Break The Cycle, Build The Future

Cycles do not end on their own. They end when someone like you decides to see the pattern, sit with the pain, and choose a different next step. We sit down with licensed hairstylist and mother of two, Ashonda Fisher, to trace a vivid arc from childhood grief and masked strength to clear boundaries, deep faith, and a future built on emotional intelligence and peace.

We start by naming the invisible forces that shape adult life: losing a parent young, learning silence as survival, and internalizing worst-case thinking. Ashonda shares how a date on the calendar became a line in the sand, why faith turned from cliché to compass, and how changing her words changed her world. We unpack the “flight vs bus” mindset for healing, the turbulence metaphor for setbacks, and the hard truth that familiar fear often keeps people in toxic rooms far longer than love does.

Parenting becomes the mirror. Running from unstable homes can create kids who run from classrooms, so we lean into open conversations with children about emotions, safety, and boundaries. Ashonda details what healthy limits look like in real life: alignment, respect, no revolving doors at home, and no tolerance for cheating. We explore people-pleasing, guilt in choosing yourself, navigating weight loss and surgery, and learning to ask for help without apology. The phoenix is more than a symbol here; it is a practice of rising with lessons, not just scars.

By the end, you will have a grounded playbook for breaking generational cycles: speak with conviction, set non-negotiable boundaries, seek context from family without surrendering your truth, teach kids emotional intelligence early, and build a legacy that lives now, not later. If this conversation sparked something, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find their way back to themselves.

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Transcript

Framing The Conversation: Cycles And Identity

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome, welcome everyone. Welcome to the big take back with V3U, where we stop surviving and start deciding and take our power back. So today's conversation is about breaking cycles and reclaiming identity and building legacies. So with me, I have the wonderful, beautiful Mrs. Ashonda Fisher. So for those who don't know you are Shonda yet, how would you describe who you are today and not just uh what you've been through?

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Okay, so I'm Ashonda. I'm 37 years old. I'm a licensed hairstylist. I have two beautiful children, a son and a daughter. My son's 13, my daughter's five. So that pretty much sums up everything about me. I love my children, I live for my kids, but um I'm a very generous person, very considerate, very thoughtful, a person who really loves helping, helping people, and it and having conversations to give different perspectives to just my community, um, my people, adults, it don't matter if you're younger, older, a toddler. Um, I just love making people see that instead of living and becoming your situation because it is a different outcome for all of us, you don't have to be in a space where it's though you're just in a situation where you're like, okay, this is where I'm at, this is how I gotta be. So I'm just a person who just love helping people and just love showing people this different things and how to overcome different situations.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Okay, so when people look at you now, uh the sense the strength that they see, the resilience, okay, what do you think they don't see about the journey it took to get you where you are now? Because I know you are, I've known you for some time. You are my niece cousin, okay? And you have uh I um love interviewing um young people such as yourself um who have been through some things that sometimes you wouldn't even know, Ashonda, to look at you. You wouldn't know what you've been through, but people don't know your journey and how what it took to get there. So to explain a little bit of that.

Faith, Mindset, And Unseen Strength

SPEAKER_03 2:22

So for me, um, we all go through situations in life. One P one thing people don't know about me, I never I never give up. Even it don't matter how hard or what I'm going through. I'm not a person who sit in a situation and uh let it consume me. It actually fuels me. I don't know where that came from, but it's like I can't even cry. If I'm going through something, it's like my determination, my motivation to get up the next day and be like, okay, I can start over. Like a lot of people don't know that. Like some people look at me and be like, How did she? I think a lot of people do that, like, well, how she's still standing, the grace of God. My faith alone allows me to know that I'm gonna be okay. And that's that's a lot of people know that I'm a lot of people don't know that I'm very spiritual. So I would say that's something that a lot of people may miss about me, is that my faith is what carries me through every single day. Every time I have a situation or a setback, I just know that I'm gonna be okay. And it's uh it's a mindset. So I'm not a person who speaks and says things like, Um, oh my god, I hope tomorrow be it's like I know, like I speak with conviction, I don't never be like we all be low on funds. It's like, oh my goodness, I'm so broke. How am I fine? No, God allow me to tomorrow rub two dollars and fifty cents a penny together, and whatever I come up with, it's a blessing for me. So a lot of people don't know that about me, that my faith really carries me through, and I pray a lot about my strength. I don't play about my strength because that's something and a power that God gave me.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

So hey, and that's that's what the big take back is about. The first real big take back is owning who you are now without race erasing who you were, like you know, okay, I'm going through struggles, I know that, but speaking strength into your life, right? Strength power and words, pop power of the tongue, yeah. I love it, and that's that's what would first we have to sometimes people have to get to that point, though. They have to get to that point. What was it a time before that where you weren't in the space you are now?

From Anxiety To Agency At Eighteen

SPEAKER_03 4:35

I would say it was. I was very, I was very young. I will always like manifest these situations in my brain. Like I'll be before things even happen, I'll be like, oh my God, my birthday coming up, I know it's gonna be horrible. And then when my birthday comes up, it's horrible. But it's already because I done already spoke that into existence. And I'll I will always just come up with the worst scenarios. I will always think the worst of situations. And then one day, I think I probably was about 18 years old as shift just I don't I can't remember what happened or what triggered, but I know I was like 18 years old because I used to have a lot of anxiety about it. I used to have a lot of fear. Um, I just was consumed with just a lot of doubt. So I just one day I was like, you know what, I gotta reclaim my life. Uh I gotta work, I gotta do better. My mom, I gotta help her. She has children. So it was really just my my resilience. Is it just was something in me that just I knew I had to just do better? I I just kept doing it and I stopped doing it. So I haven't done it in a long time. Years. Okay. 37.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

So all right. And you've walked through a lot of toxic relationships with yes and a lot of family trauma. At what point did you realize that you had to do that you had to make that change for yourself?

The 11-11 Turning Point

SPEAKER_03 5:53

I realized I had to make that change for me. It was uh 11-11-2020. Uh, I remember that at the time I never correlated that, but until I spoke to somebody, uh, it was a very traumatic situation that I was in. And somebody was like, 11-11, that's a new beginning. And I was like, wow, I never looked at that date like that. I always said November 11, 2020. But in that situation, I definitely um hit rock bottom, and I had to realize in that situation I needed more emotional stability, emotional intelligence. Like that is very important to know when to leave and when to stay. So, like I said, getting into that situation and just sitting back and asking myself, okay, where did this all start? It definitely started from when I was a child. So I had to take steps back, um, sit down, I write, I journal, and I was able to come up with okay, this is the problem. And the problem came from childhood trauma. And so what was leading me into toxic relationships. So that was the beginning for me.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

So that's the that's that's that's what we talk about here on B3U is breaking those generational cycles, the way you were raised, yes, Carrie, or and what you went through as a child, and uh and what you went, what trauma you went through as a child can affect you in your in your adult life, and you don't even realize you don't even really it's so crazy how it's like I could just one day just be laying in the bed and like a light bubble go off.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Like, oh my god, I I could watch a movie and literally something that just triggered something from my childhood, and I'll sit up like, oh my goodness, that's where that came from, especially with my father dying so young. I have a lot of trauma from that, which I didn't never think that I did until I had my first dream about my father. It was like I always felt like he wasn't dead, if that makes any sense, because I wasn't as a nine-year-old child, you hear, okay, your father's dead, but then you don't know about death. You don't know, and especially if your parent isn't like if you're not in church. So those things are important because at the time I didn't know really about church, I didn't know nothing about the Bible. All I knew is that people lived and then they died. I didn't know where they came from, I didn't know who was the creator, I didn't know nothing. So I'm thinking, like, okay, I'm nine. Maybe he just ran off somewhere and he just didn't want to deal with his kids. I didn't know that I dealt with that, so move forward, but I knew my dad was a very loving dad out and he would say things like, I would never leave you, I'm never going nowhere. So in my mind, if you tell me I'm never gonna leave you, I'm never going nowhere, I wake up, you're going, you're a liar. So I created this protection around me. Like, I can't trust people. Like people, they just leave. But that wasn't even a situation. So I had to really dig deep. And like I said, a lot of that and who I was at nine years old, my father passing away, it definitely resonated in my relationship with men.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Wow, yeah. These experiences um are all too familiar with a lot of people that you know I interview with, and this is whole, this is about a teaching people who may be in that situation right now, you know, the things that you went through. But let's talk about the ex how did that these experiences shape how you saw yourself in in for a long time? How did you see yourself?

Childhood Loss And Trust Wounds

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Um, for a long time, I just didn't really see myself. I just felt like I just was existing. I really didn't have a purpose. I was like, get up every day, grab my mask, put it on and show up in the world. And I was, I was, I wasn't okay with that, but I was okay because people didn't, they didn't see the the hurt, they didn't see the pain. So it helped it carried me through so many years, but I had to realize at the end of the day, I know I don't need the mask. I don't want the mask no more. I need people to see me. I have a voice. Um, I'm not gonna allow you know what I've been through to shape me. I'm not gonna live in fear anymore. I didn't know the my value, I didn't know my worth. I would just allow people to just mistreat me, misuse me. Uh I was a people pleaser, even though I'm people know me, I don't play, but I I can look back and see where as though I was being mistreated and allowing people to use me in ways that I was just like, okay, it's whatever, I don't care. Like I didn't allow myself to be vulnerable anyway in the first place. So it's like what you got from me really wasn't nothing, it wasn't much. But I had to realize that in the spaces that I was in, every part of me, every second of my time was worth it, was worthy. I was viable. Like I'm no longer, I don't have a minute to waste. So it was like I was like, I had to speak up, I had to use my voice, I had to realize that the mask definitely has to come off, and you have to show up, you have to do the work, you have to literally shut everything out and focus right in on you. And that was the hardest part because I love to help people be the go-to person, but I was empty. I I ganked a bunch of weight, I didn't recognize who I was, I was super unhappy. I dedicated a lot of time into my children. I felt like I just didn't even matter. It I didn't matter at all. And I woke up one day, I said, you know what? I'm gonna put me first. And the terms F them kids, I hate that, but it's like really like F everyone around you, like you come first. And when I tell you, I felt so guilty, I cried so much because I'm like, who am I to want to put me first? But when I did, that's when I rose above all the ashes and I shine like the Phoenix that I was.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yes, yes, because survival will keep you alive, right? But healing gives you your life back once you wake, make that decision, like like you said, FDK. But it's really it's just like look, you have to get it, get to a point in your mind to say, I'm tired. Yes, I'm tired of just surviving because just surviving it wears you down, it wears you down. Just trying, but once you say, look, I need to make this decision to get it right to heal my first, let me heal my mind, heal myself. It's just like being in an airplane, right? What do they tell you? Put your mask on first, yes, before you can help someone else. Yes, that is very important with life.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

And I and it's so crazy that you said that because I say I said to someone before, people have to start using people have to start using their time like they're getting on a flight and not a bus. Because what happens when you're when you have an air, when you have to catch a flight, every if you're a traveler, they tell you to be there sometimes three to five hours earlier. That gives you a window, yes. And when you miss and a the determination it takes to get up, get dressed, you literally will run through the airport so you won't miss that flight. That flight is important, but with the bus, you got like a little 35-minute window. Sometimes with a flight, you miss a whole day. So the urgency is like so different from a flight and bus. So it's like treat life like you're missing a flight. It's like, and so what you said about the mask is is it's a whole different situation and scenario. It it takes a lot to preparation, motivation, determination, and when you have somewhere to go, you're gonna get there.

The Mask, People-Pleasing, And Worth

SPEAKER_00 13:49

That's right. You're gonna get there, right? That's right. Many people never make that decision, and that's where cycles uh stay alive. Uh, it just takes for people just to sit back for that. And it's funny that you mention um flying. I also say that when you're flying in uh in an airplane, you you may hit some turbulence, you're gonna hit some turbulence, right? And the thing is, when you hit turbulence, you gotta you I for me, I know that I'll be like, Oh my gosh, I get queasy, and it's like, oh, I just you know stay buckled up in my seat, and I just feel like it's gonna be over soon, it's gonna be over soon, and then once that turbulence is over, I can breathe again. Yes, that's how life is. Look, you're in life, you're going to have good and bad, and that's what we were talking about because I can relate to you on nobody ever told you about death. When we lost uh our grandmother, which would be your great-grandmother, nobody told me she was gonna go anything, and she was the rock of the family. Yes, she held everything together, all the festivities, the you know, the joy, the laughter, you know, she held it all together. Yes, nobody explained that that was going to go away, so that did build uh on top of many other traumas, that just that just put the cherry on the top, you know. Yes, and so you know, but you know, after you uh go through so much trauma and realize that you you're everything is not going to be peaches and cream every day, it's just not. And once we get into that that that mind frame and we make the decision that no matter what life gives me today, I'm gonna make the decision to break the generational cycles and the generational curses before us. Yes, and this is why I want the audience to know that I'm so uh grateful. I know you guys heard me call her my niece cousin, but she's more so my me and her mother are more like sisters. We were born on the same day. I'm five minutes older, which she is flat, but I'm telling you, um, where I can appreciate Ashonda for you coming on is because you're young, you're 37 years old, and there I want more young people to hear the stories that we have, which I'm sure is very familiar for a lot of young people. I'm sure. But it's like when do we and I this is why I want to talk to people who's coming out of schools or coming uh in college or whatever, and they're making that life or even before that, so they can learn that listen, things may come in life, every things are gonna come, things are gonna go. Things come, things go. Good happens, bad happens. But the thing is, you have to be make a decision in your life to say, you know what, I'm not gonna keep repeating these cycles so you can build the legacy that you want for your children, and that is exactly what you are doing. So I appreciate you even coming on the show to you know explain this to young people because this is the I call it the awakening, and not I don't want to say the take back because how many times you know I can't stand when the year changes and people want to make the um those new year resolutions every day. Is a new day that God allows you to open your eyes and reflect into your lungs. What decision will you make today? You know, are you gonna continue to stay in toxicity? Are you gonna continue those generational curses to where your children just keep carrying it on? Are you gonna make that that you know that decision to say, you know what, something gotta change? Something has to change.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Something has to change. And when you have and when you have children, because I had to understand that one being a parent doesn't come with a book. You can think you can you're doing the best job ever. You can think you're giving your kids the world, but what do you do when you don't know that you're now hurting your children with your own toxicity and the things that you've experienced? So that was something that I had to look in the mirror and face once before. Um, having an older, I'm sorry, my phone, having a son, that's my firstborn. The firstborn always goes through everything with you. Yes, they go through everything with you because you're still growing, no matter how old or young you are when you have your child, they're they're gonna go through life with you because you're still finding yourself. And I had to look at situations and say, hmm, that looks a little bit too familiar, and take a step back and have a conversation, not just with myself, but with my kid, and ask the heart, you know, am I doing a good job? Am I hurting you? How do you feel? Your emotional state. That's important. Sometimes in life, I feel like we look at kids like they're just kids, like they they deal with a lot of hurt. Our experiences, if you're in a relationship with a toxic man and you're being abused, that child is being abused right along with you. That child is feeling your hurt, that child wants peace, that child wants a normal, stable home. And oftentimes parents don't even correlate that and see that they don't realize. And for me, I'm a if I'm in a situation of relation of relationship, I'm a runner, I don't gotta deal with this. Is I I'm a woman, I'm a very independent person, so I don't have to sit and staggering situations, so I could just leave. But I didn't realize that with me running and floating and just going back and coming back and go, he was exhausted. It's like I'm tired. Yes, and I'm like, Jesus, we're not, we're we're not stable, we're living in bags because I don't I don't even feel comfortable in the relationship that I'm in. So let me keep my stuff in bags and boxes so that way when it's time to go next month, just in case it is time to go, I can just pack up and go. But once my son said to me, I'm tired, I don't want this no more. I had to make a choice because that's how I was being bounced around with my mom through situations, not being stable, not having I had to cut it out and then a treat down to him and his school because he would face the obstacle, he would get up and he will run.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

So sometimes flight, you don't even know that you're creating that instead of staying you're just flight, and that's why you just run it off.

unknown 20:37

And they was like, you know, he doesn't have to stay where he just runs out to school. And he had a really sick.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Okay, welcome back, welcome back everyone from the break. Uh, we were talking about toxic relationships and how the power is often so uh slowly lost. So let's pick back up where Shashana, because it was good, it was good. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

And I I was just explaining that sometimes as parents, we don't know that we're actually making the same mistakes, the same footsteps, the same, same footprints that our parents need, unknowingly, because we haven't dealt with our own trauma and really sat down and took the time to sometimes even just speak with our parents. That is very important. A lot of people don't do that, they make their own analysis, they come up with their own things. But when you really sit down and talk to your parent, you get a different perspective. And I know for me, that happened when I was 26 years old, it was the best thing I ever did. I was holding on to too much hate. And I'm like, I need to really let my mom know how I feel respectfully. You don't, it don't have to be, you don't have to be cursing, you don't have to, it just Mom, dad cannot talk to you.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Right.

Flight Versus Bus: Urgency Of Change

SPEAKER_03 22:03

And it it can be hard if you have a parent who don't take a who's not going to take accountability, who's not receptive to what you have to say. So it's going to take a lot of patience. And if you have a parent that's like that, just know going in that you're not really looking for an apology or anything like that. It's really more so for your healing. That would be that would be what I would say for a person that you know deal with that kind of parent because my mother is not like that. She's more understanding, she's patient, she's kind, she takes accountability. So at the end of the day, I know that even though she's like that, I'm not just gonna push everything in your face because I know you can take it. I still want to have respect, I still want to have those boundaries because you're my mother, right? So that's that's very important. I feel like moving forward in toxic toxic relationships, uh, being trying to be a different person, trying to heal, go to the source, don't make up just go to the source. Because when I look back and I look at my mom and I talk to my mom, then I look at my nana, and I go down, I'm like, oh, this is why I was handled crumbs. Because sometimes your parents only can give you what they was taught.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yes, yes, and that's good, Ashonda. That's good. And and and look, let me tell you, you're 37, I'm 55, right? Yes, and it took me until the age of 53 to learn what you've already done. Okay, and it's like, you know, I was like, well, you know, for so long, I never realized that my trauma started from watching my mom's trauma. Yes, yes, you know, and I would I again I was also angry, like, why am I being treated this way? Like, you know, I wanted, you know, a lot of people never understood why I did the things that I did, but that was little Bridget just trying to say, Hey, yes, I'm right here, you know, let me help you, let me, and that led me into being an adult that was, you know, pushing everything to the back, letting people do or say what they want to say, and I'll just I'll just wait. Yes, I'll just wait, you know, masking my hurt, my pain, and didn't even realize that it was just a cycle that it because I always I I watch my mother be abused, and I said, Well, that ain't never gonna be me, you know, and then what happened? I fall right into the right into the cycle and and sit there with no way out, alienated from my family, um, things of that nature is because you know, and I was angry with my mom and my father once I went to and uh again I want to uh state that therapy therapy is not a bad thing. Go get some therapy, some help to kind of help you guide to where your trauma came from. Now, let me ask you a question. Uh, did you seek therapy or is it therapy or community? How did you realize your trauma before you sat down and you had that heart-to-heart with your mother? Uh, where did you get any help from anyone else?

Turbulence, Grief, And Acceptance

SPEAKER_03 25:13

No, no, it was just I became a I became a parent. I became a mother. I became a mother, and things started to shift for me. And um, I was in a relationship, and I think uh it was a comment that was made. Um he made a comment and it kind of like triggered me, like it bothered me. But I'm like, you know what? I was see when I would date a guy, I felt like I had to be hard. Like I wasn't, I wasn't soft, loving, feminine. I had a guard up. It's like, what's up? You ready? Like, you ain't gonna get over on me, you ain't gonna hit me. It's like I was always on go. But I realized I don't know how to love because of my mom. Like, I don't want to be her, I don't want to be the pushover, I don't want to be being cheated on and abused. So instead of me being, I thought, okay, if I don't act like her, I act this way, then I'll get different results. It don't matter. It is that's not true. That's all you do is create a toxic environment because now you hostile, you you don't have no self-control, and then that creates a problem for a man because he's a man, he's like, I wear the shoes, who you think you are, and I'm like, Who you think, you know, so it became it becomes a battleground, but it's but now we're two people who have our own traumas, you know, because he may deal with abandonment issues and have a mother who was hostile in his face, and I don't know that, you know. So I was like, you know what? I need to sit down and talk to my mom because this is a problem, and I just I just want it better. And then, like I said, my journey with God and just praying more and just different things, it was different things was being revealed to me, and I was like, you know what, I need to sit down and talk to my mom, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

And see, that's good. That's that's good. Um, it and it's it that's called facing your fears and your trauma head on. Like, hey, I need to sit down, I need to get uh uh some uh questions, yes, some answers from these questions that I have, and and uh I want a lot of people that's that's an awakening when you can face whatever it is that you've been through and face it head on and say, Hey, I need I need answers. And like you said, uh I like what you said too about not coming and uh with force with your mom, you know. It was like, hey, no, let's just have a conversation, and sometimes um parents it all is different for everybody, you know. You had an approachable parent. I didn't have an approachable parent to where I could just ask questions, and that's a part of the generational cycle that I want to get rid of is children should be seen and not heard, you know, where you couldn't talk to an adult and ask them questions, like you don't, you know, you don't question no that going adult, you do what the adult tells you to do, and that's it.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

That comes from generational curses because generational curses, guess back then. Uh uh older, you can ask elders their age. You as a child, you had a place. Like we, you know, I'm 37, so when I look at the generation now, but I always my age, I'm like, Oh, y'all lucky, we couldn't do this. Exactly, exactly. We couldn't go look, you be it was it, it was like it was like this generation now. I didn't even know my mom had a bank account, let alone what bank she banked with. That was the the stuff that these kids do now is like Logan be looking at me sometimes like mom, what are you talking about? I'm like, you don't understand, like when you walk into a room and it's an adult conversation, they don't even got to say nothing to you. They look at you, you knew to turn right around and get out the room. Now, these people are having physical live conversations around children, and and and you looking like that's not normal, it's not normal behavior, but like you see it, some of that it did shun shun you away, and you didn't feel like you had a voice, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

I didn't have a voice, I didn't have a voice, yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

We were not allowed to have a voice, you wasn't even allowed to have certain emotions. Like, I'm sad. What you mean you said you can't be sad, you ain't paying no damn, but you know exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

You are really getting into the whole stuff. That is the old, but so these are now with we all right, have like we were talking about, we all have raised our children to be different from what we raised through trauma. Parenting does not come with a handbook, and and I'll uh I too as well and say, you know, I want people to know you can't be mad with your parents and your parents' parents and your parents' parents' parents. You just can't, okay. For especially for our culture, you know, we were uprooted, we don't even know really who we are. So we can and our parents didn't know who they were and what they were supposed to be doing, how to raise a kid, because nobody showed them they could only go off of what how they were raised, what they did or didn't like, and then they raised their children. And so it's like this is what the big take back is about. Let's figure out what is it that we want to redesign or reframe in our in our culture, in our general, in our families, you know, so we can reach that level that we need to be as a people. Yes. See, we gotta help other people. Religion sometimes, that not sometimes, but religion, some parts of religion have damaged people. Yes, is the reason why people don't really go to the church anymore. But let you know, let's reclaim this, let's reclaim it, let's that let's really take it back, get an understanding, and and move from there. Yeah, so I want to. What was the hardest part when you said I I'm choosing myself? I'm choosing myself. What was the hardest part about choosing yourself?

Parenting Patterns And The Runner’s Cycle

SPEAKER_03 31:25

Not not having to care about nobody else outside of me. That was very hard, like putting my kids second. I literally had to come before everything and everybody that really bothered me. Like people ask me all the time, how did you do it? How did you lose 100 pounds? How did you come about the situation, being in the crisis center, losing everything in the house fire? I literally had to put me first. And even when I talk about it now, it's I just put myself first again, getting my surgery that I wanted. I always wanted to get a tummy tuck or whatever, be you know, feel you know, beautiful inside and out because of my insecurities. I felt guilty about that because once again, I gotta depend on people, up group people, and their their normalcy and come help me. And I'm not a person who likes to ask for help, but I gotta put me first. I had choosing you, it choosing me is so hard because I do I show up for everybody all the time. Like it's like if I can't help you, I feel bad. Like it's just it's a lie. I don't know why I feel why I'm like that, but it definitely bothers me. But I was like, when I was getting my weight loss surgery, I was like, that night before I'm about to just not even do it. Like, who would who are you? Like, I really was talking to myself, like, who are you to want to even feel like you again? Like, this is this is your new normancy. Like, you're big, you your mom, it and I I just was like, no, but then God gave me visions. I kept having visions, and in my visions, I was I would tell people about the visions all the time, and they was like, Shana, you know what's gonna happen. I'm like, but I don't even look like that, like that's a bikini. I never wore no bikini. I never it was so much stuff about the vision that I would see, even with me being happy. Like I was with somebody and I was super, super happy. And I'm like, I would tell them like it's a God in his vision. I'm so happy with him. I never felt this sense of peace before. And no lie, like I wake up today and I'm literally that person in the vision. And I'm like, I knew that God was moving me. I just had to really sit still, honor his word, and trust him. I had to trust the process, but putting me first was hard.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yes, it was and and sometimes in these toxic relationships and things that we're we're not staying because we don't stay in them because we're weak, right? We stay because the fear feels familiar, you know. It feels familiar and unfamiliar feels dangerous to us, right? You you get scared to jump out there and see what's outside of the norm, and you will make certain sacrifices for your kids.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Like I often sometimes stay in situations for my for my son, for my daughter. Like, I don't want them to grow up and not have a father in the home because that's how I was. So I didn't want to repeat the same cycle. I didn't, especially with my daughter.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

When I when I got pregnant with her, I was pushing a lot of me on her, and I had to tell myself her story, not your story.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

I was trying my so desperately, and I knew I was trying so desperately not to like have her go through certain situations that I went through. But even today, when I look back, I'm like, you know what? This is God's purpose. Like, you can't rewrite the story, but at the end of the day, I know that I'm a great mother. I know that I show up, I know that I made the right choices, and I have no regrets. That's the best part. I can't say I regret anything that I've done.

Healing Conversations With Parents

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Right. And and you get to that point, especially when you're you're you're redesigning your family. Yeah. You know, you don't don't use sometimes, you know. I thought that I did that with my children, right? It's like, look, I'm not staying in West Philadelphia and I'm not going to keep going. I want the best for my kids. I bought them here. Now I want to give them the best. But not everything you do because now, so my children feel like, hey, mom, you know, you did the best you can. We love you for that, but I wish you were there more. I wish you would have paid more attention. And it's like, oh my God. But what we need to realize, right, is that we can be raised however we were raised. Okay. We know our parents went well, but it's like, what, and and that's what I want my grandchildren to know. Okay, if you didn't like how you were raised, you didn't like something, what are you going to do now? The decision still falls back into your hands, whoever it is, it fell back into our hands, the way we were raised, because if you would have said, you know what, no, this way my mom raised me, I'm just gonna be this way. Where would you be today? You know, if if I would have, you know, taken the path the the way I was raised, I I don't know where I would be today. But I had to make that decision and that choice, like, okay, everything wasn't all good, but this is the way I'm going to grow. So if we keep laying those bricks and those foundations, we will get there. And I um also wanted to say that the other important um thing about this, too, is that when you say, Who am I? You know, you felt bad for healing and taking care of yourself, you are the child of the most high God, yeah, supreme being. And the reason why you are worthy is because he said you are, he said he is within us, right? He's within us, so why shouldn't we be like him? Yes, the kings and queens that he he brought us, the spiritual beings connected with him. That's why we deserve everything. And we we have to stop putting ourselves, we have to stop shrinking ourselves, we have to stop minimizing the things that we do. You are amazing business owner. You you are your hair's the look, okay. If y'all don't know, you're gonna hurt say, okay, you have a craft, and even when people sit in your chair, I sit in your chair, that's another thing we need to be open to, right? It's not saying, oh, she's young, she don't know what she's talking about. Yeah, in Ashonda's chair, okay. Even me at my age, you gave me some wisdom that I never even thought to think about. And I was like, wow, I just learned that today.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

But when you say that, I do not remember what I said.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

That'd be the look, you you brought me from a place to where you you had me mind shift from a way that I was thinking, and I wasn't that you know, I wasn't like think, I wasn't thinking outside the box and the hurt and the pain. And you sometimes it takes people to see who you are, yes, before you can see who you are, and then sometimes you probably don't even see what that person is saying, but make that you should make a decision to say, you know what, if somebody or people are saying this to me, then it must be something that I'm worthy of. Let me break through this, let me break through this and get there because cycles don't break, they do not break by accident. Cycles break through hard work, it breaks when somebody decides that it's going to stop with me, it's going to stop with me, and I'm making a change right now. So I'm so proud of you doing that. So you're creating a legacy, and um, um, the way you know you becoming a mother has shifted your life and your choices is amazing. So, what cycles are you intentionally breaking for your children?

SPEAKER_03 39:11

One, I need them to understand that hard work always pays off, and I need them to know that you're worthy. You could do you could do whatever you put your mind to. Yes, you can put uh I need them to have I I need them to have emotional intelligence. That's really I keep talking about that only because I didn't have that for so long. Like they got a new term now crash out. Yes. At the end of the day, you are so vulnerable when you allow to have someone else who had that much power and control over you to crash out. When I tell you the last time I crashed out, I lost everything. I'm talking about stripped away from bra, panties, socks, shoes. So that's not a good feeling when you look up and you realize that you allow somebody to take everything you work so hard for. I'm talking about everything I work hard for for me and my kids was now going up into flames, literally. And I'm having to report back to the Red Cross Center at 11 o'clock every day with my kids. All because I didn't have the emotional intelligence to say, you know what, let me walk away. I crashed out. So I don't I don't really like that terminology. And I need my kids to know that at the end of the day, know who for you. Pay attention, be vigilant. If you feel like something is off, remove yourself. Set set healthy boundaries. That's that's what I want my kids to know. And at the end of the day, if you simply don't know anything and I can't give you the answer, go read. It's it's the information is right there. I never was taught about credit, I never was taught about, like I say, um God, certain things. Like I was even at this big age, I still have questions. I don't know, but I know that it's a book. I could go read, I could go talk to people that that know the knowledge of who Christ is. Um, that's very important in my home, is for my kids to know who God is. You ask my kids, my five-year-old daughter right now. Uh, if you're going through something, who do you talk to? She will say God. She don't say me first. I need her to know that you go to God first. Because even though she's five, she still have emotions and different experiences from me because I'm an adult. So I try to allow them to process life on a different level because I'm 37, I've been here longer than them. They don't know, they don't understand, they can't really comprehend. So I definitely with my legacy is just letting my kids know to just be kind, know how to show up the people. You know what I mean? Like if it's if it's something you're not into, even down to drugs, people gonna try to hand you stuff, give you stuff at the end of the day. Make the right decision. Yes, I can't tell you not to do it, but I will give you the information that if you do this, this will be the outcome. Once you get locked up, mommy can't save you. I can't come to the jail and take you out. I just I give them, I talk to my kids like real life. I'm not, it's not cookies and cream because at the end of the day, one day I'm not gonna be here. And I need y'all to know that when I'm going, y'all be I teach my son stuff now that if I die tomorrow, he would know how to take care of his wife and his children. Understand why I do that, but life is not promised. I he's a man, I'm a woman. Son, this is what a tampound looks like, this is what a pad. My why I need to know because just in case you have a daughter, and you need to go out and go get oh, okay. It like Logan is very intuitive, he's very intelligent, he's very, very, very smart. He's he's a child that seemed like he'd been here before. My daughter, the same way, but I know it's because of how I'm teaching them how to survive without me, whether I'm here or not, how to conduct yourself, whether I'm in the room or around the corner. People that so oh, that's your son. He's real good. He would be with kids and they'll be cursing. He won't. You have to show up for you, you your own person, your character speaks for itself, and that's all I my character is all I got. I don't care about my reputation at all, but my character, when I show up in the room, who I am, that's it.

Choosing Self Without Guilt

SPEAKER_00 43:19

You know why? Um, it because legacy isn't isn't what you leave behind, right? Yes, it's what you change while you're still here on this earth, and that's why I pray. And when you say you use you tell your daughter, you know, to talk to God first, we need to understand, you know. I I just you know, I tell people like, unless you study, like really study the word, and I, you know, I'm getting back into that studying uh because I want to know it all, you know, I want to know like the truth of everything. And I'm getting, but the one thing, even if you don't know scripture. Yes. Understand that the most high is a spirit and you talk to him how through your spirit. Yes. So I even sit and even with my just just sit, sit and just just meditate and just you know connect spiritually with because you if you don't know, some people say, I don't know how to pray. Sit there in silence, meditate and have one thing in your mind, maybe just to say, help me, free me, whatever it is that you're going through. Yes. Sit in spirit and connect with the Holy Spirit, right? Even if you don't know how to pray, you don't even have to say any words. Okay. So I love it. I love it all. And that that is exactly how we uh what taking back your power actually looks like. Um so uh let me ask you this. Um boundaries and beliefs had to change for you to step into the woman you are now, right? So what boundaries have you set for yourself that you say these are my boundaries? This is how I'm going to stay grounded. So, how do you stay grounded? What are some of your patterns um that try to resurface that you say, mm-mm, uh-uh, no more, I'm shutting it down.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

So, healthy boundaries always boundaries for me always help me because it keep it keep the the compliers and the uncompliers, you're either gonna be here or you're not in a very healthy, respectful way. And I say that only because when it comes to my boundaries, is it's not negotiable. Like one, we have to align, we have to be on the same page. I don't think I'm better than nobody, but I definitely don't. If I'm working super hard and I'm hustling, grinding, getting up every single day, I can't be with nobody who just lay around.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

No, you have to show up and give a thousand percent the same way that I do. I'm big on respect. I respect you, you respect me. I'm very thoughtful, you be thoughtful. Um I had a situation where someone lived with me, they didn't want to comply with certain rules, and I'm like, at the end of the day, I pay the bills here, and because I love you, this is how it has to go. You live here for free. I don't want uh different people in and out of my home. I don't like that. I don't like people coming in and out of my house because I don't know people, people carry energy, different spirits. I just don't like it. And once I was telling them these things, they became very angry with me, very upset, they didn't like me, whatever. And I told them that they had to leave because you're disrespectful, they didn't understand. Oh, now I'm not family. No, I am because I know that I'm helping you. If I allow you to stay here, be disrespectful, not show up, lay around. You're not giving, you're not even giving yourself a thousand percent.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

If I allow you to be in my safe space and just allow you to do whatever you want, you're never gonna grow. Once I let that person go free as a bird, they got their own house, they wanted to work, they started showing up, but only because it was healthy boundaries. You get what I'm saying? You didn't want to comply when you was here because oh, you I'm I'm I'm being like a drill sergeant. This that no, it's in place for a reason. All your boundaries is gonna is it's gonna stop a lot of negativity, a lot of pain, a lot of drama. For one cheating, if I'm in a relationship, that's not you can't cheat. I'm not cheating, you're not cheating. It's about respect. If you can't do that, then we can't be together. We don't gotta fight, we don't gotta argue, just go.

Familiar Fear And Leaving For Peace

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Yeah, healthy boundaries because if you don't put yourself first, nobody else will. If you don't if you lay down what they say, you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas, it is so that is so some of these metaphors are so true, okay. And healthy, healthy isn't pretending that you're past it, healing is recognizing patterns, okay, and choosing differently anyway. You know what I'm saying? From those patterns of disrespect, patterns of just you know, uh toxic relationships or any kind of problems, you have to choose yourself, you have to choose yourself and you have to choose put boundaries in place because like you said, there they they just won't adhere to them. Yes, yeah, so if you had something and you wish someone had told you when you in the middle of what was something that you wish somebody would have told you at your hardest season at heart, and I heard you say that you burned down their house and you you everything, you lost everything. What was something you wish somebody had told you for somebody that's out there right now in their hardest season? What could you say?

SPEAKER_03 49:14

Who you think you are in that moment at that age won't be you in the next five years. I tell people laugh all the time. I say, I'm on my third life, I'm literally on my third life. Everything about me with my my first child in that relationship, I'm not that person. He don't even know me. I don't even want him to think he does when we got a child.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 49:38

He don't know. I know he don't because I don't even I don't even recognize that person I was.

unknown 49:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

I'm so different that my second relationship with now with my daughter father. Um I was uh people pleasing, willing to just tolerate certain things. I had a lot of fear. It was weird because my son, I always say he represents purpose. When I had him, he was purpose. Lee is my strength. She gave me the strength to realize that I can do it, that I can walk away. I don't have to stay in these seasons for different reasons. So she was she allowed me to actually get up and make the move. I had a lot of fear. Third life, peaceful. I I don't have I am who I am, I love who I am, I don't have a mask. Somebody asked me today, hey Sean, how you doing? I can say I'm good without feeling hurt inside. I'm happy, I have so much peace. I have so I could when I talk, I smile a lot. Like it's it's different, it's very I glow. I know that I'm different. I know that I'm the light. I know when I walk in that I'm her. Like nobody, I don't, I don't feel none of what I felt before. It's just like, yeah, I'm here and I'm here to stay.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Like, so what I hear you saying, Shonda, you went through the burn, you broke it, and now you're into becoming.

SPEAKER_03 51:02

I always say I always the phoenix, I always tell people the I always say this to people because it's a it's a story about a phoenix, and people don't know about the phoenix, but the phoenix went through the phoenix was burnt, burnt down to the ashes, rose up, bigger, better, and beautiful that you ever thought before, like that you ever seen before. Like it came back, like you couldn't even recognize it because it was so it was it was bright, it was and the part of the story that always gets me is that it's a myth, it's not I'm the phoenix, it's not a myth, it's real. And that's that's how I feel about myself. Like that really resonates with me. Like, you telling me that was a myth. No, I know because I've been through the fire, I've been down to the ashes, and I rose up. I'm the phoenix, it's not a myth. This I want, and that's what I people I want people to know that about me. Don't think that it's just a myth, or you just thinking that you maybe I'm just tripping, maybe I'm just having these bit. No, everything about you that you feel in your spirit, in your heart is really who you are. You really can be that person, you can have that job, you can have that career, you can have that home.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Yes, is there have that mental that mental strength that you want? Okay, some people, some people just cave into mental health, thinking that they're not worthy or they're not strong enough, or they're you know, some people meant anxiety, you know, all it takes is just realizing who you are and saying, you know, enough is enough. This is who I am, you know, this is who I aspire to be. I may not be perfect, but I strive for perfect for perfection. That's what I say to myself. When you look at when your children look back at you one day, what is uh what do you hope that they'll say about you as your their mother?

SPEAKER_03 52:55

She the strongest person I know. My mom is the strongest person I know. I'm they gonna it's Logan do it now. We just be we just smile and laugh about stuff. He be like, Mom, remember that time when you said you was gonna lose weight? Now look, I could put my arms around you. Like everything that I said that I was gonna do, like when I had it when we was in the crisis center, I remember looking at him in his eyes and I said, Do you trust me? He said, Yes. I said, Do you believe that we will have another house and we will have three bedrooms and you will have your own room? He said, I do. We in our own house, he has his own room, and it's a three-bedroom. Is I'm I already know what I gotta do. Just back me up, be my be my wingman, and we out. It's like my that's how I feel. And my my kids give me so much power and so much strength. Like, without them, I don't know what I couldn't do without them. They just like they give me if your kids don't like that spark up in you, it's like you definitely gotta go sit and talk to somebody because that's the that's the sole reason. Same reason with your journey and how you was able to get up and want to go, get into the military. Everything that you did served was for your children, and yes, it's a purpose, it's a purpose.

Boundaries That Protect Peace

SPEAKER_00 54:13

I always had that feeling of purpose, even all the way down to my suicidal uh days or my homicidal days. I would bounce back and forth. It's like I don't really want to hurt anybody, that's not my nature. I want to hurt people because I'm hurting and they're causing me more grief. I should just get rid of them all, or I should just take myself out because I'm not I'm not helping anybody. Yeah, but when I would end those seasons, I was like something would just the spirit with that was in me would say, No, you just you have to hold on because there you have a purpose, but you just have to make the decision to set boundaries. Everything that we are telling people today, you have to make that decision to find it and spiritually connect with that so you can move forward.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Um, find uh family. I the everybody who is listening out there, if this conversation has spoken to you, um, it is because your big take back is waiting. Okay, you don't have to stay stuck, you don't have to repeat the cycle. You can decide today to make that change, take that step. Uh, Shonda, I really appreciate you for coming on and sharing your inside, um, your inside of your life with others and the hopes, okay, that some other young people, and we're gonna be doing more things. We're we're uh we're collaborating together, and we're going to are going to put the big take back message out there together. We're going to be coming to Philadelphia, um, and we're going to be there and we're going to start having some of these uh panel discussions and we're going to have audiences with questions and answers because it's it's all about breaking the cycles and building legacies. So please continue to join us here on B3U, the big take back here on Mogul TV. Ashando, thank you for coming out.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Thank you so much. I had a good time. Just get up today, apply yourself, and just get up the next day and make it better than it was yesterday. Just don't give up.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

That's it. And this is your girl Brie Charles here at B3. Love you.