Reinventing at 54: Why Being “Too Much” Was Actually Just Enough with Oneika Mays

What if the very thing people told you was “too much” about you was actually your greatest gift?

In this soulful conversation, Wendy talks with Oneika Mays — meditation teacher, storyteller, and author — about what it really means to bet on yourself in midlife. Oneika shares how she moved from 20 years as a bookseller to teaching mindfulness (including groundbreaking work at Rikers Island), and how grief ultimately gave her the permission to pursue her lifelong dream of writing.

At 54, Oneika is stepping fully into a creative life — with a debut book on the way and a TV pilot already winning awards. Her story is a powerful reminder that reinvention is not one bold leap, but a series of brave choices to trust yourself again and again.

If you’ve ever been told you’re “too much,” this episode is for you.

What you’ll hear in this episode

• 💛 Permission & self-trust: learning to listen to your own vision
• 📚 From books to mindfulness: Oneika’s journey from bookseller to teacher
• 🧘🏾‍♀️ Metta (lovingkindness): why self-love is the foundation of reinvention
• 🎯 Betting on yourself: celebrating small steps — even after 15 rejections
• ✨ Reinventing at 54: why it’s never too late to claim a creative life
•  🤝 You don’t reinvent alone: the village that helped her bet on herself 

About Oneika Mays 

Oneika Mays is a meditation and yoga teacher, storyteller, and author of Sit With Me: A No-BS Journey to Mindfulness and Meditation (HarperOne, March 3, 2026). She previously served as the first Mindfulness Coach at Rikers Island. 

Connect with Oneika

• Website: https://oneikamays.com
• Instagram: @oneikamays
• Substack: https://oneika.substack.com/
• Preorder her book: Sit With Me (here or available wherever books are sold)

Mentioned in this episode

• Women Over 70 — Aging Reimagined Podcast
  The 2025 ASTRA award-winning weekly show celebrating women 70–110 who are rewriting the script on aging — plus their monthly Aging Reimagined Circle online. 

Thank you for listening

If this episode inspired you, share it with a friend who needs a little permission right now. And if you haven’t already, follow the show and leave a review — it helps more women find their way to this community.

Transcript

Oneika Mays: I had to trust who I was and where I wanted to go, and trust my own talents and what I wanted to do with myself, and allow that to propel me forward.

I did have somebody in particular say that I wanted to do too much. When I said that I wanted to write a television show, that I wanted to write a script, and that I wanted to write a book, you know, you're trying to do too much, Anika. You know, you shouldn't be trying to do all those things.

And I have a book coming out. I just had my TV pilot, Win Grand Jury at a festival, just finished my first feature film, and I'm so glad that I didn't listen, because I am going to keep going, and there might be something else that I want to do next.

Wendy Battles: Welcome to Reinvention Rebels, stories of brave and unapologetic women 50 to 90 years young who have boldly reinvented life on their own terms to find new purpose and possibilities. I'm your host, Wendy Battles. I need to kick your fears to the curb, do it scared, and step into who you are meant to be in midlife and beyond. These amazing women, these Reinvention Rebels, can help light your reinvention path. Come join us, and let's get inspired together.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Reinvention Rebels podcast. I'm your host, Wendy, and I am so glad you're here. If you're brand new, welcome. This is a remarkable community of women who are learning how to pivot, bet on themselves, and give themselves permission to step onto center stage in midlife and beyond. And if you're a returning listener, you already know the power of these stories, how hearing another woman's reinvention journey can spark something in you, remind you what's possible, or help you see your own story in a new way.

Here on Reinvention Rebels, we believe that reinvention doesn't have an expiration date, and that the bravest thing that you can do is to listen to what's calling you now, even if it doesn't fit neatly into one box. Which brings me to today's conversation.

If you've been quietly wondering whether you're allowed to want something more, whether you get permission to pivot, start again, or step into a version of yourself that doesn't fit neatly into one box, this episode is for you. Here on Reinvention Rebels, we talk about betting on yourself, like my favorite topic, and the theme for this season. But what often gets left out of that conversation is the quieter, braver steps that come first. Giving yourself the permission. Permission to try. Permission to be more than one thing. Permission to begin again, even later than you planned, even without certainty, even without approval. Today's conversation is a powerful reminder that reinvention isn't a single leap. It's a series of choices to trust yourself again and again, and to stop shrinking your vision to fit someone else's imagination.

I'm so honored and I'm so excited about today's guest, Oneika Mays. She's a meditation and yoga teacher, a speaker and storyteller who, like many of us, has reinvented herself multiple times and is still very much in the becoming, like I think most of us are. We're still figuring it out.

Her journey spans bookselling, mindfulness work in correction facilities, spiritual practice, and now at 54, stepping fully into a creative life in writing for TV and film. This is a soulful, honest conversation about loving-kindness, multiplicity, community, and what happens when you finally decide that this life is not, y'all, a dress rehearsal. Anika Mays, welcome to the Reinvention Rebels guest chair.

Oneika Mays: I am so happy to be here, Wendy. I can't even tell you. Thank you for having me.

Wendy Battles: Oh, it is my pleasure, and I am equally excited. And I just want to tell all of the amazing people that are listening to this episode right now that it was serendipity that the two of us met through your mom, who I know, and at a party she was having. And it was just one of those weird things that we met, and I was like, oh my God, I love this woman's vibe. And then you started telling me that you were writing this book and that you were a yoga teacher and a writer and that you want to get into film and TV and you're starting to, I mean, like all these cool things. I was like, you know, would you be interested in being on the Reinvention Rebels podcast?

You know, I just, I love how my mother has this incredible ability to bring fantastic people together. Her parties are so interesting. It's one of the reasons, actually, my friends love to be invited to her parties, and I'm always so excited to go because I get to meet incredible people like you. And just hearing your story and hearing what you do and talking to women who are reinventing their lives, when you asked me, I was just thrilled to even be asked, and I couldn't wait to be in conversation to talk about what it means to just keep pivoting because we deserve to. We deserve a chance to keep changing because I feel like so often we're told that we just have to do the same thing forever. And I've never felt like I wanted to do that, so I'm excited to talk.

I have to say we are like such kindred spirits because I've always had all these different dreams and a laundry list of things I like to do. And I just want to like try to do all of them. And you're so right about this idea that society sells us this bill of goods, that either explicitly or implicitly we take all this in as we grow up and we learn all these lessons about what we should and shouldn't do. And so becoming who we are, stepping into who we are is such a journey. And that is why I'm so excited about your very multi-layered, multi-textured story of coming home to yourself and how, like many of us, we slowly try to undo what society does to us and try to uncover our truest self. And there's so many questions I want to ask you, of course, girl. We don't have time to go through all of them, but because they'll have to be like a part two. But I want to start by talking about this transformation of yours or this reinvention, this multi-layered, multi-year, multi-decade journey of becoming who you are today, where you went from being a bookseller to a meditation teacher to now someone who is writing for TV and film. Because I think so many of us are like, gosh, how do I figure it out? And/or it's like a one-shot deal. I'm going to try to reinvent, and then that's it. We're really, we do it again and again. So I'm very curious because you spent 20 years, which is a good chunk of time, 20 years surrounded by stories as a bookseller. And I know you have this amazing love of books, but at the same time, you quietly wanted to write your own. And you had to kind of come to that, to figure out like, how can I do that? Can you take us back to that moment or maybe that season when you finally admitted to yourself, because I think this is really hard for all of us, when you finally admitted to yourself what you really wanted in a world where we're told we shouldn't really want these things, and what it took to say yes, to say yes, me, Anika, I want this and I'm going to do this. What did it take to say yes to this truth?

Oneika Mays: I think I have always wanted to tell stories. And if I really look back, my whole life has been trying to find the bravery to step into a path and say, this is what I want to do. And I think, I think every turn in my life has been sort of a tiny pivot, like a tiny moment where I was brave, but I don't even think I was admitting it to myself. I remember when I got my first journal, when I was maybe eight or nine, and I wrote stories in it. And then I think I found myself always wanting a way to tell stories, but thought that this wasn't a realistic way to do it.

So fast forward to when I became a bookseller. I became a bookseller because I wasn't brave enough to admit out loud that I really wanted to be a writer. So the realistic way to be a writer, and I put that in air quotes, was to work in a bookstore surrounded by books, right? So that seemed, that seemed realistic. Well, I could make a career out of that. That would be respectable to be surrounded by books. And I worked in bookselling in a really, a really wonderful time to do it. It was in, you know, the early 90s when working at, you know, I worked at Barnes & Noble, and Barnes & Noble was like the rockstar place to sell books. And I did it in Manhattan, which was the best place.

 Like the thing. The best place to do it. Like I had, you know, working in retail wasn't really the cool thing to do, but when you sold books and you did it in Manhattan, it was the coolest thing to do. I met all the cool authors, and it was very cool to be surrounded by books. And I will never forget, I had the honor, the privilege to introduce Alice Walker at a book event when I worked at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square.

And I wrote a letter as an introduction for her, which my boss at the time chastised me for doing it. He said that I was showing off and I was taking up space. Because I think now, had somebody done that, it would have been very regular to do, to do something like that. But it wasn't something that somebody normally would have done. They would have been done this very traditional sort of opening, but I wanted to honor her, right? To pay honor and homage to Alice Walker.

So he thought I was taking up space. And after I did that opening and he like chastised me, she actually came up to me and she said, that was amazing. Where are your books? Because I want to buy one. And I said, I don't, I don't have one. And she said, well, that's a shame. And she walked away. And I just stood there like, like, oh, Alice Walker asked me where my book was and she was actually going to go buy it. And it was that tingle again, like this thing that I had always wanted to do.

So I think that was just a seed. And this is, this is 1998. So this is still a very long time ago, but again, it's that other, it's that thing. And so then I found myself just finding ways to tell stories. So I told stories and then I got another promotion and I would email, I would write emails that were, that were fantastic stories. And I just kept trying to find ways to do this thing that I was too afraid to do out loud.

And then when I found myself getting completely off the path of bookselling and becoming a yoga teacher and a mindfulness teacher, teaching classes became another way to tell a story. And I was just constantly finding these ways to just do it. And then five, five and a half, almost six years ago, my father died. And when he died, I had this moment where I recognized that this is the only chance that I'm going to be in this body. And if I'm going to live my life, this is the time that I'm going to do it.

And in my last conversation with him, which I didn't know was going to be my last phone call with him, he had said to me, we kind of talked about everything. I couldn't have had a more perfect final conversation with my dad. And we were talking about work and the work that I was doing at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. And we were talking about, you know, just the power and the work that I was doing. And he was asking, you know, I always thought you would have written a book about this by now.

And again, there's that thing again, that writing. And then when that phone call ended and then he was gone, shortly, not too much later, again, I realized I need to do this. The time is now. And that's when I decided I was going to not be afraid anymore and write because I could be gone tomorrow. And I also think, and this is, I think, a little bit more challenging to say, but I think this might happen to a lot of people.

You never want to disappoint your parents. And my father was a very powerful figure in my life. And I never wanted to disappoint him. And being a writer felt like taking such a chance. And it seemed like a career that could be a big failure. So he was gone in some ways. And so taking a risk like this didn't seem like it would be in, I would embarrass him if it all sort of fell apart. So there was that, that shame was also gone too. So I felt like I could take a big risk. And, you know, I took that time to say like, you know what, this is the time. I have to bet on myself and go ahead and do it.

Wendy Battles: I just think it's very interesting, this trajectory of many different things that fed into you coming to this realization from it being okay and letting go of this shame and what if I disappoint, which I think is such a huge thing that can overshadow for many of us, can overshadow things, especially as women.

I don't want to disappoint someone. I want to make everything, you know, I want to keep all the balls in the air and everything working out. Like I have it all together. So I feel like there's this whole lens through which we see ourselves, both family and society, that have an impact on this, but also these breadcrumbs you got along the way, these little, you know, nudges from the universe about it.

I sometimes see later on in my life how all these different things that often seem disparate and just things that kind of happened, we're all working together on our behalf to plant these seeds to get you to where you are because it was a mix of these different things to help you get there, right?

Oneika Mays: That wasn't the only Alice Walker nudge, actually. When I was at Rutgers, I had another professor, Dr. Judy Lynn Ryan, who was a really incredible English professor. And I had her for a Black woman's literature course. And she gave me like a B minus on a paper. And I was really annoyed because there was another person in the class who got an A on her paper. And I like, I knew my paper was better. And I went to her office hours annoyed. I was like, how come she?

And she said, because I knew this wasn't your best work. I knew you dialed this in. You weren't even, you phoned this in. And like we had an argument about it. And I said, well, it's like you think I'm Alice Walker. And she said, well, you're not Alice Walker yet, but you could be if you stop phoning things in and you really applied yourself. And so that was another, like an Alice Walker thing. So to be able to introduce her, I think that was again, another nudge.

So I think there were nudges along the way, but I wasn't as spiritually connected then when I was younger to notice what nudges were and to be in alignment and to pay attention to signs and to listen to my own inner wisdom to say like, maybe this is the time to jump or the time to leap. But I also think we leap when we actually need to. And perhaps I needed to wait until I was older to be able to appreciate the lessons that I had along the way to start writing when I actually did, right?

It was a lot of work to be able to put a book proposal together and then to try to, not to just try, but to get an agent and then to shop it around to a publisher to get a book deal. Like it was a lot of work. And I think if, I think if I knew how hard it was going to be and if I had done that younger, I might have abandoned it. I don't know if I would have been so persistent.

Wendy Battles: I totally get that. I totally get the timing of things. I don't feel like there are any accidents. I completely agree that if it had happened at a younger age, you may not have appreciated the opportunity or had the perseverance.

Because I've given up on so much stuff when I was younger. Like when I became a voice actor, I didn't understand how hard it would be to be a voice actor and how much competition there was. And this is before everyone produced their own stuff, but back in the day, like in the 90s. And after a while, I just gave up and just thought, oh, I don't think I can do it.

But it's amazing what age and wisdom does for us, how it can shift our perspective, how we can see possibilities that we couldn't have seen before. So not for nothing, right? This is your time. And I think that's important.

Now, you mentioned something that I think is so important because I know that there are many people, many women or people just generally that are like, I'd love to write a book. And, you know, there are people that self-publish a book. And then there are people, right? Which is like one, a very viable way to do that when it's hard to get a publisher, to get an agent.

Oneika Mays: Yep.

Wendy Battles:  I want you to tell us about this book because it's born out of this whole journey you've been on and giving yourself permission to say, yes, not only do I want to do this, I can do this. Like the, I believe in myself part. So how did you go about doing that? And what were some of the obstacles that you experienced in this route to becoming a published author?

Oneika Mays: Yeah. I did go the traditional public, they call it the traditional publishing route, but I don't even know if it's traditional. It's just one route to get your book published. I am so glad that publishing has been disrupted because it needed to be, because publishing can be really biased and really tough to get into.

My book is called Sit With Me: A Nobious Journey to Mindfulness and Meditation. And it is part memoir. It is part teaching because I am a mindfulness teacher. And it is about my journey to learn how to love myself through a practice that is called Metta, which is another, it's the Polly word for loving kindness, which is a Buddhist practice. And it is also about my time as the mindfulness coach at Rikers Island Correctional Facility, which is a jail in New York. And it's about my time there launching a wellness program that I did with two other incredible women.

And I didn't do this by myself either. My best friend was actually somebody who really pushed me when I started volunteering at Rikers Island many years ago. I went to Rikers Island for about a decade, first volunteering with a nonprofit, teaching mindfulness and trauma-informed yoga on the island. And I used to write and post stories on social media about the work that I was doing there because I wanted people to know what was happening inside jail so people would understand that this system needed to be disrupted. I have an abolitionist at heart.

And then when I decided that, you know what, maybe I will write a book, there's a lot that goes into writing a nonfiction book. And you have to write a proposal. You don't write the whole manuscript. You write a proposal. And I went through four variations of writing a book proposal. And I didn't do that by myself. I have an incredible book coach. Her name is Kim Marsh. And I have a wonderful writing community. There's a writing group that I have and a writing community that I worked with. And I got a proposal done and went through iterations of that.

And then through that, you try to find an agent. And then I got an agent. My agent, Carleen Geisler, is incredible. I'm with PS Literary. And then through that, you shop that out to publishers. And it is a process, you know? And I was rejected 15 times before we got a yes.

I would celebrate every little step along the way. And I think that is really important when you are reinventing, when you are deciding to do something. It's not sort of saying like, I'm going to write a book and then celebrating it once it gets done. It's just first even celebrating that you're like, I'm going to try to do something. Celebrate. I'm going to try to decide to write a book proposal. Celebrate. I wrote the first page. Celebrate. I finished it. Celebrate. Oh, I have to rewrite it. Celebrate. It's really being able to appreciate the fact that you're on the journey. It's not even that you're reaching the final goal, but celebrating the fact that you get to do this. That I think is the joy, the fact that you get to reinvent over and over and over and over again.

Wendy Battles: I love that idea of celebrating because so often it's like, well, when I achieve this big lofty goal, then I'm going to celebrate. And what I heard you say is that it is a journey to publish a book. It is a journey.

It's true, whether you're self-publishing or you have a publisher, but to do all the things you did, it takes time. This isn't like, okay, hey, I got my age, I got, you know, this all unfolds slowly. Never in the time I wanted to because I always wanted to be like immediately. You know, of course it's not like that.

Oneika Mays: 2021 is when I started. It's 2026. It was.

Wendy Battles: That's a journey.

Oneika Mays: It's a journey.

Wendy Battles: Five years.

Oneika Mays: Five years.

Wendy Battles: And that's when you started it. That's not even when you began thinking about it, right?

Oneika Mays: Right.

I first started posting about the work that I was doing at Rikers in 2012. So we're talking about a very long journey. And that takes persistence too, to not give up on yourself, I think is also part of this, this constant remembering and re-remembering of who you are. And I think we need to do that as women, that we constantly remember that we are worth celebrating and not just our goals, but the fact that we are able to do them, the fact that we have goals, the fact that we're celebrating ourselves along the way is just, it's all worth it.

Even our failures are worth celebrating because we learn, right? We have, you know, failures are lessons. You know, we have lessons, we have blessings, and they're all worth a celebration. They really are. And those failures are truly a gift, which I know in the moment it doesn't feel like it, but it's always leading us, in my opinion, to something along our path or learning what we need to learn or giving us the clarity to see something that perhaps we couldn't see without failing, to be able to do it again in a different way or a better way that's always for our greater good.

Wendy Battles: And I think that your journey, you talking about this journey and how it's a process and how you bet on yourself again and again and you have this mindset of persistence is such a powerful message about reinvention because I do know that like I've given up on my dreams before and then had to recalibrate and remind myself I can do this. And to be able to step into that mindset, even if it takes time to evolve that mindset for any of us listening, to remember that we can do whatever the thing is, whether it's writing and publishing a book or moving around the world or starting a new relationship or whatever the thing, it could be anything, big or small, under the sun. When we can really embrace this mindset that you're suggesting, it's so powerful in terms of what's possible.

Oneika Mays: It is. And I think even bigger than finding a goal that we want to celebrate, it's understanding that when we have love for ourself inside, we can understand that maybe the initial goal that we had isn't actually the thing that we want. And then we have the ability to pivot to do something else, right? Like that is the ultimate thing that we should be celebrating, that I have this safety.

What my spiritual practice did for me was to create safety inside myself, right? Because I don't actually believe that there's really any safe places out there. But what I do feel safe is inside myself. So when I recognize like maybe this isn't the direction I want to go in, I can always come home to myself. And then I have this place that I can sit. I can reflect. I can love myself and fill myself up. I can have these conversations with myself and decide what the next best course of action is and go in a different direction. And that I think is critically important.

It's really important when you want to decide for yourself where you want to go because then you can figure out like where is my village? Who are the people that I want to talk to? Where are the places that I can go? How can I anchor into my faith? You know, those things are part of what happened too when we're trying to figure out how we want to reinvent, where we want to go, where are the best places to get support? Because we may be in a place where this isn't the best place for me. But if we don't know how we're supposed to feel inside and really anchor into our own idea of what love is, we might be holding on to something that maybe isn't in our best good or, you know, our highest good. So.

Wendy Battles: Oh, I think that's so true. And I love what you said about this idea of loving yourself, learning how to love yourself, that this was truly a journey. Yes, there's a book and that's all wonderful, but that ultimately this is about self-love and finding yourself in this powerful way when you really learn to love yourself.

And having just started to read your book, I just started, I already am like into this idea of, wow, what does it mean to take that on and to really honor myself in what I do and to find, because in the world again, where it's so easy to not love ourselves, where for so many different reasons, it's revolutionary to me to be able to say I love myself in this deep way that no matter what happens outside of myself, I can always come home to me.

Oneika Mays: Yes. And that love is, when I say love too, I don't mean it in some ethereal, intangible way, but a love that is all-encompassing, a love that lets you embrace the parts that are difficult, a love that embraces the parts of yourself that you may not even want to look at, a love that embraces the shameful parts, the angry parts, the cranky parts, the parts that you hide from, the parts that you don't want to show to anybody.

But you have to love all of those parts, right? Those are all worth embracing. And when I did that, I recognized that there were so many parts that I was hiding from my own heart that that made me distance myself from the entire world. Like that is what Metta or loving kindness, it's all about.

It's not just about putting on this shiny face for myself. That's not what Metta is. Metta is unconditional friendliness for yourself, for every single part. It's not toxic positivity. We're not just trying to say like love and light and skip over the difficulty.

Oneika Mays: And that's what makes it really hard and challenging, right? Because we have to say when I don't feel comfortable, I am still saying that there is room for me to say it's okay. And even when I don't think I can say that, I'm still saying that it's okay.

Wendy Battles: Which seems so profoundly difficult. It is so easy to love the parts of ourselves that, you know, we love and we feel good about. But going to those places that are difficult, that's where the work is. I mean, it's this, I'm just trying to get my arms around this whole concept of loving every part of ourselves and the hidden parts, the parts we don't want to address, the parts from our childhood that, you know, we can go through a whole laundry list of all those things. Yeah. I mean,

Oneika Mays: you know, we think about as women, you know, you know, think about the wellness, you know, I work in the wellness world. We think about like diet culture and bodies and, you know, there's this whole wellness revolution right now, but we are sold that our bodies aren't good. So we're told to get thin. We're told that what our bodies should look like.

If you want to talk about Black women and hair, you know, we are told from a very young age that our hair isn't right. All of these ways that we are told that we aren't good enough, but then it's packaged in a way that if you do these things, you will love yourself.

And sort of breaking out of all of that, and then you have to own that though in order to love yourself. So there's a process of grieving that you actually have to go through, which means actually you have to own the fact that you don't love yourself, right? And that can be really challenging to say like, I might not have liked my hair all of the time, you know?

And for me as a queer woman, I had to own the fact that I was holding on to some internalized homophobia about myself that I was raised with because I was just in a society that was homophobic. And I had to admit that. I just had to say that. That's all I saw. So if I can't admit that, I can't get past it. And that's okay to say out loud because if I can say that, then I can own it and then I can recognize it and then I can love myself for it. It's okay.

It's okay.

Wendy Battles: Yeah. It's hard and it's okay.

Oneika Mays: And it's okay.

Wendy Battles: Both things can be true. It can be hard to uncover these things. And I think it's powerful when we recognize that, that two things can be true about ourselves. That to me is a gift. And that's why I'm so excited about your book. I'm so excited just having read the first few pages. I was like, oh my goodness, I can't wait to really get into this.

And I feel like things show up at just the right time. I feel like, you know, people and things show up just what we need. It's like the universe knows secretly what we need, even though we don't always know. And being in this phase of like self-discovery and starting to peel back these layers of things from way back when to kind of, to be willing to open up that hood and go deep. Like, okay, well, it looks like, oh, you know, the carburetor, the bump up, up the radio, this all needs some work. I need to like, I need to like fine-tune things.

And so I'm very excited for people to be able to read your book and hear about your experiences and even just the whole process. I found it so intriguing, even when you started off talking about how you were on the bus going to Rikers Island and what that's like, and then the duality of these worlds, like this whole other world, the industrial, you know, infrastructure of how people are incarcerated is a whole different world that most of us don't know or wouldn't have a reason to know. That's like a parallel universe with what's going on in the world. And so just beginning to also get insights into that is incredibly eye-opening. So there's so much here that I think people are going to find amazing to discover.

And before we're done, because I have one more question I have to ask you, then I want you to tell us about how people can find the book, when it's coming out, et cetera. But one thing I do want to lean into for just a moment, because I feel like we're really kindred spirits around this, is this idea of feeling like we're too much or people can perceive us as being too much. Too much because we are passionate people with many different interests in a world that says, well, you should choose your lane and just stay there.

Oneika Mays: You know, you should just, you know, do that thing that you went to school for or whatever, but don't do like a hundred different things. Don't do like all these different things because you shouldn't do that. And then the people that tell us, you know, people often that love us, people that care about us and want us to be successful, but at the same time have a filter on what it means to be successful or what you should do that are, you know, all wrapped up into like the matrix of this is how it should be, as opposed to I have this calling or I have multiple callings.

I want to write. I want to teach. I want to lead retreats. I want to create TV shows. I want to podcast and do voiceovers and blah, blah, blah. I'm like all the things. So I'm curious, how did you learn how to distinguish between sort of that inner critic and what the world is telling you and what truly was inside you? Because that's a whole other thing, even with the TV, to write for TV, which we're going to have to have a whole nother episode about just that.

I think when I recognized that I was a storyteller, I could tell stories through everything that I wanted to do. And when people told me, because I've had a few people tell me that I wanted to do too much, I had to put a filter on them and say that people spoke from their own experiences and from their own fears. And I wouldn't allow that to be put on top of me. And while I could listen to what people said, I would no longer allow that to get inside me.

And I had to trust who I was and where I wanted to go and trust my own talents and what I wanted to do with myself and allow that to propel me forward. And that was really pivotal. And it doesn't mean that I won't fail. It doesn't mean that I might not do all of the things, but I was no longer going to allow that to stop me from trying.

And that I think is incredibly important because in the past, I would have let that stop me. And I'm glad I haven't let it stop me because I did have somebody in particular say that I wanted to do too much when I said that I wanted to write a television show, that I wanted to write a script and that I wanted to write a book. You're trying to do too much, Onika. You know, you shouldn't be trying to do all those things.

And I have a book coming out. I just had my TV pilot, Win Grand Jury at a festival, just finished my first feature film. And I'm so glad that I didn't listen because I am going to keep going. And there might be something else that I want to do next.

Wendy Battles: I love it. I'm so glad you kept going. I'm so glad you didn't listen. I'm so glad you're like, F this. I'm going to do what I want to do because that's what's within me.

And I feel like we all have amazing potential. It's all within us already. It's the courage to say, no matter what anyone else says, I trust myself. I believe in myself.

Even though I don't know the path, even though I don't know what's going to happen, even though I don't know how it might unfold and manifest, I believe in myself enough to take the steps to get started and trust that it's going to work out in whatever way it works out with the lessons I'm going to learn along the way, the failures and the victories.

Oneika Mays: Yes. Yes. And just because you want to do multiple different things, it doesn't even necessarily mean that you want to do them all professionally, but just to be able to try them. You don't even know where those things might lead you. It could lead you to a whole nother journey. But you shouldn't, it shouldn't stop you from trying.

Wendy Battles: Yes. Yes, girl. We need to like go for it. And in a world that we know is painfully short, where life truly is precious, where moment to moment, anything, literally anything can happen, especially in these uncertain times, most especially that's brought home to me during times when like, I don't know what's going to happen, like, you know.

Oneika Mays: We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Wendy Battles: Literally tomorrow. Literally tomorrow. So what are we waiting for? We got to go for it. So I just love your story. I love how you have bet on yourself. I love the lessons that you've shared and how things have unfolded that have reminded you to keep going, that yes, we'll have obstacles. Yes, things aren't going to just magically fall into place the way we want them to. And if they did, it wouldn't be like, life wouldn't be challenging. Like this is part of where the growth is to me.

The best growth is in these challenging times that force us to uncover and look at ourselves with this lens that you talk about so powerfully in your book. And speaking of this beautiful book, I want you to tell us again the name of the book, where people can find the book, when it's coming out, anything about it, like presales, and just generally where people can find you. Because I know people listening to our conversation are like, this freaking woman is so cool. I want to follow. I want to know more about Onika Maze. And I want you to share with us how people can do all these things.

Oneika Mays: I would love for people to follow me on Instagram. And you can follow me at Oneika Mays. My book, Sit With Me: A Nobious Journey to Mindfulness and Meditation, is coming out on March 3rd, 2026. You can preorder it now wherever you order books. So wherever you order your books from, you can find it.

And you can also follow me on Substack under Oneika Mays. Or you can find me at my website, onikamaze.com. And you can preorder the book there as well. I would love, love to be in touch with you.

Wendy Battles: I love it. And everything you just mentioned is in the show notes. So if you're listening right now, you're on your walk, you're like, oh my gosh, you can tap, you can do it when you get back, you can click whatever it is, whether it's on desktop or mobile, you can find Oneika in all these ways.

And I am just so grateful, Oneika Mays. I am so grateful to you for gracing all of us with your presence and your wisdom and your brilliance and your story and reminding us about this journey to ourselves, that anything is possible.

Oneika Mays: Wendy, you're amazing. Thank you for having me on. This has just really been a joy.

Wendy Battles: Likewise. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And we will definitely have to have part two because, you know, we're going to also have to get to the, all right, and now I'm getting into TV. That's a whole nother, that is a whole nother episode. That is a whole nother episode, but I just am so grateful. So thank you so much.

Oneika Mays: Thank you.

Wendy Battles: Before we wrap up, I want to leave you with one question to sit with because I keep thinking about what Oneika shared about not shrinking your vision to fit someone else's imagination. What are you being called to try, even if you can't see the whole path yet? And if you're someone who's been told you're doing too much, well, let this be your reminder. Okay, girl. Maybe you're not too much. Maybe you're just more than one thing. We can be many things.

So Oneika had so much to share. You'll find everything we mentioned in the show notes. Tap or click how to follow Oneika, her website, her Substack, and details about her beautiful upcoming book, Sit With Me: A Nobious Journey to Mindfulness and Meditation, which releases on March 3rd, so just like three weeks away. And the beautiful thing is it's available for preorder now wherever you buy your books. And I truly hope you'll grab a copy. I can't wait to get mine in my hands and dive in.

And one more thing. This month, I'm thrilled to be sharing a little love with one of my favorite podcasts. It's the Women Over 70 Aging Reimagined podcast hosted by my friends Gail and Catherine. Y'all, you got to listen to this. It is the 2025 Astra Award-winning weekly show. And I'm going to tell you, getting an Astra Award is like the Oscars for podcasting. When you get this award, it's a big deal. So it's an award-winning show dedicated to women between 70 and, y'all, 110, okay, who are rewriting this script on aging, as you can imagine.

Their personal journeys you'll hear affirm that older women are living vital, engaged lives full of courage, contribution, and creativity. You're going to love their guests. And it's more than a podcast. They also host the Aging Reimagined Circle, which meets monthly online. I'll link everything in the show notes so you can check it out. I really hope you do.

So I've got a favor to ask of you. If this episode spoke to you the way it spoke to me, like this was like a soulful connection kind of speaking to me, would you do me a favor and share it with a friend, you know, someone who needs a little permission right now? And if you haven't yet, please follow the show and leave a review because it truly helps these stories reach the women who need to hear the most. It makes it easier to find discoverability. So thank you in advance.

I got to say one more thing before it's a wrap. Oneika, consider this your official notice. We are doing a part two, girl, because the whole TV and film chapter, we've got to get into that. That's a whole other conversation. And I'm looking forward to that happening at some point. Okay. Until next time, thank you for being here, rebels. Keep shining your light. And keep listening to what's calling you. Keep choosing to try because the world needs you and all that you have to offer.