness, they gave them the take like a teaspoon of pure red palm, virgin red palm oil, and it helped restore their vision. It's very, very powerful.
speaker-0: So where would somebody here get this this this
speaker-1: red palm oil. So red palm oil, you want to visit your ethnic markets, particularly your West African markets. Some of the Caribbean markets will have it and some of the larger Asian groceries will have like a half of African owls. Okay. So you can get it from there. and then if you're out in the sticks and you don't have anything ethnic around you, you can get it on Amazon. Okay. Great. Yep. But make sure like I had a friend that I never really thought about West African markets. Okay. Because the continent of Africa is like huge. So our cuisine is different from Central Africa different from North Africa, so they would have different things. So you want to go to a West African market. Okay.
speaker-0: Good to know. It does smell good. It's
speaker-1: It's coming it's coming together, right?
speaker-0: circling.
speaker-1: All right, so I'm now also going to add in these mushrooms. We have some sha taki mushrooms and let that kind of wilt down because mushrooms have a lot of water in them. So this adds additional protein. People don't realize how much protein mushroom, particularly mushroom root, has, is very high in protein. It's also very rich in B vitamins and selenium. Selenium is also something you need for your thyroid health. And it helps with adrenal function and thyroid function.
speaker-0: 'Cause it's you, I'm gonna try one.
speaker-1: Yes. She's being adventurous today.
speaker-0: Not a big much more than a
speaker-1: down for the cause but I am I am these aren't regular like button portabell mushrooms like that so this is shiitakis shiitake mushrooms all right I'm for it yeah so this is we're just building the case so I'm just gonna let that let those sweat for a little bit okay and while we're letting that sweat I'm gonna ask you some questions some rapid fire questions so that people can get to know you better. Well let's do it let's do it okay all right a morning person or a night owl
speaker-0: Mm. I'm gonna say morning person. Okay. Okay.
speaker-1: One word you say too often when you actually mean no.
speaker-0: actually we actually let me see what I got actually girl let me let me look let me think about it
speaker-1: Okay, the last time you said no and felt amazing about it.
speaker-0: Ooh, so many times. So the last time.
speaker-1: The last
speaker-0: I think it was just somebody asking me to go out. I think it was a concert
speaker-1: I think
speaker-0: or something and the tickets were like one fifty or something and I was like no and it was great. It was great. I don't even know because I
speaker-1: 150, who was like
speaker-0: I I mean I love music, but I am diametrically opposed to paying a lot for concert tickets. So it was you know and if
speaker-1: pretty much an easy rate. People were spending their mortgage payments assisting these people.
speaker-0: has their thing, right? But that's just not mine. I I pay for experiences like vacation. But like you can't tempt me with a bag. Like when T J Max is open and you want me to go buy a ro it's just it's just no judgment. It's just not my thing. It's not my temptation.
speaker-1: I'm still with
speaker-0: So it's just not, you know, but tell me you got a deal on current style, baby some
speaker-1: I'm there.
speaker-0: penny others. I know
speaker-1: Your favorite way to spend a on completely unavailable afternoon is
speaker-0: Hmm. Resting with my baby. just yeah, shut up. It's couch time or something.
speaker-1: I love that. Just I like that. Okay. one item of clothing that makes you feel unstoppable. Ooh, probably my
speaker-0: hoops or my frames I don't know either hoops or frames frames thank you yeah
speaker-1: okay. The most useless piece of advice you were ever given about balance.
speaker-0: That you had to be born with it. I was like what?
speaker-1: What?
speaker-0: No, you don't. Like, you know, e there's some people who are just very good naturally adaptments and then other people it's just so difficult. I'm like No. Everybody can learn how it's on with them. With them.
speaker-1: That was dumb.
speaker-0: With them.
speaker-1: Yeah, that was definitely dumb. Okay, a line of spoken word that still lives in your head.
speaker-0: wow, that's good because I haven't done any spoken word in so long. Wow, I'm thinking of my piece called Stupid, but now I can't think of the line that's from stupid that I wanna say. Okay, we could
speaker-1: But
speaker-0: Okay if I say something about being stupid later that's the line I want to use Okay circle back I got
speaker-1: Okay, circle back. god, so
speaker-0: It's amazing how you can make me feel so special and so stupid at the same time And how I could put I love you and I hate you in the same rhyme and not be lying or even trying to win a crowd over. Okay, I'm gonna stop right here. But yes, that's my favorite
speaker-1: Well my
speaker-0: pieces. I like that. Okay.
speaker-1: Look, I'm intrigued to hear more.
speaker-0: The show.
speaker-1: What is your mere affirmation this month?
speaker-0: Yeah. probably you are strong, you can do hard things. I'm doing a lot of hard things and
speaker-1: This month, okay.
speaker-0: you know, it's a little bit difficult and a little bit more pressurized. So if you are strong, you can do hardcake.
speaker-1: Okay. So I like that. Okay. One thing people misjudge about you in the first five minutes.
speaker-0: That I am an extrovert. I I get it.
speaker-1: I so understand that.
speaker-0: Yeah, they're like, my god, you're so good with people. You you so natural and I'm like, Yeah but you know, usually it is, and usually it's tied to a purpose innately, just for myself. Purpose,
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, but not yeah. Correct. If I have a purpose I'm good.
speaker-0: whether it's intrinsic, whether it's spiritual, whether it's financial, but just because girl, catch me later. I'm getting in the head. Deuces.
speaker-1: If when your podcast launches this year, one guest you would love to have on it besides the night. Besides you?
speaker-0: Because I mean like you're number one of course. one guess I would love to have on. This is so f I just started writing out my list literally this week. Who would I love to have on? Can we circle back?
speaker-1: Yeah. While she's thinking about that, these have kind of calmed down and soaked down. So now we're gonna add in our tomato pepper blend.
speaker-0: Wait, what is this?
speaker-1: So this is a mix of red bell pepper or tache. Yes. Okay red onion. And I only put in one Scotch bonnet because it wasn't sure heat tolerance.
speaker-0: Thank you for the one. Appreciate
speaker-1: Just the one.
speaker-0: you, girl. I do like heat, but I'm just saying.
speaker-1: Nitrogen serious. Most people can't handle Niger Heat.
speaker-0: Listen, I'm gonna be the one that's gonna bow grace out. Bow like I can't. One twenty.
speaker-1: is pointy one's pointy so all right you say one scotch point
speaker-0: Thank you.
speaker-1: that's nothing we would do like five or six but girl girl that's very true
speaker-0: What? That's that's because she was eating us because she was mm mm.
speaker-1: so we're gonna let that cook and I'm gonna add in a little bit of this no chicken broth
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: Nice and savory. Nice and savory. It just needs to come to a quick little boil. Okay. And then while that happens, I have here some follow being tofu. Are you familiar?
speaker-0: So, no. Okay. listen, it is what it is. Now, like I said, I'm I'm down for the cause. gosh. Okay. He's trying.
speaker-1: You wanna try one? No. Let's see.
speaker-0: Okay. I mean it's not horrible. It tastes like It says like when you you made chicken and it's been the free chicken
speaker-1: Ready right?
speaker-0: and you take it out and it's like this is the last day for this chicken. This chicken can't last another day. It's not bad. It's not bad like I thought it was gonna be.
speaker-1: It's not bad at all. So now it's gonna absorb the flavor of this stock.
speaker-0: Now that's gonna make it better.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. That's just raw. I mean, well not raw, but Thank you. You're trying new things.
speaker-0: Look, I'm very proud of myself. You should be. Whoever watches this and knows me is gonna be like, she ain't gonna try that tofu. And I did it. Thank you very much. I'm
speaker-1: She did the thing.
speaker-0: proud of myself.
speaker-1: And now we're gonna also add in the greens. Okay. So the key things when you're cooking with greens, when you finish cooking with those greens, they should still be green. I agree with that. They shouldn't be brown. It shouldn't be all those things. So I had here a mix of kale and spinach. Hence the FO, you know, Rero. The This is gonna So we call in the United States the what we call soups in Nigeria is Yala Falls stews stews here because our soups are not soupy. Really with all these greens. And y'all know spinach woost down to absolutely nothing. Literally So
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: our greens, our like the West African greens, they still hold up. Which is also why I like to I put kale in this as well. So that's it up a little bit. Just so it doesn't just disintegrate into nothingness.
speaker-0: Like a trail of ring.
speaker-1: So I'm gonna put the lid on this. Did that your your dream podcast guest come on yet? Come turn on
speaker-0: you made me eat the the tow food. It threw me off. Completely.
speaker-1: Now there are different types of tofu and different textures. So people kinda lump tofu. First of all, tofu doesn't sound delicious. That's one. That's the the word. That is one. They could have done they could've done better.
speaker-0: They definitely could have put some more thought into this.
speaker-1: So that's the first is off plants like jelly okay. Yeah, they could have done a better job with that. But there's different
speaker-0: Like toes and your toes. More intentionality.
speaker-1: textures and there's different types. So most people just assume it's just made with soybeans, which is the one that's been around for the longest time. But there's made from other beans and and grains. So you have red lentil tofu, you have chickpea tofu, fava bean tofu.
speaker-0: Okay, so let me ask you this then. Because I've had chickpeas, I've had lentils, all that. What makes it tofu?
speaker-1: That's a great question. So when you take so outside of like pumpkin seed tofu or even red lentil tofu, tofu itself and you add a coagulant to it. Okay. And that's what's gonna make it cake like. So it's basically like bean cheese. It's the curves and whey. So when you make cheese, you have curves and whey, and then the curves come together for the cheese, and then the whey is the byproduct of that. It's the same thing with the beans. So you're you're making like a It's basically bean cheese. It's the same process as making regular cheese.
speaker-0: That was a little bit more helpful. I'll think about that.
speaker-1: Yeah. You think about this tofu?
speaker-0: It must do
speaker-1: In her s in her stud.
speaker-0: with the mushro this is all kinds of adventures for me. I'm here for it though. Hey. Listen, I'm headed to Africa in a month, so I I am going to
speaker-1: You only live once.
speaker-0: South Africa, Johannes. I
speaker-1: Okay, joke right.
speaker-0: feel like getting all in the cuisine. I feel like I'm gonna
speaker-1: Like, said Eric was saying is completely different.
speaker-0: different and I was in Mozambique which was right next door. Yes. And that you know so I'm I like being somewhat adventurous.
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: I'm gonna consider myself preparing for that.
speaker-1: You are. You are. So as I'm stirring this down, you see how it's completely starting to wilt. Because this is a primary, it's a leafy green soup. traditionally we would have which I forgot to add in. Can you hear me that?
speaker-0: Whatever this is.
speaker-1: Yes. We will add crayfish to most of our soups.
speaker-0: Pray fish?
speaker-1: Crayfish, dry it's a dried fish. But this is nori sheets.
speaker-0: I you're saying so usually you would add crayfish. Because I don't like that's crayfish.
speaker-1: Correct. No.
speaker-0: Got it.
speaker-1: Nope. To give you that fishy depth of flavor. I meant to put that at the beginning.
speaker-0: Okay, I'll tell you nothing yet.
speaker-1: We'll let it we'll let it do its thing and marinate on
speaker-0: I like Nori.
speaker-1: So I think she's putting together this is a plant based cooking show.
speaker-0: Yes, yes. You know. Clearly somebody didn't read the sheets before I came 'cause I'm like, what? Where
speaker-1: Where did you
speaker-0: the beef? Can I at least get some crayfish? I like wheat fish. But but how you so is this why you do the nori? Because it's not crayfish?
speaker-1: And not just for the animal's sake, but also the the minerals you're getting this. Now this is the iodine in it's gonna help with the thyroid health. We already had the selenium from the mushrooms that also helps with thyroid health and adrenal health, which is two organs that are d very much depleted when your nervous system is is wrecked. So this is why this whole stew or soup, it's replenishing all the things that get depleted. when you're constantly running on fumes that we're discussing. I like the lap. Yeah, so it's very intentional this particular Intentional.
speaker-0: It's my word of the year. Very much so. I I I am a sucker for intentionality. Yes. I love it.
speaker-1: So that is coming together and looking nice. That's great. So now let me do a quick taste test to see if I need to add any little seasoning. Little seasoning. Little sprinkle songs. Little song song. Yes. Let's do that. Let's let's do that. Let's see.
speaker-0: In reviewers. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm?
speaker-1: The fishiness is coming through. Okay.
speaker-0: Fishy, not fishy. The sea is covered.
speaker-1: The sea is coming through. I love it. And it's not spicy at all, which makes it c technically like kinda unauthentic, but no. Nah. I ain't trying to blow your pal Okay Well for I'll tell you. For the for
speaker-0: We could have added a scotch bond in. Like some spice. It's not spicy at all. Yes, I'll tell you if it's spicy.
speaker-1: the Nigerians.
speaker-0: Yes, because I'm clearly not. I'm from DC. D and V baby. Yes.
speaker-1: D and V representing Hollywood.
speaker-0: Maryland side, PG County originally. Followed by some DC gifts.
speaker-1: So right about the millet. Yep, so we have here the millet again. So this is avalon forming. It's filled with good protein, your B vitamins, and very rich in magnesium and manganese. All the things that are depleted.
speaker-0: Lens of protein.
speaker-1: Right. And then now we have our soup here. So everything here is intentional. Yes. So this is this is a little sampling.
speaker-0: I can see some shrimp in there, right? That's perfect. That's where the shrimp look up.
speaker-1: So Nigerians would tend to add some prawns and all those things.
speaker-0: was given traps. It was giving me I need some seafood in this. If if that was your thing, you know? Yeah,
speaker-1: If it was.
speaker-0: if it was, if we go to your show. Come on your shit. We know.
speaker-1: Okay. So this this is not about restriction. It's about replenishing what our body needs, especially when we're chronically depleted, when our nervous systems are just running on fumes chronically. This is gonna replace and replenish all those things and then give you some lasting power beyond that. So she's about to do her on screen live taste test and give us her absolute honest opinion.
speaker-0: to you know get too much where it falls off. Try to get a little bit of everything, even a mushroom.
speaker-1: It's for texture and for the saline and B vitamin protein, all the things.
speaker-0: I see you. Aww, is that bigger? I'm trying see if it's spicy. Okay. It has like the essence of heat, but it's not that spicy. I I taste like it's the essence of heat. Like I understand where the heat could be. But you're right, it's not that spicy. So we probably could have used some scotch bonnet. But for someone who doesn't like spice, the
speaker-1: This is
speaker-0: perfect amount because it still gives you some of that flavor of heat. The essence. Yes.
speaker-1: Essence.
speaker-0: Okay now I gotta eat some tofu because I didn't get any in the first bite. Help me. Help me please. and a good mushroom 'cause I don't think I got a good okay, there we go. This is everything. Okay. Mm-hmm. If I didn't know it was tofu with mushrooms, this would be hidden. Suddenly something
speaker-1: It against that word tofu sounds horrible.
speaker-0: Hm. It does. It's good.
speaker-1: Good her own 'cause you're free to not like it, you know?
speaker-0: And I will tell you. Because I have no problem saying no.
speaker-1: Right. I was like
speaker-0: Actually, you know. I
speaker-1: So this supports all of our stress symptoms
speaker-0: love it.
speaker-1: stress systems, our gut microbiome, our thyroid health, our adrenal function. You know, it replenishes all your minerals. So this is this is health in a bowl. Yeah. So if you're a lady that is running on fumes and you have a hard time saying no and everything we talked about earlier in the first segment with the interview, yeah, this is a dish. That you can try. And now you can totally swap out. You can use whatever greens that you like. You can use collard greens, turn it greens, whatever you like. If you want to add your animal products to it instead, you absolutely can. If you want to serve it over other type of rice, or if you want to do a pounded yam, you can do that too. It's very flexible. But you can get the recipe as all the other recipes in the show notes below and for the monthly meal planner.
speaker-0: Hello, this is very good. Thank you for making a very intentional meal for
speaker-1: Absolutely. I adore it. Thank you so much for being on the show. Yes. All her links will be down in the shows below. And until next time guys, he'll naturally live vibrantly.
speaker-0: Cooking the sun in a pot of green gold Herbs and roots, secret and toak Plant-based love, it's nature's scope Healing the world, one dish for all.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: running, we doing the things. How many 16-wheelers are you trying to pack onto your bridge? Because it has a capacity. And at some point the bridge is going to Great.
speaker-1: So, this is a West African dish, specifically a Nigerian dish. So, this dish is not about restriction, it's about replenishing what our body needs, especially when we're chronically depleted, when our nervous systems are just running on fumes chronically. This is gonna replace and replenish all those things and then give you some lasting power beyond that. So, she's about to do her on-screen live taste test and give us her absolutely honest opinion. Somewhere between the promotion and the breakdown, most women stop asking whether something was actually ever theirs to carry. Today I'm sitting with a woman who has built her entire practice around one radical permission. You are allowed to be unavailable. Stay with me or we find out what that permission actually does to the body that has forgotten how to rest. Welcome to the Informed Choice Podcast, where natural healing meets practical truth. I'm Innie, the Niger Goddess, and this is where we simplify holistic wellness. So you can stop guessing and start healing. My guest today has spent years in rooms most women only see from the outside. Backstage at fashion shows, on television sets doing makeup for some of the most photographed women in the industry, and on stages performing as a spoken word artist. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, she knows the same thing happening to almost every woman she worked with. They were achieving everything and still apologizing for existing and for their tiredness. For their bodies for needs that were actually never theirs to explain. She built an entire coaching practice around a different idea that a woman does not have to do more to be successful. She has got to be honest about what was never actually her responsibility in the first place. She calls this work confidently unavailable. The practice of stepping back from what does not serve you without guilt and without apology. She's a self-preservation coach. a former Q Curve Confidence Course Creator and a Keynote speaker, building her own podcast and coaching program under the confidently unavailable name. Please welcome to the show Alisa Law Brown. Hey, welcome. Hey girl
speaker-0: That was such a good introduction. I'm like, I want to meet her. Who is this woman you talking about? hey. Hey girl. Hey.
speaker-1: This one Hey. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much. You're awesome. As you all can tell. Well, La, you've built your work around a phrase and your keynotes confidently unavailable. Where did that specific language come from for you? So
speaker-0: for me it really started with me. Okay. my first coaching program was called Cute, Curvy, and Confident. So I really focused on women empowerment and women feeling very confident about themselves. I was so keen on making sure that program went well and was successful. Girl, I burnt myself out. I was available to them ladies all the time. They had my real number. not my not my coaching number. Not my not my they had my real cell phone number. And they would use it. And I would ask because I felt responsible for them. Yeah. And I really wanted them to have, you know, the s the success that they were looking for in the experience that I promised. And then I learned I was giving a little bit too much. And when you give too much, you can become resentful at the situation that you set up.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: So I realized that, okay, confidence is one thing, but I also have to learn to be unavailable at times. And then I was like, confidently unavailable. Because it's not just about disappearing, but it's about being very intentional, intentional about where you spend your time, with whom you spend your time, and and how you wanna divvy that up. Cause that has to be a confident decision.
speaker-1: That makes total sense. So you describe your clients as successful on paper but exhausted in real life. Yes. Walk me through what that actually looks like when a woman first sits down with you.
speaker-0: Okay. So walk with me a little bit okay. Okay, let's Okay, when you have a long day at work, when you
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: come home, what's one of the first things you want to do?
speaker-1: Take off and work.
speaker-0: Baby. Baby, you wanna take off your bra. So when one of my clients or potential clients first tips with me, I liken the experience to coming home from work and taking off your bra.
speaker-1: Does everybody say that? Everybody's the first thing I
speaker-0: It could be the prettiest bra in the world, it might make you feel really good, really confident, but it's coming off. Absolutely. So when a woman sits down with me, the first thing I want her to feel is, girl, get comfortable. Cause I'm about to make you uncomfortable. So at least take off your bra and stay a wow. You know, so I want that feeling to to be there because we talk about some really serious stuff. And it's it's a lot of times a woman She has no idea how much is on her plate. And she doesn't even know that she has permission to take things off. So when we start diving in, it can get uncomfortable. It can get rough. So I need you to first get comfortable. I need you to relax. I need you to be honest. Girls take your breath and stay a while.
speaker-1: I like that. Cause I'm automatically moved far more comfortable with that thing off. Mew. Especially with these big old things.
speaker-0: Listen, baby. I I mean, I gotta get it right when I get home. I'm I'm a certain way in the office, but when I come home, I I you 'cause you have to prepare. You have to prepare the scene. So I like to set the scene. When a woman meets with me, she's already probably a little bit nervous. Right? She may already have some conceived conceptions about herself where she's like, you know, as you kinda mentioned in the intro, apologetic. That we'll get into that. But there's just so many things that when you first meet with me You already have in your head and I need you to let all of that go. I need you to relax. So I I liken it to that feeling because I wanna make sure we set the tone so we can have a successful session.
speaker-1: I love that. And from a clinical perspective, there is a name for that in like the physiology, which is called allostatic load. If you're familiar with it, it's the cumulative wear on the body that's in like a chronic low grade state of stress. Yes. And instead of short bursts that the body's actually designed to, some people are just in this low grade, chronic, elevated state. And the HPA axis, which is the body's central stress pathway. It doesn't distinguish between an actual emergency and just continued just stress for ten years every day. And so that wears on the body. And so the body is actually calmed down. It just keeps firing.
speaker-0: Yeah, I call it the the lion or the deadline.
speaker-1: Mm.
speaker-0: Your body doesn't know if the deadline is coming. Yes. Or the lion is chasing you. Correct. Either way it's an emergency and we gotta go right now. That can only last
speaker-1: Right. For so long. Right.
speaker-0: You you can't do that consistently and be successful at the same time. It's
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: impossible.
speaker-1: Right. That part. But
speaker-0: Okay, well.
speaker-1: you said a lot of women are apologizing for things that don't even belong to them. Their looks, their tiredness, their inherited things from family or community. What does that pattern like? Where does that usually start? Ooh, girl.
speaker-0: So research is extensive about that. Okay.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Okay. So that the number may vary, but what doesn't vary is the fact that it's in childhood. So usually it starts around eight years old and it could end around fourteen. So from eight to fourteen generally is when a girl becomes aware of her differences from those around her and she learns the patterns to be rewarded for. So if I and I'm kinda getting to another subject here, but if I make myself pleasing, if I find ways to keep it calm, to not ruffle feathers, I am rewarded for this behavior. So the more I do it, the better I am received, the happier my mom or dad is. Right? So we take that on consciously as our responsibility. Now, some in other households may have been assigned that responsibility. Right, but in let's just say a home where no assigning is happening, we may assume it as a child, as a girl. So by the time that we're in our 20s, 30s, 40s, unless we have actually intentionally taken steps to unlearn that behavior, we'll still carry it on to our careers, into our marriages, into our adulthood.
speaker-1: That is so true. Okay, we're gonna keep unpacking that. Okay. Here we are. But you spent years in modeling and doing makeup for television before doing this particular work. What did being in rooms full of accomplished women teach you about how success and depletion tend to travel together? Yeah, it's crazy.
speaker-0: because so when I first started doing actually both makeup and modeling. So I spent way longer doing makeup than I did modeling. Modeling was very short standing in my life. I enjoyed it, it was great, but it ain't listen, it's not for me.
speaker-1: That's what she said.
speaker-0: Being paid to be on a runway is no longer part of my life. Unless you want to pay me to But
speaker-1: Except the app.
speaker-0: I mean, I'm just saying, call me. At Elisa La Brown. But no. So I work with a lot of great women, beautiful women, accomplished women. And when they would sit in my chair, take one example. I used to work at the Matt Counter. Everybody used to come to the Okay, we grew up on Mac. All right, Ruby woo to the day I died. So they would come and sit in my chair, beautiful women. And the first thing they would say, I'm sorry about my face. I'm sorry about my face. I'm sorry about
speaker-1: I'm like, I'm sorry, wait. Sorry about your
speaker-0: my freckles. I'm sorry about my big nose. I'm sorry about my big lips. my lips I can't wear red. Who told you that?
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: So they would always be so apologetic. And I'm like. Ma'am, we're on a movie set. I mean, ma'am, you are the star of this film. Like, why are you apologizing to me? Like, you are beautiful. And so early on, before I thought of anything about coaching or speaking, I'm in a chair doing makeup. Like, why is this beautiful woman apologizing to me? For what and it was young girls. Older women. I mean we we run the gamut here. And I'm like, why? So I started understanding that this is not dependent on your age, your occupation, your financial status. This is something that's mental that keeps showing up in my chair. Now, we all have bad days. We all have days where I'm like, nothing. You know, girl, the bags is bagging. Right. I mean, we have those days. So I'm not saying that we should all wake up like I'm glorious every day. No, we may not feel glorious every day. But the constant need to apologize for being you, there's something psychological that happens to a girl because it starts in girlhood, that becomes a woman that carries this all along. So specifically when I was doing makeups and also doing modeling, you know, I was a full figure model. I was never a skinny chick. So I'm in rooms with a bunch of skinny chicks and then a few of us full size plus size models. So oddly enough, most of the plus size women who were models weren't doing that. Huh? They had already learned, baby. This what you see is what you get. It is what it is. Okay, these triple D is gonna be what you gonna get on this runway. But the smaller size women didn't necessarily carry that same confidence. And again, this is not across the board. I'm speaking about specific scenarios where I was in backstage rooms about to walk a runway. And not to say that every plus size woman had that confidence, because that's not true either. But it's just oftentimes when you go through certain adversities, if we're talking about size and body positivity, you've already had to unlearn certain things that were negative.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: If you never experienced that, let's say if your body fit the stereotype of what's typically considered beautiful, you may not have had to go through that problem.
speaker-1: Uh-huh. That makes sense.
speaker-0: So I've seen it both in the modeling world and in the makeup world. And to be honest, it's just been very sad.
speaker-1: I always tell people because you know you don't hear my accent anymore, I'm Nigerian and so culturally the women tend to be larger. Mm-hmm. And so if you're f we will say fat, it's not taken as like a shameful thing. It's just like of course you're you're not skinny, you're fat, right? So it was never like I never had c at at four hundred pounds, I never felt a way about being fat. Wow. I just felt a way like I have no energy. Okay, 'cause I
speaker-0: Health came in.
speaker-1: d could care less, right? 'Cause like the face was still here. Face was still
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: here. So I wasn't tripping, like I never felt less than and so in the American culture when I hear girls who are already thin, like, my my this and my that and I don't look at her like, what is wrong with you? Like confidence, like you I don't you don't find too many Nigerians that lack confidence.
speaker-0: I wanna I wonder if my business would even work there. I don't even know.
speaker-1: That's not our issue. It's it was always weird. That's why even being when I was like v very like morbidly obese, I just never had that emotional part to it. And I always saw the people that had the stereotypical nice bodies really struggle. And I didn't understand like first of all, you are beautiful, you have to accept you for where you are. You always want to be as healthy as you can. And if you're not in your top health space or or s or state, strive for that, but don't down where you are in the process. You're still here, value where you are, you're up. you're able to breathe and live another day. So it's not to say don't be healthy, don't achieve a ideal body weight and metabolically to be healthy for you. We're saying you're not there yet. Still you still have to love who you are. You still need clothes. You still need
speaker-0: You still gotta go outside and be dressed? I never understand it. They're
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: just like, uh-da. What do you you want the person to be disappearing until am I to to hide in myself? Baby, we not the build How long is this podcast?
speaker-1: Mint don't care. Mm-hmm. And he could care less and he has no problem getting a woman or anything like that. It's not the same. So I I feel like it's cultural. Like it is.
speaker-0: But it's taught.
speaker-1: it is definitely hot and reinforced with magazines and now with social media and previous T V shows. Because like in the nineties, like growing up in the late nineties, like, you know, it was like ultra thin. And that was like for my culture, that's not attractive. No. You know, it's just not, right? Not hating on anybody who is ultra thin naturally or like it's just not seen as attractive. So I just couldn't understand or relate to it, but I it but it always pained me to see their pain. You know, because I I what because I didn't understand, I would try to lend them. I'm like, you are gorgeous. You have to love you for where you whatever stage you are, love where you are. And the health journey is separate from loving yourself.
speaker-0: And the other part to that is that notice earlier when you asked about what age is this introduced, it's introduced to girls.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: It is not introduced to boys. Okay, CNN actually did an article about this called the triple bind.
speaker-1: Okay. Okay.
speaker-0: Girls are taught to be one, caring and nurturing.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Above all.
speaker-0: But also, you must be driven. and competitive. But also you must be desirable. The triple bind, it is like an impossible fee that you are taught very early you need to fit these categories, but also do them seamlessly.
speaker-1: No c
speaker-0: complaint because this is what you are here for. You're here to be all of these things, but also look good and be pleasurable to be pleasurable to me while you do it. So when you're already in an impressionable age and state, you're trying to figure out life yourself. You're new to this thing. But you have these things already being put on you socially, it sets you up for failure.
speaker-1: Yeah. Okay. Well confidently unavailable pushes back on a culture where everyone is expected to be reachable at all times, right? Yes. What actually happens in a woman's body and mind when she stays on that for a long time without a real off switch?
speaker-0: Okay, girl. It's it's I mean, it goes beyond mere exhaustion. Like, everybody knows that feeling of I'm tired. I've done too much today or this week. So you're exhausted. We're not talking about that. Right? That happens, we all know it. When you constantly run this marathon with no end, 'cause even a marathon runner has to walk sometimes. Get to the finish line and then you stop. A woman on this burnout treadmill never stops. It's the treadmill. So
speaker-1: I like the trap mill it all. Yeah.
speaker-0: what happens? The the one of the biggest things is this consistent fight or flight mode. Again, the deadline or the line. Which one are we? It doesn't even matter. Because my
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: body reacts to it the exact same way if I'm in this mode.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: So I'm in this constant state of fury. I Can't calm down. That translates into my sleep. So now I have non-restorative sleep where I go to bed tired and I wake up just as tired because my body has never shut off while my eyes were closed. So now my body is not resetting as it's supposed to do every night. Now my jaws were clenched, I have bad posture. I'm carrying all of the stress in the weight in my shoulders, in my neck, in my lower back. Right? I can't. Now my gastrointestinal system is messed up. Mm-hmm. Right? Now I got all of this stuff happening. My cortisol is raising. Like your body is literally telling you, hey, hey, we
speaker-1: Red flag. Red flag.
speaker-0: about to I consider women bridges, right? We bridge everything. We bridge society. We bridge families. We bridge careers. We bridge opportunities. But every bridge has a weight limit. How many sixteen wheelers can I pile on this bridge before it falls? That's how women often, especially high achieving ones, successful running, we doing the things. How many sixteen wheelers, sister, are you trying to pack onto your bridge? Because it has a capacity. And at some point the bridge is going to break. So the goal is to not break. And a lot of us are are consistently working in a mode of we we are broken down. We're calling it things like, I'm just tired. I just need my wine tonight to relax. No, sis. You you don't. I just if I could just take one little vacation and you might even take the vacation. But if you come back Wednesday
speaker-1: And you exhaust and you need a vacation from the vacation.
speaker-0: And and nothing's changed. Your definition of success hasn't changed. Your capacity assessment hasn't happened. So when you come back after that sabbatical, after that vacation, since you're just running yourself right back into the same situation. You're piling 16 wheelers on your bridge all over again, nothing's changed. So it's not just a a thing of being exhausted. We are literally tearing down and killing our body.
speaker-1: So what you're saying is very measurable. So when the nervous system never gets the signal to like power down, like, hey, we're safe, your cortisol stays elevated and it doesn't taper off naturally like it into the evening, like it's supposed to. When your cortisol doesn't taper down like it's supposed to in the evening, that delays your melatonin release, right? Which fragments your sleep architecture, which means the body never fully reaches a deep restorative sleep stages where the repairs actually happen when you're sleeping. So the woman wakes up tired, not because she did anything wrong, but because her body was never given the signal that it had permission to stand down. And that's why that chronic stress, that's why they call stress the silent killer. Because it's low grade chronic for years. And then all of a sudden you just just it just you just crumble. You crumble and you're like, what happened? The bridge broken. Right.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But all the signals your body's been giving you along the way, they're either like you felt like it was a reflection of you not doing enough.
speaker-0: Correct.
speaker-1: Or you just ignored them. Or you didn't recognize them.
speaker-0: The above. Yeah. Because again, this starts in girlhood. Doing it for
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: so long, this feels like normal.
speaker-1: Right. Yeah. Well you talked about your acute curved confident course and how something as simple as the right shapewear or bra size can change a woman's days. Why do small physical adjustments carry so much physiological weight for the women you work with?
speaker-0: So the small adjustments that you have to make in your life, girl, they they accumulate. They accumulate. So I I often think I was I can't remember where I was, but there was somebody who was doing some kind of demonstration and she's holding a glass of water. And the glass is not it's not heavy. But the longer she holds it, it gets heavier and heavier and heavier. So little things like putting the glass there, it helps us in the long run. So very small daily incremental changes, they add up. If you think about things like losing weight, right? Or building muscle or anything, nothing's gonna happen overnight. That's huge. That's huge. There's a book called Atomic Habits. I love the book. Okay.
speaker-1: So
speaker-0: So in the book, if you remember, he talks about I wanna say the degree at which ice changes from water to ice, ice to water. Okay. So in the time, for those who haven't read it, maybe in the time period where that temperature is increasing, it looks like nothing is happening. You're
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: just like, my God, this is never gonna melt. It's never, never, never gonna melt. And then you get to that degree, whatever the degree is, because I forget. It's not mine, but it's true. Whatever degree that is, you get there and all of a sudden it melts. And then you think, it should have been here all along. But no, it had to get there. And if it had never done the incremental steps it needed to do, then it never would have melted. So in our in our daily lives, we have to do the incremental things. Everybody wants to see the ice melt, but nobody wants to do the work to get that temperature where it needs to be. Patience, discipline, and not even just motivation, because motivation fails. No, what are you supposed to be doing? Let's do
speaker-1: Put the systems in place so that you can't that's what his book talks about. Put the systems in place so that you can have the discipline and can have the correct
speaker-0: Correct. And things like habit stacking. So putting those together. All of that helps this these small incremental changes, they do make a difference. The same way, incremental things that you do in a negative way also make a difference. So skipping breakfast, let's say if you're not intentionally fasting, right? Skipping breakfast or
speaker-1: Not good for women. Please don't skip records. We're not men. That research is based on men. Right. Okay. That's like one of my things. Like, please.
speaker-0: And see, I do intentionally fasting based on a doctor. Skip dinner. Intentional. Skip dinner. So it just depends on your body. Right. But you you do things unintentionally. I'm just gonna skip this. Or I'm just gonna go to bed this late. I'm just gonna no and so you're pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. And you said incremental changes in the wrong direction and they also add up.
speaker-1: And it really erodes your internal I don't say confidence, but your internal something. I can't think of the word. Because you're making these promises to yourself and you're constantly letting yourself down these little ways. Because no one else, no one else is holding you accountable to what you've told yourself, like, okay, I'm gonna make sure I go to bed by ten o'clock. I'm gonna make sure I have a healthy breakfast that's full of healthy fats and protein. I'm gonna make sure I work out at least four to five days a week. And then when you don't, it's just like you keep eroding your own trust.
speaker-0: You're teaching yourself not to trust teaching yourself not to trust yourself.
speaker-1: Yeah. Right.
speaker-0: So you're already allowing yourself to be like, we're not gonna do it anyway. So I say whatever you want. We're gonna stay up late because we ain't waking early to work up anyway. We ain't gonna work it in the morning. Girl, you girl, you we ain't gonna work out tomorrow, man. Whatever. Netflix
speaker-1: We got that.
speaker-0: says, are you still watching? Yeah. Yes. Cause we ain't waking up in the morning anyway. Keep paying. That's a good one. Yes, I'm still watching. When am I supposed to be going to sleep when I'm not waking up in the morning to work out? So yeah. Keep watching.
speaker-1: though okay if a woman audits her calendar yes the way you coach her tooth what tends to surprise her most about what she finds there
speaker-0: She's amazed. She's amazed. Here's the disconnect. A lot of us will write out a to do list, but it'll never make it to our calendar. Meaning we can have a list of 10, 20 things that we write out and we're like, look at me. I am so organized, honey. I baby. I wrote a to do list. But the to do list doesn't have times on it. Now, if you put that to do list on your calendar. The way I teach you to. You're like, what? I where is that supposed to go? W I d I can't like it don't the times they don't add up. The math ain't math.
speaker-1: Then it encroaches on your sleep. On everything else, yeah.
speaker-0: So w we do great with li I am a list girly. I love a good list. I'm working on a journal to publish right now. But So the list is great, but it has to have some accountability, some time slot. Because otherwise, you're setting yourself up for failure again. And that's just what that's the cycle that we run into. Right? We we we think we're doing something good in we are. But when you don't have it aligned with your actual day and your actual capacity, then you've you're setting yourself up with unrealistic expectations. Now you're in the day trying to achieve these expectations that were never realistic in the first place. Then when you don't achieve them, you're beating yourself up because you didn't achieve the thing that was never achievable anyway. And
speaker-1: It's just like
speaker-0: then you go to sleep with your non restorative sleep and you wake up tired and you put yourself right back into it again.
speaker-1: And you're waking up always in a deficit because you feel like you don't You can't get up. Yeah.
speaker-0: You can't catch up. Whereas you might have actually achieved a good amount of things yesterday. But because you wrote down twenty, you feel like a failure. And that's what's lodged in your mind.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. That's so true. And I definitely have lived that life. As have I. Okay, so you mentioned that burn burnout and caregivers can spill over into how they treat people, depending on them, even elderly family members. Talk to me about that connection. So
speaker-0: Yeah. This was one that I kinda had to make I didn't I mean I I did, but what was happening was that I was asked to speak at an event about elderly abuse. And I was like, okay, let me let me search that. And dig a little bit. You know, let
speaker-1: Let me do a little
speaker-0: me know, I I don't know all. I'm not opposed to a little research. this makes perfect sense. Oftentimes we as the women are caregivers. No, that's not across the board. There are lots of wonderful male caregivers. Absolutely. So shout outs to them. I am not trying to shoot them down, but in this conversation, in this context, women who are caregivers who are burnt out, who are doing too much, who are who are running on fumes, while the people who we are working so hard to care for end up getting the brunt of what's happening with us. So that's how a lot of times this elder abuse ends up showing up in our lives. You don't mean to deal with grandma this way. Right? Grandma done
speaker-1: We cracked.
speaker-0: said this thing so times and is getting on your nervous and get burnt out. So now you're a little snippy. Yeah. Right? So this can affect more than just you. It affects people in your life. We we end up having attitudes or worse, bad behavior towards people that we love. in in this instance elders because they are the ones who are usually not able to defend themselves, right? You're not gonna break bad with your boss and she can go toe to toe with you, right?
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Thanks a mean but but but grandma won't have that same reaction. So oftentimes unfortunately that stuff rolls down to the people that we're caring for, especially those who may not be as as able to care for themselves.
speaker-1: It's true. And there's a lot of research behind what you're describing. So sometimes it's called compassion fatigue or secondary stress. And it so shows up physiologically, not just emotionally, because again, that chronic depleted nervous system has less capacity for patience, emotional regulation, or an empathetic response. And so the exact resource that we're that you need for caregiving are depleted. So are depleted. So it's not a character flaw. It's a resource problem like within your body. So when the body has like nothing left to get, like you said, running on fumes, patience is often the first thing to go.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: It's very unfortunate. So it's like a a yellow flag, red flag to pay attention. If you if you know you don't wanna do that but that's happening, look internally because it's something going on with you since you don't take it out on people you love.
speaker-0: And and if you do recognize it, it's good to to be able to tag somebody else. Because what you don't want out I mean really, because now you're in a position where you could potentially Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Right. And that's what we don't wanna do. Usually it's gonna be children or LW. They're the ones who are gonna get it first because again they're they are in a position to technically challenge.
speaker-1: Good champion defenseless.
speaker-0: Correct. Correct. To a degree. So if you find yourself in that situation It's it's a safety issue and it's it's out of love to go ahead and say, you know what? I probably need to leave. Or I need to maybe hire help or family has to step in, whatever has to be done. But you may need to remove yourself from that situation, even if temporarily, to have a reset.
speaker-1: Yeah. So for the woman listening now who feels guilty every time she says no, what's the first small unavailability she should practice this week? What does that look like?
speaker-0: Pausing. Looks like asked me to go out.
speaker-1: Would you like to go out?
speaker-0: Let me check my calendar. Ask me to go to happy hour. Girl, I love it.
speaker-1: You like the little happy Iron this Friday?
speaker-0: Let me see what I got going on, and I'm gonna hit you right back. Ask me something that I ask me anything that I didn't just say. Surprise me. Ask me anything.
speaker-1: There's a there's a concert coming up this weekend, such and such coming to town. You wanna go? Yeah. Ooh
speaker-0: Give me give me like 15. Let me just see what I got going on. Let me see what I got going on. So in all of those instances, I didn't say no.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: But I also didn't say yes. Yes. So
speaker-1: That takes the pressure off of certain people, yeah.
speaker-0: because some people can't say no right away. That is a that is a learned. It
speaker-1: Behaving.
speaker-0: causes anxiety to say no, to physically say the words no for some people hurts them. So if if that's too much for you right now.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: It's okay to to pause your no. It's okay to type your no. Let me t let me let me text you later. Baby, stop where you are. Start where you are. But for everything, please stop saying yes. Stop saying yes. Because a couple things are gonna happen. You're gonna say it and immediately resent it. You're gonna say it and resent the person. You're gonna say it and not show up. Or worse, you're gonna show up and your capacity's already done. So now you're gonna take it out of where my
speaker-1: And see, and I used to personally suffer with this because I have been a lifelong introvert, so my social battery doing goes quite quickly. And so for me, the best thing is a cancel plan. They're like, Girl, I ain't gonna be able to make it like, really? Okay. And I'm like
speaker-0: Be in pajamas by the time the phone call ends, okay? I didn't want to go anyway. Thank you. We're
speaker-1: is hard
speaker-0: off. What? We didn't go in. girl, that's okay.
speaker-1: you can't okay I understand that that has been that has been me I am so much better now I I now consider myself an ambivert ambivert yes but
speaker-0: Me as well.
speaker-1: my true nature is an extreme introvert
speaker-0: The truth of matter is because of where you recharge, right? Yeah. I'm an introverted I people
speaker-1: In solitude.
speaker-0: drain me. Exhausting. And I work with people.
speaker-1: I feel like I ran a marathon going to it's like, you should come out. There's gonna be all these people and all that and the more they're saying I'm like the more I'm like I'm c I'm clicking down, down.
speaker-0: So it's and for me it depends, right? Because if I'm charged, I'm ready to go. See that's what I'm saying. That's why
speaker-1: not I have to get myself.
speaker-0: I'm But but but I'm not but I know that going is still going to train me. So I'm going to have to retreat. Yeah. When it's time.
speaker-1: That's why I always drive separately, because I'm out. I'm That's right, girl. And I do
speaker-0: designated I can
speaker-1: a group cr car ride. Cause y'all gonna be Y'all be taking too long? I'm just going home,
speaker-0: She said.
speaker-1: I ain't gonna do anything. I just
speaker-0: to go.
speaker-1: I just know myself. We always say any's she's ghosts. Like she's gone, like I came, you
speaker-0: Down!
speaker-1: saw me, I made my appearance.
speaker-0: Conqueror.
speaker-1: Yes, it's true. It's true. But in in my current age I am much better about
speaker-0: So
speaker-1: that. Yeah, it's all I'm only about a year into my recovery of introvertedness. But yeah. I I had to recognize it's like any gotta be better.
speaker-0: Pause. The pa the the the pause is so
speaker-1: I like how you phrase it. Like let me yeah, because I it used to hurt me to say no, but I know like I don't have the social battery. I do have a whole lot of my plate that they're not taking to account. But I I I want to invest time in this person, this relationship. I don't really feel like it the same time.
speaker-0: It's
speaker-1: And it sounds horrible to say 'cause it's not the person, it's me.
speaker-0: One of the first things I do when I teach boundaries, it's so funny, my I have a free workshop and in the workshop one of my slides says boundaries are not about you, they're about me. That is a big misconception. My boundary has nothing to do with
speaker-1: Nothing.
speaker-0: it's about me. Okay, you want access to me? Here are my boundaries that make me comfortable. It's a lot, it's a lot, we're gonna pack a lot. But I'm just saying, so if that pause is super helpful. Because I'm not trying to throw you into the deep end. Especially if you're coming to me and you've been running on these feelings for a long time and you and let's just add this what it is. A lot of it comes from us trying to be good people.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: It's not like we out here trying to be Miss America. No, we just want to be good friends, good daughters, good wives. So we want to do the thing and be available to you. The problem is that we can't do that for everybody at all the times because we have a capacity, just like you. So allow me, if you love me, allow me to check my capacity first and get back to you.
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: And that's why I said throw something at me, because the way you respond. May need to be rehearsed.
speaker-1: Yeah, I'll ha I had to practice that for sure. My phone is always blowing up. Yep. 'Cause I don't think about stuff to ask 'cause I'm like, I don't ask. I'm like, 'cause I'm good. Yeah.
speaker-0: Be often dope. So you you may have to rehearse what to say when somebody asks you something out of the blue. It's so funny because sometimes our calendars are empty. It's like, nobody asks me nothing. And then it's like, Good Lord, how many invitations did I get this week? You know, and you have to practice the balantary, practice the pause. And you also have to refra I'm not teaching I'm not doing all this teaching up here, but one more thing. Go ahead. You gotta reframe the guilt. You gotta reframe the guilt. Okay. Okay.
speaker-1: You got Let's do it. Let's talk about
speaker-0: Okay. There are two different reasonings, definitions for guilt. So when you want to say no to something and you feel a guilt, you have to ask yourself, Am I guilty because I've done something wrong? Or am I guilty because I've been conditioned to think that I need to be available? Two different lines of thought. Because sometimes when we feel guilty, it automatically says, I'm doing something wrong. I need to stop and do the other thing. The other thing is to say yes. That's not accurate guilt. In that moment, you might just be conditioned to think that you have to say yes. So you have to reframe the guilt. When I feel guilty, which one is it? Did I actually do something wrong or am I being conditioned? Okay, if it's not that I've done something wrong, it's the conditioning one, which means now I have to look at that guilt as progress. Okay, I am reconditioning myself to give myself permission to check with myself. So now that's the good guilt. I'm happy I feel that guilt. I'm proud of that guilt because it tells me that I'm finally choosing me.
speaker-1: I love that. I like how you frame that. Reframe the guilt. Yeah, reframe the guilt. Okay, that's a framework. Links below. Okay.
speaker-0: Come to my class, I'll you the rest.
speaker-1: Links in the show notes. Okay, so if a woman cannot picture what enough looks like anymore because she's been running on more for so long, where does she start?
speaker-0: Visualization. Visualization. So this is when the spa is good. Right. This is when that that moment is. Baby,
speaker-1: I love a good inside.
speaker-0: I am a spa girly to my husband husband's detriment.
speaker-1: here she goes.
speaker-0: Baby, can you rub me that $80, please? Listen, visualization. Sometimes you have to take yourself out of the environment to really see where you want to be. Sometimes we are too much in it. We can't get out of it. We we just we in it. So sometimes you to take yourself away. Now, let's say a situation where you just you can't. I'm not so who got spa money? Not me. So okay, maybe not spa. But can you go to the coffee shop down the street? Can you take yourself out of your environment for 30 to 45 minutes? Just step out. Whatever it is that you in, step out. Please. Okay, step out. Can you go to your car? You know, you go home sometimes. Yeah, and you don't want to get out 'cause you know what's inside the house.
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: So you just you just sit in the car for a second until somebody realizes it didn't come up. You coming in? Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I'll be I'll be in. Yeah. Go to the car. Just step out for a second. And then don't think about your schedule. Don't think about your day. Don't think about your to-do. Just envision what would you like your day to look like? You may be a long way from it. That's kind of we ain't talking about that right now. I'm not asking you about the distance between where you are and where you want to be. Doesn't matter in this context. Step out and visualize where do you want to be? Because once you have that star, that north star, now we can work backwards. Right? But if you can't, if you're so in it that you can't even visualize what you would like your day to look like.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: We might need a one-on-one.
speaker-1: Yeah. And I live there for so long. Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: So just visualize. Give yourself permission to visualize. Sometimes we don't even you know, when you're a kid and you want something, maybe you're shopping with your mom and you go past the aisle of candy and what did she say? Don't even think about it. Don't even think about it. As adults, sometimes we're scared to even think about it. We're not we're not kids passing the candy aisle anymore. You have permission. To think about it. So give yourself a moment to think about it. What would you like your day to look like? What would you like to wake up and happen? What would you like to go to bed to? I can't give it to you right now. I don't have a wand. But just think about it. Give yourself permission to think about it. And then we got something to work with.
speaker-1: Yeah, that's super powerful. I love that. And another simple step is like vagal tone. it's the strength and responsiveness of the vagus vagus nerve governs the body's ability to shift in and out of high alert. So slow extended exhales or box breathing, right? Time in nature, calming plant friends around me. or the I allies we'll have to talk about like later in this episode, support this pathway. Yes. So it doesn't require an overhaul. Like you said, it requires consistent, small changes, small signals to the body that it is safe to like calm down, stand down. Yeah.
speaker-0: that intentional breath work is I mean I am not I don't go into it because I you know not my ministry again I get you I'm the stopgap girl I'm gonna help you stop right now and figure out that you need to do something but things like that intentional breath work what is it the the hot water cold water I mean just it's just
speaker-1: Plunge in
speaker-0: things that you can physically do to stop it. And and just tell your body it's safe. Because that's the thing. We've just told our bodies have gotten so used to this run, run, run, run, and run, we don't feel safe in our own bodies. So you have to do the certain things that you said to start to feel yeah safe again.
speaker-1: Yeah. What did you have to unlearn about your own worth before you could teach other women to say no?
speaker-0: You know, that's a great question because I was talking to a girlfriend literally this week. So, okay, I I had to do some identity shifts. And this is huge because there are things that we do, there are things that we have, and there are things that we are. So in the past, I somehow came to confuse my identity with what I could give a person. So I took pride in being the girl. When we went to Happy Hour to be like, Hey, next round's on me. Right? Or sending my parents on a cruise for their anniversary. I I considered that a part of my identity. And then I hit a a page where was like, Who got the next round? I'm gonna give y'all this handwritten, handmade gift for your anniversary, you know?
speaker-1: From the heart.
speaker-0: So it really took a hit to my identity because I'm like, well, wait a minute. If I'm not the next round on me, girl, who am I? Right? And it was like, why? So I had to shift my mindset and be like, no, no, no, no, no. My identities are not tied to what I can give, but the the characteristics of me. So my characteristic is I'm gonna give you all I have. But that going to vary depending on what season of my life I am in. And that's okay. So my identity doesn't shift because of where I am on the timeline of my journey. Cause I'm still going to be kind no matter what. Right. I'm still going to be helpful no matter what. And I'm still going to be confident no matter what. I'm going to do it scared. I might cry. But I'm going to do it. Yeah. Right. And that's my I that makes me not what I can give a person. So that shift. Help me. And so when I'm coaching women and they say, but I'm the strong friend. Okay, friend. I get it. I mean, I get it. I get it. But but that was sad on you. And sometimes we take pride in that. When my girlfriends get upset, they call me and it's two in the morning and they know I'll answer. But why, sis? Because you need to be asleep too. Who?
speaker-1: And who's second on you?
speaker-0: Right? Probably nobody. Ain't nobody else got the rounds. They they came, they left their wallets at home because they knew you had it. Right? So when we assume these identities, and then we start to take pride in them, because that we see that it makes other people happy, sometimes we don't realize what it's doing to ourselves. So that was a shift that I had to make for myself. And that made it easier for me to say, hey, I recognize this in you. And this is something that you may want to give attention to, to see if this identity still currently suits you where you are. I'm not gonna tell you to change, but I'm gonna tell you that this could result from that. And you may wanna reassess who you choose to be. And and that may help you navigate this successful life a little bit better.
speaker-1: Is there a version of yourself maybe the one doing makeup backstage or performing as a keynote speaker that you had to let go of to build this work?
speaker-0: Yeah, just the version that sounds so bad
speaker-1: It has to be
speaker-0: when you say it all loud. The version that cared. Meaning I I want you to enjoy, you know, when I'm on stage and I'm giving a keynote, it's it could depending on where it is and what it is, it might be stressful for me, right? But I kind of have to remove that in order for me to give you what I what I prepared for you. And so it's another mindset ship, right? It's not about whether you like my shirt, whether you like locks, whether you like brown skinned girls, whether you like big girls. It doesn't matter. Because you're there and I'm here. Not in a condescending way, but in this particular context, you have a job and I have a job. Right. And my job is not dependent on whether you like me.
speaker-1: Right.
speaker-0: Right? Right. So I can't care what you think about my shoes and if they match my belt. I can't care about that. I only care that the knowledge that I have for you in this moment gets to you in a way that's consumable. That you leave this room better than when you came in. Because that's my job. That's why I'm here. So that identity, that thought that I had before, that I that I had to get rid of. I hope they like me. I mean I do. But if you don't I mean listen,
speaker-1: Four.
speaker-0: because somebody's gonna get what I came here to bring. And that's my job. I'm gonna always try to do my job, regardless of whether you do yours or not. Because your job is to listen. Mm-hmm. Your job is to take in this information. Your job is to find why you're here and leave transformed in one way or the other. If you decide not to do your job, I mean okay. But I would do mine.
speaker-1: I like that. setting boundaries. You guys can get sounds such a common phrase that it risks become could becoming like empty advice. Yes. What makes your approach different from what everyone else tells women to do? Okay.
speaker-0: Sustainable boundaries. Example, right? Have you ever had a situation where say somebody made you really mad and you're like, never call me again? You ain't mean it. You just said a boundary you didn't even mean, right? So boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, no healthy boundaries, sustainable boundaries, boundaries that you mean, boundaries that you can actually stand on. There's a difference in just of the and plus. People think of boundaries often as doors, but boundaries can be gates. Yeah. Right? That open and close. So boundaries can tell you not just how to stay out, but how to come in. For instance, when I'm dealing with my coaching clients, let's say you have one of my packages that includes Voxer service, that little walkie-talkie service. I tell you, hey, if you need me, hit me on the Voxer. Between the hours though. Because this boundary,
speaker-1: Right?
speaker-0: I want I want you to communicate with me. So my boundary is telling you the best way to do so. So my voxer cuts off at let's say 7 PM and you want to call me at 7 30 and I hit a little church, because maybe I forgot to cut it off. I'm not gonna pick it up. Two reasons. For you and for me. Yes. Right? Because I don't want to resent this relationship that I have with you. And I want you to respect me as your coach. So I have to set boundaries that make sense for both of us. Mm-hmm. Because the worst thing to do is to resent somebody for overstepping a boundary you never bothered to set. Hello. Now don't call for me for a boundary that you ain't set. Okay? I don't wanna hear that. Why you call me at nine? Because you usually answer at nine. Well, that's early. We're done stop answering. You know what I mean? Like the trust
speaker-1: Tell me that's a how to treat you.
speaker-0: and it's not even a bad way because sometimes people think that's so negative. It's positive. I want you in my space. So I'm giving you the parameters. That makes sense, so you get the good me.
speaker-1: how to do that. Right.
speaker-0: At six a.m. you might not get the good me. So let me save you. The good me turns on at seven. So call me at 7 for 10. Right. This is saving you and for me. So boundaries have to make sense. Right, you we don't just go around making arbitrary boundaries because boundaries is a key word and we're supposed to do it. No. It gotta make sense. Why you why are you making this boundary, sis? And sometimes the boundaries is is too harsh. What are you what are you you're you're blockading yourself in from the world for what? Right. Somebody hurts you? Do we need to go have therapy? Do we need to because sometimes that happens, right? We we Self-preservation coach. Self-preservation. Right? I'm all about preserving self. But you gotta make it sustainable. So you gotta look at all of the sides of the boundaries. Why is it here? Is it even enforceable? Don't look at me. It's a boundary. Well, you can't control nobody's eyes. That's not an enforceable boundary. So you gotta take
speaker-1: Right, right, right.
speaker-0: a look at it. They gotta be healthy. They gotta be sustainable.
speaker-1: Two things. Okay. Zero point where confidently unavailable tips into avoidance, where a woman uses it to dodge responsibilities that are actually hers.
speaker-0: Yes, I call that consistently unavailable. Sis, be confident, not consistent. As a coach again, right? I have to show up. I can't say I got you and then don't got you. So we have to honor commitments, right? We have to be a reliable person in our life. But there are times when I am available. And I'm confident about those times. So that I can give each segment of my life the proper amount of attention. But if you're consistently unavailable, you consistently miss deadlines, you consistently don't show. There's a part of my life that I I kind of I was going really hard for some goals. And I eventually learned that I had hurt a family member. Because apparently I had kept missing her immense. Now she never said nothing to me. I didn't know. I hadn't I had no clue. And then some time some a good amount of time had passed. So we had a situation where we're having a conversation and she blew up on me. And I was like, I had no idea what she was. I'm like, what?
speaker-1: if I just come out left field. Blindsided.
speaker-0: And I felt horrible because I I love this person and I just had no idea that I had hurt them. But I had become consistently unavailable for them. And I did not recognize it. So in my work of measuring out your capacity and looking at your agenda. One of the questions is, am I making time for the people that I love? Because in our pursuit of success, sometimes we neglect aspects of our life that may need more attention that we're getting at. And when that happens, it may go into the realm of being negligent, even if unintentional. And as you said, avoid.
speaker-1: Right. Well, the last question I ask every guest on the show is if you could tell the guests just one more thing they could do to have an informed choice this week, what would it be?
speaker-0: ACS. Okay.
speaker-1: What's that?
speaker-0: A C S. This is a line. This is a line. Do I have the capacity? That's the C. And then if the answer is yes, what needs to shift?
speaker-1: A C S A C S
speaker-0: Yes. Does it align to I have the capacity? And if yes, what needs to shift? Because sometimes it aligns, sometimes you say, I figured out. But we don't shift anything. And that's how we constantly went into this thing where we got too much on a to-do list. And so we we we get ourselves in that cycle. A C S honey.
speaker-1: I like this AC. Well before we move on to the herbal spotlight, please tell people where to find you and how they can work with you.
speaker-0: Alright, so elisalabrown.com. So it's two L's, one S A L L I S A, La L A Brown.com. And that's my name for my website. That's my Instagram. And soon my YouTube will be launching Confidently Unavailable. So my YouTube and my podcast. So
speaker-1: That's awesome.
speaker-0: I'm working on those two things. But till then, girl. And you can reach me email too. Hello at alisalabrown.com.
speaker-1: Okay. All of the links will be down in the show notes below. Please be sure to reach out to her. Please thank you for being an amazing guest. I love this conversation and I think you're gonna you get some clients out of this one.
speaker-0: I'll tell you this too, for those who who also are like, I ain't got no money, but I need something. A free resource. I have I have a thing on my website. It's called 12 signs you're doing too much. Okay. It's free. You just go, you download it for free. You'll get I think you put your name, your email, and your number in. You'll be subscribed to my list. So you'll get some, you know, health information every now and then. But just go and make that assessment. Again, I like to be that stop gap. So yes, it's nice to be paid. But even if we can't do that, at least make the assessment. So you realize, hey, I need to do some things.
speaker-1: That'll be linked below as well. Yeah. Wow. That'll be linked below as well. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you so much. We'll be right back with our herbal spotlight.
speaker-0: Rise and shine, it's time both naturally.
speaker-1: All right, so we are back with our Ergo Spotlight and based on all the beautiful conversation we just had, we talked a lot about nervous system exhaustion. So I I always have to pick an herb that parallels the conversation we just had. And so this herb I picked for this week is called skull cap. Are you familiar with that?
speaker-0: Absolutely am nuts. Okay.
speaker-1: All right, for those who are familiar with it, they might think of it as a sedative. Okay. but it's actually not a sedative. It's something that helps your s your immune system, not your immune system, your nervous system from overreacting or being overstimulated. it doesn't have any of the adverse reactions for like anti anxiety medications. So it's tradition used by North American herbalists for people that have like a nervous system that's completely exhausted. Okay. Okay. So the skull cast flavonoids, bind to the The benodiazepine sites of the GABA A receptor sites. And that's the same receptor sites that anti-anxiety medication that people take binds to. I'm sure you're familiar with that. Damn. And so we have a lot of research to back up the herbs because a lot of times you have all these herbs and you have you have decades or millennia of people using it, but there's no science to actually back it up. But it's actually some science on this. And so I'll read those. We had a in 2014, there was a random double blind placebo controlled crossover trial. Of about 45 adults, healthy adults, that found a significant reduction in their total mood disturbance after two weeks of taking skull cap, just drinking as a tea or taking as a capsule, with no reduction in their energy or cognitive performance. And then in 2025, so just last year, a randomized double-blind placebo controlled crossover trial found that skull cap-based supplements improved sleep quality, which we talked about, sleep efficiency. wakefulness in adults with mild to moderate insomnia with effects researchers described as carrying over supplementation ended. So once they even stopped taking the supplementation, they still had positive effect. And this is without taking the prescribed versions of medication. So the science has actually come to back up what people have known for thousands of years or hundreds of years concerning skull cap. And it's a very unique looking flower in in in nature. This is the dried sifted version of it. So Skull cap increases how much GABA and GABA is the brain's calming chemical. And so it stays active, how long it stays active at the receptor site. So it does not sedate your nervous system. It helps stop your nerves from overfiring. So that's why it's a really great herb. people take it as a tea or tincture. It's taken consistently over a couple of weeks. You can drink one to I mean two to three cups a day is more than sufficient. And all you need is like a tablespoon, a teaspoon or two of dried herb in the water. And I have some for you to try. Yes, please. So I have a nice c here.
speaker-0: Whole cup.
speaker-1: I made this earlier so it's been steeped for a while. And I just put a little bit of stevia leaves in it so it's not totally just grass. But
speaker-0: Thank you for that.
speaker-1: it's still still very natural tasting. that's true. I mean that's true. Hey
speaker-0: whole lot for a taste. Hey. My God we're gonna be real good.
speaker-1: Gabby's gonna be cooking.
speaker-0: Okay, you ready for me to say? Yeah, go ahead. it's good.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I'm not even faking.
speaker-1: It's genuinely well tolerated. It's not very many contraindications, but of course on take it if you're breastfeeding or in or pregnant. make sure you get it from a reputable source as all your herbs. And if you're taking currently taking pharmaceuticals, make sure you talk to your health care team before you add on any other pharmaceuticals because there could be contraindications, especially if you don't get from a replicable source. There are some rare cases of liver interactions when you buy it from crappy places, right? But other than that is very well tolerated and it gives you that calm. It just just restores without having to have the drug.
speaker-0: So me being newly introduced to this, right? How would I know if it's a reputable source? Like how would I because if I go home and I'm like, this is great and I actually really do like it, so I probably will be drinking it continuously, how do I know where to get it from?
speaker-1: Yes. So you can go to your local herbal herbalist. so like do a cursory Google search or a chat GBT or quad search of that. or if you buy it on somewhere like an Amazon, make sure it's been third party tested or buy some like a Mountain Rose herbs or a stardust. They are they are like leaders in the industry of bulk or bulk herbs. Okay. But the main thing is make sure it's third party tested and look at the reviews and and at the back. Don't just buy for some sketch. Right. Someone just grew in their backyard and the dog was pissing all over the herbs and stuff. We don't want that. Okay. We don't want that. So the main thing is make sure it's been third party tested and there's some type of oversight and organic. You do not want pesticide laden, dried herbs that you're gonna drink from medicine because now you're also drinking those chemicals. So that's what's looking for organic, third party tested, reputable, like I can say like a mountain rose herb. So like this one I got from mountain rose herbs because I don't have passion flower in my in my garden.
speaker-0: And you can just like use the little tea balls to steep it. Like you just put the little down in there and
speaker-1: You can do that. So I like to use like a something like that for loose leaf. What you don't wanna do you don't wanna put in a tea bag 'cause that's plastic, micro plastics, right? So you can use like the metal balls, you can use you can use that, or strainer, but just make sure it's not plastic. I like it. Okay. So that's the that's the main thing when that question You asked a great question.
speaker-0: I want to do it right and I'd ask the right question. Perfect.
speaker-1: So yeah, so this is used for nervous system exhaustion like we talked about. It's so it's not for just one night of bad sleep. This is like knowing like you've been deficient for a while. Right. And so just drinking this and it's very easy to drink. Very easy to drink. It's nice, it's calm. It's not overwhelmingly grassy or earthy. It is
speaker-0: I would tell you if it was. I'd be like, girl, this was a nice thing. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not a hanger.
speaker-1: But yeah, it's so it's really great to that's a great parent. So if you're not at the point where you feel like you need to take a pharmaceutical, this is something that if you and you know you've had chronic stress for a while, this is a great herb to supplement with. Also passion flower. Passion flower more for like I need a hit right now to calm down, like right now. Okay. And skull cap's more for the sustaining type.
speaker-0: Hello.
speaker-1: So yeah. It's so so much medicine just growing around this natural living brand. Yes.
speaker-0: I know. I use essential oils in a specific I won't plug it here. But you know I do that oil.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I I I use them and I promote them.
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: because I'm very much so into being able to trace where that bottle of oil came from, where was it sourced. So that's why I was asking about where to fry the tea because where I can tell you about essential oils through and through, I'm not familiar with herbs. So this is great. I'm I'm happy you introduced me to this. Thank you. Yes. You're welcome.
speaker-1: So that's Skullcap. So now we're gonna go into our Be Wealthy Nigetian Kitchen segment. All right. Well, welcome back to our night, our Be Wealthy Nigerian kitchen. And as always, we like to do a dish that connects to what we talked about. So we talked about nervous system exhaustion. So this dish will actually replete, replete. This dish will actually replace and replenish the nutrients that are the first to go when the body's under chronic stress, like magnesium and B complex and vitamin E. And then it also will give you other things to help you sustain, so like you know, good proteins and all that and healthy fats. So this is a West African dish, specifically a Nigerian dish. Hint hit. called Efo Riro. And efo means like leafy vegetable. Okay. And rero means stirred or stewed. So it's like a it's a vegetable soup. Okay. Efo riro. Efor. Okay. All right. And so traditionally we eat this with like a pounded yam or fufu or amala or eba or something like that. But today we're gonna serve it over millet. Are you familiar with millet?
speaker-0: Ham, I mean I wouldn't have minded a little foo foo, but it is what it is. I guess I can do millet today.
speaker-1: Well, Milly is still an ancient West African grain. Okay. I'll take it. It's one of the only alkaline forming grains because most grains are acid forming. So it's it means it's it's naturally gluten free. It's it's not gonna spike your insulin levels. It's is it's very slow releasing and it's very versatile, it's great rice replacement. So this is the it's very easy. It's in most grocery stores. You walk right past it. If it's not where your rices are are kept, it's on the gluten free section of your go of your grocery store. All right, so we're gonna start off with some red palm oil because that's the staple of most of our soups. And I'm starting here with a tablespoon of red palm because we don't need to bury it in oil. Because like I always say one tablespoon of oil is 120 calories. And this is a saturated fat, so it's 130 calories for just one tablespoon. So when you put too much oil in there again you're adding like five six seven hundred calories that don't even result to anything. Okay. So while that warms up We're gonna go ahead and add in some red onion. Okay. That's what we do. While that's all heating up, I pass that to you. I will take it. And something that is specific to us. Now you this can be optional, but if you want to make it more authentic, okay, you want to add this is called Iru in Nigeria or Dawa Dawa in Ghana. And it's a fermented locust bean. It adds a depth of flavor in umami. It's it's very important. So I was told by my class, my students, they say it smells like chocolate, cheese, and feet. to them, so let's see what she thinks it smells like. Quite
speaker-0: That is quite the introduction.
speaker-1: the
speaker-0: Okay, okay. god.
speaker-1: But it adds a depth of flavor and it's like you know what's missing and it's not there.
speaker-0: So that is oddly accurate.
speaker-1: Is that Oddly I can Yeah, but
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: if it's not there, you know it. Don't look don't be scared. I'm already don't be scared.
speaker-0: scared we're gonna eat a chocolate feet
speaker-1: Chocolate cheese
speaker-0: dish
speaker-1: and for me it smells delightful because I know goodness is coming. Contest is everything. Contest is everything. But that's what they told me in class. I was like But not only because it's fermented it's good for your gut. Correct. it's one of the things like if you have like diarrhea, especially with this explosive diarrhea going around the country, this actually helps with that. And it's a natural pre and probiotic.
speaker-0: Okay, well all that makes up for
speaker-1: Yeah, so it has like the bactylus and the lactovaxillus strains in them. So it helps with gut microbiome diversity and gut health. So a lot of good is it? This is called Eru. All right. Yes. Yes. And you can smell it, right? So we've got our palm oil, we have our red onion, we have a little bit of Eru. So I'm gonna put our tomato paste. 'Cause you always wanna kinda fry that off in the beginning. Okay, little gnat, you need to go somewhere. Where are you fun for? What's up? Okay. I'm just gonna break this up. Turn this up a little bit. Now, red palm oil, I love it because like I don't cook with oil a lot. I cook it with intention. So if I'm gonna bloom spices, you need a fat because the fat, the the volatile compounds are fat-soluble. That's where you can really smell the spices. So you need some type of fat, but you don't want go overboard with it. so I do love it for that. But it's also one of the highest things on the planet that has vitamin E in this full packaging, not an extract and vitamin A. So it's very, very helpful. They've done studies on it where people in like third world or emerging countries that were having night blindness, they gave them the take like a teaspoon of pure red palm, virgin red palm oil, and it helped restore their vision. It's very, very powerful.
speaker-0: So where would somebody here get this this this
speaker-1: red palm oil. So red palm oil, you want to visit your ethnic markets, particularly your West African markets. Some of the Caribbean markets will have it and some of the larger Asian groceries will have like a half of African owls. Okay. So you can get it from there. and then if you're out in the sticks and you don't have anything ethnic around you, you can get it on Amazon. Okay. Great. Yep. But make sure like I had a friend that I never really thought about West African markets. Okay. Because the continent of Africa is like huge. So our cuisine is different from Central Africa different from North Africa, so they would have different things. So you want to go to a West African market. Okay.
speaker-0: Good to know. It does smell good. It's
speaker-1: It's coming it's coming together, right?
speaker-0: circling.
speaker-1: All right, so I'm now also going to add in these mushrooms. We have some sha taki mushrooms and let that kind of wilt down because mushrooms have a lot of water in them. So this adds additional protein. People don't realize how much protein mushroom, particularly mushroom root, has, is very high in protein. It's also very rich in B vitamins and selenium. Selenium is also something you need for your thyroid health. And it helps with adrenal function and thyroid function.
speaker-0: 'Cause it's you, I'm gonna try one.
speaker-1: Yes. She's being adventurous today.
speaker-0: Not a big much more than a
speaker-1: down for the cause but I am I am these aren't regular like button portabell mushrooms like that so this is shiitakis shiitake mushrooms all right I'm for it yeah so this is we're just building the case so I'm just gonna let that let those sweat for a little bit okay and while we're letting that sweat I'm gonna ask you some questions some rapid fire questions so that people can get to know you better. Well let's do it let's do it okay all right a morning person or a night owl
speaker-0: Mm. I'm gonna say morning person. Okay. Okay.
speaker-1: One word you say too often when you actually mean no.
speaker-0: actually we actually let me see what I got actually girl let me let me look let me think about it
speaker-1: Okay, the last time you said no and felt amazing about it.
speaker-0: Ooh, so many times. So the last time.
speaker-1: The last
speaker-0: I think it was just somebody asking me to go out. I think it was a concert
speaker-1: I think
speaker-0: or something and the tickets were like one fifty or something and I was like no and it was great. It was great. I don't even know because I
speaker-1: 150, who was like
speaker-0: I I mean I love music, but I am diametrically opposed to paying a lot for concert tickets. So it was you know and if
speaker-1: pretty much an easy rate. People were spending their mortgage payments assisting these people.
speaker-0: has their thing, right? But that's just not mine. I I pay for experiences like vacation. But like you can't tempt me with a bag. Like when T J Max is open and you want me to go buy a ro it's just it's just no judgment. It's just not my thing. It's not my temptation.
speaker-1: I'm still with
speaker-0: So it's just not, you know, but tell me you got a deal on current style, baby some
speaker-1: I'm there.
speaker-0: penny others. I know
speaker-1: Your favorite way to spend a on completely unavailable afternoon is
speaker-0: Hmm. Resting with my baby. just yeah, shut up. It's couch time or something.
speaker-1: I love that. Just I like that. Okay. one item of clothing that makes you feel unstoppable. Ooh, probably my
speaker-0: hoops or my frames I don't know either hoops or frames frames thank you yeah
speaker-1: okay. The most useless piece of advice you were ever given about balance.
speaker-0: That you had to be born with it. I was like what?
speaker-1: What?
speaker-0: No, you don't. Like, you know, e there's some people who are just very good naturally adaptments and then other people it's just so difficult. I'm like No. Everybody can learn how it's on with them. With them.
speaker-1: That was dumb.
speaker-0: With them.
speaker-1: Yeah, that was definitely dumb. Okay, a line of spoken word that still lives in your head.
speaker-0: wow, that's good because I haven't done any spoken word in so long. Wow, I'm thinking of my piece called Stupid, but now I can't think of the line that's from stupid that I wanna say. Okay, we could
speaker-1: But
speaker-0: Okay if I say something about being stupid later that's the line I want to use Okay circle back I got
speaker-1: Okay, circle back. god, so
speaker-0: It's amazing how you can make me feel so special and so stupid at the same time And how I could put I love you and I hate you in the same rhyme and not be lying or even trying to win a crowd over. Okay, I'm gonna stop right here. But yes, that's my favorite
speaker-1: Well my
speaker-0: pieces. I like that. Okay.
speaker-1: Look, I'm intrigued to hear more.
speaker-0: The show.
speaker-1: What is your mere affirmation this month?
speaker-0: Yeah. probably you are strong, you can do hard things. I'm doing a lot of hard things and
speaker-1: This month, okay.
speaker-0: you know, it's a little bit difficult and a little bit more pressurized. So if you are strong, you can do hardcake.
speaker-1: Okay. So I like that. Okay. One thing people misjudge about you in the first five minutes.
speaker-0: That I am an extrovert. I I get it.
speaker-1: I so understand that.
speaker-0: Yeah, they're like, my god, you're so good with people. You you so natural and I'm like, Yeah but you know, usually it is, and usually it's tied to a purpose innately, just for myself. Purpose,
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, but not yeah. Correct. If I have a purpose I'm good.
speaker-0: whether it's intrinsic, whether it's spiritual, whether it's financial, but just because girl, catch me later. I'm getting in the head. Deuces.
speaker-1: If when your podcast launches this year, one guest you would love to have on it besides the night. Besides you?
speaker-0: Because I mean like you're number one of course. one guess I would love to have on. This is so f I just started writing out my list literally this week. Who would I love to have on? Can we circle back?
speaker-1: Yeah. While she's thinking about that, these have kind of calmed down and soaked down. So now we're gonna add in our tomato pepper blend.
speaker-0: Wait, what is this?
speaker-1: So this is a mix of red bell pepper or tache. Yes. Okay red onion. And I only put in one Scotch bonnet because it wasn't sure heat tolerance.
speaker-0: Thank you for the one. Appreciate
speaker-1: Just the one.
speaker-0: you, girl. I do like heat, but I'm just saying.
speaker-1: Nitrogen serious. Most people can't handle Niger Heat.
speaker-0: Listen, I'm gonna be the one that's gonna bow grace out. Bow like I can't. One twenty.
speaker-1: is pointy one's pointy so all right you say one scotch point
speaker-0: Thank you.
speaker-1: that's nothing we would do like five or six but girl girl that's very true
speaker-0: What? That's that's because she was eating us because she was mm mm.
speaker-1: so we're gonna let that cook and I'm gonna add in a little bit of this no chicken broth
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: Nice and savory. Nice and savory. It just needs to come to a quick little boil. Okay. And then while that happens, I have here some follow being tofu. Are you familiar?
speaker-0: So, no. Okay. listen, it is what it is. Now, like I said, I'm I'm down for the cause. gosh. Okay. He's trying.
speaker-1: You wanna try one? No. Let's see.
speaker-0: Okay. I mean it's not horrible. It tastes like It says like when you you made chicken and it's been the free chicken
speaker-1: Ready right?
speaker-0: and you take it out and it's like this is the last day for this chicken. This chicken can't last another day. It's not bad. It's not bad like I thought it was gonna be.
speaker-1: It's not bad at all. So now it's gonna absorb the flavor of this stock.
speaker-0: Now that's gonna make it better.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. That's just raw. I mean, well not raw, but Thank you. You're trying new things.
speaker-0: Look, I'm very proud of myself. You should be. Whoever watches this and knows me is gonna be like, she ain't gonna try that tofu. And I did it. Thank you very much. I'm
speaker-1: She did the thing.
speaker-0: proud of myself.
speaker-1: And now we're gonna also add in the greens. Okay. So the key things when you're cooking with greens, when you finish cooking with those greens, they should still be green. I agree with that. They shouldn't be brown. It shouldn't be all those things. So I had here a mix of kale and spinach. Hence the FO, you know, Rero. The This is gonna So we call in the United States the what we call soups in Nigeria is Yala Falls stews stews here because our soups are not soupy. Really with all these greens. And y'all know spinach woost down to absolutely nothing. Literally So
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: our greens, our like the West African greens, they still hold up. Which is also why I like to I put kale in this as well. So that's it up a little bit. Just so it doesn't just disintegrate into nothingness.
speaker-0: Like a trail of ring.
speaker-1: So I'm gonna put the lid on this. Did that your your dream podcast guest come on yet? Come turn on
speaker-0: you made me eat the the tow food. It threw me off. Completely.
speaker-1: Now there are different types of tofu and different textures. So people kinda lump tofu. First of all, tofu doesn't sound delicious. That's one. That's the the word. That is one. They could have done they could've done better.
speaker-0: They definitely could have put some more thought into this.
speaker-1: So that's the first is off plants like jelly okay. Yeah, they could have done a better job with that. But there's different
speaker-0: Like toes and your toes. More intentionality.
speaker-1: textures and there's different types. So most people just assume it's just made with soybeans, which is the one that's been around for the longest time. But there's made from other beans and and grains. So you have red lentil tofu, you have chickpea tofu, fava bean tofu.
speaker-0: Okay, so let me ask you this then. Because I've had chickpeas, I've had lentils, all that. What makes it tofu?
speaker-1: That's a great question. So when you take so outside of like pumpkin seed tofu or even red lentil tofu, tofu itself and you add a coagulant to it. Okay. And that's what's gonna make it cake like. So it's basically like bean cheese. It's the curves and whey. So when you make cheese, you have curves and whey, and then the curves come together for the cheese, and then the whey is the byproduct of that. It's the same thing with the beans. So you're you're making like a It's basically bean cheese. It's the same process as making regular cheese.
speaker-0: That was a little bit more helpful. I'll think about that.
speaker-1: Yeah. You think about this tofu?
speaker-0: It must do
speaker-1: In her s in her stud.
speaker-0: with the mushro this is all kinds of adventures for me. I'm here for it though. Hey. Listen, I'm headed to Africa in a month, so I I am going to
speaker-1: You only live once.
speaker-0: South Africa, Johannes. I
speaker-1: Okay, joke right.
speaker-0: feel like getting all in the cuisine. I feel like I'm gonna
speaker-1: Like, said Eric was saying is completely different.
speaker-0: different and I was in Mozambique which was right next door. Yes. And that you know so I'm I like being somewhat adventurous.
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: I'm gonna consider myself preparing for that.
speaker-1: You are. You are. So as I'm stirring this down, you see how it's completely starting to wilt. Because this is a primary, it's a leafy green soup. traditionally we would have which I forgot to add in. Can you hear me that?
speaker-0: Whatever this is.
speaker-1: Yes. We will add crayfish to most of our soups.
speaker-0: Pray fish?
speaker-1: Crayfish, dry it's a dried fish. But this is nori sheets.
speaker-0: I you're saying so usually you would add crayfish. Because I don't like that's crayfish.
speaker-1: Correct. No.
speaker-0: Got it.
speaker-1: Nope. To give you that fishy depth of flavor. I meant to put that at the beginning.
speaker-0: Okay, I'll tell you nothing yet.
speaker-1: We'll let it we'll let it do its thing and marinate on
speaker-0: I like Nori.
speaker-1: So I think she's putting together this is a plant based cooking show.
speaker-0: Yes, yes. You know. Clearly somebody didn't read the sheets before I came 'cause I'm like, what? Where
speaker-1: Where did you
speaker-0: the beef? Can I at least get some crayfish? I like wheat fish. But but how you so is this why you do the nori? Because it's not crayfish?
speaker-1: And not just for the animal's sake, but also the the minerals you're getting this. Now this is the iodine in it's gonna help with the thyroid health. We already had the selenium from the mushrooms that also helps with thyroid health and adrenal health, which is two organs that are d very much depleted when your nervous system is is wrecked. So this is why this whole stew or soup, it's replenishing all the things that get depleted. when you're constantly running on fumes that we're discussing. I like the lap. Yeah, so it's very intentional this particular Intentional.
speaker-0: It's my word of the year. Very much so. I I I am a sucker for intentionality. Yes. I love it.
speaker-1: So that is coming together and looking nice. That's great. So now let me do a quick taste test to see if I need to add any little seasoning. Little seasoning. Little sprinkle songs. Little song song. Yes. Let's do that. Let's let's do that. Let's see.
speaker-0: In reviewers. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm?
speaker-1: The fishiness is coming through. Okay.
speaker-0: Fishy, not fishy. The sea is covered.
speaker-1: The sea is coming through. I love it. And it's not spicy at all, which makes it c technically like kinda unauthentic, but no. Nah. I ain't trying to blow your pal Okay Well for I'll tell you. For the for
speaker-0: We could have added a scotch bond in. Like some spice. It's not spicy at all. Yes, I'll tell you if it's spicy.
speaker-1: the Nigerians.
speaker-0: Yes, because I'm clearly not. I'm from DC. D and V baby. Yes.
speaker-1: D and V representing Hollywood.
speaker-0: Maryland side, PG County originally. Followed by some DC gifts.
speaker-1: So right about the millet. Yep, so we have here the millet again. So this is avalon forming. It's filled with good protein, your B vitamins, and very rich in magnesium and manganese. All the things that are depleted.
speaker-0: Lens of protein.
speaker-1: Right. And then now we have our soup here. So everything here is intentional. Yes. So this is this is a little sampling.
speaker-0: I can see some shrimp in there, right? That's perfect. That's where the shrimp look up.
speaker-1: So Nigerians would tend to add some prawns and all those things.
speaker-0: was given traps. It was giving me I need some seafood in this. If if that was your thing, you know? Yeah,
speaker-1: If it was.
speaker-0: if it was, if we go to your show. Come on your shit. We know.
speaker-1: Okay. So this this is not about restriction. It's about replenishing what our body needs, especially when we're chronically depleted, when our nervous systems are just running on fumes chronically. This is gonna replace and replenish all those things and then give you some lasting power beyond that. So she's about to do her on screen live taste test and give us her absolute honest opinion.
speaker-0: to you know get too much where it falls off. Try to get a little bit of everything, even a mushroom.
speaker-1: It's for texture and for the saline and B vitamin protein, all the things.
speaker-0: I see you. Aww, is that bigger? I'm trying see if it's spicy. Okay. It has like the essence of heat, but it's not that spicy. I I taste like it's the essence of heat. Like I understand where the heat could be. But you're right, it's not that spicy. So we probably could have used some scotch bonnet. But for someone who doesn't like spice, the
speaker-1: This is
speaker-0: perfect amount because it still gives you some of that flavor of heat. The essence. Yes.
speaker-1: Essence.
speaker-0: Okay now I gotta eat some tofu because I didn't get any in the first bite. Help me. Help me please. and a good mushroom 'cause I don't think I got a good okay, there we go. This is everything. Okay. Mm-hmm. If I didn't know it was tofu with mushrooms, this would be hidden. Suddenly something
speaker-1: It against that word tofu sounds horrible.
speaker-0: Hm. It does. It's good.
speaker-1: Good her own 'cause you're free to not like it, you know?
speaker-0: And I will tell you. Because I have no problem saying no.
speaker-1: Right. I was like
speaker-0: Actually, you know. I
speaker-1: So this supports all of our stress symptoms
speaker-0: love it.
speaker-1: stress systems, our gut microbiome, our thyroid health, our adrenal function. You know, it replenishes all your minerals. So this is this is health in a bowl. Yeah. So if you're a lady that is running on fumes and you have a hard time saying no and everything we talked about earlier in the first segment with the interview, yeah, this is a dish. That you can try. And now you can totally swap out. You can use whatever greens that you like. You can use collard greens, turn it greens, whatever you like. If you want to add your animal products to it instead, you absolutely can. If you want to serve it over other type of rice, or if you want to do a pounded yam, you can do that too. It's very flexible. But you can get the recipe as all the other recipes in the show notes below and for the monthly meal planner.
speaker-0: Hello, this is very good. Thank you for making a very intentional meal for
speaker-1: Absolutely. I adore it. Thank you so much for being on the show. Yes. All her links will be down in the shows below. And until next time guys, he'll naturally live vibrantly.
speaker-0: Cooking the sun in a pot of green gold Herbs and roots, secret and toak Plant-based love, it's nature's scope Healing the world, one dish for all.
