29. Making Love a Habit: Charmaine Heard on Loving Fiercely and Healing Deeply

In this episode of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, host Aderonke Bademosi-Wilson sits down with the passionate and inspiring Charmaine Heard. Charmaine describes herself as sincere, loving, and fiery, and through this engaging conversation, we explore these traits and how they’ve shaped her journey.

Charmaine shares her personal mission to make love a habit and the deep exploration she has undertaken over the last 15 years to understand what true love means. She also opens up about the unexpected strength and passion she finds in life, discussing how her fiery nature drives her to set boundaries and advocate for justice.

Listeners will learn three fascinating facts about Charmaine, including her love for books and learning, her creative and playful side, and her experience as an empath. She speaks about the importance of protecting her peace and well-being by being mindful of the environments and media she surrounds herself with.

Charmaine also reflects on her greatest accomplishment: learning to love herself despite life's challenges. In a heartfelt discussion about grief, Charmaine and Aderonke exchange stories about widowhood and how those experiences shaped their views on love, life, and personal growth.

This episode is an uplifting and raw exploration of love, resilience, and finding strength through life's most difficult moments.

Key Takeaways:
- The importance of making love a daily habit.
- Loving oneself as a lifelong journey and personal success.
- Grief, healing, and how love remains at the center of recovery.

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Transcript

Aderonke (00:01.558)
Welcome to another edition of AB Wilson's Heart of the Matter.

A podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I'm Ataranka Badamosi -Wilson, and my guest on today's show is Charmaine Heard. Charmaine is sincere, loving, fiery. Welcome to the show, Charmaine.

Charmaine (00:33.585)
It's such a pleasure and an honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Aderonke (00:38.934)
And so Charmaine, I want to start with the words that you have used to describe yourself. I'm gonna start with the last word first, fiery. Tell me about that.

Charmaine (00:51.537)
Yes, I think so people may not know this about me, but because I do lean into being such a loving person, it really does matter to me. Tried to make love a habit, but I have this like very fiery side to me where I'm passionate about things. I am no pushover really. I think at the end of the day.

There is a fire inside of me for life. Maybe it's passion that it should be, I call it fire. But also, like when I feel just in something, there's a fire inside of me that just lights me up. And I wanna do things about life and love. And it can seem quite... harsh is not the right word, but there's a fire in me that says, okay, like the line is here and we're gonna stop right there. And so I think that's what surprises people about me is that there is a side to me that's like, okay, that fire, which also I consider love is right there. And when heat hits me, I can feel it. It's not ever violent, but it is very,

It can be very abrupt and it can be super powerful.

Aderonke (02:22.676)
And so you've touched on love and one of your words is loving and how that connects with fiery. Let's talk about loving.

Charmaine (02:34.001)
Okay, so my life's mission, my own personal mission is to make love a habit. Just like we make exercise a habit, all of those things. so while I have spent a lot of my last 15, and especially the last four years, really leaning into deep love and what that means.

I feel like I've learned so much and gained a greater understanding of love than I've ever had in my entire life. I've arrived to this moment and this moment of love is really leaning into the truth of who I am, who we are, and how we are to be with each other. And so I really try to embody the thing that I talk about the most, the best that I can.

Right? There's always room for growth and evolution. But if I had to hang my hat on who I want to be in this life, it's loving. A loving person.

Aderonke (03:39.57)
And thank you. And the third descriptor that you use, sincere. How does that connect with the other two?

Charmaine (03:48.079)
I think we, can't do anything. can't do, I can't be loving without having a sincere heart to do it. Like I sincerely and genuinely want to show up in these ways. Like what you see is actually what you get. There is no, I'm coming in the house and taking off that person and being something else. It's how it's embodying all of that. So I, I am sincerely Charmaine.

Aderonke (04:16.424)
Charmaine, thank you. Thank you. And to get into the questions, I would love our listeners to learn a little bit more about you. Please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

Charmaine (04:35.353)
Okay, so I'm sure the listeners wouldn't know, but my friends, what would they be surprised to learn about me? Let's see. What would they be surprised to learn about me?

Well...

Charmaine (04:54.563)
I'm a bit of a nerd. I nerd out on any and everything I can. So let's see.

I love books. I love to read. I have a love affair with a bookstore, a coffee shop with books in it. There's a real love affair that I have. I'm not sure all of my friends know that about me, but I have this insatiable curiosity about life, about how it works, how people tick.

What's going on in the rest of the world, what's going on with me and my world. So there's this like, I am like a super curious person. And so that, I feel like my curiosity keeps me in the game of life. Like I wonder sometimes instead of, you I don't think anything is quite black and white like I used to years ago. I think there's a lot of gray and

I want to understand every part of it. So I have this really big heart for life. I guess it would be considered curiosity and maybe that's why books really take me places. I tend to lean towards one genre, which is always self -improvement and all of that, but I do like memoirs and stuff like that too. I'm all over the place with what I like.

Just nothing that's like gory. I don't like gory anything. So maybe that's another thing. I'm very careful with what I allow myself to be around to what I see, to what I watch, the company that I keep to just keep myself healthy. And so I realized that I would be considered what they call an empath. So I can take things in.

Charmaine (07:00.626)
And so I really careful with even the amount of news I allow myself to watch. So people may not know that about me, but I am not into anything that may disturb my peace and wellbeing.

Aderonke (07:18.492)
And okay, so is that the second thing or do you think that's the third thing?

Charmaine (07:22.705)
That could be the second thing. What's the third thing?

Charmaine (07:32.411)
I'm leaning towards two things. I love, what would my friends be surprised about? They would not be surprised that I am stubborn. I am really stubborn, so I can't really tell people that. I have a stubborn streak, which is probably the fiery side. I am pretty playful. Like, I love the arts, creativity, but I am really just a playful person, lighthearted.

I really love to laugh. so, I love opportunities to express myself and my quote unquote past life years ago. I used to sing and act and I had an opportunity to do that a few times in my life. And that was really sweet to me. It made me feel like I could express myself and, and get out some creativity that I had in me.

So I'm a pretty creative person.

Aderonke (08:33.154)
So I just want to go back to two things that you said. The first is being an empath. What does that look like? What does that feel like?

Charmaine (08:42.065)
So I had no idea when I was younger what was happening with me. I thought I was broken. I would feel things. I would feel people's sadness when they would cry around me or I would like the energy in the room would feel off or feel good. I would just feel it all. And so I used to be like, it would be hard for me to be with people and not want to help them and save them and all of these things.

I did not know how to explain these big feelings when I would be around people, whether my stomach was telling me it felt good or didn't feel good. And so as I got older, I remember being told by a therapist and then a few other people, Charmaine, you have your empath. You have great empathy for people and the way that empaths kind of soak in.

The energy or emotions or feelings of others and it can tend to really do something with you. Like as a person, can, like if you're happy and then you're around a group of people that aren't or there's negativity, you tend to soak that up. So you need to learn how to balance yourself and not hold other people's stuff that's not yours. And so I had to learn, first of all, who am I? I'm not broken. This is just,

How I'm wired and I can't change who I am, meaning I can't change that I'm an empath, but I can learn how to work with it. And I can learn how to use it as a superpower and learn how to wisely allow that to open my heart to people and things without making their stuff or making the world's stuff my stuff. Because then it can put me in bed for... days with deep sadness and it's not even mine. Does that make sense to you? Yeah.

Aderonke (10:42.232)
No, it does. It does. It absolutely does. Thank you for sharing that. And then you said you used to sing and act. Tell me about that.

Charmaine (10:46.181)
Yes. Yeah, you know, I love art. I love the arts. Anything I when I was in high school or in middle school as well, I love to sing. So was in the choir. I was in plays at church. I sung all the things and I was really shy about it. Actually, that might be something people would be really surprised about.

Is there a moment where I am shy? I am shy. But for my whole, like for my first, all of my twenties, half of my thirties, probably, I was singing and I would sing at church. And then I was in a play that I was able to tour with. And right after that, I decided to stop. So I've had a beautiful ride of expressing myself through music and acting. 

If I draw, it's only for like therapeutic reasons, which I love, or I'd love to go find a place to do pottery and stuff like that. Like I love to just like put my hands into clay and make something, but not to be an artist, just to kind of express myself in that way. But yeah, I don't think, especially my friends who I've met in the last 10 years, I'm not sure they would know that about me. And I don't tell them that I used to sing and act because the first thing they say is sing for me. Yeah, no, no. So yeah, I was married and most of my married life, I'm now a widow, but most of my married life was music with my husband.

Aderonke (12:21.44)
Yeah

Charmaine (12:39.983)
We were in a play together. He wrote the music. It wasn't my play, but he wrote the music for this guy and it, you know, it won best play of the year for what they call the velocity award. we, so a lot of my, and I met, I actually met my deceased husband as a wedding singer. I used to sing and he was the, he became the pianist for a few of the weddings that I played in. And so that's how we really got to know each other.

Aderonke (13:10.528)
Mm.

Aderonke (13:17.718)
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and for sharing your love of acting and singing. No, I won't ask you to sing because...

Charmaine (13:26.698)
Thank you.

Aderonke (13:31.362)
But if you wish to break out in song at any point, I will not stop you. Charmaine, can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you're particularly proud of?

Charmaine (13:32.838)
Okay.

Charmaine (13:46.245)
Yes, I can do that. I can absolutely do that. It's going to be probably unconventional. But I can hold on to the successes. It's very interesting that you asked me this question today because yesterday I was reading some notes that I'd written and there was a woman that I met a few years ago through another woman, Katherine Woodward Thomas introduced us to this woman, Deborah Poneman. 

And she said the greatest success that you can have is to love yourself or something of that nature. And as I sit with my life if I had to say what is the success that I walk away with today, it is that I have sincerely and genuinely learned how to love myself despite every single thing that's happened in my life to date. And that's a really hard thing to do. And I say that because

Charmaine (14:55.809)
I was really hard on myself as a young person. And in my twenties, I had a lot of self -condemnation and I did not love myself well. was, I held myself to a standard that was just so hard and unreasonable. And I would, if I messed up, I would really judge myself hard, harshly. 

And to now come through and say with great grace and compassion, I love you and everything is okay is my biggest success, I can say. And it's been hard fought. It has been getting up and dusting myself off and reminding myself that the God of my understanding is love. And that's what I call it, God love. And if that God can love me, then why can't I love myself? And I feel like the biggest thank you I could ever give for the life that I have is to love myself and others well. So I think that would be the success.

Aderonke (16:04.182)
How easy is it to say I love you to yourself?

Charmaine (16:07.675)
Today very much, much easier than it has ever been in my entire life. I think I needed to understand what that meant to love myself. Excuse me, to love myself and to love myself well. But as I said, at the top of the hour, I've made love a habit. It's just like making the habit of anything else we do, drinking water, walking daily, you know, any of the things like when we make it a habit and I've literally sat with myself and said, what does it look like to love yourself and make it a habit? What does it look like to be with others and love them rightfully and make it a habit and not needing to do it perfect and not needing to show up in perfection because it's not really about that, but it's about a genuine effort to do it.

Aderonke (17:05.538)
So we know what a habit for exercise looks like. We know what a habit for, I don't know, study or regular day -to -day activities. What does a habit of loving yourself look like?

Charmaine (17:22.587)
Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. So just like the habit of exercising is something we practice every day. So sitting with myself and actually first seeing all the ways, I shouldn't say first, but when I started this practice, and again, excuse me, I'm so sorry. The practice of loving yourself and making it a habit, you also see all the ways in which you don't love yourself. So let me first say that, like it's both, it's all gonna come up. And so one of the things I can talk about that I learned years ago, it's called mirror work. And it's literally standing in the mirror and looking at yourself and saying, love you. 

And what rises in you when that happens is a genuine love. Is there some place that you're looking at on your body or on your skin that you don't like? And how can you lean into loving that more? What does it look like to love yourself more? Even like what you see in the mirror, right? What I see in the mirror, how can I love you? Because if I can see you in the mirror and love you, then I can see other people and love them for exactly who they are, right? 

And so that's one of the practices that I started doing years ago was what I call mirror work and letting it be a part of my routine of looking myself in the mirror and saying, love you. And there were moments, very hard moments in my life where that I couldn't, I didn't, and then I always land back to the place of come back to love, right? 

Where the life got really hard for me, you know, when my husband passed away, everything kind of fell apart and I tried to keep trucking along and all of those things. I don't know that I was, I was loving myself the best I could at the time, but it wasn't the habit of it. Hadn't fully, it was, out of whack for a little while. but then I came back into like, no. 

Charmaine (19:44.625)
And so another thing that I practice or the habit of loving myself is really concerned what well -being looks like and how to be well. Like what does it look like if I love myself? Then where do I place my well -being? 

So that's when I talk about like not even putting myself in situations that don't feel good to me no matter what whether it's the company that I keep or What I watch any of those things. If I'm loving myself well, I'm trusting to keep myself safe and protected. And if it doesn't feel good, then I need to listen to that. And that's been a practice. It's been a habit that I've needed to form because there were many times I had to see in all the ways in which I went against myself. I didn't want to look weird, right? And I often would play nice to be named nice. I'm not going to play nice to be named nice. And I learned that from an artist.

Tony Jones who talks about don't play nice to be named nice. I thought she's right. She's very right about that. And so the habit of learning to love myself, I had to also see in all the ways in which I wasn't where I allowed myself to do things like people please overspend, over give and and how to course correct so that I am in the habit of loving myself better and well.

Aderonke (21:23.01)
So Charmaine, this, I appreciate all that you have shared. And I just want to touch on something. You've mentioned it twice, being a widow. And I know that you and I have talked about that in the past as I and people who have met me in the last 19 or 18 years may not know this, but I too lost my first husband. And now 20 years ago and having gone through that as a young woman, it shapes your life. It shapes your perspective.

Aderonke (22:07.436)
So my question is, how has that shaped how you see yourself, how you love yourself today?

Charmaine (22:16.579)
Whoa, what a journey. I have to say, this year would have marked 20 years actually for our marriage, but mine was a bit more complex. I'm not sure about your full story, but I felt like I had this extremely beautiful marriage for such a long time. And I thought I hit the love lottery. Let me be honest. I was like,

You know, I had really no real dating experience prior to him. And I was just so, I felt so blessed, so lucky for what we had. And as I continued on this journey of love, what I found was that we, seemed we were going in different directions and I did not know how to reconcile that. And so around like year 15, 15 and a half, we found ourselves separated in this marriage. And I had great hope, but didn't really know how to handle it. And I don't think I handled it well. But I also was like, my gosh, is this a breakup? I don't know what to do. I look back at young Charmaine of a few years back and I thought you really were trying your best. were really in a, you were acting out of fear, out of pain, all of these things. 

And I think for me, you know, having great hope and also confused as to how this is not working. And I'm supposed to be the love lady. What do you mean? Like you're supposed to have this all together. And then in the midst of a very hard time for the both of us, he dies, like unexpectedly. I felt like I had gotten handed an impossible situation. So I went from believing I had the greatest love I could have ever, ever hoped for to what happened to us, to wait, we're separated, to this man died with no real closure, no last conversation. 

And then everything that came up from it and I didn't realize at the time until a little bit later when my therapist said, you are going through trauma. And I thought that I could handle, you know, still volunteering and being and like still doing a little bit. I did, I did take some time off, but like I still tried to like stay in life a little bit, but I took almost two years of like just dealing with myself and healing because the pain was something I'm not sure I could speak in words. The hurt and everything that came with, how do I navigate this situation? How do I come back to love from this? How do I land back in the belief of love? Because I don't know that I ever stopped believing, but I know I could not, my body couldn't handle, like once his funeral was over,

I went right into, need to sit with everything. And I said to myself, even if you fall apart, allow yourself to go completely apart, to learn everything you need to learn, feel everything as scary as it is, and see if love can pull you back together. And so that's what I did. And so, you know, it's one thing to lose, someone that you loved more than you could imagine loving anyone, but to lose them in separation and not reconcile with him. one of the things that I had to also come to grips with is like, no one knows what happened between us, but me and him.

Charmaine (26:40.473)
No one. And so I will hold out of respect and love and the sacredness of my marriage, I will hold what we had in a very sacred honoring place. But I would have, I'm gonna take it with me every part of it, but I would have liked to have not had ended that way, that's for sure. And it happened that way. And so there were things that...

I would not wish this on anyone, not one person, to have to go through that level of pain and hurt in the way that I did. But I can truly say without a shadow of a doubt that love is one million percent the answer to coming back.

Aderonke (27:30.986)
And I would agree with you because like you, when my first husband died, since we married, when my first husband died, I withdrew.

And my goal was to address every single emotion, every single everything that I was going to feel and needed to feel in order to heal. And I remember a friend of mine saying to me, Adoraka, grief is not like that. You can't just say, OK, I'm going take this time. I'm going to do everything that I need to do in order to address it and look at it head on. And so there were a lot of lessons that I had to learn in order to be able to move forward and in order to begin to feel parts of myself come back. 

And I remember my mother saying this to me at the time, she said, you will use this to help others. And I didn't know what to do with that. And I said, know, mommy, I can't even help myself right now. And I've carried that with me. I've carried her, her wisdom with me because it allows me to talk to others who have been through the death of a spouse from a place of understanding. I may not understand your space, but I can share from my space.

Charmaine (29:17.713)
Absolutely. And that's beautiful, Adaroka. You know, I appreciate you also going through the process of, need to grieve this way. I think the wisest parts of us know that that's... dare I say the best way to walk through it because what we hold inside, end up spewing out on others. And I just didn't want the level of pain and hurt that I felt, the level of, I mean, every feeling I could feel outside of there was no joy and happiness to be found in that situation.

I did not want to act out of those feelings with the people that I loved and cared about in my life. So I had to withdraw because it was a lot for me. And I thought also this could actually kill me of stress or of heartbreak. When people say folks have died of heartbreak, I now truly believe that and can imagine the sheer pain of that heartache that caused you to just lose, like you just, you die from it. And I don't know how to explain it, but I think that's a very wise thing that the both of us did. I didn't know how I was gonna come out on the other side of it. And even to tell the story to you today, I didn't think I would. I was full of shame, disappointment. I mean, there was so much that I was holding onto.

Aderonke (30:37.868)
Mm, but a lot of it I realized was other people trying to shame me for our separation. So I was also holding onto some unfair behavior of others and how can I even walk through or just rumors or, mean, everything was because not a lot, not a lot of people on my side knew that I was even separated. So it was a shock to people, to some family, I just didn't disclose my business in that way. but it seemed to have, you know, the rumor mills just went crazy and, I just didn't know how to hold that. So I didn't, I just held myself and that's all I knew how to do. 

And I think your story and what you went through absolutely helped me when we talked about it before, because now I can see, someone else has gone through being a widow, whether it's the same story or not. They know what that's like. And now three years out, I can talk about it and not hold the shame of it, not hold all of the things that were thrown on me and say, truly have allowed love to hit me hard and be a part of me.

And I'm going to stick with that. And it's not that it's, you know, I don't sometimes still feel sadness because I do, but it's different now. But it took a lot of work and it took a lot of looking strange and people thinking you're ridiculous and you're not over it yet. And you guys weren't even together. Why is she so it's it's. There was a lot of love there. It was more love there. Then there wasn't really.

Aderonke (32:54.334)
One of the things, two things that helped me during that time, well, three things. I was alone and I chose to be alone because I needed my space.

The other thing that I did was a lot of reading. I just read everything I could about death and grieving and healing. And one of the things that I learned of the books that I read is that grieving makes you paranoid. And that's how I felt. excuse me.

I wasn't in Bermuda at the time and I didn't want to be in Bermuda or around people that knew me because I didn't want people looking at me and assessing me. How is, like, you know, they will say, how are you doing? And I will mumble, whatever was appropriate at the time, but I didn't want them assessing me and saying, she looks good or she looks terrible. I didn't want that judgment on me. And the other thing that I did, I went to group counseling. And I don't know why I chose group counseling as opposed to one -on -one counseling, but that helped me tremendously. 

And I didn't expect that. I didn't expect anything walking into the room where I went to counseling, but I would go every Thursday evening and just sit and it took me a long time before I could speak and I think I just spoke once during the time that I went but I just went there and sat and listened and listened to people's stories such heartbreaking stories that started to help me put things into perspective in a way that I never expected.

Charmaine (34:53.189)
Yeah. Yeah. Our stories are similar. I, I too went to group counseling right up the street from my house. And for the first, I don't know how many weeks, all I did was cry. I could not say anything. I did not want to say anything. And I thought, maybe this is too soon. Maybe I'm jumping out here too soon, but you're right. It was the stories of others who lost a spouse, a child, a sibling, a best friend that I sat with. And I never thought about group counseling. I also had a therapist and I had a coach. So I was seeing three people at like I was going to three different outlets to really try to honestly save myself. 

I went I felt like I needed to save myself. I was I don't know if you remember because it's been a while for you, but I I was foggy, my, I think trauma, you're not thinking straight and you think you are. I feel like I gave away so much, whatever people wanted. was like, take it. Like, I just wasn't sure where life was going for me. And so I remember the fog clearing, but it was really, and I did a lot of reading as well. Like that's all I did was, lay in the bed, cry, read, take a shower, talk to my therapist. Like I didn't want to touch anything in my house. I didn't want to cook in my kitchen. I didn't want to do anything because I was just scared. I was in trauma. I don't know. was just, it was very, it was the hardest thing I think I'd ever had to sit with.

Aderonke (36:42.259)
I do remember being in the fog because I remember coming out of it. a friend of mine called me one day and she said, Adoronka, I need you to pay attention to this. I need you to hear me. And I had left my job.

Charmaine (36:49.349)
Mm -hmm.

Aderonke (37:11.286)
Just before my husband died, because I was moving to the United States from Bermuda. And I had to make some financial decisions.

And she's the one that was like, you have to hear me, your time's up, you have to pay attention to this financial matter. And I remember hearing her and saying, okay, let me pay attention. It was that moment that made me realize I had just been moving along. I hadn't given any thought or made decisions up until that point, other than making funeral arrangements.

And I remember my then mother -in saying, just have to make one decision today. And that's what we did. We'll make one decision today. And if another something else came up that we needed to make that decision about, we'll be like, no, we'll make that decision tomorrow. We've already made our one decision today. And using that to guide how I move forward, just one decision a day after that, nothing else.

I'm not touching it. I'm not thinking about it. I don't care what it is. If I've already made the decision, there are no more decisions to be made. And so to come out of that almost suddenly made me realize I had not been focused on anything.

Charmaine (38:39.525)
Yeah, isn't that wild? Like you think you are. I was volunteering, I was helping with, you know, we're in the same sorority. I was really just foggy, but doing the best I can, right? There was a moment as you were explaining your fogginess and like coming out of it that made me think also,

Because I had set with a deep grief and when the fog cleared and I decided to come back and become a coach full -time instead of going back into corporate America, I felt like I could sit with people deeper, with more compassion, with more grace, with a better understanding. Because I know when you hit what you think is rock bottom, and you come back from it, and people come to see you with broken hearts in all different ways, you understand and can be with people, not just clients, but be with people. think, I don't know what arrived with you, but I...

I love people differently. I absolutely feel like I love people better. I allow grace and compassion to actually sit between me and everyone. that love and compassion is not like passive, it's very active. And while I have great love and compassion for people, I also know how to like, put it in its right place, rightful place, right? Because people can take advantage or try to take advantage of that. But I just, I think your mom or whoever told you that you were gonna be able to use this story to help people, they were right. 

They were right. And I often just said, if I just help one person or one couple, that's enough for me because I wanted to leave a legacy of Rick and Charmaine, I want to leave the story well and not, and they were separated and he died, right? I want to carry the torch of the love that I do remember from far, far more years than I can, than ever compared to a separation. I choose to hold it in great honor and respect.

Aderonke (41:37.302)
I truly feel the words of my mother coming back to me. And I remember exactly where we were when she said this to me. I was at her house. And I honestly feel we have helped somebody today. Just this conversation, this time that we have exchanged our stories. So I want to ask you, do you want to continue with the regular with the regular interviews or how where are you right now? How are you feeling?

Charmaine (42:24.035)
Adorake, I am so appreciative of this. I'm inspired. I'm inspired by you. I'm inspired by this conversation. I didn't know where the conversation was going to go, what we were gonna talk about. I just committed to showing up, right? Just show up, speak from your heart in a sincere, loving, fiery manner, since those are the words that I use, but I do hope that we were able to inspire and encourage even one person to move forward, no matter how hard life is. I used to think as a love bug myself that it was pretty cliche to say love is the answer. 

But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that love was and is absolutely the answer that got me to September, 2024. Without that, I'm not sure where I would be. It was absolutely love and getting a better understanding of it.

Aderonke (43:40.532)
You know what? This is what I'm going to do. We're going to have another conversation because I think this is too... for me.

Aderonke (43:56.394)
It's a conversation in and of itself. And I really want to honor this space that we've created for ourselves.

And for anybody else that needs to hear this conversation, anybody else that needs this package the way it is to hear it and maybe reach out to either one of us or reach out to somebody that they know that can help them through what is an unimaginable space where you grieve for the person that would have helped you in this time. The person that you would lean on to ask support is the person that has brought you to this space. And I don't know how to explain that anymore.

And so, Charmaine, thank you. Thank you. And we're going to set up another date and time to finish this interview because, excuse me, I just need to clear my throat. Because like you, I had no expectation of.

Charmaine (45:05.115)
Thank you.

Charmaine (45:09.443)
Okay.

Charmaine (45:15.611)
Mm

Aderonke (45:26.984)
where this would go. had no expectation of how our conversation would move forward. But what I am going to do is I'm going to share, as I usually do for at the end of my interviews, appreciation nuggets. And the three things that I heard you say is that resonated with me.

The greatest success is to love yourself.

Aderonke (46:14.602)
making loving yourself a habit.

Aderonke (46:22.292)
And love is the answer. Everything has love in it. Everything is surrounded by love.

Aderonke (46:31.518)
Love is key and I think starting with loving yourself is the most important thing that you can do.

Charmaine (46:41.307)
I agree. Thank you so much. And I want to express my appreciation for you as well for inviting me to be a part of your space again, for being patient with a very empathic me who's like, I don't have a lot of energy sometimes. But just the way that you've shown up in sisterhood with me and just leaning in and allowing your story to be told along with my story and walk alongside each other has been really inspiring to me and to like the way you come into the game and with podcasts and with your art as well as your emails, right? It's just inspiring to see.

And I look forward to seeing more of what you're gonna do. Right? And so I feel like as they say, iron sharpens iron. I heard that a long time ago. I do believe that just being in your presence sharpens me, right, to want to always lean in and just do a bit more when it comes to love, when it comes to being with others. Because while the greatest success is to love yourself, I do believe that what the benefit of that is that you get to learn and be with others in a deeply loving way. So it's not a it's it's actually not a selfish thing. It's a self full thing that everyone around you gets to benefit from, even if they don't realize it's love. Even when love says, got to create a boundary around you because you're not healthy. That's love. That's love.

Aderonke (48:37.374)
It is, it is. And it's hard, right? It's hard to put those boundaries in place. And I know for myself, I feel myself weakening every so often, but I have to, you have to be able to put them in place. And the other thing that I want to add here is...

Charmaine (48:40.303)
Mm

Aderonke (48:58.302)
What my experience has taught me is not to take things for granted, not to take love for granted, not to take people for granted, not to take time that you spend with people for granted. Because in reality, you don't know if that's your last time. In reality, you don't know if you will get to say to that person again, I love you, take care, be well. And so that is probably one of the biggest lessons.

Charmaine (49:09.381)
Hmm.

Charmaine (49:15.473)
Hmm.

Aderonke (49:28.196)
and Arts About Love is to be as much as I can, try to be present and try to absorb the time that I had with people so that if that is our last time, I can say, yeah, I remember it, or I know that I gave it the best that I could at the time.

Charmaine (49:51.025)
Mm -hmm.

Charmaine (49:56.059)
Yeah, what a beautiful, beautiful place to land and to be.

Aderonke (49:58.582)
you

Aderonke (50:03.724)
Charmaine Heard, thank you. just rest assured, we are going to finish the interview. We will finish the interview at another time. But wow, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Charmaine (50:05.627)
Thank you.

Okay.

Charmaine (50:16.355)
It's been my pleasure. The pleasure is all mine. Thank you.