March 6, 2025 • 60 mins
Jessica Nabongo, the first black woman to travel to every country in the world joins Devi to discuss the complexities of navigating relationships while traveling., cultural differences, and the lessons learned from global travel. Jessica shares her journey, the importance of living in the present, and how her travels have shaped her understanding of humanity, love, and fear. The discussion emphasizes the power of connection and kindness in a diverse world. In addition, more profound themes of humanity, dignity, karma, love, grief, and self-discovery through the lens of travel and personal experiences are also explored. Finally, they emphasize the importance of interrogating fears and living freely as a form of soul work.
Connect @DeviBrown @DeeplyWellPod @JessicaNabongo
Visit: JessicaNabongo.com
Learn More and Pre-Order Devi's New Book, "Living in Wisdom" DeviBrown.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaks to the planet. I'll go by the name of
Charlamagne Tha God. And guess what, I can't wait to
see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival.
That's right, We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April
twenty six at Poeman Yards and it's hosted by none
other than Decisions, Decisions Man, DyB and Weezy. Okay, we
got the R and B Money podcast. We're taking Jay Valentine.
We got the Woman of All Podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts.
(00:22):
We got Good Mom's Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be
there with her next sports podcast and the Trap Nerds podcast,
with more to be announced. And of course it's bigger
than podcasts. We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black
owned businesses plus the food truck court to keep you
fed while you visit us. All right, listen, you don't
want to miss this. Tap in and grab your tickets
now at Black Effect dot Com Flash Podcast Festival.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Take a deep in through your nose.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Holds it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Now, release slowly again deep in haale hold release, repeating
(01:32):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply well I am deeply Well. I am deeply Wow.
(02:00):
I'm Debbie Brown, and this is the Deeply Well Podcast.
Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land on
your journey. A podcast for those that are curious, creative,
and ready to expand and higher consciousness and self care.
(02:24):
This is where we heal, this is where we transcend.
Welcome back to the show. I am Debbie Brown. Today's
episode we are going into uncharted territory and I cannot wait.
We haven't yet had a chance on this show.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
To really.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Explore the question of what does it mean to see
the world, what does it mean to experience the world?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Culturally?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
As a species, we are more open, aware and awakened
to how vast this planet is and how different it is,
and yet so many of us still stay inside of
tight constraints, or wrestle with fears about exploration and adventure
(03:19):
or giving ourselves access to true freedom. And in this
episode we get to explore all of that. Today's special
guest is someone that I've been waiting and waiting to
have on this show. I got a copy of her
book and it is one of my son's favorite things.
Ever since I have he is always opening it looking
(03:41):
at the picture, where is this? But where in that
country is this? Asking questions and it's really brought him
to life with so much curiosity. So I am just
so excited to have this special guest today. Jessica Nabongo
is on the show. Jessica Nabongo is a GLOAE Global Citizen,
a master storyteller and travel expert who is the first
(04:05):
black woman to have traveled to every country in the world.
Named one of the fifty most Notable People in Travel
by Travel and Leisure, Jessica uses her platforms to educate
and inspire others to experience the world around them and
build a global community with an emphasis on bringing untold
(04:25):
stories to the world. Her first book, The Catch Me
If You Can. One Woman's Journey to Every Country in
the World, published by National Geographic, was an instant bestseller.
A first generation American, Jessica was born and raised in
Detroit by Ugandan parents. She attended Saint John's University in
New York, where she earned a degree in English literature,
(04:47):
later completing a graduate degree at the London School of Economics.
She is also the founder of the lifestyle brand The Catch.
When She's not on a plane, she is home tending
to her plants into h and La. Welcome to the.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Show, Jessica, No, thank you for having me. I'm so
happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I am so happy to have you. And I think
the first question I need to ask you is how
many countries have you been to this month?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Where have you traveled in this last few weeks? I
was in Guyana in South America, and then Trinidad, and
I was in Tobago as well, Granada for like ten hours,
which was crazy, and Barbados.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
We are halfway through the month.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah. I think I've taken ten flights this month so far. Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
And how long has this been your life?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Oh, that's a good question. I mean, so I've been
traveling internationally with my family since I was four, but
you know, over seventy flights a year probably like the
last fifteen years. Wow, it's been a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Oh my god, I mean, how special, What a special.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Life, what a rare life?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Very rare?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, very rare. I got my email from Delta, which
was like the year end wrap up, and I'm in there.
One percent of flyers like I fly more than all
of their pilots, which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Tell me about some of those perks, like what does
life look like when you are an Airlines one percent?
It's good.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It's it's funny because just coming down from San Francisco,
I had the same flight crew that flew in from
Detroit to SF, and so I get on I was like, hey,
I know you guys, and they were like, it's you.
And so then you know, like when I see like
staff that I've seen before, it's so cool because it's
pretty rare no matter how much I fly, it's very
(06:51):
rare to see the same flight attendant, so it actually
feels like family. Yeah. And when I landed in La
the delta like VIP woman and she wasn't there for me,
but she was outside of the door of the plane
and she's like, where have you been? And I was like, oh,
we actually I moved And it was just good to
see her because it's just these familiar faces that I
would see like once a week being at the airport
(07:12):
all the time. So it feels good. It's comfortable, you know.
We always love being number one on the upgrade list.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Listen, one thing I wanted some parks sprinkle special right, and.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Sometimes they give me like little notes, which is very cute.
As well.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I remember recently, I forget where I was. I
think I was fine in New York. And you know
how they have like their commercials like and please do
the da da da, And the man in the commercial
was my flight attendant. Oh that's so on that flight.
So I literally kept looking at the screen and looking
at him, looking at the screen, looking at him, like
(07:49):
what that's And it felt so special because yeah, as
much as you you know, I think, in no way,
shape or form, am I as traveled as you, my dear,
But you know, I probably pro I fly a few
times a month for work, and you know, I always
expect to run into people at the airport. I never have.
I always expect to see the same flight cuse I've been,
(08:10):
you know, traveling for decades and you never do. It
is kind of rare, you're those airports are such a
it's just such a transient experience. It feels otherworldly sometimes.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And it's interesting because this week was quite kismet. I
was very exhausted, as you can imagine. I got back
from Barbados at like three am Friday morning, and I
was on a flight to SF by like four pm
on Saturday. So it was a lot, right, and I'm
super exhausted. That flight Monday from San Francisco to La
ran into my friend Janenna like he was sitting in
(08:44):
my row. I was like, how is this happening? The
flight attendants, the woman who works for Delta here, And
then in the airport I saw another friend, Kid Fury,
who many people probably know, and it was just it
felt sel kismet. I was like, Okay, I'm supposed to
be here, despite the exhaustion and everything. It's like that
n that I call it winks from the universe that
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Absolutely, So when you when you first set out on
this journey, right, like when you first approached well, actually,
my question would be, how did you decide that you
would visit every country in the world? And when did
the vision come to you or the call?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
So I you know, I'm a geography nerd. I had
traveled a lot, and I always knew I wanted to
visit every country in the world. I started my blog
to Catch Me if you Can in two thousand and nine,
and every year I would do a year and wrap
up because I had these little maps like this where
I've been mapping, so I would fill in my map
and it was so exciting to me to just continue
(09:45):
filling in the map. So I thought, Okay, I'll visit
every country in the world by the time I'm like
forty or fifty. Then in twenty seventeen, I was in Bali.
I was trying to find myself. I had quit my
last corporate job, like maybe a year and a half before,
and I was unsure. I was just kind of like
in the wind, just going traveling but with no clear direction.
(10:07):
And I remember I was sitting with a friend and
I said, I want Oprah to interview me, and she
was like, why would Oprah interview you? I was like,
I don't know. I'm gonna figure something out. And around
that time, there was an American woman who got the
Guinness record for doing it the fastest and she made
headlines and I was like, people care that people travel
(10:28):
like because at that point I had been to sixty countries,
which is a lot a lot. Yeah, but I didn't,
you know, I didn't really make a thing of it.
It was just like, this is a thing that I'm doing.
So I found myself in an internet rabbit hole, as
one does, and found out about like the country counting
community found out that at that time, less than one
hundred and fifty people had been to every country in
(10:50):
the world. Wow. Yeah, Yeah. The numbers have shot up now,
definitely because of social media. And I'm like, I'm am
I part of the problem. I don't know, because now
you have a lot more people who want to do it.
I think now maybe it's around three to four hundred
people have done.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It, which is I mean, just can we put that
in context for a second. There's nine billion people on
the planet, right, nine billion?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Like that is that is rare air. Yeah, And people
often ask me like did you did you do it?
Or did it happen? I'm like no, it takes intention,
it takes effort, it takes resilience, it takes focus, it
takes a lot. Because the thing is, the Guinness record
for visiting every country in the world is like eighteen
(11:32):
and a half months, one hundred and ninety three countries
they count eighteen and a half months. I did one
hundred and thirty five new countries in two and a
half years, and that felt very fast to me. Wow.
But for me on the journey, I wanted to have
cultural experiences in every country. If you do the Guinness Record,
(11:53):
you're literally like they're touching down right, they're getting on
the plane, going through immigration, and getting back on that
same plane. Because there's so many countries in the world
that don't have flights every day. So it took real
effort and real intention because I was driven by like
my curiosity of humanity, and I wanted to see how
people lived everywhere in the world. And you know what
(12:16):
I came out with is like, we're way more similar
than we are different, because we're all just humans. Like,
take away race and gender and all of the things, right, accent, nationality,
take it all away. We're all just human. We're all
made up of the same things. Right. We may look different,
but we're all made up of the same exact things.
And the other lesson that I learned is that most
(12:37):
people are good. We're living in a time where they
the big Day want us to distrust our neighbors, they
want us to distrust the stranger in the street. But
what I've found I've traveled solo to over one hundred countries,
is that most people are good. The only reason that
(12:57):
I've been able to remain safe in every country. Yes,
that includes Afghanistan, North Korea. All of them is because
of strangers, people who you know, cared for me when
I was in their country, people who wanted to make
sure not only that I was able to explore and
understand their culture, but also that I remain safe. Those
were strangers.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So yeah, I have so many questions. I want to
pivot to you from here, and I need to apartmental
all of them in a list in my brain because when.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I say every people are like, but you've been to Afghanistan,
I'm like, it is a country. You've been to North Korea.
It's a country.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Talk to me about North Korea.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Okay, so North Korea, actually it doesn't feel like what
people think it what that's turk Ministan, which is that
creepy not creepy, I don't want to say creepy, eerie, eery,
ear yer ear. Turk Ministan has that eerie feeling of
I'm being watched. Where are all of the people? Why
are these wide streets so empty? H turk Ministan felt
(13:58):
like that North Korea we have felt relatively normal, and
that's what I found the most fascinating, Like there aren't advertisements,
which seems like not special in any way, but if
you go out of your home, you realize there's adverts
everywhere around us, like constantly influenced exactly billboards, and it's
a lot of stimuli there. You don't have that. But
(14:21):
what I found, like the normal side of things is
like you saw couples in the parks holding hands. You
saw people taking like wedding pictures in front of national monuments.
We went to the grocery store, there was just people there,
and we ended up going to a bar one night,
and you know, we went to the subway and people
are just living their life now. Of course, like only
certain people have access to live in Poonang, the capital,
(14:44):
but the people living there have pretty what I would
consider to be a regular life, like I've seen in
every other kindry everywhere.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I was just kind of speaking freely and having emotions
and having experiences. They're just being humans. This is fat,
I mean, this is fact. The answer this show. I
have riquestions because like a couple of years ago, well
many years ago, I just was on a deep dive
and I was watching taking in so much information about
(15:14):
North Korea.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So this is just wow. Yeah, And the thing is
I don't do a ton of research before I go places,
so like I have a pretty solid level of understanding
of most of the world. I went to London School
of Economics. I studied international development, so it was like
a global political and economic history of the world, so
I have some knowledge of every country. But I never
(15:37):
did like deep research. I was kind of like I
wanted to go in led by curiosity, so I didn't
go in to confirm what I thought I knew. I
went in to ask questions and to listen and to learn.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, that's super powerful. What a beautiful way to see
the world. You know, when you so spiritually speaking and
in my stay understanding of consciousness and experiences with we
tend to have when we're open to them and life
aligns really really powerful. Quantum leaps in two year cycles.
(16:14):
So when you're telling me that you saw this many
countries in the span of like two and a half years.
Spiritually speaking, our four year cycles are really potent, but
two year cycles are really where like you try on
and begin to embody an entirely different version of who
(16:35):
and what you are. Like there is a deep, deep, cellular, emotional,
spiritual freedom that comes when you're interacting with it and
participating with it in two year cycles. So I'm so curious,
you know because obviously I imagine two and a half
years seeing that much of the world and being as
intentional as you are and as curious and as kind
(16:58):
of rooted in the cultural experience, you probably didn't really
get to interact with your friends and family too much,
so you're kind of isolated inside even though you're in
the world. And so, was there a transformation that took place?
And if so, like what was that and how did
that feel as you were in motion?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Well, that's interesting because I never thought about it, right,
I never thought about that two year block. But if
I think about like my thirty third birthday to my
thirty fifth birthday, yeah, I was a completely different person.
And I think one of the biggest things for me
(17:42):
was that I started to live where I was right, So,
like that idea of living in the present became really
important because when you're in Samoa and like there's a
seventeen hour time difference from where most of your friends
and family are, I can't live in both places.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, you have to choose.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And I chose to be hyper present everywhere that I
was and to your point. It left me a bit isolated,
you know, and it's something that I still feel today
because it's out of sight, out of mind, right, And
I think a lot of people feel that I'm unreachable,
but I'm like, I have WhatsApp, you can always reach me.
(18:26):
But I think, yeah, Like I think there was a
spiritual elevation that took me out of my home connections
but put me into connection with the world in a
way that very few people that I meet are, even
(18:46):
people who've been to every country in the world. I
think I've had incredibly different and unique and deep experiences
because I was intentional, because I see everyone as human.
I don't care if you're black or white, or Asian
or whatever. I'm here and I'm looking at you, and
I'm like, who are you as a person. I don't
(19:07):
care if you're a celebrity. I don't care if you're
a homeless person on the street. Like, I'm going to
treat everyone with respect because you are a human. And
for me, I'm human before i'm anything else. I'm human
before i'm a woman. I'm human before i'm black. I'm
human before i'm anything else. And that's how I moved
(19:27):
through the world.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
What did you feel, you know, looking back now, from
the age you start in the age you finished, what
changed about you?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I mean, you know, I would go back further than
the two years because so i'd been so I was
in sixty countries by the time twenty seventeen came about,
and so I had been traveling a lot. I think
one of the big things that changed. I have very
little fear of anything. And when you can release fear,
(20:06):
the whole the whole world opens up, right, But beyond that,
like your soul is at peace. Fear is certainly irrational,
but fear terrorizes us, and fear causes us to have
high stress levels, and it releases cortizone and all of that.
(20:28):
But like, you know, people are like, oh, you weren't
afraid when you went to Afghanistan or Iran, And I'm like, no,
I'm not afraid of people. So if I'm not afraid
of people, what am I afraid of? Am I afraid
of the trees?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Like?
Speaker 4 (20:42):
What?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Like, of course things can go wrong. But what I've
realized recently because I always post my crazy airport travel
videos that I know everybody like, I love them, what
I realize is that because people are like, no, you
have to leave early. What if there's an accident?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
What this?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
What if that? I realize I don't plan for the
what if. I don't plan expecting for things to go wrong.
I always expect everything to go right, and I expect
the world to open up for me. If there's traffic,
I expect there to just be a lane and there's
no cars, and it's just like, oh, me and my
uber are gonna go in that lane. That's what I
go out expecting. So no, there's not like accidents on
(21:21):
my way to the airport. And you know, no, I
don't miss bag Drop because I don't expect that to me.
So I'm not magnetizing it to me. We are magnets
like this. I believe we can. We can draw people
to us, we draw energy to us, we draw events
to us. And because I'm constantly seeking the good, the positive,
(21:41):
the magic, that's what's being drawn to me. So I
don't have anxiety when I'm at the airport and you know,
Bagdrop closes in three minutes and I just walked in
the door, I'm just like, yeah, I got three minutes
to get from the door there. That's easy. Breezy. You know,
I'm not thinking like, oh what if I trip? But
you know I don't think about that, and I think, yeah,
(22:03):
like really traveling, traveling solo, traveling solo to you know,
so called dangerous countries and surviving it. It's allowed me
to release so much fear.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Deeply. Well just one of the things I think is
so powerful about what you're saying, and I want everyone
to track this because when you remove a belief that
there's limits on your life, right, when you remove any
barriers you have to your personal freedom and autonomy, the
(22:40):
natural unfolding that comes from that, it's really a tremendous
amount of miraculous energy that surrounds you, tremendous amount of
synchronicity and serendipity. And it's like, you know, not only
are you not planning for that, The thing is, if
that were to happen, something would instantly, a new timeline,
(23:03):
a new a new opportunity would instantly come in to
greet you, and then you'd be on the aligned path.
So it's like, get what I'm hearing and what you're
saying is you know the words I'd use for that.
It's it's surrendering to alignment in your life. You know,
it's like you are in flow with your call and
with your movement, and so all of the universe conspires
(23:26):
for all of us when we tap into our freedom.
When that's the case, when we do believe that, like
there's no limits on my life, there's nowhere I need
to be afraid. And this is not naevita, right, Like,
you know the difference you know when someone is like
bypassing or avoiding or having you know, those rose colored
glasses on as like you know.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
A way to self avoid.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
But then there is that real state of like earned
freedom internally that shifts everything about how the world meets you.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It shifts every thing, and it gives you a lightness,
right like I And you know a lot of people
are suffering from anxiety. I think a lot of that
has kicked up because of our habits with like social media.
I'm just overexposure to other people's lives that we do
not need. But when it's too much, but when you
(24:21):
can release that, it's just I can't even express truly
like the lightness of being that it is like people
see me, you know, It's I always think about the
airport thing because so many people are like, you are
giving me a panic attack, and I'm like, wow, I
feel nothing, like I'm moving, I'm breathing fine, I'm like
I'm chewing like you know what I mean. So it's
(24:44):
it's just it's a freedom that I really hope everyone finds.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about you know, one
of the things I when I think about the we're
friends and when I think about the themes of.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Our conversations, they tend to really rest. And it was
funny because I asked you for some keywords earlier. Our
conversations actually rest in these keywords freedom, grief, love, and
through traveling the world. My God, the many faceted ways
that one can be brought to deeper understanding of all
(25:25):
those three things. What is traveling the world taught you about?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Love? That love exists everywhere that all of us can access.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Love.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Love exists in poverty, love exists in wealth, love exists
in the middle of nowhere. And love exists everywhere. And
we are love like we as humans, you know, these
we us, these spiritual beings, having this human experience. We
(26:06):
are love manifested in every single place that we show up.
We have the opportunity to be love for someone else,
and it doesn't have to be someone that you know intimately.
We can be love for a stranger. I'm gonna tell
a really quick story. I was in DC. I just
moved there. This was like twenty fourteen. We were on
(26:29):
Eighth Street, so it's twenty fourteen. Remember it wasn't as
gentrified as it is now. And there was this homeless
woman and me and my friend were walking to his car.
And we're walking to the car and the lady's like, hi,
you know, she just starts talking to me. So I'm
like hello. My friend's like, Jessica getting the car, and
she's like, look at you, you Siberian princess. I was like, oh, Siberian, okay,
(26:52):
not new be and Siberian okay, cool, cool, take o cool,
it's fine, it's fine. So I'm just laughing. I was like,
oh my god, thank you so much. That's so sweet.
And she was like, get a hug, and so I
go and my friend's like, Jessica, get in the car,
and so I give her a hug. Because it's one
of those things I feel like, particularly in this country,
we discard people, right, we discard the homeless, and we
(27:13):
act like they're no longer human. So I gave her
a hug. I think nothing of it, and I'm like, okay,
I have to go, you know, thank you so much.
Whatever I get in the car. She didn't ask me
for anything. She didn't ask me for money, nothing. So
we're in the car. My friend's kind of like, you're nuts,
and she knocks on the window and he's like, see
she knocks on the window and she's doing emotion. She's
(27:34):
telling me to put on my seatbelt. And I think
about that moment so much because of how I saw
her humanity, she saw my humanity, and we had this
little exchange, which means a lot to me because I
still remember it. This was, you know, eleven years ago,
(27:54):
and maybe it did something for her. She could have
been talking to people all week, all month and no
acknowledged her. She could have asked other people for hugs
and no one hugged her. So it cost me nothing
to give her that hug in that moment. Yeah, and
that could have just changed everything for her. And so
you know, that's such a small instance, but think like
(28:16):
we have the power, just through our kindness to show
love to every single person that we meet. In the world.
Imagine how that can change people's lives. Imagine how it
can change the world.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, yeah, ah, And it's like I always think that
moments like that are really our tests, you know, those
are really God's tests, like do you have the heart
you say you have?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You know, are you going to recoil or are you
going to extend dignity to another person that has inherent
worth and dignity?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah, because I think the biggest like one of the
big things I've also learned from travel, I don't believe
in hierarchy. I don't care who you are, what you are, degrees,
you know, how many followers, fame whatever, Right, We're all
just human and we should treat each other that way.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And it's all fleeting.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
It's all fleeting. And I believe in multiple lifetimes. Oh yeah,
and let me tell you you're with the right audience, okay,
because I'm like, you don't want to be in that
next life, like, ooh, what happened here?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, So it's like be careful. Karma is and you know,
it's so interesting. It's like, you know, karma in the
lens of multiple lifetimes, which would be that every lifetime
you're working on the unfinished business from the others. But
like karma every moment because karma a Sanskrit word, all
it actually means is action. Everyone kind of puts it
(29:50):
in this feeling of it being like bad, bad karma,
Karma's a bee, you know, all these things, but the
actual meaning it's just action. It's it's response. It's it
could be described as consequence, but it's really in every
moment there will be a response to how you behave
in what you do, and because of that response, that
(30:13):
then is going to be the merit that you get
to walk around with or the continued lesson you'll be exploring.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah, it's really interesting because you know, we think about
the world is today and so many people putting evil
energy into the world and embodying that, and I'm like,
why are they still here? But then it's like you
have to remember there's another lifetime and they're going to
get theirs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gosh.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
It's so hard to settle in, you know, to some
of the understanding and higher consciousness that there is no
better good. It's like so hard sometimes to kind of
settle into the seat of that, especially being alive on
earth and see all the things that we see, but
(31:02):
everything is experience, and then you will have the opportunity
to play out that experience in so many different ways
in this lifetime in the next. Well, we're still talking
about love. I'm curious, especially for all the travel girlies,
how do you date while traveling the world?
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Girl?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
It's so hella, so hard.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
It's so hard. I think definitely in my twenties I was,
you know, more exploratory, if you will, and I'll be honest,
part of that like has gone down just because of visibility. Right,
So if I'm traveling and I'm working with a hotel, like,
I can't really bring someone back with me, you know
in a way that perhaps I would like to, And
(31:47):
so it's it's definitely hard. I think it's nice because
I travel, I have options. I've dated men in many
different countries, which has been just interesting because I think
for me, like race doesn't matter because again I come
from the standpoint of like, we're all just human. I mean,
I do have gender preferences, which would be male, but
(32:09):
besides that, I don't really care about race because I'm
just like, how do I connect with you as a human?
So that allows me to be a lot more open.
I think the challenge now is that guys look at
me and think I'm a flight risk. They're like, where
are you? Where were you? Where are you going? And
I think like beyond that, you know, people see the
(32:32):
so called bigness of my life and they question where
they can fit in, and I'm like, none of that
actually matters. I'm really simple, like let's read books on
the couch together, and you know, I want a very
I want something quite simple, and I think a lot
of people don't believe that. I remember I was on
a date with this guy I'd been saying for a
little bit, and he was like, what do you want
(32:54):
to be when you grow up? And I was like
a housewife and he was like what you know, because
a lot of people think I'm super ambitious and like
I want to do all of these things, and I'm like, no,
my success is like a product of me being single
quite frankly, which I mean, on the one hand, like
I wouldn't have gone to every country in the world
right if I had a partner, I would imagine it
(33:15):
would have like stifled me in ways. But I'm like, okay,
I'm done with that. As my men bring me, my man.
So yeah, it can be challenging. I won't lie it's
And then also men think that I have boyfriends all
over the world, and I'm like, where are they? You know,
the phone is dry where they at? I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
But we can say that for the podcast, but no,
we have but that even that is so, you know,
because I think we have to, especially as women that
have a certain rareness for whatever reasons. Right, I'm not
saying this in a hierarchical way, but you think different,
(33:56):
you move different, you know, life unfolds differently for you.
And so I find that women who have rare lives, right,
who are meant to kind of teach with their life
or all of their life is their life's work, which
I see in you, which I find for myself. You know,
love unfolds so much differently because we have a lot
(34:19):
of like research years and a lot of observation and
curiosity years that I like to call being in practice
with love, right, because you are meant and this is
how your life is unfolded to experience so much in
this limited time that we're alive. So that more than
likely means in every facet, right, not just every country.
(34:41):
But you're getting a real understanding of humanity in love
and the masculine of men in love, and not just
men from the standpoint of like got a man, but
like the male species, like really understanding the way they love,
the way they think, the way they move through about cultures.
So it's really fascinating. So it makes sense that you
(35:04):
might have years that you are in more practice and observation.
You know, what would you say, as a woman that
has seen so much and done so much, what would
your type be?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Oh, that's interesting. I mean I don't I don't think
there's a specific type. I think there's characteristics. Yes, someone curious,
someone who's curious about the world, intellectually curious, someone with hobbies,
someone who's kind, respectful, thoughtful, loving, romantic, fun funny. Yeah,
(35:48):
I think you know, I think thoughtful is the thing
that I keep coming back to, Like, thoughtfulness is such
a skill. It doesn't actually require much, but it requires
intention And I want to be with someone who is
so intentional about loving me, you know, who can like
(36:09):
cut through the noise, ignore the noise and just like
focus on me and you, right, Like I really just
want someone to do the rest of this life with
and someone who you know comes in with a lightness, right, Like,
you can't come in with a heaviness and bring that
(36:31):
into my life. I'm like, I like, I feel like
I live a very light life and I want to
continue that with someone that I can love.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
M Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think
like the older I get and the more I understand
about myself, my list is so much shorter, but it
is deeper.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
It's deeper. Yeah. It used to be like yn't be
taller than six foot, he has to make this much,
right But yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And now I'm like, does he live with honor? Does
he have integrity? Does he have values? Does has he
wrestled with God and made peace with God? Like that's
the number one thing on my list right now, Like
have you earned your relationship with God?
Speaker 5 (37:19):
You know? Have you.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Gone at it with God to fall in love with
God again?
Speaker 3 (37:24):
You know?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Because I think that's so much in my life and
I need someone that understands the world and the divine
with the same kind of reverence and the same depth
of connection, you know. And I'm like, I can make
almost anything else, Almost anything else could work for me
in some way. It'll make sense. Yeah, but like if
those things are missing, it's impossible. Yeah, it's impossible.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
What does the word grief mean to you? And how
does it occupy space in your life? We are in
a time a really understanding grief and grieving. I think
grief is like a big part of my life's work,
and it's a lot of the focus of my book
Living in Wisdom April twenty second. But just about that dance,
(38:16):
because all of life is dancing between grief and joy,
all of it every second.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, I feel like my real relationship with grief started
only in twenty twenty two, which is interesting because my
father was murdered in two thousand and three, two days
after my nineteenth birthday. And I, you know, through therapy,
(38:46):
through reading, through so many things, through just like analysis
of self, what I realized is it was two days
after my nineteenth birthday. I never thought of myself as
a child at that point, but now I realize I was,
and there was a fundamental shift in my personality and
that's when I became sort of who I am today,
(39:09):
the person that's very resilient. Because I have two older sisters,
they were emotional wrecks like useless. My mother was in
Ugunda at the time because her mother had a stroke,
and I had to call her and tell her that
my father had been murdered. The man, the only man
she's ever dated and love had been murdered. And you know,
(39:31):
she ended up coming back. Seventeen days later her mother died,
but now she was in Detroit, right, Oh my god.
And I was the one doing everything. I was planning
the funeral, I was booking the flights, I was doing
all the logistics because something in me shut off the
emotional part of me and turned on like problem solving.
(39:52):
And I remained that way until twenty twenty two. March thirtieth,
twenty twenty two, my very dear friend A. J. Crimson
died and he drowned on vacation in Bonair, and that
cracked me open, Oh my god, in a way that
I never could have imagined. And so I'd never dealt
(40:15):
with the grief of my father. And now I've been
dealing with the grief of my father for several years,
but like post you know, it was like over. It
was almost twenty years before I started dealing with it,
and now I'm sitting in it constantly and what I
find is that my relationship with grief is that I
want to help other people when they're grieving. I have
(40:37):
another friend whose father passed suddenly December twenty twenty two,
and I just I showed up for her in a
way that I wish somebody would have for me. And
so now I feel like I have the tools that
I can hand to other people when they're dealing with
their grief, you know, and help people acknowledge it and
(40:58):
help people sit with it. Right, we have to sit
with grief, and grief is a human emotion that we
will all feel, but we don't experience it in community,
and we need to. We need to give space to
each other, even if like a very good friend of mine, Wes,
I remember when I was dealing with AJ's death, he
would just sit on the phone with me and I
(41:19):
would just cry. And that meant so much. You know,
it's a simple act, but a lot of people we
run like I have a friend who lost to a
child like two days before her due date, and I
remember running away because I was just like, oh, this
is too much. I don't know what to do, and
I did nothing. She needed friendship, and I ran away
(41:44):
because I was like, oh, this is too heavy. So
we have to get past ourselves to be able to
be in community with other people when they're in grief,
and so, you know, it feels heavy sometimes. But also
to be able to grieve means that you've loved, And
(42:04):
the harder you grieve, the more deeply you loved. And
I think that's such a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah, deeply. Well, what are some ways that people can
grieve better or help another in grief?
Speaker 3 (42:25):
I think that is a big struggle.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
For so many people one, you know, just we never
know where anyone is at emotionally right and what they're suppressing.
And you know, sometimes I think for so many of us,
when hard experiences come, we can be surprised at quote
unquote who isn't there for us?
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
But everyone has process, you know, and everyone has their limits.
And so for anybody listening, what is a way to
really show up in grief for someone else?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Yeah, I think listening. Listening is so under Stop trying
to fix people's problems. Yeah, say that, just listen. If
you're in the same city, offer to go to their house,
offer to have them over to your house, because sometimes
people just need to get out of their space yea,
(43:17):
And I think checking in consistently even if they're not responding,
like reminding people that you're there. I've got a lot
of friends recently going through things who just shut down,
shut people out, and I'm just like, just know, I'm
always here, Like I don't know what everybody else is doing,
but I'm always here to listen. You can always come
(43:37):
to my house, you know, if you need me, I'm
going to always be able to get on a plane
and show up. But I think primarily it's listening. The
other thing that I recommend, Anderson Cooper has an incredible
podcast about grief that he made after his mother died. Incredible,
like for me, life changing because that idea of you're
(44:00):
not alone, like he just he captures it so well
through his interviews and the studies and the research he does.
But I highly recommend that podcast. I've shared it with
so many people. But yeah, listening to that podcast, but
listening to your friends and just creating safe spaces. I
feel like those words are overused, but it's so real.
(44:20):
Creating a space where someone knows they can pick up
the phone, they can come over, and they can just
go on and on and on and on and on
and you're not trying to fix it.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's such like a sacredness to
us growing our capacity to bear witness, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Life actually requires so little of us, Like the things
we think are solutions most likely or not, it's our
own stuff. But it takes like real presence and courage
and capacity to bear witness to another while doing nothing
else but holding the space and looking with intention and
(45:05):
being present.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
And not being on your phone and not being like
not showing distraction but fully being present.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah. Yeah, with your schedule and.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
With your.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You know, adventure and exploration. How do you make time
or space for grief in your life?
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Now?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
The thing is, grief comes and it will take the space,
you know, so and I honor it. If I wake
up in the middle of the night and I'm sobbing,
I honor that and I lean in and I might
play a sad song, you know, just to like help
it get out and move through me.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
I've I've been on a meditation journey. Today was day
fifty what Yes, day fifties, Thank you, and like creating
that space in the morning to just you know, clear
my head acknowledge everything. It makes me create space throughout
the day as well. And so I just think when
(46:17):
grief comes tapping me on my shoulder, I'm like, hello, okay,
let's sit together, let's have a hang, you know. And
I think because of that, it moves in and out.
It's a journey. It's like it's never going to be over.
But I also think, you know, in the beginning, typically
it's quite debilitating. And I, you know, I was debilitated,
(46:39):
and you know that my book was coming out to
three months after that, and I struggled. I really really
struggled that whole time. But I also wreck like I
realized I was pretty useless. So I remember I had
to record my audio book at that time, and I
was in the depths of grieving. I remember one time
in the studio I told them and I was like,
(47:00):
I'm sorry, and I'm just like I need a moment,
and I just laid on the floor in the booth
and I was just like, I can't push through. That
was the thing. We're always like, push through, push that.
I'm like, I can't. I don't want to, you know,
So I cancel things quite often because at the end
of the day, I am primary, right me. Yes, my
(47:23):
wellness is primary. It's not an interview, it's not a
job opportunity, it is nothing else. It is me. It
is the people that I love that come first and foremost.
So I'm always happy to cancel because I'm primary. I'm
not a medical doctor. There are no emergencies here. Everything
can happen at another time, and if it's supposed to,
(47:45):
it will, and if it's not, that's fine too. But
that's kind of how I move now.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yes, yes, yes, let they give permission to everyone, to
everyone who needs it.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah, greef is.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
It's a lifelong exploration, you know, it really is. This
past January, I've realized it was the twenty first anniversary
of one of my best friends being murdered. And I
found my I mean, I cry no matter what there
I mean, I probably cried once a week about this, easily,
(48:24):
And it's been twenty one years, like easily once a week,
if not more, but definitely around that time of his
death anniversary, his birthday. And this year was the first
time that I found myself like I cried so hard
that it made me laugh, Like I cried so hard
(48:44):
that it made me laugh and call out to him
and be like, your ass got me crying this hard
twenty one years later, and then I just start laughing
at kind of the beauty of that of something that
could mean so much no matter how brief it was.
He's been gone much longer than I knew him. But
(49:05):
how special to have a bond that strong even in death, right,
Like to feel that connection so strong and tethered to
you and your emotion and you're in two different planes,
You're in two you're occupying two different spaces. It's quite beautiful,
(49:26):
it really is. It's quite quite powerful.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
And I believe those bonds. I'm like, I know I'll
see you again. Yeah, And I know we'll be in
the same space again. It will look different, but I'm like,
I know we'll be in the same space at the
same time again.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah. M that's so thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you. Yeah, we needed that, and thank you for
the generosity and sharing it. I want to take us
one more place while I have you before you get
on another plane. So one of the things that I
(50:04):
love so much about witnessing you online and in your
work is just your beauty, like your vibrancy, your fashion,
your food, your everything feels in your life, whether it's
on your body or in your home.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
Just so alive, so alive.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
How has your style and really sense of style expanded
through your travels and how do you choose? How do
you pick the things that will adorn you and adorn
your spaces?
Speaker 3 (50:42):
I love that so much, Thank you. So I grew
up in a home with parents that were focused on
aesthetics solely. Yeah, so like my mom and dad dressed down,
you know, like I used to remember. They would always
go to parties or they would host parties at our home,
(51:03):
and they were always dressed like I wear some of
my mom's old dresses sometimes because they're just so beautiful
and timeless. And you know, when we were little, she
used to dress us up, you know, the pigtails, the
lacey dresses and all of it. You know those sucks, yeah,
with the full floor.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Really, we all have them.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
And so I've always sort of had an eye to fashion.
So when I graduated high school, I won class trendy.
That was my superlative. Oh my god. And so I've
always just been aware of how I looked. You know,
I'm not somewhere someone who wears sweatpants and things like that,
because I'm just like, well, putting on a dress takes
(51:44):
actually less effort than putting on a hoodie in sweatpants,
and I feel comfortable. And so my sister is like,
I'm consistently overdressed, and I'm like that's okay, Like I
feel comfortable. You know, I don't feel like I'm doing
too much. I think a lot of people look at
me and think I put way more effort into what
I look like than I actually do. I rarely wear makeup,
(52:05):
and part of that is like just you know, growing
up as a dark skinned person in America is tough, right.
Growing up African in America was no easy feat. And
for a long time, I felt bad about the way
I looked. I felt bad about my skin tone, all
of the things. And in my mid twenties, you know,
(52:26):
i'd suffered with depression for a very long time and
you know, go in and out. But I just was like,
this is what I look like, and that's it. So
I can either like it or not like it, but like,
you might as well just get with it because you're
not there's nothing to do that you can't change it, right,
Like I didn't you know, I was in my twenties,
so I wasn't like I'm gonna get plastic surgery. There
(52:47):
was none of that. I wasn't bleaching my skin. I
was just like, this is what it is. This is
how we're going to roll with it.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Like I shaved my head in eight because I was
moving to Japan and I didn't know how to do
my own hair, and I was like, well, this is
what we gotta do, and so I just shaved my
head and it stuck. And like I've got braids last year,
and I had them for like four months, and I
shaved them off because I was like, I don't feel
like myself anymore. And so I've just gotten to a
(53:15):
point where I'm just really happy with me. And then
besides that, I'm obsessed with color, like it I did
a Marie Condo's method and I got rid of like
eighty percent of the black things that I own. So
I have almost zero black clothing. Everything I have is
brightly colored. Like I can't even help it. I don't
(53:37):
even think about it. It's just it's who I am.
And so when it comes to my spaces, I recently
bought a place in Senegal, and I want to decorate,
but like I can't. I have to go physically into
the space to decide the color and things like that,
because for me, it's like, what's the energy here and
(53:59):
what does it feel like? And then I want to
create a space that embodies that. So one thing I love,
whether it was like my place in West Hollywood or Detroit,
people come in and they're like, oh, it feels so comfortable,
it feels so homey, but it also feels like me.
So I think how my travel has sort of enhanced
that is, like I get clothes made when I'm abroad.
(54:20):
I get a lot of jewelry when I travel, But
I see myself everywhere, even if I'm in India or
I'm in Iran, Like I can see myself in the
clothing in the wardrobe, and I can sort of like
blend in and that I just see myself everywhere in
the world and feel like I can be a part
of everywhere and everything can be a part of me.
If that makes sense. That is so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yes, yes, yes. At the end of every episode, I
like to invite our guests to share a little soul work,
so that is something to help everyone integrate what they've heard,
what they've experienced in this conversation, and that they can
take with them and apply. And sometimes that looks like
a journal prompt or an activity, a thought, an exercise,
(55:09):
But what would be some soul work? And maybe you
know some of the things that are so resonant in
what you have beautifully been sharing in this episode, it's
the courage to live in freedom, right, And it's like
the courage to really stand in the fact that you
don't have to have limitations in any way, you know,
(55:32):
and you're painting and you're weaving this tapestry of your life.
How can people connect to that kind of innate essence
of you?
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Okay, I'm going to give two things. First, I just
want people to really interrogate their fear. Interrogate your fear.
So whether it's a fear of flying, whether it's a
fear of quitting the job, no matter what it is, like,
write it down. What is this fear that I have interrogated?
(56:03):
Why is it there? What are you afraid of? Like,
really ask you figure it out? What are you afraid of? Okay,
I'm afraid to go to Colombia? Why are you afraid
to go to Columbia and do that exercise and just
go deeper, deeper, deeper, because I think what you then
find out is you can't answer it. So if you
can't answer why you have the fear, why is it there?
(56:24):
It's just they're blocking you. So I would say that's first. Second,
the Four Agreements don Miguel Ruye's, you know, always do
your best, be impeccable with your word, don't make assumptions,
don't take anything personally. It's so hard to live by that,
but I'm constantly running that in my head, like whether
(56:46):
it's dating, dealing with people, dealing with brands, dealing with
work stuff, It's like, am I making an assumption?
Speaker 5 (56:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Okay, can I ask a question instead of trying to
create the conclusion? You know? I think the Four Agreements,
it's a quick read, but it's something that we should
all be reading once a quarter, is something that we
should reference throughout the rest of our life because I
feel like if we can really get those principles down,
like we can live whole, beautiful, free lives.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
M thank you, thank you. I've been looking on your
stories lately and I see you getting a lot of
recipes in other countries. What is the next book that
we can expect.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
Yeah. So the next book is called Catch Me in
the Kitchen. It's a global cookbook. Yeah. So it's going
to be one recipe from every country in the world,
one hundred and ninety five recipes.
Speaker 5 (57:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (57:39):
Yeah, it's a massive undertaking. But it's the first time
a major publisher is doing anything like this. So it's
with National Geographic again and it's going to be a
culinary bible. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
How amazing.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
So excited.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Congratulations and thank you for doing it.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (57:57):
Yeah. So fall twenty twenty six. We're a long way out,
but it's gonna come quicker than we realize. Yeah, but
it's been it's been such a beautiful journey. And more
than anything, I'm excited to like disrupt the conversation in
the food world because in terms of hierarchy, everyone thinks
of like European cuisine and I'm like, no, no, no,
the only reason you think that is because you haven't
(58:19):
actually explored the world. So let's have that conversation. So
I'm excited to have those conversations in the food world
and sort of shakes it.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Up obsess Yes, thank you, Yes, everyone that wants to
connect more with Jessica and her just incredible, rare, beautiful life.
Scroll down into the show notes and you can get
the book. Check her out on Instagram, website. All of
the Things is waiting for you a little treasure shove.
(58:51):
Thank you so much for joining me on this show.
Having it has been amazing, grateful, Thank you, thank you.
We'll be back next now, Mistayday. The content presented on
Deeply Well serves solely for educational and informational purposes. It
(59:13):
should not be considered a replacement for personalized medical or
mental health guidance, and does not constitute a provider patient relationship.
As always, it is advisable to consult with your healthcare
provider or health team for any specific concerns or questions
that you may have. Connect with me on social at
(59:34):
Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or you can go
to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And if you're
listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, don't forget, Please rate, review,
and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Deeply
Well is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network.
It's produced by Jacques Thomas Samantha Timmins and Me, Debbie Brown,
(59:58):
The Beautiful Soundbath You Heard. That's by Jarrelyn Glass from
Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaks to the planet. I'll go by the name of
Charlamagne Tha God. And guess what, I can't wait to
see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival.
That's right, We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April
twenty six at Poeman Yards and it's hosted by none
other than Decisions, Decisions Man, DyB and Weezy. Okay, we
got the R and B Money podcast. We're taking Jay Valentine.
We got the Woman of All Podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts.
(00:22):
We got Good Mom's Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be
there with her next sports podcast and the Trap Nerds podcast,
with more to be announced. And of course it's bigger
than podcasts. We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black
owned businesses plus the food truck court to keep you
fed while you visit us. All right, listen, you don't
want to miss this. Tap in and grab your tickets
now at Black Effect dot Com Flash Podcast Festival.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Take a deep in through your nose.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Holds it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Now, release slowly again deep in haale hold release, repeating
(01:32):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply well I am deeply Well. I am deeply Wow.
(02:00):
I'm Debbie Brown, and this is the Deeply Well Podcast.
Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land on
your journey. A podcast for those that are curious, creative,
and ready to expand and higher consciousness and self care.
(02:24):
This is where we heal, this is where we transcend.
Welcome back to the show. I am Debbie Brown. Today's
episode we are going into uncharted territory and I cannot wait.
We haven't yet had a chance on this show.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
To really.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Explore the question of what does it mean to see
the world, what does it mean to experience the world?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Culturally?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
As a species, we are more open, aware and awakened
to how vast this planet is and how different it is,
and yet so many of us still stay inside of
tight constraints, or wrestle with fears about exploration and adventure
(03:19):
or giving ourselves access to true freedom. And in this
episode we get to explore all of that. Today's special
guest is someone that I've been waiting and waiting to
have on this show. I got a copy of her
book and it is one of my son's favorite things.
Ever since I have he is always opening it looking
(03:41):
at the picture, where is this? But where in that
country is this? Asking questions and it's really brought him
to life with so much curiosity. So I am just
so excited to have this special guest today. Jessica Nabongo
is on the show. Jessica Nabongo is a GLOAE Global Citizen,
a master storyteller and travel expert who is the first
(04:05):
black woman to have traveled to every country in the world.
Named one of the fifty most Notable People in Travel
by Travel and Leisure, Jessica uses her platforms to educate
and inspire others to experience the world around them and
build a global community with an emphasis on bringing untold
(04:25):
stories to the world. Her first book, The Catch Me
If You Can. One Woman's Journey to Every Country in
the World, published by National Geographic, was an instant bestseller.
A first generation American, Jessica was born and raised in
Detroit by Ugandan parents. She attended Saint John's University in
New York, where she earned a degree in English literature,
(04:47):
later completing a graduate degree at the London School of Economics.
She is also the founder of the lifestyle brand The Catch.
When She's not on a plane, she is home tending
to her plants into h and La. Welcome to the.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Show, Jessica, No, thank you for having me. I'm so
happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I am so happy to have you. And I think
the first question I need to ask you is how
many countries have you been to this month?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Where have you traveled in this last few weeks? I
was in Guyana in South America, and then Trinidad, and
I was in Tobago as well, Granada for like ten hours,
which was crazy, and Barbados.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
We are halfway through the month.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah. I think I've taken ten flights this month so far. Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
And how long has this been your life?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Oh, that's a good question. I mean, so I've been
traveling internationally with my family since I was four, but
you know, over seventy flights a year probably like the
last fifteen years. Wow, it's been a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Oh my god, I mean, how special, What a special.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Life, what a rare life?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Very rare?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, very rare. I got my email from Delta, which
was like the year end wrap up, and I'm in there.
One percent of flyers like I fly more than all
of their pilots, which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Tell me about some of those perks, like what does
life look like when you are an Airlines one percent?
It's good.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It's it's funny because just coming down from San Francisco,
I had the same flight crew that flew in from
Detroit to SF, and so I get on I was like, hey,
I know you guys, and they were like, it's you.
And so then you know, like when I see like
staff that I've seen before, it's so cool because it's
pretty rare no matter how much I fly, it's very
(06:51):
rare to see the same flight attendant, so it actually
feels like family. Yeah. And when I landed in La
the delta like VIP woman and she wasn't there for me,
but she was outside of the door of the plane
and she's like, where have you been? And I was like, oh,
we actually I moved And it was just good to
see her because it's just these familiar faces that I
would see like once a week being at the airport
(07:12):
all the time. So it feels good. It's comfortable, you know.
We always love being number one on the upgrade list.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Listen, one thing I wanted some parks sprinkle special right, and.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Sometimes they give me like little notes, which is very cute.
As well.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I remember recently, I forget where I was. I
think I was fine in New York. And you know
how they have like their commercials like and please do
the da da da, And the man in the commercial
was my flight attendant. Oh that's so on that flight.
So I literally kept looking at the screen and looking
at him, looking at the screen, looking at him, like
(07:49):
what that's And it felt so special because yeah, as
much as you you know, I think, in no way,
shape or form, am I as traveled as you, my dear,
But you know, I probably pro I fly a few
times a month for work, and you know, I always
expect to run into people at the airport. I never have.
I always expect to see the same flight cuse I've been,
(08:10):
you know, traveling for decades and you never do. It
is kind of rare, you're those airports are such a
it's just such a transient experience. It feels otherworldly sometimes.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And it's interesting because this week was quite kismet. I
was very exhausted, as you can imagine. I got back
from Barbados at like three am Friday morning, and I
was on a flight to SF by like four pm
on Saturday. So it was a lot, right, and I'm
super exhausted. That flight Monday from San Francisco to La
ran into my friend Janenna like he was sitting in
(08:44):
my row. I was like, how is this happening? The
flight attendants, the woman who works for Delta here, And
then in the airport I saw another friend, Kid Fury,
who many people probably know, and it was just it
felt sel kismet. I was like, Okay, I'm supposed to
be here, despite the exhaustion and everything. It's like that
n that I call it winks from the universe that
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Absolutely, So when you when you first set out on
this journey, right, like when you first approached well, actually,
my question would be, how did you decide that you
would visit every country in the world? And when did
the vision come to you or the call?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
So I you know, I'm a geography nerd. I had
traveled a lot, and I always knew I wanted to
visit every country in the world. I started my blog
to Catch Me if you Can in two thousand and nine,
and every year I would do a year and wrap
up because I had these little maps like this where
I've been mapping, so I would fill in my map
and it was so exciting to me to just continue
(09:45):
filling in the map. So I thought, Okay, I'll visit
every country in the world by the time I'm like
forty or fifty. Then in twenty seventeen, I was in Bali.
I was trying to find myself. I had quit my
last corporate job, like maybe a year and a half before,
and I was unsure. I was just kind of like
in the wind, just going traveling but with no clear direction.
(10:07):
And I remember I was sitting with a friend and
I said, I want Oprah to interview me, and she
was like, why would Oprah interview you? I was like,
I don't know. I'm gonna figure something out. And around
that time, there was an American woman who got the
Guinness record for doing it the fastest and she made
headlines and I was like, people care that people travel
(10:28):
like because at that point I had been to sixty countries,
which is a lot a lot. Yeah, but I didn't,
you know, I didn't really make a thing of it.
It was just like, this is a thing that I'm doing.
So I found myself in an internet rabbit hole, as
one does, and found out about like the country counting
community found out that at that time, less than one
hundred and fifty people had been to every country in
(10:50):
the world. Wow. Yeah, Yeah. The numbers have shot up now,
definitely because of social media. And I'm like, I'm am
I part of the problem. I don't know, because now
you have a lot more people who want to do it.
I think now maybe it's around three to four hundred
people have done.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It, which is I mean, just can we put that
in context for a second. There's nine billion people on
the planet, right, nine billion?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Like that is that is rare air. Yeah, And people
often ask me like did you did you do it?
Or did it happen? I'm like no, it takes intention,
it takes effort, it takes resilience, it takes focus, it
takes a lot. Because the thing is, the Guinness record
for visiting every country in the world is like eighteen
(11:32):
and a half months, one hundred and ninety three countries
they count eighteen and a half months. I did one
hundred and thirty five new countries in two and a
half years, and that felt very fast to me. Wow.
But for me on the journey, I wanted to have
cultural experiences in every country. If you do the Guinness Record,
(11:53):
you're literally like they're touching down right, they're getting on
the plane, going through immigration, and getting back on that
same plane. Because there's so many countries in the world
that don't have flights every day. So it took real
effort and real intention because I was driven by like
my curiosity of humanity, and I wanted to see how
people lived everywhere in the world. And you know what
(12:16):
I came out with is like, we're way more similar
than we are different, because we're all just humans. Like,
take away race and gender and all of the things, right, accent, nationality,
take it all away. We're all just human. We're all
made up of the same things. Right. We may look different,
but we're all made up of the same exact things.
And the other lesson that I learned is that most
(12:37):
people are good. We're living in a time where they
the big Day want us to distrust our neighbors, they
want us to distrust the stranger in the street. But
what I've found I've traveled solo to over one hundred countries,
is that most people are good. The only reason that
(12:57):
I've been able to remain safe in every country. Yes,
that includes Afghanistan, North Korea. All of them is because
of strangers, people who you know, cared for me when
I was in their country, people who wanted to make
sure not only that I was able to explore and
understand their culture, but also that I remain safe. Those
were strangers.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So yeah, I have so many questions. I want to
pivot to you from here, and I need to apartmental
all of them in a list in my brain because when.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I say every people are like, but you've been to Afghanistan,
I'm like, it is a country. You've been to North Korea.
It's a country.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Talk to me about North Korea.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Okay, so North Korea, actually it doesn't feel like what
people think it what that's turk Ministan, which is that
creepy not creepy, I don't want to say creepy, eerie, eery,
ear yer ear. Turk Ministan has that eerie feeling of
I'm being watched. Where are all of the people? Why
are these wide streets so empty? H turk Ministan felt
(13:58):
like that North Korea we have felt relatively normal, and
that's what I found the most fascinating, Like there aren't advertisements,
which seems like not special in any way, but if
you go out of your home, you realize there's adverts
everywhere around us, like constantly influenced exactly billboards, and it's
a lot of stimuli there. You don't have that. But
(14:21):
what I found, like the normal side of things is
like you saw couples in the parks holding hands. You
saw people taking like wedding pictures in front of national monuments.
We went to the grocery store, there was just people there,
and we ended up going to a bar one night,
and you know, we went to the subway and people
are just living their life now. Of course, like only
certain people have access to live in Poonang, the capital,
(14:44):
but the people living there have pretty what I would
consider to be a regular life, like I've seen in
every other kindry everywhere.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I was just kind of speaking freely and having emotions
and having experiences. They're just being humans. This is fat,
I mean, this is fact. The answer this show. I
have riquestions because like a couple of years ago, well
many years ago, I just was on a deep dive
and I was watching taking in so much information about
(15:14):
North Korea.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So this is just wow. Yeah, And the thing is
I don't do a ton of research before I go places,
so like I have a pretty solid level of understanding
of most of the world. I went to London School
of Economics. I studied international development, so it was like
a global political and economic history of the world, so
I have some knowledge of every country. But I never
(15:37):
did like deep research. I was kind of like I
wanted to go in led by curiosity, so I didn't
go in to confirm what I thought I knew. I
went in to ask questions and to listen and to learn.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, that's super powerful. What a beautiful way to see
the world. You know, when you so spiritually speaking and
in my stay understanding of consciousness and experiences with we
tend to have when we're open to them and life
aligns really really powerful. Quantum leaps in two year cycles.
(16:14):
So when you're telling me that you saw this many
countries in the span of like two and a half years.
Spiritually speaking, our four year cycles are really potent, but
two year cycles are really where like you try on
and begin to embody an entirely different version of who
(16:35):
and what you are. Like there is a deep, deep, cellular, emotional,
spiritual freedom that comes when you're interacting with it and
participating with it in two year cycles. So I'm so curious,
you know because obviously I imagine two and a half
years seeing that much of the world and being as
intentional as you are and as curious and as kind
(16:58):
of rooted in the cultural experience, you probably didn't really
get to interact with your friends and family too much,
so you're kind of isolated inside even though you're in
the world. And so, was there a transformation that took place?
And if so, like what was that and how did
that feel as you were in motion?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Well, that's interesting because I never thought about it, right,
I never thought about that two year block. But if
I think about like my thirty third birthday to my
thirty fifth birthday, yeah, I was a completely different person.
And I think one of the biggest things for me
(17:42):
was that I started to live where I was right, So,
like that idea of living in the present became really
important because when you're in Samoa and like there's a
seventeen hour time difference from where most of your friends
and family are, I can't live in both places.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, you have to choose.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And I chose to be hyper present everywhere that I
was and to your point. It left me a bit isolated,
you know, and it's something that I still feel today
because it's out of sight, out of mind, right, And
I think a lot of people feel that I'm unreachable,
but I'm like, I have WhatsApp, you can always reach me.
(18:26):
But I think, yeah, Like I think there was a
spiritual elevation that took me out of my home connections
but put me into connection with the world in a
way that very few people that I meet are, even
(18:46):
people who've been to every country in the world. I
think I've had incredibly different and unique and deep experiences
because I was intentional, because I see everyone as human.
I don't care if you're black or white, or Asian
or whatever. I'm here and I'm looking at you, and
I'm like, who are you as a person. I don't
(19:07):
care if you're a celebrity. I don't care if you're
a homeless person on the street. Like, I'm going to
treat everyone with respect because you are a human. And
for me, I'm human before i'm anything else. I'm human
before i'm a woman. I'm human before i'm black. I'm
human before i'm anything else. And that's how I moved
(19:27):
through the world.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
What did you feel, you know, looking back now, from
the age you start in the age you finished, what
changed about you?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I mean, you know, I would go back further than
the two years because so i'd been so I was
in sixty countries by the time twenty seventeen came about,
and so I had been traveling a lot. I think
one of the big things that changed. I have very
little fear of anything. And when you can release fear,
(20:06):
the whole the whole world opens up, right, But beyond that,
like your soul is at peace. Fear is certainly irrational,
but fear terrorizes us, and fear causes us to have
high stress levels, and it releases cortizone and all of that.
(20:28):
But like, you know, people are like, oh, you weren't
afraid when you went to Afghanistan or Iran, And I'm like, no,
I'm not afraid of people. So if I'm not afraid
of people, what am I afraid of? Am I afraid
of the trees?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Like?
Speaker 4 (20:42):
What?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Like, of course things can go wrong. But what I've
realized recently because I always post my crazy airport travel
videos that I know everybody like, I love them, what
I realize is that because people are like, no, you
have to leave early. What if there's an accident?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
What this?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
What if that? I realize I don't plan for the
what if. I don't plan expecting for things to go wrong.
I always expect everything to go right, and I expect
the world to open up for me. If there's traffic,
I expect there to just be a lane and there's
no cars, and it's just like, oh, me and my
uber are gonna go in that lane. That's what I
go out expecting. So no, there's not like accidents on
(21:21):
my way to the airport. And you know, no, I
don't miss bag Drop because I don't expect that to me.
So I'm not magnetizing it to me. We are magnets
like this. I believe we can. We can draw people
to us, we draw energy to us, we draw events
to us. And because I'm constantly seeking the good, the positive,
(21:41):
the magic, that's what's being drawn to me. So I
don't have anxiety when I'm at the airport and you know,
Bagdrop closes in three minutes and I just walked in
the door, I'm just like, yeah, I got three minutes
to get from the door there. That's easy. Breezy. You know,
I'm not thinking like, oh what if I trip? But
you know I don't think about that, and I think, yeah,
(22:03):
like really traveling, traveling solo, traveling solo to you know,
so called dangerous countries and surviving it. It's allowed me
to release so much fear.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Deeply. Well just one of the things I think is
so powerful about what you're saying, and I want everyone
to track this because when you remove a belief that
there's limits on your life, right, when you remove any
barriers you have to your personal freedom and autonomy, the
(22:40):
natural unfolding that comes from that, it's really a tremendous
amount of miraculous energy that surrounds you, tremendous amount of
synchronicity and serendipity. And it's like, you know, not only
are you not planning for that, The thing is, if
that were to happen, something would instantly, a new timeline,
(23:03):
a new a new opportunity would instantly come in to
greet you, and then you'd be on the aligned path.
So it's like, get what I'm hearing and what you're
saying is you know the words I'd use for that.
It's it's surrendering to alignment in your life. You know,
it's like you are in flow with your call and
with your movement, and so all of the universe conspires
(23:26):
for all of us when we tap into our freedom.
When that's the case, when we do believe that, like
there's no limits on my life, there's nowhere I need
to be afraid. And this is not naevita, right, Like,
you know the difference you know when someone is like
bypassing or avoiding or having you know, those rose colored
glasses on as like you know.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
A way to self avoid.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
But then there is that real state of like earned
freedom internally that shifts everything about how the world meets you.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It shifts every thing, and it gives you a lightness,
right like I And you know a lot of people
are suffering from anxiety. I think a lot of that
has kicked up because of our habits with like social media.
I'm just overexposure to other people's lives that we do
not need. But when it's too much, but when you
(24:21):
can release that, it's just I can't even express truly
like the lightness of being that it is like people
see me, you know, It's I always think about the
airport thing because so many people are like, you are
giving me a panic attack, and I'm like, wow, I
feel nothing, like I'm moving, I'm breathing fine, I'm like
I'm chewing like you know what I mean. So it's
(24:44):
it's just it's a freedom that I really hope everyone finds.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about you know, one
of the things I when I think about the we're
friends and when I think about the themes of.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Our conversations, they tend to really rest. And it was
funny because I asked you for some keywords earlier. Our
conversations actually rest in these keywords freedom, grief, love, and
through traveling the world. My God, the many faceted ways
that one can be brought to deeper understanding of all
(25:25):
those three things. What is traveling the world taught you about?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Love? That love exists everywhere that all of us can access.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Love.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Love exists in poverty, love exists in wealth, love exists
in the middle of nowhere. And love exists everywhere. And
we are love like we as humans, you know, these
we us, these spiritual beings, having this human experience. We
(26:06):
are love manifested in every single place that we show up.
We have the opportunity to be love for someone else,
and it doesn't have to be someone that you know intimately.
We can be love for a stranger. I'm gonna tell
a really quick story. I was in DC. I just
moved there. This was like twenty fourteen. We were on
(26:29):
Eighth Street, so it's twenty fourteen. Remember it wasn't as
gentrified as it is now. And there was this homeless
woman and me and my friend were walking to his car.
And we're walking to the car and the lady's like, hi,
you know, she just starts talking to me. So I'm
like hello. My friend's like, Jessica getting the car, and
she's like, look at you, you Siberian princess. I was like, oh, Siberian, okay,
(26:52):
not new be and Siberian okay, cool, cool, take o cool,
it's fine, it's fine. So I'm just laughing. I was like,
oh my god, thank you so much. That's so sweet.
And she was like, get a hug, and so I
go and my friend's like, Jessica, get in the car,
and so I give her a hug. Because it's one
of those things I feel like, particularly in this country,
we discard people, right, we discard the homeless, and we
(27:13):
act like they're no longer human. So I gave her
a hug. I think nothing of it, and I'm like, okay,
I have to go, you know, thank you so much.
Whatever I get in the car. She didn't ask me
for anything. She didn't ask me for money, nothing. So
we're in the car. My friend's kind of like, you're nuts,
and she knocks on the window and he's like, see
she knocks on the window and she's doing emotion. She's
(27:34):
telling me to put on my seatbelt. And I think
about that moment so much because of how I saw
her humanity, she saw my humanity, and we had this
little exchange, which means a lot to me because I
still remember it. This was, you know, eleven years ago,
(27:54):
and maybe it did something for her. She could have
been talking to people all week, all month and no
acknowledged her. She could have asked other people for hugs
and no one hugged her. So it cost me nothing
to give her that hug in that moment. Yeah, and
that could have just changed everything for her. And so
you know, that's such a small instance, but think like
(28:16):
we have the power, just through our kindness to show
love to every single person that we meet. In the world.
Imagine how that can change people's lives. Imagine how it
can change the world.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, yeah, ah, And it's like I always think that
moments like that are really our tests, you know, those
are really God's tests, like do you have the heart
you say you have?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You know, are you going to recoil or are you
going to extend dignity to another person that has inherent
worth and dignity?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah, because I think the biggest like one of the
big things I've also learned from travel, I don't believe
in hierarchy. I don't care who you are, what you are, degrees,
you know, how many followers, fame whatever, Right, We're all
just human and we should treat each other that way.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And it's all fleeting.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
It's all fleeting. And I believe in multiple lifetimes. Oh yeah,
and let me tell you you're with the right audience, okay,
because I'm like, you don't want to be in that
next life, like, ooh, what happened here?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, So it's like be careful. Karma is and you know,
it's so interesting. It's like, you know, karma in the
lens of multiple lifetimes, which would be that every lifetime
you're working on the unfinished business from the others. But
like karma every moment because karma a Sanskrit word, all
it actually means is action. Everyone kind of puts it
(29:50):
in this feeling of it being like bad, bad karma,
Karma's a bee, you know, all these things, but the
actual meaning it's just action. It's it's response. It's it
could be described as consequence, but it's really in every
moment there will be a response to how you behave
in what you do, and because of that response, that
(30:13):
then is going to be the merit that you get
to walk around with or the continued lesson you'll be exploring.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah, it's really interesting because you know, we think about
the world is today and so many people putting evil
energy into the world and embodying that, and I'm like,
why are they still here? But then it's like you
have to remember there's another lifetime and they're going to
get theirs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gosh.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
It's so hard to settle in, you know, to some
of the understanding and higher consciousness that there is no
better good. It's like so hard sometimes to kind of
settle into the seat of that, especially being alive on
earth and see all the things that we see, but
(31:02):
everything is experience, and then you will have the opportunity
to play out that experience in so many different ways
in this lifetime in the next. Well, we're still talking
about love. I'm curious, especially for all the travel girlies,
how do you date while traveling the world?
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Girl?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
It's so hella, so hard.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
It's so hard. I think definitely in my twenties I was,
you know, more exploratory, if you will, and I'll be honest,
part of that like has gone down just because of visibility. Right,
So if I'm traveling and I'm working with a hotel, like,
I can't really bring someone back with me, you know
in a way that perhaps I would like to, And
(31:47):
so it's it's definitely hard. I think it's nice because
I travel, I have options. I've dated men in many
different countries, which has been just interesting because I think
for me, like race doesn't matter because again I come
from the standpoint of like, we're all just human. I mean,
I do have gender preferences, which would be male, but
(32:09):
besides that, I don't really care about race because I'm
just like, how do I connect with you as a human?
So that allows me to be a lot more open.
I think the challenge now is that guys look at
me and think I'm a flight risk. They're like, where
are you? Where were you? Where are you going? And
I think like beyond that, you know, people see the
(32:32):
so called bigness of my life and they question where
they can fit in, and I'm like, none of that
actually matters. I'm really simple, like let's read books on
the couch together, and you know, I want a very
I want something quite simple, and I think a lot
of people don't believe that. I remember I was on
a date with this guy I'd been saying for a
little bit, and he was like, what do you want
(32:54):
to be when you grow up? And I was like
a housewife and he was like what you know, because
a lot of people think I'm super ambitious and like
I want to do all of these things, and I'm like, no,
my success is like a product of me being single
quite frankly, which I mean, on the one hand, like
I wouldn't have gone to every country in the world
right if I had a partner, I would imagine it
(33:15):
would have like stifled me in ways. But I'm like, okay,
I'm done with that. As my men bring me, my man.
So yeah, it can be challenging. I won't lie it's
And then also men think that I have boyfriends all
over the world, and I'm like, where are they? You know,
the phone is dry where they at? I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
But we can say that for the podcast, but no,
we have but that even that is so, you know,
because I think we have to, especially as women that
have a certain rareness for whatever reasons. Right, I'm not
saying this in a hierarchical way, but you think different,
(33:56):
you move different, you know, life unfolds differently for you.
And so I find that women who have rare lives, right,
who are meant to kind of teach with their life
or all of their life is their life's work, which
I see in you, which I find for myself. You know,
love unfolds so much differently because we have a lot
(34:19):
of like research years and a lot of observation and
curiosity years that I like to call being in practice
with love, right, because you are meant and this is
how your life is unfolded to experience so much in
this limited time that we're alive. So that more than
likely means in every facet, right, not just every country.
(34:41):
But you're getting a real understanding of humanity in love
and the masculine of men in love, and not just
men from the standpoint of like got a man, but
like the male species, like really understanding the way they love,
the way they think, the way they move through about cultures.
So it's really fascinating. So it makes sense that you
(35:04):
might have years that you are in more practice and observation.
You know, what would you say, as a woman that
has seen so much and done so much, what would
your type be?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Oh, that's interesting. I mean I don't I don't think
there's a specific type. I think there's characteristics. Yes, someone curious,
someone who's curious about the world, intellectually curious, someone with hobbies,
someone who's kind, respectful, thoughtful, loving, romantic, fun funny. Yeah,
(35:48):
I think you know, I think thoughtful is the thing
that I keep coming back to, Like, thoughtfulness is such
a skill. It doesn't actually require much, but it requires
intention And I want to be with someone who is
so intentional about loving me, you know, who can like
(36:09):
cut through the noise, ignore the noise and just like
focus on me and you, right, Like I really just
want someone to do the rest of this life with
and someone who you know comes in with a lightness, right, Like,
you can't come in with a heaviness and bring that
(36:31):
into my life. I'm like, I like, I feel like
I live a very light life and I want to
continue that with someone that I can love.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
M Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think
like the older I get and the more I understand
about myself, my list is so much shorter, but it
is deeper.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
It's deeper. Yeah. It used to be like yn't be
taller than six foot, he has to make this much,
right But yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And now I'm like, does he live with honor? Does
he have integrity? Does he have values? Does has he
wrestled with God and made peace with God? Like that's
the number one thing on my list right now, Like
have you earned your relationship with God?
Speaker 5 (37:19):
You know? Have you.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Gone at it with God to fall in love with
God again?
Speaker 3 (37:24):
You know?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Because I think that's so much in my life and
I need someone that understands the world and the divine
with the same kind of reverence and the same depth
of connection, you know. And I'm like, I can make
almost anything else, Almost anything else could work for me
in some way. It'll make sense. Yeah, but like if
those things are missing, it's impossible. Yeah, it's impossible.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
What does the word grief mean to you? And how
does it occupy space in your life? We are in
a time a really understanding grief and grieving. I think
grief is like a big part of my life's work,
and it's a lot of the focus of my book
Living in Wisdom April twenty second. But just about that dance,
(38:16):
because all of life is dancing between grief and joy,
all of it every second.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, I feel like my real relationship with grief started
only in twenty twenty two, which is interesting because my
father was murdered in two thousand and three, two days
after my nineteenth birthday. And I, you know, through therapy,
(38:46):
through reading, through so many things, through just like analysis
of self, what I realized is it was two days
after my nineteenth birthday. I never thought of myself as
a child at that point, but now I realize I was,
and there was a fundamental shift in my personality and
that's when I became sort of who I am today,
(39:09):
the person that's very resilient. Because I have two older sisters,
they were emotional wrecks like useless. My mother was in
Ugunda at the time because her mother had a stroke,
and I had to call her and tell her that
my father had been murdered. The man, the only man
she's ever dated and love had been murdered. And you know,
(39:31):
she ended up coming back. Seventeen days later her mother died,
but now she was in Detroit, right, Oh my god.
And I was the one doing everything. I was planning
the funeral, I was booking the flights, I was doing
all the logistics because something in me shut off the
emotional part of me and turned on like problem solving.
(39:52):
And I remained that way until twenty twenty two. March thirtieth,
twenty twenty two, my very dear friend A. J. Crimson
died and he drowned on vacation in Bonair, and that
cracked me open, Oh my god, in a way that
I never could have imagined. And so I'd never dealt
(40:15):
with the grief of my father. And now I've been
dealing with the grief of my father for several years,
but like post you know, it was like over. It
was almost twenty years before I started dealing with it,
and now I'm sitting in it constantly and what I
find is that my relationship with grief is that I
want to help other people when they're grieving. I have
(40:37):
another friend whose father passed suddenly December twenty twenty two,
and I just I showed up for her in a
way that I wish somebody would have for me. And
so now I feel like I have the tools that
I can hand to other people when they're dealing with
their grief, you know, and help people acknowledge it and
(40:58):
help people sit with it. Right, we have to sit
with grief, and grief is a human emotion that we
will all feel, but we don't experience it in community,
and we need to. We need to give space to
each other, even if like a very good friend of mine, Wes,
I remember when I was dealing with AJ's death, he
would just sit on the phone with me and I
(41:19):
would just cry. And that meant so much. You know,
it's a simple act, but a lot of people we
run like I have a friend who lost to a
child like two days before her due date, and I
remember running away because I was just like, oh, this
is too much. I don't know what to do, and
I did nothing. She needed friendship, and I ran away
(41:44):
because I was like, oh, this is too heavy. So
we have to get past ourselves to be able to
be in community with other people when they're in grief,
and so, you know, it feels heavy sometimes. But also
to be able to grieve means that you've loved, And
(42:04):
the harder you grieve, the more deeply you loved. And
I think that's such a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah, deeply. Well, what are some ways that people can
grieve better or help another in grief?
Speaker 3 (42:25):
I think that is a big struggle.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
For so many people one, you know, just we never
know where anyone is at emotionally right and what they're suppressing.
And you know, sometimes I think for so many of us,
when hard experiences come, we can be surprised at quote
unquote who isn't there for us?
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
But everyone has process, you know, and everyone has their limits.
And so for anybody listening, what is a way to
really show up in grief for someone else?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Yeah, I think listening. Listening is so under Stop trying
to fix people's problems. Yeah, say that, just listen. If
you're in the same city, offer to go to their house,
offer to have them over to your house, because sometimes
people just need to get out of their space yea,
(43:17):
And I think checking in consistently even if they're not responding,
like reminding people that you're there. I've got a lot
of friends recently going through things who just shut down,
shut people out, and I'm just like, just know, I'm
always here, Like I don't know what everybody else is doing,
but I'm always here to listen. You can always come
(43:37):
to my house, you know, if you need me, I'm
going to always be able to get on a plane
and show up. But I think primarily it's listening. The
other thing that I recommend, Anderson Cooper has an incredible
podcast about grief that he made after his mother died. Incredible,
like for me, life changing because that idea of you're
(44:00):
not alone, like he just he captures it so well
through his interviews and the studies and the research he does.
But I highly recommend that podcast. I've shared it with
so many people. But yeah, listening to that podcast, but
listening to your friends and just creating safe spaces. I
feel like those words are overused, but it's so real.
(44:20):
Creating a space where someone knows they can pick up
the phone, they can come over, and they can just
go on and on and on and on and on
and you're not trying to fix it.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's such like a sacredness to
us growing our capacity to bear witness, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Life actually requires so little of us, Like the things
we think are solutions most likely or not, it's our
own stuff. But it takes like real presence and courage
and capacity to bear witness to another while doing nothing
else but holding the space and looking with intention and
(45:05):
being present.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
And not being on your phone and not being like
not showing distraction but fully being present.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah. Yeah, with your schedule and.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
With your.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You know, adventure and exploration. How do you make time
or space for grief in your life?
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Now?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
The thing is, grief comes and it will take the space,
you know, so and I honor it. If I wake
up in the middle of the night and I'm sobbing,
I honor that and I lean in and I might
play a sad song, you know, just to like help
it get out and move through me.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
I've I've been on a meditation journey. Today was day
fifty what Yes, day fifties, Thank you, and like creating
that space in the morning to just you know, clear
my head acknowledge everything. It makes me create space throughout
the day as well. And so I just think when
(46:17):
grief comes tapping me on my shoulder, I'm like, hello, okay,
let's sit together, let's have a hang, you know. And
I think because of that, it moves in and out.
It's a journey. It's like it's never going to be over.
But I also think, you know, in the beginning, typically
it's quite debilitating. And I, you know, I was debilitated,
(46:39):
and you know that my book was coming out to
three months after that, and I struggled. I really really
struggled that whole time. But I also wreck like I
realized I was pretty useless. So I remember I had
to record my audio book at that time, and I
was in the depths of grieving. I remember one time
in the studio I told them and I was like,
(47:00):
I'm sorry, and I'm just like I need a moment,
and I just laid on the floor in the booth
and I was just like, I can't push through. That
was the thing. We're always like, push through, push that.
I'm like, I can't. I don't want to, you know,
So I cancel things quite often because at the end
of the day, I am primary, right me. Yes, my
(47:23):
wellness is primary. It's not an interview, it's not a
job opportunity, it is nothing else. It is me. It
is the people that I love that come first and foremost.
So I'm always happy to cancel because I'm primary. I'm
not a medical doctor. There are no emergencies here. Everything
can happen at another time, and if it's supposed to,
(47:45):
it will, and if it's not, that's fine too. But
that's kind of how I move now.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yes, yes, yes, let they give permission to everyone, to
everyone who needs it.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah, greef is.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
It's a lifelong exploration, you know, it really is. This
past January, I've realized it was the twenty first anniversary
of one of my best friends being murdered. And I
found my I mean, I cry no matter what there
I mean, I probably cried once a week about this, easily,
(48:24):
And it's been twenty one years, like easily once a week,
if not more, but definitely around that time of his
death anniversary, his birthday. And this year was the first
time that I found myself like I cried so hard
that it made me laugh, Like I cried so hard
(48:44):
that it made me laugh and call out to him
and be like, your ass got me crying this hard
twenty one years later, and then I just start laughing
at kind of the beauty of that of something that
could mean so much no matter how brief it was.
He's been gone much longer than I knew him. But
(49:05):
how special to have a bond that strong even in death, right,
Like to feel that connection so strong and tethered to
you and your emotion and you're in two different planes,
You're in two you're occupying two different spaces. It's quite beautiful,
(49:26):
it really is. It's quite quite powerful.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
And I believe those bonds. I'm like, I know I'll
see you again. Yeah, And I know we'll be in
the same space again. It will look different, but I'm like,
I know we'll be in the same space at the
same time again.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah. M that's so thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you. Yeah, we needed that, and thank you for
the generosity and sharing it. I want to take us
one more place while I have you before you get
on another plane. So one of the things that I
(50:04):
love so much about witnessing you online and in your
work is just your beauty, like your vibrancy, your fashion,
your food, your everything feels in your life, whether it's
on your body or in your home.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
Just so alive, so alive.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
How has your style and really sense of style expanded
through your travels and how do you choose? How do
you pick the things that will adorn you and adorn
your spaces?
Speaker 3 (50:42):
I love that so much, Thank you. So I grew
up in a home with parents that were focused on
aesthetics solely. Yeah, so like my mom and dad dressed down,
you know, like I used to remember. They would always
go to parties or they would host parties at our home,
(51:03):
and they were always dressed like I wear some of
my mom's old dresses sometimes because they're just so beautiful
and timeless. And you know, when we were little, she
used to dress us up, you know, the pigtails, the
lacey dresses and all of it. You know those sucks, yeah,
with the full floor.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Really, we all have them.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
And so I've always sort of had an eye to fashion.
So when I graduated high school, I won class trendy.
That was my superlative. Oh my god. And so I've
always just been aware of how I looked. You know,
I'm not somewhere someone who wears sweatpants and things like that,
because I'm just like, well, putting on a dress takes
(51:44):
actually less effort than putting on a hoodie in sweatpants,
and I feel comfortable. And so my sister is like,
I'm consistently overdressed, and I'm like that's okay, Like I
feel comfortable. You know, I don't feel like I'm doing
too much. I think a lot of people look at
me and think I put way more effort into what
I look like than I actually do. I rarely wear makeup,
(52:05):
and part of that is like just you know, growing
up as a dark skinned person in America is tough, right.
Growing up African in America was no easy feat. And
for a long time, I felt bad about the way
I looked. I felt bad about my skin tone, all
of the things. And in my mid twenties, you know,
(52:26):
i'd suffered with depression for a very long time and
you know, go in and out. But I just was like,
this is what I look like, and that's it. So
I can either like it or not like it, but like,
you might as well just get with it because you're
not there's nothing to do that you can't change it, right,
Like I didn't you know, I was in my twenties,
so I wasn't like I'm gonna get plastic surgery. There
(52:47):
was none of that. I wasn't bleaching my skin. I
was just like, this is what it is. This is
how we're going to roll with it.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Like I shaved my head in eight because I was
moving to Japan and I didn't know how to do
my own hair, and I was like, well, this is
what we gotta do, and so I just shaved my
head and it stuck. And like I've got braids last year,
and I had them for like four months, and I
shaved them off because I was like, I don't feel
like myself anymore. And so I've just gotten to a
(53:15):
point where I'm just really happy with me. And then
besides that, I'm obsessed with color, like it I did
a Marie Condo's method and I got rid of like
eighty percent of the black things that I own. So
I have almost zero black clothing. Everything I have is
brightly colored. Like I can't even help it. I don't
(53:37):
even think about it. It's just it's who I am.
And so when it comes to my spaces, I recently
bought a place in Senegal, and I want to decorate,
but like I can't. I have to go physically into
the space to decide the color and things like that,
because for me, it's like, what's the energy here and
(53:59):
what does it feel like? And then I want to
create a space that embodies that. So one thing I love,
whether it was like my place in West Hollywood or Detroit,
people come in and they're like, oh, it feels so comfortable,
it feels so homey, but it also feels like me.
So I think how my travel has sort of enhanced
that is, like I get clothes made when I'm abroad.
(54:20):
I get a lot of jewelry when I travel, But
I see myself everywhere, even if I'm in India or
I'm in Iran, Like I can see myself in the
clothing in the wardrobe, and I can sort of like
blend in and that I just see myself everywhere in
the world and feel like I can be a part
of everywhere and everything can be a part of me.
If that makes sense. That is so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yes, yes, yes. At the end of every episode, I
like to invite our guests to share a little soul work,
so that is something to help everyone integrate what they've heard,
what they've experienced in this conversation, and that they can
take with them and apply. And sometimes that looks like
a journal prompt or an activity, a thought, an exercise,
(55:09):
But what would be some soul work? And maybe you
know some of the things that are so resonant in
what you have beautifully been sharing in this episode, it's
the courage to live in freedom, right, And it's like
the courage to really stand in the fact that you
don't have to have limitations in any way, you know,
(55:32):
and you're painting and you're weaving this tapestry of your life.
How can people connect to that kind of innate essence
of you?
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Okay, I'm going to give two things. First, I just
want people to really interrogate their fear. Interrogate your fear.
So whether it's a fear of flying, whether it's a
fear of quitting the job, no matter what it is, like,
write it down. What is this fear that I have interrogated?
(56:03):
Why is it there? What are you afraid of? Like,
really ask you figure it out? What are you afraid of? Okay,
I'm afraid to go to Colombia? Why are you afraid
to go to Columbia and do that exercise and just
go deeper, deeper, deeper, because I think what you then
find out is you can't answer it. So if you
can't answer why you have the fear, why is it there?
(56:24):
It's just they're blocking you. So I would say that's first. Second,
the Four Agreements don Miguel Ruye's, you know, always do
your best, be impeccable with your word, don't make assumptions,
don't take anything personally. It's so hard to live by that,
but I'm constantly running that in my head, like whether
(56:46):
it's dating, dealing with people, dealing with brands, dealing with
work stuff, It's like, am I making an assumption?
Speaker 5 (56:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Okay, can I ask a question instead of trying to
create the conclusion? You know? I think the Four Agreements,
it's a quick read, but it's something that we should
all be reading once a quarter, is something that we
should reference throughout the rest of our life because I
feel like if we can really get those principles down,
like we can live whole, beautiful, free lives.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
M thank you, thank you. I've been looking on your
stories lately and I see you getting a lot of
recipes in other countries. What is the next book that
we can expect.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
Yeah. So the next book is called Catch Me in
the Kitchen. It's a global cookbook. Yeah. So it's going
to be one recipe from every country in the world,
one hundred and ninety five recipes.
Speaker 5 (57:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (57:39):
Yeah, it's a massive undertaking. But it's the first time
a major publisher is doing anything like this. So it's
with National Geographic again and it's going to be a
culinary bible. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
How amazing.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
So excited.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Congratulations and thank you for doing it.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (57:57):
Yeah. So fall twenty twenty six. We're a long way out,
but it's gonna come quicker than we realize. Yeah, but
it's been it's been such a beautiful journey. And more
than anything, I'm excited to like disrupt the conversation in
the food world because in terms of hierarchy, everyone thinks
of like European cuisine and I'm like, no, no, no,
the only reason you think that is because you haven't
(58:19):
actually explored the world. So let's have that conversation. So
I'm excited to have those conversations in the food world
and sort of shakes it.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Up obsess Yes, thank you, Yes, everyone that wants to
connect more with Jessica and her just incredible, rare, beautiful life.
Scroll down into the show notes and you can get
the book. Check her out on Instagram, website. All of
the Things is waiting for you a little treasure shove.
(58:51):
Thank you so much for joining me on this show.
Having it has been amazing, grateful, Thank you, thank you.
We'll be back next now, Mistayday. The content presented on
Deeply Well serves solely for educational and informational purposes. It
(59:13):
should not be considered a replacement for personalized medical or
mental health guidance, and does not constitute a provider patient relationship.
As always, it is advisable to consult with your healthcare
provider or health team for any specific concerns or questions
that you may have. Connect with me on social at
(59:34):
Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or you can go
to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And if you're
listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, don't forget, Please rate, review,
and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Deeply
Well is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network.
It's produced by Jacques Thomas Samantha Timmins and Me, Debbie Brown,
(59:58):
The Beautiful Soundbath You Heard. That's by Jarrelyn Glass from
Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Devi Brown
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com