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Shonda Brown White is a bestselling author, blogger, life coach, and brand strategist. When she's not jumping out of a plane or zip lining, she's living the married life with her husband in Atlanta, GA. Connect with her on social @ShondaBWhite and her empowering real talk on her blog.
These days it seems that we’re all trying to heal from childhood wounds, and though I’m a big advocate for cutting people off – family included – I’ve come to learn how challenging that actually is. But also, it’s not always necessary if you have a parent who is open and committed to doing the healing work along with you, a mother, for example, who is receptive to her truth. But this also means you are receptive to the reality that parents are humans who often take cake crumbs from their parents and so on. It’s not to say that you have to accept piss-poor treatment because they’re human, but if any of us are going to embark upon a healing journey, we must acknowledge even the difficult truths.
This one is particularly difficult because I think so much weight is placed on parents to solely take on that identity that we come to think of them as superhuman, which at times can be counterproductive to our own growth. Healing can take place in a multitude of ways. However, one of my favorite methods which I’ve come to use to address the trauma amongst the girls I reach in my nonprofit, Black Girl Book Collective, is bibliotherapy. Bibliotherapy allows us to use books and the characters within them to encourage healing through solution-focused work.
With that in mind, here are 6 books to honor your pain and healing simultaneously – books that you can read alongside your mother to better understand the way trauma works to ingrain itself generationally.
1. Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance by Kelly McDaniel
Authored by trauma counselor Kelly McDaniel, this book observes the patterns created by childhood trauma and into adulthood. The sometimes destructive behavior we exude in our adulthood is rooted in the trauma we received in our childhood. “Depending on what we each did to earn our mother’s love—what we end up doing is duplicating that with friendships, in romantic partnerships, and sometimes at work,” McDaniel shared on The Goop Podcast. Through this book and a concept called Mother Hunger, McDaniel seeks to minimize the shame that comes with having mommy issues and help those heal from attachment injury.
2. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
At the top of the pandemic, this book turned Hulu original series was all the rage. It tells the story of two mothers brought together by their children while centering on each of the mother-daughter relationships and how the dynamics vary based on intersectional identities – from race to class. With secrets, obsession, and motherhood at its core, the riveting novel will have you reeling with upset and yet so compassionate for the characters you find to be the most villainous at times.
3. Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters by Donna Frazier Glynn and Susan Forward
Author of Toxic Parents, Susan Forward, Ph.D., expounds on damaging parent-child relationships once again but this time with a focus on the mother-daughter relationship. She provides self-help techniques to help women who have experienced pain as a result of unloving mothers cope. She also breaks down different types of unloving mothers: the mother who is overly enmeshed, the mother in constant competition, the mother who is a narcissist, and the mother in need of mothering, just to name a few. Mothers Who Can't Love is an insightful tool for healing and emotional support for women in need because of the way they weren't properly nurtured.
4. It’s Momplicated: Hope and Healing for Imperfect Daughters of Imperfect Mothers by Debbie Alsdorf and Joan Edwards Kay
This book doesn't simply focus on the trauma and complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships, it asks that you do the work through spiritual and therapeutic work. Of note, this book was written with Christian women in mind so I highly recommend it for those who rely on their faith in God, particularly. Whether you identify as religious, spiritual, agnostic, or none of the above, It's Momplicated is filled with gems that can be applied to just about anyone’s life if we can agree to “take the meat” and “leave the bones.”
5. The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children by Shefali Tsabary
While particularly good if you can read it before you yourself embark on your motherhood journey (if not, that’s also okay), this book brings so much understanding to the parent-child dynamic without directly looking at trauma. Instead, the book takes a look at the socialization that we take on as parents and how that turns into worry or fear for our children. But oftentimes, we place those fears on our children and while it may seem reasonable, The Conscious Parent shares the way ego, often connected to strong emotions like fear can stifle a child’s growth as well as the parent-child relationship.
6. The Dance of Connection by Harriet Lerner
Dr. Harriet Learner provides us with a great many scenarios in regards to healing ourselves and potentially our intimate relationships, the ones with our mothers included. She fills the book with casework, thus providing examples that help us to envision the way in which these solutions can be implemented. The Dance of Connection can be a transformative tool in your healing journey and your journey to your authentic self, teaching you how to use your voice and take up space without sacrificing the connections you value most.
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‘It’s Called No’: Queen Latifah On Saying No To Jobs That Want Her To Lose Weight
Queen Latifah is saying no to unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles especially when it comes to her career. Since the beginning, the rapper/actress has always been a body-positive role model thanks to the range of characters she has played over the years that shows that size doesn’t matter. In an interview with PEOPLE, The Equalizer star opened up about taking on roles that don't compromise her health.
"Health is most important to me. It's not about losing weight or gaining weight,” she said. “When I want to lose weight, or gain weight, I know how to do it in a healthy way. So if I have to do something that is going to be completely unhealthy for me, then that's not the job for me. Someone else should have that job that's already there… It's called No."
Saying no isn’t always easy though. As women, we tend to please everyone and say yes to things when we should really be saying no. However, the 52-year-old mogul has a solution for that.
"I practice my no's. I go in the mirror and I say, no, no, no, no, like 20 times. And that's it," she said. "I need to be okay with me. If I'm okay then I feel like I can do anything. But if I'm not okay, I have to say something. Like, it's time to take a break, stop, cut."
Queen, whose real name is Dana Owens, is committed to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and prioritizes herself above anything else. "I think self-esteem is like maintaining a car. You can't just buy a car and think that you're never going to have to get an oil change, a tune-up, change the tires, you know, you have to do that," she said.
"And health is like that, you have to check in with yourself. You need a tune-up, you need an oil change, you got to check in with yourself. I have to do things that really work for Dana Owens."
Recently, the Oscar-nominated actress partnered with pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk for their “It’s Bigger Than Me” campaign to destigmatize obesity. As a part of the campaign, Queen will host a series of events to bring awareness and change the narrative about obesity.
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When I was ten, my Sunday school teacher put on a brief performance in class that included some of the boys standing in front of the classroom while she stood in front of them holding a heart shaped box of chocolate. One by one, she tells each boy to come and bite a piece of candy and then place the remainder back into the box. After the last boy, she gave the box of now mangled chocolate over to the other Sunday school teacher — who happened to be her real husband — who made a comically puzzled face. She told us that the lesson to be gleaned from this was that if you give your heart away to too many people, once you find “the one,” that your heart would be too damaged. The lesson wasn’t explicitly about sex but the implication was clearly present.
That memory came back to me after a flier went viral last week, advertising an abstinence event titled The Close Your Legs Tour with the specific target demo of teen girls came across my Twitter timeline. The event was met with derision online. Writer, artist, and professor Ashon Crawley said: “We have to refuse shame. it is not yours to hold. legs open or not.” Writer and theologian Candice Marie Benbow said on her Twitter: “Any event where 12-17-year-old girls are being told to ‘keep their legs closed’ is a space where purity culture is being reinforced.”
“Purity culture,” as Benbow referenced, is a culture that teaches primarily girls and women that their value is to be found in their ability to stay chaste and “pure”–as in, non-sexual–for both God and their future husbands.
I grew up in an explicitly evangelical house and church, where I was taught virginity was the best gift a girl can hold on to until she got married. I fortunately never wore a purity ring or had a ceremony where I promised my father I wouldn’t have pre-marital sex. I certainly never even thought of having my hymen examined and the certificate handed over to my father on my wedding day as “proof” that I kept my promise. But the culture was always present. A few years after that chocolate-flavored indoctrination, I was introduced to the fabled car anecdote. “Boys don’t like girls who have been test-driven,” as it goes.
And I believed it for a long time. That to be loved and to be desired by men, it was only right for me to deny myself my own basic human desires, in the hopes of one day meeting a man that would fill all of my fantasies — romantically and sexually. Even if it meant denying my queerness, or even if it meant ignoring how being the only Black and fat girl in a predominantly white Christian space often had me watch all the white girls have their first boyfriends while I didn’t. Something they don’t tell you about purity culture – and that it took me years to learn and unlearn myself – is that there are bodies that are deemed inherently sinful and vulgar. That purity is about the desire to see girls and women shrink themselves, make themselves meek for men.
Purity culture isn’t unlike rape culture which tells young girls in so many ways that their worth can only be found through their bodies. Whether it be through promiscuity or chastity, young girls are instructed on what to do with their bodies before they’ve had time to figure themselves out, separate from a patriarchal lens. That their needs are secondary to that of the men and boys in their lives.
It took me a while —after leaving the church and unlearning the toxic ideals around purity culture rooted in anti-Blackness, fatphobia, heteropatriarchy, and queerphobia — to embrace my body, my sexuality, and my queerness as something that was not only not sinful or dirty, but actually in line with the vision God has over my life. Our bodies don't stop being our temples depending on who we do or who we don’t let in, and our worth isn’t dependent on the width of our legs at any given point.
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Jamie Foxx and his daughter Corinne Foxx are one of Hollywood’s best father-daughter duos. They’ve teamed up together on several projects including Foxx’s game show Beat Shazam where they both serve as executive producers and often frequent red carpets together. Corinne even followed in her father’s footsteps by taking his professional last name and venturing into acting starring in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and Live in Front of a Studio Audience: All in the Family and Good Times as Thelma.
And while the 28-year-old has indeed learned a lot from her Academy award-winning father, he recently gushed over what he has learned from her. The business partners sat down with Access to discuss the upcoming season of Beat Shazam. “What Corinne teaches me is to see the other side of things,” he said. “Don’t knee-jerk–a lot of times something goes wrong and I’ll just say it’s over. She’s like dad, talk it through.”
“I’ve learned from her on how to be patient. There were times when I was getting things wrong but naturally the way she is saved me.”
Jamie is also proud of Corinne and how she’s been able to successfully navigate Hollywood. “She goes to college, graduates USC, she’s been around this all of her life and so to watch her become–I remember live in front of the studio audience when she’s doing Good Times,” he said. “And I was so afraid because you know that’s live and it’s Viola Davis and she murdered that thing. It’s a testament to who she is and who she’s going to be.”
With the accomplishments she has already reached, it’s almost weird to think that Corinne was once considering using a different last name than her father. But according to her it almost happened.
In a Dec. 2021 interview with TOGETHXR, Corinne explained that she didn’t want people to think that she was riding on Jamie’s coattails and wanted to separate herself.
"I did consider, honestly, changing my last name," she said. "But as I've gotten older I've, one, made peace with people are gonna think things about me that I have no control of, and two, I'm proud of my dad and I'm proud of who he is and I'm proud of the work he's done. I'm proud of just the person that he is."
"Holding onto his name and being proud of my last name is actually something I've had to grow into," she added.
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TW: This article may contain mentions of suicide and self-harm.
In early 2022, the world felt like it slowed down a bit as people digested the shocking news of beauty pageant queen Cheslie Kryst, who died by suicide. When you scroll through her Instagram, the photos she had posted only weeks before her death were images of her smiling, looking happy, and being carefree. You can see photos of her working, being in front of the camera, and doing what I imagine was her norm. These pictures and videos, however, began to spark a conversation among Black women who knew too well that feeling like you're carrying the world on your shoulders and forcing yourself to smile through it all to hide the pain.
For many of these Black women, like Cheslie, it’s hard to see the hurt because the smiles are so radiant. It’s hard to sense the pain when they’re so energetic and exuberant, and for many Black women who struggle with high-functioning depression and anxiety, it's hard to tell that this feeling and heaviness is actually the result of a deeper issue connected to their mental health, and it’s even harder for people on the outside to see what’s going on with them within.
The concept of "high-functioning anxiety and depression" is not commonly known because it is not a classified diagnosis in the DSM-5. However, it is a term that was developed to describe people who struggle with these mental health disorders but are able to function well in different aspects of their lives—creating an illusion that they are coping with their mental health—when, in reality, they are just managing as they go but deeply struggling day-to-day and remaining productive allows them to avoid their pain.
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Research indicates that after the death of George Floyd, anxiety and depression among African Americans skyrocketed from 36 percent to 46 percent which equates to more than 1.4 million people who reported a debilitating difference in their mental health to the Census Bureau.
Black people have to carry the burden of racial stress, pandemic stress, and day-to-day stress, and often, must do so while trying to operate and function at their best ability in order to move through the world without falling apart. The issue is, that many Black people truly are falling apart, and in particular, Black women are "1.8 times more likely than Black men to report sadness most or all the time and are 2.4 times more likely than Black men to report feeling hopeless more or all the time.”
The feeling of sadness and hopelessness is a direct symptom of dealing with major depression and anxiety, and in our society, the world does not stop when there is racial injustice, white supremacist attacks, pandemics, and global trauma. Instead, we are required to keep going, and Black women are required to push through despite it all and show up in all aspects of their lives including as mothers, caretakers, and within leadership in the workplace, a space that can almost often be a breeding ground for microaggressions and subtle acts of racism that impact Black women daily.
To further understand the impact anxiety and depression have on Black women’s health, let’s unpack these two terms.
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Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a mental health disorder where a person experiences consistent worry, fear, and feelings of anxiousness in their everyday lives, and it is not tied to a particular reason. People who have high-functioning anxiety may experience this kind of anxiety, but what makes them different is that people with GAD experience symptoms that are debilitating to the point where it impacts their ability to function, meet tasks, and perform certain obligations.
High-functioning depression is clinically known as persistent depressive disorder. This is when someone experiences symptoms of depression such as feelings of sadness and hopelessness, changes in mood and appetite, low energy, sleep disturbances, and other issues in a less severe manner that still allows them to function and manage their obligations and responsibilities.
People with high-functioning anxiety and depression may use their feelings of worry, anxiousness, and sadness as a catalyst for productivity and managing success. Black women may carry this trait by being high achievers, operating in roles of leadership, are helpful, and often seen as the “strong friend,” they often appear happy and seem to have their life in order and are often looked up to and revered by others because of how great their lives seem to be unfolding.
Some may look at these characteristics and think this seems healthy and unproblematic, but the issue here is that this is what we see on the surface. On the inside, the Black women we know who are experiencing issues may also be silently dealing with:
- Low self-esteem and low self-worth, and channel this through overachieving
- People-pleasing and living in constant fear of rejection, driving people away, being unavailable to others, and not being seen as good enough
- Chronic feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a lack of relief from self-debilitating thoughts
- Poor boundaries and an inability to say no out of fear of other people’s reactions or the fear of missing out on something good
- Constant overthinking and self-sabotaging thoughts
- Poor relationships and no social life from an inability to create genuine connections that are not tied to achievements or what they can do for someone
- Imposter syndrome or constant comparing to others that causes them to suffer
- Problems with alcohol and drug abuse
- Thoughts of suicide ideation and/or self-harm
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All the success, accolades, and achievements, can be distracting to those on the outside because many of us know that in order to obtain these things, hard work and dedication are requirements and we are used to the narrative around those who suffer from mental health issues looking a particular way. They appear sad, dejected, lonely, isolated, and unable to do basic things for their own personal and mental hygiene when in reality, that is not how everyone copes with their mental health.
Black women are aware that the world does not stop for their pain, so when we are wounded and need healing, we have taught ourselves that strength is to be found in propelling forward instead of seeking help, learning to rest, saying "no," and being at peace with our existence without tying it to the things we can achieve or how well we can perform in the midst of chaos.
Getting help can be scary when it’s not something you’ve ever done before, but wellness means learning to prioritize the things that enhance your well-being, increase your lifespan and benefit your mental health. Black women must be reminded that they do not have to earn their rest, nor do they have to wait until they're struggling before rewarding themselves with life pleasures and do what they need to care for themselves.
Take control of your mental health. Here are everyday tools that you can use to manage high-functioning depression and anxiety:
- Better boundaries with yourself: Take inventory of the things you say yes to and then get to the root of your, ‘why.’ Do you say 'yes' in order to please people? Is it because you think you’ll be missing out? Because you fear people’s reactions if you say 'no'? This is a sign that you have poor boundaries and this is actually exasperating your mental health issues rather than healing them. Make a list of five things you want to commit to doing for yourself daily, and define what boundaries you need to put in place to ensure you commit to doing what you need for yourself.
- Practice mindfulness/meditation: When people are severely anxious, they are trapped in a spiral of their thoughts and it can be hard to get out of their heads. Mindfulness is a form of meditation that teaches us to be present at the moment and to be grounded in reality, rather than in our heads tangled up in our thoughts that most of the time are not real and are things we made up in our minds as a form of catastrophic thinking that stems from anxiety. Practicing mindfulness can look like engaging in tasks and being in tune with your senses. Consider the work of cooking. During this task, you may focus on what you feel as you use your hands, what you smell as you use ingredients, and focus on what’s right in front of you. Think of a practice that makes you feel grounded and commit to practicing mindfulness daily.
- Journaling: Sometimes you will need to get out of your head. Studies have shown that journaling is a beneficial tool for managing mental health issues. During this practice, you can follow two themes. 1: Free-form journaling is when you write out your thoughts and express yourself through your writing. 2: Theme-based journaling is when you focus on a particular theme such as gratitude journaling, intention setting journaling, affirmation journaling, etc. Consider which options are most appropriate for you and commit to this practice a few times a week or daily.
There are going to be times when our mental health is suffering to the point where we need additional care and assistance outside of what we’ve cultivated in our self-care toolbox, and seeing a mental health professional may be the best option for your well-being.
Consider finding a therapist by visiting the following directories:
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When finding a therapist, make a list of at least five questions that you want to ask during your consultation call to give you a better understanding of how therapy with this particular practitioner works. The top two questions I recommend that you include in that list are:
- Can you tell me about your treatment approach for people who struggle with depression or anxiety?
- Can you give me insight into your therapeutic process and what I should expect as we work together?
Remember that getting help is not a weakness, it is a sign of strength because a wise person understands that we all have limits and that we cannot do it all.
Community care means learning to be vulnerable and giving ourselves permission to lean on those who offered to be supportive structures for us to hold ourselves up on.
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