Embracing Yourself: The Journey to Letting Go

In this heartfelt episode of SafeTalk, young voices from the Face to Face SafeZone open up about the real journey of self-acceptance, growth, and learning to let go. The group dives into body positivity, breaking free from toxic habits and relationships, and the everyday struggles and triumphs that shape identity—especially for teens and young adults finding their way.

Hear personal stories about overcoming negative self-talk, the impact of family and social media, and the power of affirmations and supportive communities. The conversation explores how faith, self-reflection, and setting healthy boundaries can help navigate tough emotions and build confidence from the inside out.

This episode is all about being authentic, honoring your own journey, and surrounding yourself with people who lift you up. Whether you’re working on your self-image, letting go of what no longer serves you, or simply trying to feel comfortable in your own skin, you’ll find honest advice, encouragement, and a reminder that you’re not alone on the path to self-love.

This work is funded in part by MHC with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was created with the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

Created by Youth Advocate and Recording Arts Specialist Tek Burch, the Face to Face SafeTalk Podcast opener blends music and spoken word to spotlight youth truth, justice, and hope. It sets the stage for honest conversations, celebrating strength, breaking barriers, and amplifying youth voices in a space where every story matters.

Transcript

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Welcome to Safe Talk. Today's episode, we'll explore the journey of self-acceptance, growth, and letting go. You know, from body positivity to breaking free from toxic habits and relationships, we're diving into the struggles and triumphs that shape our identity, especially for young adults and teenagers finding their way through the community. We got a group of young people here from Safe Zone. If you guys want to go around and introduce yourselves, let us know where you're from and a little bit about yourself. We'll start right here. Hey y'all, I'm Niaje. I'm from Southside, Minneapolis, and one thing about myself is that I love to sing. Hey yo, I'm Cullen from Bloomington, and one thing I'm into is music and sports. Lamont, I'm from Madison. I like political action directed at young males and the youth society in Gen Z's future. Sean from Minneapolis, and I like to play video games. Hey y'all, it's your girl Donetta. I'm from Springfield, Ohio. One thing about me, as y'all know, I am an author. I published my first books, 21 Day Diary of Affirmations for Self-Love. Come check me out in person or on Amazon. Hi, my name is Peter. I'm from ATL, and I love me some salsa or bachata. I love to shake it up in the dance room, you know, that's me, that's right. Hi, I'm Mani. I'm from St. Louis, and I like to walk around the lake. Right away, I want to get back to you Netta, because you mentioned that you have a book of affirmations. I do. Do you mind tell us a little bit about that, because it ties directly in to what we're talking about today, affirming words, positivity. I feel like body positivity is also ties a lot into your mental and how you appreciate yourself. So explain to us a little bit about this book that you wrote and the reason why you wrote it. Okay, so the reason I'm going to start with the reason why I wrote it. So I was a woman that struggled with low self-esteem and low self-worth, and so having the mindset of negative self-talk every day, no matter how people was like reaffirming me, reassuring me, saying like, well, you are beautiful. I'm like, well, no, I'm not, you know what I mean? So throughout my journey, I started to find healthier ways to believe that I am worthy of enough, you know, I'm not what the world said about me or make me conditioned to have me to about myself. I am what God said. And so I died deeper into my religion. I died. I started attending Bible study. I started attending church more quite frequently, and I just started surrounding myself with positive people because that plays a significant impact into my journey. And there was one more question. I'm sorry. Oh, no, it was it was you kind of got into both what made you write it. But also, I guess now that you're asking, I am kind of curious on how it's helped you so far now that you're this published author. Congratulations. But also just having that medium out there to help people, how has that helped you? It helped me because I remember on my journey, these affirmations that I published, I was saying those to myself. I am abundant. I am plentiful. I am embracing the moment. I am worthy of love. I am love. I'm not going to say too much, y'all, because you know what I mean? But you get where I'm going. You get where I'm going. And so I just started to, you know, affirm myself, but it was a self-discovery journey. I had to go on, you know, nice. So just let's talk a little bit about understanding what body positivity is. Can anybody give me their example of what they believe body positivity is and what it means to you? Body positivity to me, meaning is you're loving yourself unconditionally to where you're confident in every room you step in. No anxiety comes upon the mind to where, oh, I'm not, you know, I don't look good or body positivity to me means that I'm confident anywhere, everywhere and into who I am. Exactly. Has any of you guys in this room struggled? I mean, of course, you know, you explained your journey about your struggle. Who else has struggled with their image and in their body or the way they view themselves? Who has struggled with that? And can you explain a little bit of your struggle to us? I used to struggle with my own like body positivity. I didn't use to like my stomach. So I was going to the gym. I'm like, never felt comfortable putting on a dress or a skirt or like showing my legs or anything because I had like scars on them. But now that I was like, because family also was like, oh, you don't look right. You shouldn't put that dress on. That also like kills my spirit. People around you can convince you that you're not good enough if you start to believe some of the things that they say. And I just started to ignore what they said. And just how did you feel after that? I felt very much confident that I just like stepped out of my comfort zone, you know, just like I like how like I like the dress and the skirts, but I'm scared. I'll put that on and rock it. Good for you. You look good in it. And Colin, you were finna mention something. You go ahead and step in and let us know what you're gonna say. Sure. I've gone through some self images throughout my recovery. And when I was in treatment, a prayer that really got me through was, God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And that's, I feel like, unfortunately, a lot of us have heard that. Because a lot of us might may have may not have dealt with sobriety or people that are in recovery. That can just relate in any aspect. Exactly. I feel like if that was something that people took on, without having to go through that struggle of recovery from addiction, if that was just a mantra of people, like a lot of people's mindsets of how they navigate through life would be a lot different, because that is a that is a pretty strong prayer. You mentioned through your recovery, you had a lot of issues dealing with that. How easy is it you guys to fall into that condition that you're not good enough, you don't fit the norm, you don't fit the norm of beauty, or what people are? It's so incredibly easy. And then there's most people dealing with recovery issues are usually they end up homeless on the streets. And that just brings a whole nother outlook to yourself, and how the public sees you. Finding that acceptance that you are where you're at, but knowing that you need to make that change, and just finding how to do that, where to start, really. Exactly. Go ahead. I love what you just said. It's very easy to fall into that, especially like social media, where all of us on social media, and a lot of people's mindsets, too, and how they were raised. So them projecting that out into the world, projecting negative energy and stuff onto other people for no reason at all. It's easy to fall into that. Like, I don't like your hair, you look this, you look that. It's easy to believe it. Exactly. You know, so I found on my journey, it's very important to be rooted. You are who you say you are, you know what I mean? And in my religion, I read my Bible, I'm rooted what God says I am, you know, so it's very important to be rooted, to be affirmed. If you're religious, if you, you know, just be rooted in the Bible, if you're spiritual, positive affirmations, whatever that look like to you. I have a question for you, actually, for someone who comes from this perspective, from outside faith. How do you believe the church community, or the activity of finding a more positive, focused community helped you with your recovery? Because I've noticed that since I'm out of the church, a lot of people have a less spiritual outlook or less spiritual awareness in their lives day to day, and it, to me, makes them seem very materialistic and harder to be satisfied in their life without that concept of, there's a God who's okay with me. They have to be okay with the car, they have to be okay with the clothes, they have to be okay with the house before they can be okay with themselves. I've personally seen that a lot. I'm wondering if more in the church community, that's less. And I get that. I felt the same way, and I felt that way more when I was in the church community, and just based on just how everyone in the church would look at me and judge, and it led me to the point where it's less of a religion thing and more of a, you know, it's just between how you and your God, really. So it just, what helped me was getting out in nature, you know, getting active, finding an outlet to connect with your religion, and that really helps because it's really an individual thing. It is. I will say, like, with me, since I'm involved in my church, I block it out. I block the noise, and that's a really critical thing that you have to learn on your self-discovery journey, is blocking out the noise, blocking out that negative energy, you know. It happens everywhere, even in church, you know. It's real. And you know what? You just said something that was so beautiful. You gave some advice that is easy to give but harder for that individual to apply to themselves, but you made it a point to state that. It's something that you're going to have to discover or find on your own, the strength to block out the negative energy, because it's not as easy to do for some than it is for others that have worked on having to do that or have took the steps. Like, it's easier at first, but I'm not all the way there. But now I've reached the point where these communications from outside sources mean nothing to where I'm at with my journey. And that's something I want to stress, does take some time to kind of learn on your own. Like, how comfortable am I with myself where things that people say to me, no matter how hurtful they may sound, it doesn't affect me on my journey because I know where I'm at and I'm comfortable with where I'm at. That's beautiful how you said that it's something that everyone has to learn on their own, because it really is something that you got to discover on your own. I had another question that I wanted to ask the group. It goes a little bit back to what you were saying with not feeling comfortable with what you wear, how your stomach or anything looks. How healthy or unhealthy can that be where if you notice something about yourself that you're uncomfortable with, you want to work on it? Because you did mention your stomach made you want to go to the gym or things like that. How healthy or unhealthy could it be to notice something and want to actively change that part about you to make yourself feel better? I believe it depends on the level of what you're trying to change in yourself because you still were gifted a body. Your body is your body and it is perfectly in tune to you. It doesn't have to look like everybody else's. And I feel like I have been on social media for seven years now, greatest decision I've ever made in my life. I have noticed that especially when I do interact, it is becoming a lot more drug-induced appearance, whether it be people taking ozempic to lose weight, people taking TRT to gain weight, people taking creatine to gain weight. It is now your body is no longer enough to achieve your end goal. And I believe that is a very toxic society perspective to have. Your body is not meant to look like the person on TV. Your body is meant to look like yours. Some people have short femurs, some people have long femurs, some people got wide hips, some people got narrow hips, some people got big hands, some people got small hands. I don't think those... I've seen comments where it's like, oh, your hands are so tiny, hold up the phone. Never saw their hand in a picture again, right? It's little things like that that people say online that can damage people's perspective that I find to be the harmful aspect of body positivity, where it is, I am positive when I get a like, I'm positive when I get a comment, I'm positive when I get a smile. Yeah, be positive when you look in the mirror. It's the hardest place to look. The hardest place to look is in the mirror. And you mentioned the ways that could actually potentially harm you when it comes to changing your physical appearance when it comes to drugs or any of those type of unnatural substances that your body wouldn't have used to achieve whatever physical look that you're going for, whether it be weight loss, whether it be bulking up your muscle, whatever it might be. Those are ways that your body wouldn't have naturally gained that, you know, the progress that you were looking for. And that could be an unhealthy aspect. Absolutely. But I mean, how clear are we that the changes that you feel like you can make for yourself in a healthy way are just as normal? It's a normal way to feel and navigate through life. I want to say there's a gray area where it comes to, you know, self hate or motivating yourself to have a better end result or a goal that you might set for yourself. There's a gray area for that because the thin line between hating how you look or knowing that you want to do work on yourself in a positive way. Does anybody struggle with that? Can I? I want to ask something real quick. I wanted to say that when it comes down to, you know, body positivity, like for me, for sure, either I had unhealthy ways and I also had healthy ways to navigate around it. But also adding to what Lamont has said is more so the influences. One thing I used to I used to think about how I look when I got older, like how my body look. And then, you know, what social media comes upon is like, damn, I kind of want to look like that. And then at the time, you know, at a time, it's like I used to be really I used to be like 180 to 200 pounds. And I used to I used to hate myself. Like I used to think I was so ugly. I used to think I couldn't I couldn't do nothing I felt depressed. And it's like I didn't like how I looked in the mirror. I don't want to look at myself. Were there people in your life reaffirming you that you were good enough or were there people in your life that were low key beating you down? Both. Both. My dad plays a big factor in uplifting me. My dad would text me every day, almost call me every day, too. You are beautiful. Good morning. You know, you are a beautiful daughter of mine. You know, and then then then you have those one family members like, oh, I don't like this. And why do you why are you doing that to your hair? And then it's like I'm posting pictures. I'm really slow. I'm over here posting pictures on social media. And my family call my sister about taking this take that post down. What if that post make me feel good about myself? Y'all don't know what I'm going through at the end of the day. What if that makes me feel better about who I who I am and how I look, which it did just for them to tell me, oh, you have to delete that, delete that, delete that. I'm only 17 years old, bro. Why can't I post this? This is mine. This is mine. This is my body. What if I just want to show it off because I feel ugly right now? But then that's the unhealthy part of it. But once it comes healthy, it's different. It's a whole different confidence. Like money said, it's a whole different confidence. Like I actually want to put on a dress. I actually want to look like a little girl. I used to I used to love looking like a little boy for real. I never cared if people would mistake me as a little boy. I definitely feel that aspect of not being seen the way you want to. There are times that I paint my nails. I do that because I'm a very expressive person. I feel like I I can come off as intimidating to some people. And I don't want that to be my first impression. Instead of being out of the New York fit, puffer coat, shicey on, hat on, dreads out, I'll have my dreads tied up in pigtails. I'll have my nails painted and I'll have my art book on me. So people understand that while I might intimidating posture or intimidating presence, I'm still a very expressive and I'm still a very, I don't want to say intimate, but personal person. Being authentic to yourself. Exactly. And it is sometimes hard to breach people's initial impression, the book cover read, than it is to actually get across my personality. Because I also admit I come off very divisive. So it is just little things like that, that I realize that for me, I don't care what you say about it. Now you're saying something to me about it. Now we have a conversation going. Now I can explain I can I can show myself to people without having to always worry about intimidating people or coming across as aggressive because I oftentimes do. I wanted to kind of piggyback on what you were saying, because this is important when it comes to body positivity, how much you feel like you will make an impression on other people, and how important that impression is to you, and how that may get in the way of you fully expressing yourself physically the way you want to. Because there is that little bit, that little thought in the back of your mind, am I going to come off as intimidating? Or by painting my nails, am I going to draw the wrong type of attention to the wrong people and create those misunderstandings that I got to keep explaining myself in a stereotype somebody might have of me? How much does that affect how you guys on a day-to-day want to present yourself to the public with all that worry about what people are going to say about you, talk about you, judge you? Does that come into play when you are getting ready for the day and want to put on your put yourself out there with how you really feel and how you want to express yourself? So when I was younger, I had a lot of problems with like positivity for myself because I was in a really really difficult kind of category as an LGBT black man. And when you know when I really stepped out into my comfort zone, I actually put on more of a feminine type of look and stuff like that. And it really allowed me to boost my confidence from zero to a hundred. Like I started to really embody my confidence and move through the world like I want to instead of how other people need me to because of their insecurities and stuff like that. And I don't like hearing that from other people because like honestly that just shows how like disgusting and impowerful like you don't feel on the inside. And so when it comes to body positivity I feel like you need to do what you need to do in order to make ends meet. Don't care about what other people think because in you know in the back of your mind like everyone has like you know different problems in different areas of the way they feel like they need to present their body in this lifetime. But you know we were given a body we can do whatever we please to make sure that we need to look good for ourselves like whether that be doing like different types of things. It's all a lesson at the end of the day. We're all learning karmic lessons for our soul and stuff like that. So as humans and stuff like that we can change and develop and grow in ways that people might see as disgusting to them but to us we deserve to be seen as our greatest selves. Can I add? I would love to add to what you just said Peter because you said karmic lessons. I would love to add on to that specifically because I'm not going to say too much but I love to add to that because there's a time in my life where I had a karmic lesson to where I was getting bad attention you know and not all attention is good attention and I learned that at a I can't you can't really say late time but I learned that in my life and once I learned that it made me feel like a little ick but at the end of the day that was my karmic lesson you feel me and I learned from it and now I've grown from it to where now my first impression when it comes down to to what I show on social media or what to I or who I show to people is me beyond is me being authentic to myself regardless of the matter because how I express myself that's that's who I am that's me being authentic to myself all my karmic lessons has helped me be the the positive person that I am today to where all those karmic lessons when it comes down to not loving myself not liking my body or any of that sort I'm hurting my body I'm I'm I'm just smoking to lose weight that's not healthy you know I'm saying I learned those ways to maneuver to where I gotta stop this. How do you identify some of the behaviors that might hold you back with your journey through your you know body positivity like sometimes you need somebody to just sit in your face and tell you oh you gotta chill yeah or I think convince myself to do it so with me I think about a lot of negative self-talk that's why I was gonna get to some of the behaviors that that starts you on the downward path to not believing that you're good enough or beautiful or anything behind me a lot of it comes from the self-talk a lot of us talk ourselves into believing that we're ugly or believing that our body isn't good enough like what are some other behaviors that we do that are unhealthy when it comes to how we perceive or present ourselves look at other people unhealthy coping mechanisms can sometimes be the only way our brain processes strong emotions explain or traumatic situations to be honest dive into that I want to know what you mean okay because I wrote that down on my notes earlier just to let you guys know because that's something that I had brought up for myself because honestly like that's just a part of our experience like having negative thoughts is always going to be something that comes up within our identity positivity is not always something that's going to be there for you all the time and when negativity does show up you need to be able to process it in a type of way where you can give yourself an outlet enough to where it's going to bring you back to that positive energy you know what I'm saying okay clock it because not only do we have the power to be negative we have the power to be positive so light and dark intertwined into the one human experience that was beautiful and to elaborate a little bit on that when you have that negativity and you have that thought it's natural it's natural to not be satisfied with something if in your mind it's not good enough what's unhealthy is when you start to live in that belief you start to become what you think is bad about yourself instead of being proactive and changing behaviors or changing habits that might make you a better or more healthier person in the future I do want to add to that what else is unhealthy is not processing that emotion that's what I learned throughout my years because I used to pretend that like I wasn't struggling with that and it will it will show up in unexpected ways when I was interacting with people I would blow up you know and it was just happening like that and I was losing relationships really profound strong relationships and so I had to check myself I'm going I'm pointing the finger at one person but three is coming back at me so I have to check myself and so that that pushed me into my spiritual journey you know it I had to isolate myself I had to work within see what was wrong with like girl let that out and that's because I spent so much time always being positive and not you know there's a positive and negative side you know like you just said it's a balance it's a duality you know not everyone is positive every single day no like no human let people deal with their emotions let people deal with the negative emotions because it's real it's it exists yeah you gotta let them process yeah let them sit with it it is okay to sit with that negative emotion don't sit there too long because that's when you're going to start believing that so yeah um like I like she said processing the emotions can be difficult like Demani she had mentioned that having a negative family experience didn't allow her to process the emotions that were necessary for her like body positivity growth and I feel like walking on eggshells with family members can be so terrible for your body positivity like it is very difficult to have you know toxic family members and then come back to your body because it's just like a part of who you are it's a part of how you grew up but those toxic challenges are going to necessarily like hinder you they're going to shape you and once you come out of that it's going to be a stronger body positivity mindset so you do I mean and not to be the advocate of that or not to be the devil's advocate of that but a lot of that is challenging and a lot of that's going to take work um a lot of people don't have it in them to overcome that that breaks a lot of people um understanding it is the first step of overcoming it because a lot of people live with the belief that the things that these people are saying to them is their true self and then that's how they live their life believing that they're not good enough or they don't they're not presentable they're not attractive and they're just not good enough and that's a lie I would love to add on what um Danetta said when it comes down to processing things I love that you just spoke on that for real for real because of the simple fact like I learned that I when I learned that it was hard it was so hard in this moment I'm talking about grief at the moment I have other people around me in the same moment of grief and it's like it's hard to process things in the midst of trying to help somebody else process things you know I'm saying and it's like damn I don't have time to even sit in my emotions just yet because I gotta tend to you I gotta tend to you and I gotta tend to me and it's like that's a lot to that's a lot to really sit in and it takes a lot of time and I'm so glad you brought that up because I had to realize that and it took me a long time to really get over that and actually process it the healthy way and not just like you said lashing out on everybody and honestly I've been working on that myself recently and it's and it's hard bro and it's so hard I just want to be that living proof of is really change is uncomfortable but change is mandatory and it's needed and it's gonna it's gonna make you successful at the end of the day and whether it's on your self journey whether it's on your body positivity journey whether it's whatever whatever the case may be I liked how you were talking about family impact friends family your support system I kind of want to talk about recognizing and realizing the toxic people in our life that can contribute to how we think of ourselves can we talk talk about how we can spot an unhealthy relationship as I dive deeper into my spiritual journey my self-discovery journey I am a lot of my friends I was friends with last year I'm no longer friends with just the other day me and my friend came to an agreement where our relationship had to end and I cried I really cried and I was griefed and that's okay you know and I had to tell myself you're all right after letting that person go I end up getting a blessing out of that so it's making room for what's coming to you I also had to talk to my aunt once again this was my final straw it was just my final straw I saw a little projection I felt like some some words some topics she could have reframed but it came off critical and if you reframed it better I would have received it better I'm in a point in my life I can't hear none of that you guys see me in this space as soon as I hear loudness I have to I run off you know yeah I immediately I can't be in those type of environments I can't have no one being around me like that that's going to draw me back into my past right and I I came too far to let anybody bring me back that's perfect because that also goes along to along with another thing I wanted to bring up is your boundaries now you should have you should set boundaries for yourself at all times healthy boundaries where you surround yourself with things that you accept and you release the things that you do not accept and that's perfectly healthy but also really good advice for others that you are so strong on surrounding yourself with the energy that you need and getting away from the energy that you feel like you don't need because that's a boundary that I feel like is healthy for you everybody's boundaries are going to be different okay so first and foremost I had a boundary with myself because oftentimes what I learned oftentimes if you don't set a boundary with yourself first how are you going to have people to meet your needs so and that like coming from a place of being a people pleaser that sets a war inside your spirit where you're ready to snap on any and everybody you know I mean so it's very important on this journey to hold yourself accountable number one you know if you're saying that you're going to wake up tomorrow and go to the gym do that those are small steps that will help you know help you and that built up my confidence to speak on how I feel the assertiveness that's it eventually came you know what I realized too what was I afraid of facts why am I afraid to tell someone how I feel our fear of not being accepted in a specific circle or with a specific group of people we hold that so we put so much value on that I feel like it's a necessary value that we put on that I feel like we don't put enough value on how we hold ourselves as opposed to the value that we feel like we have with other people and that can hold us back on our own personal journeys because we're so we're pleasing others and we want to literally live our lives to this standard that others has set for us and that could be a really unhealthy way of going about life when god he alivio's what because I feel like that's how my emotions disappear and float away when I try to confront someone about something that they've done in the boundaries that I set with them but unfortunately people do not have the respect for themselves to create enough energy to bring in their own boundaries to other people's settings and I don't like that I don't like that at all and you know what I've seen that a lot with people I feel like I have a very unique type of you know existence and stuff like that and when others approach me and define myself and my existence as disgusting or so-called awful to the community it just shows me how disrespectful you are to yourself because you would never do that to somebody who actually enjoys their love and their own presence and stuff like that like I do like I like it's taken so long for me to cultivate that type of energy for myself and I would never let no man no woman no other entity of this dimension to ever come from my energy what are some steps to building a stronger and healthier identity for yourself just let's start naming some things you surround yourself with mission focused people put yourself in an environment with people who have the same goals as you want to make similar self-growth you know only surround yourself with people who bring you up not bring you down and you guys know I'm always preaching about your friend groups here especially in a setting like safe zone where it's it's a big pool of social just interactions and we are from different walks of life your friend group is important because let's just say you're working on this goal but your friends are all stuck in one pattern it's going to be hard for you to focus on your goal when your support group and your friends are all focused on something completely different so y'all know how much I preach about your friend groups are your circles here in this environment because they kind of do help you navigate your next move and surrounding yourself with like-minded people can help you or hurt you depending on where your mind's at so yeah that's very important you know surrounding yourself with mission focused people that's really a good way to put it I would love to say discernment is a it plays a great part in that because some people could put on a great front and they could act like they're your bestest friend ever and then they're not that comes with time too the more you're on your self-discovery journey and you're learning yourself and I'm not going to dig too much but you eventually will see it you know you evaluate I feel like it's a healthy practice to evaluate the people in your life regularly I feel like a big part of that is when it comes to principles I do not hold anyone to a principle I don't hold myself so the conduct that I expect myself personally whether it be mentally in my thought process was vocally in my speech process I expect of my friends I understand I understand that it might be fun to be online call people names we don't refer to people like that in person I prefer that actually if we're playing a video you don't speak like that period because I don't condone that conduct I don't partake in that conduct part of being mission focused is having those small standards so I see you please your own speech where I know where you might have this thought and as a joke you'll say it as they whisper to me and never loud louder than that I respect that because I understand that you have the principle to get to the goal I don't care how you get there I've learned this through business transactions the hardest thing to do is worry about your path not not not not my personal the other person's path it is so hard to think what they're going to do to get there I don't know what you need is someone who we both want to go to the same place we're going to get there I'll see you Tuesday I'll see you Wednesday I might not see you the whole month but I know when I do we can give what we've been doing to get there those principles I believe start with speech start with stance leave small things I wanted to say dress but as in how do you carry demeanor do you smile at people do you think to make sure that you're you're welcoming to people to interact with especially in business relationships those are very important and so those minute principles that I hold myself to when I see them being carried out as someone else it's very easy to be we have a goal let's make it a small goal and each week keep each other there those kind of principles are what make and can help you discern people to be around because I saw a goal in people in high school they were weird and I didn't like them because they weren't fun however they all have nicer colors than me now we all mentioned something about social media and I feel like there's a lot of people who are very accelerated in their material wealth on social media and I feel like that plays a really big role in a lot of the self-confidence and body positivity type of aspect huge role it's you know like but you know what I want to tell you guys we are right where we're supposed to be and like there is no other reason why God doesn't have us here in this room today so honestly like your path is your own journey and if you feel like you need to compare to other people to get that type of confidence off of like the insecurities that you have just goes to show you that you are not confident in your own journey we gotta love our comparison is the thief of joy y'all y'all cannot believe what people put out project out there's some people that's authentic and true to themselves and there's other people that pretend there's wolves in sheep clothing so it's just stay true to yourself be honest with yourself it is all right you know everyone is striving to be the best version of themselves let's uh let's end this with some advice you might give somebody dealing with their image how they perceive themselves how they look and how they feel let's just shoot out some advice uh that you would give somebody dealing with that i feel like the best thing that you can do for your body is get what you want out of it stop playing with yourself stop downplaying your emotions and let your fire burn i like to say is change is uncomfortable but it's needed step out your comfort zone the tongue is the most powerful thing that we have our brains is the most powerful thing that we have as well and also know that it is okay to not be okay hey before we go can you please share one of your affirmations from your book yeah i am going to share the last day which is day 21 and i would love for my peers to repeat after me i am destined for greatness i will be successful i am destined for greatness and i will be successful y'all i know i'm destined for greatness in my life my life is what i'm making now i have the power within through god to manifest what i desire the tools i have within will help me manage my blessings i'm going to be so successful and so are you i can't wait to see you walk into your destiny as i'm stepping into my destiny i am encouraging you to step into yours remember this when you praise when you keep praising god the blessings will shower upon your life amen and so i have a little i am destined for greatness yes queen you have the power and control within you anything you put your mind to is yours with your higher self and dedication is your birthright to have everything you desire in this lifetime and so it's a journal it says in this space below where do you see yourself envision it in your mind have a mustard seed of faith and act on it okay that's beautiful for everybody to sit and think about letting go isn't easy but growth comes from making space for what truly serves us whether it's learning to love ourselves breaking free from bad habits surrounding ourselves with the right people every step counts thank y'all for joining this conversation stay true stay strong and keep moving forward give yourselves a round of applause