Ancestry

Ancestry shapes a lot for a real bitch like me. From the way we look to the generational gifts and curses passed down, we are the sum of our ancestry in many ways. Learning and honoring this has been a journey and I am discussing it with Oben in this episode of the Hot Girl’s Healing podcast.

The Hot Girl’s Healing podcast is about healing in community and covers diverse topics, and how they relate to healing. 

Salenna Green (she/they)  is an organizer, creative, speaker, healer and leader. Salenna has a degree in Community Psychology and a background in nonprofit leadership and program development. Salenna is carving her own lane in the healing industry, promoting self love and relationship healing. 

The Hot Girl’s Healing podcast is one of the offerings through Salenna Green SPC (SGSPC) that promotes self love and relationship healing. This podcast is for everyone but centers Black, queer people as holding truly safe space for their community was a predominant motivator for creating this show. Salenna enjoys creating art, reading, leisure and travel in their free time. Follow them on social media to stay updated! @salennagreen #HotGirlsHealing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

It's your girl Selena with the Hot Girls Healing Podcast, and it is season four up in here. So if you don't know now, you know, we are four seasons deep. Um, this is a podcast where we come, we talk about anything and everything, and how it relates to healing. This is a space where our multitudes are honored, the whole person is welcome, and we ain't taking no shit. So season four. We hear, I'm queer, you better be used to it by now. I am joined by one of I was telling him before we started filming, one of the one of the only corporate black people that I actually hang out with. Look, I came to keep it actual and factual. So we are joined today by the wonderful Oban. Um, he is smart, he is black, he is here. And we are in melon in March when we're filming this. So we are honoring all things black always, but especially during Black History Month, which has, if you didn't know, been extended through the end of the year. So Melon in March next week or next month, it's another witty way of saying we black.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Um we black every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

We black every day. So I'm joined by Obin. We are gonna be talking about ancestry today. Yes are. And before we get into that conversation, lovely healing community, I'm gonna have Obin tell y'all who he is because no one knows us better than ourselves. And then once he's done telling you what you need to know about him before we start this conversation, we go jump right in. Obin, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_06 2:04

My pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me onto the Hot Girls Healing podcast. Um, I'm Oben. Uh born in Chicago, uh, raised in Cameroon, lived in more places than I can count, and continuing. Um I am a a a creative at heart, an artist at heart. Right. Um an artist with uh and I'm also the founder of the modern Renaissance um nonprofit, where we we talk about storytelling, we talk about um multicultural living, and we talk about the places that we're from and the places that we're going. Procession. Um and those are the things that uh take up most of my time most days outside of making money.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

And I know that's right. Because if we go do one thing, it's go be black. If we go do two things, it's be black and make money.

SPEAKER_06 3:10

So be here for it.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Like, period. I actually love hearing all of that because it makes like my experience and my knowledge of you make even more sense. Like, y'all know, like the uh the kind of person who will just pack up and start a new life. Okay, that's what you're talking to. He is not like he is not. That's how I end up in Seattle.

SPEAKER_06 3:37

That's how I end up in Seattle. Exactly. Let's go find out what it is about.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, yeah. When people come to Seattle, a lot of it's like, oh, I have family here, I came here for school. There's a lot of colleges and universities in Seattle, if you didn't know that were in this the greater Seattle area, um, even more so. Um, so a lot of people come here for jobs, they come for family, they come for um school, open came just to, right? You just went.

SPEAKER_06 4:06

I came to see the great, beautiful evergreen state. I heard so many great things about it. I'm lying, I didn't I didn't hear many great things about it. Matter of fact, I heard so many not great things about Seattle, and I left and came anyway, right? Because you have to go see things for yourself, right? You have to go experience things for yourself so you can know. People can tell you things and it'll be like, yeah, Seattle is this and it's that. But until you go see for yourself and you experience it, then you create your own personal journey with it. And people can tell you, like, yeah, it's it's terrible, and then you go, you're like, you know what, it's actually pretty great. It's the best thing since sliced bread, and that's your own personal experience with the thing, with the city, with the person.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

That is so real. And people, I'm glad you said that because people literally will tell you anything, they'll tell you anything about a city, about a place, and about yourself. Okay, yeah. So we're talking about ancestry. If black people in the United States of these in these here United States of America, if we know anything, is that somebody go try and tell us about our ancestry, they go try and tell us what we know about our ancestry and what we don't know about our ancestry. Um you gotta know yourself.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

You have to do the work, you must find out.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

You gotta go to the place, see for yourself, do the research. One of the things that I've really found to encourage me and really propel me on parts of my self-love journey is that knowledge of self. If you don't know yourself, if you don't know the badass bitches, the entrepreneurs, I'm speaking for my personal family line. We've been fine, okay? Like we've been fine, we've been putting that shit on when we get dressed, we've been entrepreneurial-minded, we've been community-minded. I found all these things out and felt more affirmed even in who I am through learning more about my ancestry, learning about my grandpa, my great-grandpa, my great-grandmothers, my you know what I mean? Like you don't have to, you don't have to be able to, you know, draw your family line back to the 16th. No, that's really cool. Not necessarily that's amazing. I think it's I've um talked to people from the continent who that's a part of how they introduce themselves. There, I'm I'm Selena, daughter of Pamela and Virgil, whose daughters are, you know, I mean, Pamela daughter, Virgil's son of. So it would have been in my introduction to say all of the people who led to meet.

SPEAKER_06 6:43

And that's amazing, and that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

If you can, yeah, but you also don't have to learn about your parents, learn about their parents, learn about whoever is accessible to you that can help you ground yourself in your ancestry. Because for me, ancestry is who did I come from? It's not necessarily what if they what hardships do they did they overcome. Who were they? Were they lovers?

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Who were they?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Were they fighters? Were they, you know what I mean? Were they gardeners? Were they farmers? What did they what made them smile?

SPEAKER_06 7:15

And you know the interesting thing about that too is we we inherit stories, right? We inherit we inherit conflict as much as we inherit love, right? And and and we we inherit great things from people, right? As well as we inherit, you know, very unsatisfactory things, and we have to carry these things on. And sometimes the work of having to take a step back and maybe going back, you know, one or two generations before, uh is to say, let me try to understand what is this thing that I've inherited, what is this story of me that I've inherited, right? It's uh it's the story of the kid who was told that you know uh you're a slave and for the rest of your life you're you're going to be a slave. And so you carry that thing on, you carry that narrative on in your head, but you've never reconciled what that really means. What what is that? Were you born a slave and for the rest of your life you're going to be a slave? Right? Were you born a creative and for the rest of your life you're going to be creative and you cannot be anything else? Right? We carry these stories either consciously or subconsciously, a lot of times subconsciously without knowing that, right? And having to be able to take a step back and go back into the past or travel into the past and try to make some sense, some sense of the world that you've inherited, some sense of the family that you've inherited, the person that you are that you've inherited. Helps you resolve some of those things here in the present. So you can then determine for yourself here's who I'm gonna here's how I'm going to change that for myself in the future, and for the people who come after me. Yeah, it's a common thing, it's a common thing. I I love this one particularly because it's it's so common everywhere. It's a common thing to when you're a stepmother, right? Say for example, your your dad, your dad marries one woman, and then he has a child, and that you're that child, and then your dad then marries another woman, there's almost this thing, there's almost like this immediate thing where the woman you and that woman cannot have a good relationship, right? It's it's it's sort of like the same thing with you know step stepmother um um mother-in-laws and your daughters. There's some narrative that we inherit that you're supposed to have a contentious relationship with your mother-in-law, with your stepmother, with your stepfather. But then you go, well, why does it have to be that way? Why can't we figure out our own narratives of who we choose to be and the type of relationship that we choose to create for ourselves? We don't only have to be contentious with each other. And we see this over and over again, you know, even in my family, in my own personal life experiences, right? Um my dad had a my dad had a wife, which was not my mom, and we sort of had this contentious relationship, which is it's just like a thing, you know. You just you just in camera, you just know if if you're stepmom, you're not supposed to like that woman, and she's not supposed to like you, right? And then when you grow up, there's always going to be this contention. And there's just something about that that never sat well with me. It's like, look, I don't owe you anything, I have my own journey in this life. Why do I need to create this friction? Why does there need to be this friction between me and you? But all of this is things that I have inherited. I didn't choose this.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

That's wild as hell. Like, why am I supposed to, as an adult, be considering and partnering? Come on, you're fighting. Like, yo, this is not my fight. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the time these things be just providing context and framing for what is already happening in our lives. I I remember being a kid just wondering why so many things were happening, and when you're growing up in these spaces, it's like it feels like everything is that way because it has to be, and because it always has been, and because all of the adults are consciously choosing for it to be that way. None of that's the case.

SPEAKER_06 11:50

Where's where's your choice? I don't want this for me. Do we have to suffer the same suffering because that is how it has to be? Yeah, I think not. I think maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, I think definitely not, because that's the part about it. No conscious decisions are being made by these adults, they're just going with the flow of what we're supposed to be doing. And I talk about it a lot because when I started my healing journey, I started to realize that what I was comfortable with was not what was right, was not what was most efficient, it wasn't even what was working best for our family structure. How you know I mean? Like when I really get into it. So making conscious decisions to know yourself, to get to know your own ancestry, that's a that's a decision you're gonna have to make consciously, especially like me. Like you're gonna have to get to know that. They're not no one's gonna come and be like, here's why you should know about yourself and your family and all the amazing things that you are directly connected to. No one's doing that for um black American people, African Americans. We have to do that ourselves, and we have to do it for our community. So I love hearing about also the storytelling that you do with your nonprofit.

SPEAKER_06 13:15

Yeah, those things are important. I was thinking about it the other day, I was talking about it with my my brothers and sisters, and I was we're coming to that collective understanding, like, oh my goodness. Our uncle, which is one of four brothers who made it to adulthood, and one of 11 of my grandmother's kids who who who were born, right? When he dies, a shit ton of our history dies with him. Right? A ton of it, so many answers, right? Just gone. Nobody's gonna know those things, right? Nobody's gonna know where we're coming from if we don't ask those questions, if we don't find out who our aunties are, our cousins are. Nobody's going to know. Nobody's going to know some of the customs that we have, right? One of the customs that we have was whenever we had to travel, you know, our grandma would come through and should should should should do this traditional ritual where she would spit on your chest, right? Like, as kids, we're like, yo, this shit is disgusting. Right. But the the intent and the sense of it, right? The the the the tradition of it is she's wishing you well on your journey until she sees you again. And then she doesn't have to see you again, she says, Hey, look, you come from somewhere, you know that I still love you, know that you carry my well-wishes, and wherever you go, take those well-wishes with you and be safe. May the odds be with you. Right? And it's little things like that that when my uncle passes away, you would not have any of that anymore.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:04

You know, all those little stories about you know, my uncle, my uncle, and and I and talk about this one. My uncle along with my dad, they they came up in the age of independence, right? So post-colonialism. They're born, they were born in colonialism and grew up through post-colonialism, which is a very different time than it is than Cameroon is today, right? And it's a very different way of doing things. Now imagine if you had, you know, one of your uncles or relatives who were born in slavery time, right, and they developed some customs for themselves, and then there's the last one standing in today's day. There's so much of our procession from who we were and how we've come to be here today, that gets lost if not if none of that stuff is documented. All that history, right? The people who fought for us to be here, you know, some tricks, you know, that they had to that they had to play, right? And sometimes even the pitfalls that they had to fall into, we don't have to follow the same pitfalls all over again. You can learn those things from them, right? And to me, that's why ancestry is so important, right? It's it's lessons learned, huge, huge lessons learned, right? Of how not to do certain things, in what situations, and then you take that and you process it and you move it forward.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, as a people, yes, and that's what makes it so important because learning about your ancestors is not so that we can, you know, try to be, I'm gonna be my ancestor. Like no, they don't need you to do that, they were already there, and they are the life that they needed to in that unique time in that unique way, and so what we are doing when we go back and when we look and we learn, we're getting more information so that we can put our spin on it. It's not so that we can recreate the wheel. No, we're standing on the shoulders of giants, they want us to reach higher. We need to prepare shit for the next generations so that they're not falling into the same pitfalls that we have to do. Exactly, so that they can be like, damn, can you imagine if we had to live through all that bullshit that with the fucking World War III that is happening? And like, no, we don't know how that ends, right? And hopefully they do not have to because we will have done the right thing right now to set things on a better course for them. And that, like, particularly with enslavement, my being in a family that I know my family was directly impacted by enslavement, was directly impacted by the Great Migration, was directly impacted by, you know, a lot of the Black history, you know, civil rights movements, all of those things. My ancestors were directly the Roth's Wyatt. My mom has memories of being a kid a little girl during the Roth's riots in LA, and she lived there during that time. So it's like we don't have to wonder what the civil rights movement was like. Literally ask your uncle, ask your mama, ask your granddaddy. We live in this society where we're taught to think of certain things as having happened so long ago, we just don't know.

SPEAKER_06 18:28

It is not that the knowledge is available, it is living, yeah, and then there's so many more of those stories that were not documented that we don't have access to. It's all in the minds of other people.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah, and we have to go, we have to go get them. Yeah, must go get them. I'm telling you, like and document them. Yes, because I'm telling you, the I was thinking when you're talking about your uncle, I'm like, literally, when he passes, the only way they all have access is if he left pictures, if he left journals, if he left he wrote something down, has old calendars, you know, or planner books, like something.

SPEAKER_06 19:10

That man ain't doing all of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yeah. And as you know, the new adults, that's something that we get to do now. I actually even got back into printing. I have printed photos, you know, from back when I was a kid. You know, we used to print photos awful lot more often now, but I had little stacks of photos that I was just tearing around. I didn't have a photo album and I start putting them together in a photo album because we used to have family photo albums when I was growing up. I used to love to sit with my mom, be like, who's that? Who's that as a kid? You know, and now we just have our phones, but like something happens to our phones, all of those memories are gone. We can't access the cloud, you know what I mean? So we really have to start thinking long term. How can our descendants one day get to know us when we're not here or when the microphysics have gotten to all of our brains and skin?

SPEAKER_06 20:09

Right. I think about like my nephews. Right? My nephews, the oldest of them, not the oldest, but in in our in our generation of kids, because we got like three generations of kids, right? The big ones, the middle ones, and the so in the middle ones, the oldest of the nephew of my nephews is about to go to college next this year, this year and born and raised in in the US, uh has been to Cameroon a few times, but like if I ask this dude, yo, what what village does your grandpa come from? This dude gonna be like, I don't know. Right? And I'm sad, I'm a little sad, but also I'm saying, damn, I'm feeling as an uncle. Because it's my responsibility right to transfer this information or at least to hold the space for them because I know there will be a time as it was for me when these things become important.

SPEAKER_05 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:14

Right? At least for me, I think it was like maybe when I turned like 28 or 27 when I started recognizing, like, oh my goodness, I need to start recording a lot more of our family tree, of our family history, knowing who is who, this auntie, that cousin, where they're coming from, what's your story? Why do they now live in this city? You know, when you guys were when you guys were younger, where they leave, how did they end up where they are? How did you end up here where you are, mommy? Right? Because it's it's like a web. It's a web that we need to preserve. You know, so that you can go, oh my goodness, I have this, my auntie over here, and this time related to them. I got peoples here. Yeah. You're not alone in the world. And we can often feel alone in the world, but you're not alone. You got peoples, and you come from somewhere, and you're going somewhere. You're on a mission.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Yes. And I love knowing that I was not someone who was really raised around any of my like larger family. It was really just my siblings. I like knew I knew my uncle on my mom's side. I knew of my dad having multiple siblings. I could only really tell him that he had one sister. I know that for sure. Um, but I think he came from a bigger family, so I'm not like, you know, so I'm just like I'm not really sure about a lot of that. But I know that when it comes to meeting my larger family, I was like someone who didn't really have interest in that at first. I was like, ah I I grew up my whole life without having a larger family.

SPEAKER_06 22:59

Like, what's the you didn't have that exposure, you didn't have that muddle.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

I didn't have the exposure, but now that I'm older, I'm like, no, it's awesome. Like, I literally met in London with my cousin Paris. We have like pictures from that. Like I love, I was literally just talking about how happy that made. I'm like, yeah, I was in London, I met with my sister and my cousin came. Like, that was so cool and fun. And I would have not have had that experience at all had I not been more open to you know getting to know my family who grew up who lived in other states. I was like, oh my family and other in these states, that state, like you just have to get to know. And the thing about being an adult is being my family isn't enough. Like if you if we not on the same wavelength, we ain't on the same wavelength. But the thing about it is like you will have family that is like pairs cool as up, you know what I mean? Like, I would have never known that had I not given it a chance. So yeah, you really I would encourage anyone if you didn't get to know your family as a kid, because there's a lot of reason why that could be, and that's a part of ancestry too. And I think the not so good stuff that we also inherit. But the thing about family, like family will be over here estranged for the smallest reason, the semi-legged big, and now it's all these years later, and they still ain't talking. And I'm like, if you learn from your other family, like you learn more about your parents, like what were they like for when they were younger? You know, what was the key? Were they annoying? Like, tell me something that they will tell me, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you get the opportunity to learn yourself then better, and you get to learn where some of these things came from. Like, again, when I was traits too, yeah, yeah, that is a choice, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:56

And that's one of the most of these days. I spend time talking to my mom. She was here for Christmas, and and and we had an amazing time. And I just I just ask her questions about like, so what about remember that one time when that thing happened? You know, and then she's gonna tell me the story, and then you start recognizing, you know, one two things that you start recognizing our parents are just as human as we are, and they're as much children as children, right? And you start going like, holy shit, they were uh they were making up half of the shit that they were doing as they went, right? And so for for a person like me, there was a time when I used to describe myself as type A, and I just felt like I had to be this type A person because oh my goodness, the expectations, I just had to know there was no room for errors and stuff like that. And then to hear my mom's story and then go, oh so you ain't really you ain't really know. So you're saying that I don't really get to I don't always have to know what I'm doing before I start doing the thing. It helps me go, okay, cool. I need to let go of that need to always want to know something, but I could stay with the instinct of here's a direction that I'm trying to go in. Yeah, that's a good instinct, and that's good enough. Yeah, I am good enough to just have that instinct and then follow it. Yeah, instead of trying to want to know everything and how it's going to go bad and having plant A, B, C, D.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Look, perfectionism was the best thing I ever let go of because it kept me in such a small box, especially as an artist, which I feel like ancestry and artistry is like, you know, like it is all connected, like it is personal. The more I was I am connecting with my ancestors, the more I'm connecting with my inherent story, like not just, and this may even feel crazy to say, but not just my story of this lifetime, but when I connect to that energy that flows through time and it defines time, it defines physical barriers. That energy, whoo! That opened up my creative tap. I started going in all these different directions. I started picking back up art, I started having the will to just explore something new. I started exploring a completely new art form this year after all of the of just thinking how can I honor my ancestors more? How can I lean even more into the energy of who I am and the energy of I am, quite literally?

SPEAKER_06 27:47

I like that. You know, oftentimes I get inspired by you. No, for real, for real, for real, for real, for real, for real. We're already friends. We I'm not, I'm not, I'm being continue. I'm not being facetious. No, but for real, I'm for real. You know, I did one of the things that I wrote, I wrote an an assay last last month about our our figures, right? Because oftentimes we tend to we have we have grander figures, you know, we have people that we like, oh man, if I can only be like half of that person, you know, and then it sets off us it sets off us on a path sets us on a path. But oftentimes we miss out the real value of looking around us. Right? The people who are doing and being, right, they're not finished versions, they're not idols, right? They're they're moving in the direction of. Right. And it's always for me, I'm always fascinated to see you know, especially people my age who are moving in a direction of and saying, hey, here's how I choose to be, here's how I choose to create, despite all the things that I know that says I shouldn't do it this way or do it that way, I'm just gonna do. I don't know where I'm going. I have I have an instinct, right? Whether it means I'm gonna start this podcast, I'm gonna do a a TV series, I'm gonna film a TV series, right? I'm gonna write a book, right? It's not often common to see. And so sometimes when you're doing it, there is there's oh my goodness, this is so hard, this is so lonely, because it's sometimes often a lonely journey. But then you often don't see the people who see you doing it and get inspired to go, oh man, did I do it, but I since I since I didn't do it, let me get up. Let me let me get my ass off the shape and go to that thing. It is so inspiring to see because it's it's energy from it's positive energy that we get to absorb from our own environment, right? And having to watch you do what you do tells me, hey, look, get you above the couch. Don't finish that ASA that you're that you say you're gonna write it in two months.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 30:08

You know, and it's the ability to inspire each other, and when the energy comes from a place from from from a place of love, right? You can tell, you can you almost know it. And it's like it's hard to deny it, and it's hard to feel it's energy, it's good energy. You know, you feel it, you see it, you go, I bet. I'm gonna match it, I'm gonna match it. At least I'm gonna match it.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Oh, then that's you in here having me feel my own feelings. How dare you?

SPEAKER_06 30:40

No, it is it is it is beautiful, it is beautiful to see. You know, because we often we often at least I I speak for myself especially. We we have ambitions, we have dreams. I'm a huge dreamer. Right. I love to dream, I daydream all the time too. But to have to see people who are going after the dream, right? It's it's uh it's beautiful to see it's inspiring. You know, we only we we often see our idols at the finish stage, we don't see them at the beginning, yeah, you know, we don't see the little struggles in between, and so you who's on that journey too, you get to recognize like, oh my goodness, I know that it wasn't as easy as you know, I see them doing it because I'm also doing it. So I'm inspired that she's also doing the thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Man, that is so real.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

It's great energy.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

I'm becoming I feel very emotional to hear this because I feel very seen uh by you in this moment. Um, because I see you don't we don't say that it's hard and it's kind of boring sometimes. I was just telling my sister, um, because yes, um if you didn't know already, healing community, I am creating a reality TV pilot that is based off of my podcast.

SPEAKER_06 32:01

I didn't know that was the secret. Did I buzz that secret point?

SPEAKER_00 32:03

No, it wasn't it, it's not a secret at this point, but it also has like I've not done like a huge, you know, media about it. Um, because a lot of what I'm doing right now, I'm learning in real time. So I learned how to write a press release for this project. Like I really am, I'm learning how to take the skills that I have and and acknowledge it. I don't have to have every single skill that I need. I have enough of the core skills that I can drive this boat. You know what I mean? That's all that's all I needed. And so now, yes, I'm I'm in class, I'm in in training to learn new things. Um, I'm leaning on on a lot of other supports and a lot of people who are really good at their thing, and their thing fits into what I'm doing, you know. So um it's hard, and it's something that I was just telling Marissa it's not always fun, and I was just not in the fun part. I was filling out brands, I was trying to wrangle people's schedule together, I'm getting a shock list together for our next day of filming. I was like, I want it to be the fun part again.

SPEAKER_06 33:12

Like I did the fun part. I miss it.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I wasn't seeing right, I was like, wasn't this just a sexy project? And there was like good lighting, and like I was interested to like I want to get back to that. But I'm gonna tell you now, if you're a producer, you already know. But pre-production and post-production is not the glamorous part of production, that's that's the middle part.

SPEAKER_06 33:36

It's the whole meat, it's the thing that gets the engine going.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yeah, so wow, yeah. I felt very seen by what you just said because another thing that I've been thinking a lot about is my ancestors. As I'm creating this, my ancestors were why I was gonna why I started the podcast. I said, Would you listen to a podcast made by one of your ancestors? I said, Well, the quickness is what I said to myself. I would listen to it from my great-great-great-grandma Harriet. I would love to hear what my great-great-great-great-great aunt Evelyn had to say. I would love to hear what my one of my grandpapas after enslavement ended. I don't even know what our enslavement name was because he renamed us green immediately after the land. So he said, fuck up. Yeah, he said, We don't know.

SPEAKER_06 34:29

Yeah, we're living all that shit in the back in the past.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

He said, We the greens, we're going forward. And I would love to like if he had a podcast, you know, I know he was in about none of the shit that they were doing back in his day. And that was something that I wanted to be able to any of my descendants know without a doubt that their bloodline was not with none of this bullshit that they got going on here. And we were actively using our voice and our platform to be resistance, to be community, to be love in any way that you know I can. And so that was, yeah, I want to tell a story that I would want to listen to from my ancestors, which is just what are you doing? Why were you doing it? What was happening? What were your friends like? What was the community like then? You know what I mean? I want to be a person who's answering all of those questions, and there's other people who have done it that you know have inspired me. I love reality TV. That's why I was like, let me let me see what I can do. Yeah. And I want us to feel confident to interesting, you know. I knew that this this even starting a podcast was a learning curve. I didn't even, I was like, a podcast. What's that? When when it was first proposed to me, but I kept I was it kept being proposed to me, and I was like, all right, well, I'll look into it. And just being curious and being open, you never know where being curious and open can lead you. And I know that being curious and open can be scary sometimes. I have worked through a lot of anxiety. I had to set my expectations up for things to go right instead of for things to go wrong. I had to stop anticipating my next disaster. But once I started to learn more about energy, I was like, no, there's no way I'm actually calling that to me.

SPEAKER_06 36:26

And I was like, you know, fear and excitement are different sides of the same coin. Yeah, which one you want to lean on.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah. Yeah. And I started to feel that in my body too, because fear and excitement are the different side of the same coin. And I was like, this feels familiar, but not. And I was like, oh, this is just regular ass excitement. Like this is just anticipation of something good.

SPEAKER_06 36:52

Why can't I fuck fuck around and and and and and succeed it? Just in the same way I'm thinking, like, this is gonna fail. Why don't I fuck around and succeed it?

SPEAKER_04 37:00

You know?

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Yeah. And and then being confident in that success, you know. I I try to encourage people, look, I be as gentle with myself as I possibly can. In the future, I hope I'm 10 times more gentle with myself than I am in this moment because we deserve it. And and I am someone personally, like this is an individual thing. Like, if you've been too gentle with yourself, give yourself that kick in the ass. You know what I mean? But for me, I was kicking and clawing and pushing and pinching myself figuratively, of course, to try to get me to do stuff, but it wasn't until I started asking myself, well, what do you need? What's stopping me from feeling confident to do this? And then let's work on that. It wasn't until I got curious with myself and started to get to know myself better. And I'm like, Yeah, no, you actually genuinely want good things for people, so you should be treated by yourself like someone who wants good things for people, and that means when you make a mistake, don't kick your ass about it. You know what I mean? You're a good person who wants good things for people. So if you make a mistake, it's okay. You're gonna get back to what you want, which is goodness. So get to know yourself, you know, coach yourself as needed and lean on your ancestors, like really learning that what my ancestors were doing, they did want things to be better for me, easier for me than they were for them. And that means that love is influencing my life. No matter what system has been set up around me to disenfranchise me, love has also been set up for me. And love is something that I can choose to put my energy toward instead of being like, oh, but this system and that system and this thing and all of this is set up by someone who doesn't love me and doesn't want me to succeed. I'm gonna focus on what is set up by people who love me who do want me to succeed and dismantle.

SPEAKER_06 39:01

You're absolutely right. I I I I I I often I often I often find myself in that space. It's easy to blame, it's cheap to blame, it's cheap to to shift accountability, as true as everything else in life is true. Right, the systems are set up against you, all of that is true. That person don't want you to succeed, that person is not interested in a common good. That is all true, right? And I I often struggle, I don't often struggle, but I I I often spend a lot of time with myself having to reframe right. The reframing is as true as that thing is, how much of that is helpful to you. Right? Because yeah, it's true, but like it's not it's not helpful to me. It's not helpful to helping me move forward for maybe my own self-interest, right? To move my own self-interest forward. It's not helping me build confidence. It's not helping me uh dream. It's not helping me be uh open, it's not helping me be curious. These are some of the things that I uh I look at myself and I go, oh my goodness, these are such great beauties of me. These are parts of me that I absolutely adore. And so when I look at things that are stacked that are quote unquote stacked against me, I go, well, as true as that is, how is that helpful for me? And if it's not helpful for me, I could choose, because it's always a choice, uh, to reframe that situation and reframe that scenario into something that that becomes useful for me. Right, useful for me to continue creating love, right? Or creating from a place of love, cultivating that love for myself and sharing it with people, right? From a place of being staying open, right, and being curious. Yeah, you got that one friend that did you dirty, or that one ex that did you dirty, and now it's fucked up your trust, right? I can hang on onto the things that I've done, which they're all true, right? Or I could reframe it and go, huh. Now that I know that these are things that happen, how can I mitigate that so that I continue being open and loving and caring and trusting? Because these are things that I feel I still value, right? And that's also the world that I want to create. I want to positively create a world where we love ourselves and we share that love with each other. You know, where we stay open and we stay curious about the other person and give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, I know they did something that was a little funny, but like let's reframe that because the intent is not to be conflicting with each other, but to share with each other. Right. So how can I reframe that to be helpful, knowing that there are these pitfalls and these traps here, and I could mitigate them.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

And I love that, I love that framing for benefit that is like the threat through this because it used to be, and I don't know if there's just my Christian upbringing or what, or my mama's Catholic upbringing, but the us going into a situation and being like, I can only be here if this situation is also beneficial to me. I was like, that's crazy. Like, what do you mean? It has to benefit me. Like, what do you mean? It's like it's like a default.

SPEAKER_06 42:50

Right, it's it's so default, and it it kind of forces you. It's you're taking what the world does, and you're not impacting the world in your own way. Because the world is telling you, be transactional, and you're going in your mind, you know it. Your body knows your body feels like, no, that's not the kind of world that I'm trying to create. I know that's the reality of today, but I have a contribution to changing that reality tomorrow. Yes, what would I want to do?

SPEAKER_00 43:21

That's the part because that's my the I but I do get to benefit in that way because when I'm thinking about a world that I want, yeah, I'm benefiting from that world, and that's like where it comes to being honest. You can want good for yourself and be a good person. You don't have to only want good for other people. I can only care about other people, or I'm selfish. Like, no, girl, you have to care about you. You need to want to benefit. I'll be all of my relationship. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 43:51

They say charity begins at home, or they say put on your put on your own oxygen mask before you.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Yes, exactly. You can't use it. Mutually beneficial relationships should be the standard. We should not have to be in exploitative relationships to prove that we're a good person. That I had to unlearn.

SPEAKER_06 44:13

Yeah, yeah. Look, somebody said I still throw hands. You know, I I may be good and kind and calm, but I still throw hands.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Look. Okay, hot girls healing. Like we we are honoring the multitudes. Um but I love this respect for our kind of storytelling and respect for our ancestors that comes through with oral storytelling. And mind you, I am taking a shift right now. Um kind of back to something that we were talking about a little bit earlier when it comes to passing down stories, and that is one of the things that has benefited our community tremendously. There were stories that I was told again and again as a kid. I my my mama was telling us about the Underground Railroad before I ever got into school. Wow. I would have never had Portia's moment of thinking that it was a physical railroad because I genuinely asked that question when I was like five or six.

SPEAKER_06 45:20

Like it ever find them tracks.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Because I was a kid, I was like, wait, so it was seven seconds. But yeah, no, um, our oral storytelling is so important. A lot of black history I was told orally. I didn't and then once you know I knew how to read and stuff, my mama did give me a few books and stuff. But yeah, we tell our stories orally that has been a tradition that came from the continent. Um, and then it's also I noticed it's a lot of indigenous cultures have oral storytelling. Yeah. I work with um they've retained that. Yeah, I work with uh Friends of Waterfront Seattle. Shout out to the Seattle Waterfront, great things happening there. Um they have uh a language, a native language. They have printed signs, street signs, and things in a native language. And I learned that they're like that language was not written at all. We actually worked with uh they worked with uh the the tribe, they worked with this linguist to create a written version of their language, so it's kind of like it's English sized kind of you know written language, um, because their language was was only oral, it was never written down. And I was like, these some indigenous people, some real ass niggas for that. They said we don't even need to write it down, actually. It's all up here.

SPEAKER_06 46:51

That is amazing. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

It's actually by people who are very much obsessed with the written word, but um no, but it's it's it's actually important. I think written word is important for some things, I think it does have value, but I think that oral storytelling was a tool for a really long time because it worked, right? We don't have to that's evidence-based. If it wasn't working, people would have stopped doing it and they would have adapted to something else that worked better. Um, which over time, you know, written word has come in in that way to help us write down things that need to be written down. But I also was talking about the power of oral storytelling, and someone was saying that telling a story orally allows for you to adapt that story and make it relevant to that day's time. So we can still tell the story about you know, ancient creation, and we can make it relevant to a way that a kid can understand today, which I'm sure would have just, you know, with my knowledge of how language changes over time, like you know, the way that we say things just changes uh almost like every three years. It's like we got a new word for something that we was just saying differently. So um oral languages and oral storytelling allows for things to stay relevant and stay fresh when you write something down and you can only tell it in that way it was written, when it was written, all the way back then, in a different context with different people, and it doesn't always stay right.

SPEAKER_06 48:27

The living procession that it that it goes through, that evolution that it goes through because it's a living thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 48:33

And I'm like, the way somebody says one word and then another person hears it and it takes on some new meaning. And it's now evolved into that new meaning, it's processed.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

So there's definitely value in both, but I I always thought that was so cool about oral storytelling, and it really I was like, maybe it wasn't so boring having to hear those same stories over and over and over again, because now I can tell it to the next generation.

SPEAKER_06 49:01

It's also how we gather, right? Like when we gather, we storytell. Oh man, you won't believe what happened to me last weekend or last Saturday. Yeah, we tell the story with the emotion as fresh as it is, right? And it brings us together. You know, it's a medium for us to still stay connected to each other, right? When I use certain words, right? For example, when I speak in French with certain people, there's there's a connection. There's a connection that cannot be explained that we have we just immediately connect, and there's certain things that I would say that they just immediately understand. But if you had to read that shit in a book or in an article, you'd be like, What's what are they talking about again? You know, it might not carry some of the same sentiments. It is really hard to translate you know, oral stories or things that happen into writing. It's hard to translate emotions and meaning too. Because meaning is complex, it's not it's not linear, it's not straight. No, I don't know, and the meaning that one person takes is different from somebody else else's meaning.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Yeah, it reminds me of those conversations you having through text where you're like, no, I gotta call you. This is this isn't translating, right?

SPEAKER_06 50:15

Yo, look, 2 a.m. in the morning, I can't I can't text this, I'm calling you because it's not gonna come off right.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

I have a sister, I have a lot of sisters, but one of my sisters in particular. I swear every time we try to have a conversation through text, there's like, I'm like, girl, where are you getting all this meaning from and all this inflection that that just was not there? I'm like texting so straight face. Like, there's all this, it's just so funny. But yes, uh I love a good story. I will I will tell you a story, but I never tell you a lie, as we say. But um, is there anything that we haven't said about ancestry, about this connection, about the stories that live inside of us? Is there any last word that you feel like needs to be articulated?

SPEAKER_04 51:08

Uh let me think for a second.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Okay, yeah. Take a moment, and while you do that, I will tell y'all my last word because I have been feeling so much while we are having this conversation, and I know that that tends to happen when I bring up my ancestors because I just love um but my last word really for this conversation is just honoring who you are, like honor who you are, you know what I mean? So much we can be taken so far from ourselves, we can abandon ourselves, you know, walking around, walking, talking, going through all the motions, but you've long abandoned yourself. And so I was just saying you know, come home and and honor who you are, get to know that person, protect that person, and and know that not everyone in this world is gonna align with that. We got like eight billion people though. So we really need them. You know what I mean? Um, that's my last word.

SPEAKER_06 52:14

Come home. I like that. Come home.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 52:17

Um I think my last word would be I think I've been I've been preaching this probably since I turned I turn I turned 30. I've been preaching this whole community thing. And um it's something that for some reason has stuck with me. And I cannot stop talking about I cannot stop talking about it and ancestry being another thing, you know, having to go home to come home. It's uh think of think of the perfect world that you'd love to exist in. Right? And then go create it. Go find the people to create it. You know, and I'm not talking about you know I'm not saying like look, react to the world. Think of all the things that you're afraid of. Think of the person that you are and why you have to be, for example, I'm gonna pick on men. Think of why you have to be such a masculine man and oh my gosh, the precious of it. Right? And go, well, what's what's a perfect world where I wouldn't have to worry so much about that thing. And then go find the people and create it. Cause a lot of a lot of things is it's not our narratives that we're that we're leaving. We're living other people's narratives. Like, yo, this I I don't want to be out here living other people's narratives. I want to leave my narrative. So find the people think of the the perfect world that you'd love to live in. World of love and openness and curiosity, right? And then find the people who are also on that journey and then go create her. That is community. That is your community.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

I'm so I feel so inspired. I feel so happy and grateful to have had this particular conversation with you all then. Where can people like contact you to like put you on a panel or something? I need you on a panel, like immediately.

SPEAKER_06 54:18

Let's see. Um, email. Email, you could also find me on IG, Modern Renaissance, which is also um our tag for the nonprofit. And mostly email. Email and text message.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

I know that's right. All right, y'all. I man, like can we take a moment together?

SPEAKER_06 54:42

Let's all just we did we did a couple moments.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

That was so much goodness. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 54:50

Oh my grandma and my grandma and all the grandmas of the world. I am named after my grandmother, so I am I am grandmother.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Yes, oh my god, I remember you told me that. That is so cool. I'm actually I'm not named after anyone in my family, but I also love that about me. So because we have a lot of name repeats in my family, and I'm like, y'all do too much. I'm not I'm not doing that, y'all. But y'all, thank you so much, healing community. I hope that you I hope that you feel warm from that. I hope you feel more secure after hearing that. I hope you feel fired up about yourself and about your family and all the goodness that is available to you. My name is Selena Green. This has been another episode of the Hot Girls Healing Podcast, and I will see you out there, community. Use the hashtag Hot Girls Healing. Hell, y'all see it. If you're watching this, you see I got a sign. But if you're listening, I have a neon sign now, okay? We are upgrading. We are growing, the healing community is growing. Shout out to everyone who is listening around the world, shout out to everyone who is listening around the country in my city. I appreciate you all. And if you see me out in the community, say hey. This um this whole journey has just been amazing. I'm so grateful, and I can't wait to see what happens next. So I'll see you. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

We're doing it all the way. I got to do it by day. I don't know. We're doing it all the way.