August 8, 2023 • 43 mins
Donna and Tom from Parks and Recreation had it right. TREAT YO SELF! This episode I’m telling y’all about the ways I’m learning to treat myself from candles to wash day for my natural hair. Treating yourself isn’t just about spending money or buying things, listen to this episode for tips on FREE ways you can treat yo self! Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, y'all, Welcome back to Her with Amina Brown. And
if you didn't know it, I'm Amina Brown, which that
works out super conveniently for the title of this podcast.
Today we are talking about treat Yourself. In season four,
(00:34):
Episode four of Parks and Recreation, Tom and Donna introduce
one of my favorite concepts, treat Yourself Day. I hope
I have some Parks and rec fans listening. I've learned
quite a few things the last few years of life,
and then some particular things about what it means to
treat myself during the pandemic and all of the additional
(00:57):
stressors that so many of us are walking through right now.
So I thought it would be cool to dive into
some of this for today's episode. I wanted to share
with you all a few things that I use to
treat myself. I'm working with a coach right now and
we were talking about just some tough things that I've
been navigating these past few months, and one of the
(01:19):
things that came up in our conversation is when you're
going through something that's really difficult, to think about what
you can do to bring your self comfort during that time.
And I thought that was a really powerful thing to
sort of put my brain around. As she and I
(01:40):
were talking about it, and we talked in the session
about what are the things that I do that bring
me comfort? And who are the people that bring me comfort?
So I throw that powerful question out to you all
today as we talk about treat yourself, and for us,
we're not talking about just treat yourself day. We're talking
about how to have a rhythm of treating yourself, which
(02:04):
I think can be such a fun thing and a
wonderful thing too. So that's what kind of got me
thinking about that because that was part of my homework
assignment that I wanted to give to myself coming out
of the session with her. I wanted to think about
what are the things that bring me comfort? What are
the ways I can treat myself. So the first thing
(02:25):
I thought about is certain smell good things bring me comfort.
That is one of my first go tos for how
I treat myself. This applies to candles, shower gel, body sprays,
bathroom sprays, and essential oil. Particularly when I'm using essential
oil in a diffuser right, Smell is really important to me.
(02:49):
There's something about certain fragrances that just having a really
nice shower gel that I love the smell of, you know,
like that feeling in the shower or having a bath
bomb that I love, and being able to smell peach
or mango or vanilla or sandalwood, mahogany. They're just so
(03:15):
many fragrances like that that bring me comfort. But also
the different fragrances sort of have different roles for me.
I think I'm a very compartmentalized thinker in this regard.
So when it comes to like relaxation, I love lavender.
That's my first go to. When I traveled on the
(03:37):
road a lot, I would have like a little travel
essential oil diffuser and I would have my like one
hundred percent you know, lavender essential oil, and sometimes I
would mix it with peppermint, or sometimes I would mix
it with eucalyptus. And even having that in the room
when I traveled, first of all made it feel a
little more like home, but also just help helps make
(04:01):
my mind realize it's time to wind down for the day,
It's time to let go of whatever the stressors were
of the day. I love vanilla as well, and I
love mango. I love rose as a scent a lot
more than I thought I would. I've never been a
person that traditionally loved roses. My husband knows me so
(04:24):
well and knows about me that when he gets me flowers,
he typically never gets me roses for the most part,
because he knows if I'm going to get flowers. I
love a bouquet of all these different flowers. I love sunflowers.
I haven't been a person that loved rose or that
rose fragrance. And of course it depends, you know what
it is, right that sometimes you're smelling sort of this
(04:45):
imitation of rose fragrance. But I got into this shower
gel that I love that smells like rose, and then
it had a matching lotion to it, and I think,
actually it's a mixture of rose and something sweet the
way it smells. So I love rose. That's one of
my favorite things. And I have sense for all sorts
(05:09):
of different things. I have the sense I use to relax.
I have certain sense I like for when I want
to focus on work. I have certain sense I like
for date night or sexy time mm hmm. Because the
living room is a place for grown people. The her
living room is a place for grown people, mm hmm.
And I have certain sense I like for what I
(05:30):
need to clean up, or certain sense I like to
smell that makes the house feel like, oh, yes, it's clean. Right.
I'm sure many of you and I said that you
have like certain sense that you remember maybe in your parents'
house growing up, or your grandparents or wherever you grew up.
Some of my friends tell me it's fabuloso. That is
the sin that they're like, yes, things are clean when
(05:52):
I smell that or pine salt. For me, it's always
something that's between, like something that smells lemony and that
smells like bleach, that feels like the house is clean. Okay, yes,
we love to see that. The fact that I love
things that smell good and that things that smell a
certain way like bring me comfort. This leads me to
(06:16):
one of my major treat your self purchases candles. Okay,
I want to discuss I want to just sit in
a moment and talk about candles for a second. So,
first of all, in my pre pandemic life, I had
a mostly road life, which meant the rhythm that my
(06:38):
husband and I had For the most part, we spent
many years you know, traveling together, and then there was
a period of time where we were starting to get
gigs that weren't where both of us were booked. So
I might be booked in this place and he might
be booked over here, right, But either way, we were
still sort of having these seasons of time that were
very event based. It was either based on travel or
(07:01):
based on even like they were local events, there were
still events event schedule you had to stick to, right,
versus our home life. When we had time at home,
time in our offices, just to get to experience what
home is like. And I think that I think that
brought out a couple of things. I think sometimes that
(07:23):
meant that we didn't really have the time to make
our home feel like home, right. And then I think
there were also times that there were certain things we
really gravitated towards doing because we so enjoyed the time
that we got to spend at home. Because even all
(07:43):
of the creature comforts that you know, you can think
about doing when you're traveling, it's like it's still not
going to be home. There's nothing that's going to be
like home, right. And there would be some periods of time,
especially once Matt and I got to the point where
where we were doing our business together. We were in
our business together, but we were doing work with separate clients.
(08:07):
We were doing separate events that we weren't doing together.
There would be these different moments of rise and fall
in the schedule where sometimes it would get really busy
for him, but it would totally slow down for me,
right and typically in pre pandemic times that would happen
in the summer and around the holiday time between Thanksgiving
(08:30):
and kind of Christmas time. For the summer, for me,
things would kind of slow down. A lot of the
events that I was doing weren't really going in the summer.
I was talking at a lot of colleges back then,
I was doing a lot of conference work, and conference
work kind of follows a school schedule, you know, a bit,
you know. So it was sort of like by the
time the summer came, my whole schedule would be cleared,
(08:53):
and that would be the time that my husband would
be really busy working having different events. He was doing,
different clients he worked with. So I would always joke
with him that that was my time to sort of
have a short period of time to act like I
was a stay at home wife and I want to
(09:13):
talk about what my fantasy is about being a stay
at home wife really entailed, you know, because it's one thing.
And my friend, some of my friends who are stay
at home wives or partners who are stay at home
parents will tell me this, it's a very different experience
when you are the partner in the relationship that stays
(09:33):
home when the other when either the other person is
rich or both of y'all are rich, And all of
my dreams of being a stay at home wife were
based on being rich. My friends who were you know,
stay at home wives, partners, parents, right, they would say, yeah,
this job is challenging, period, but it's especially challenging when
(09:57):
I'm stay at home and now like we on a
tight budget. You know, that's different. What you do with
your spare time is different. But my grandiose dreams, you know,
whenever we hear the term, which no one says anymore,
and I don't see them anymore. But I remember when
I was growing up, rich people were always like eating
bond bonds, or when other people would make a reference
(10:18):
to someone rich, they would be like, they don't do
anything but sit in their house and eat bond bonds.
And like, now I'm like, what is a bond bond.
How can I get one? I'm gonna find out about
that and report back to y'all. So I would like
joke with my husband like, wow, you know, I don't
have any events, any work to do, Like I'm gonna
have two months or I'm gonna live my like dreams
(10:40):
stay at home wife life. Now, of course, my husband
and I are not rich, okay, so I could not
do the things that were really in my dreams to do,
like buy new curtains, you know, just start getting all
the flooring redone in the house, you know, for no
reason but that my mood has changed, you know, get
things painted in the house. Decide this whole furniture set
(11:03):
is nothing and I need a new set of furniture.
You know. Those were kind of like my dreams of
what I wanted to do. And I thought I was
going to be a rich, stay at home life. And
I will tell y'all something. I was thirty one when
I married my husband, and I have to have a
separate episode probably telling y'all a little bit more about
(11:23):
my dating history. But I didn't start dating as an
adult until I was probably twenty five twenty six. Was
my first time really going on dates as a grown woman,
you know, separate from high school and college, right, And
I remember at the time that I was between twenty
five and twenty seven. I would go out to all
these different you know, events and mingle things in the city,
(11:47):
and a lot of the men who approached me and
wanted to go on dates with me were anywhere from
seven to ten years my seniorear. So if we just
used the ten years as an example, if I'm twenty
six at the time, there were men who were thirty
six wanting to go out on dates with me, and
a couple of them were rich or wealthier, well to
(12:09):
do men. Some of them were not rich, but they
were well off in the sense that they were well
established in their careers. They made good money. And I
learned from these dates, which never made it to relationships.
They would just be these you know, one, two, three dates,
and they'd be like, no, no, thank you. I learned
from these dates the type of woman that they were
(12:29):
looking for, and a lot of them were looking for
a woman that was going to be willing to become
a well to do or rich stay at home wife.
They were looking for someone that was willing to give
up her career entirely, who was willing to have children
if possible, who was willing to manage their household, make
(12:51):
sure there was food ready for them to eat when
they got home. And then you were pretty much going
to spend the rest of your time like decorating the house,
going to get your manicure pace, to cure facials, whatever
stuff you do like that, and that was going to
be your life. And in my mid twenties, I contemplated it, y'all, Okay,
I contemplated it because I was like, you know, I'm
working this job. I don't like, you know, I'm meeting
(13:13):
these men who are willing to sort of buy me
out of this life of having to be concerned with
this money, Like maybe this is a thing that I
could really do. And then I discovered, oh my gosh, no,
I can't do this. One of the guys I dated,
it's clear that he never made it to a relationship
with me because I still cannot remember his name, but
(13:35):
I remember that I called him mister lavender Pants among
my friends because one of our dates, he came to
the date wearing lavender pants and they weren't It wasn't
just that they were lavender, and then that threw me
off for some reason. It was also that they were
starched to the high heavens, y'all. They were starch like.
He didn't starch them himself. He sent them to the
(13:56):
cleaners and was like heavy starch, Like if he he
took those pants off, which he never did that I
saw him, okay, but if he took those pants off,
those pants would have stood up on their own. It's
how heavy they were starched. Plus he out on sandals
and black church stocks under the sandals. I digress. So,
mister lavender pants. I don't even remember how we met, y'alledge.
(14:20):
Remember we went on a couple of dates, and he
was starting to ask me like, so, you know, you
work at blah blah blah company. You know, how's that going.
Do you see yourself like climbing the ladder there? And
I was like, no, I definitely don't see myself climbing
the ladder there. And he was like okay. He was like,
do you see yourself wanting to have children? I was
like yeah, he was like okay. And then you know,
(14:41):
as we're continuing to talk, I'm realizing like, oh, do
you cook? Like I'm realizing, Oh, I thought we were
on a date. I'm kind of on like an interview
situation with you. And he was basically like, I'm this
happened to me more than once during this season of life,
in particular dating men of this age, this happened more
than once, where it just came down to, like, would
(15:02):
you if if this dating turns into a relationship and
then we decide we're gonna get married, it's been the
rest of our lives together, would you give up your
job and do these things for me, which basically meant,
you know, if we have kids, you taken care of kids,
you take care of the household, you're managing all those things.
When I get home, I want there to be like
(15:22):
some food on the table, and then I want there
to be sex. That's basically the agreement. And I was like, well,
I don't know that I would mind that life, but
I do like intend on being a writer, though, so
there would be sometimes that I'm sure I'd be writing
a book or working on an article or an essay
or something, and things would always get kind of tricky
(15:44):
when you got to that part. So I guess I
got close potentially to my dream of being what I imagined
is a rich stay at home wife. But there was
some agreements there, y'all that I just couldn't keep up.
I just couldn't keep up with that. I was like,
I think, I think what you're saying you want is
I think you want like something that's like a combination
(16:08):
of like a nanny, a made a cook, a house
manager that also has sex with you somehow, And that
is not what I want for my future. So I
rescinded that life. However, whenever these times come where my
work slows down and my husband's work is so much busier,
(16:30):
my main thing that I can afford to treat myself
to do as a I don't know where I am.
It's not a rich stay at home wife, as a
stay at home wife that has a few dollars for
two months, it's normally two months. I have this experience
and then it's like boom, I got to get back
to work. The schedule has picked up. Now I treat
(16:53):
myself to seasonal candles and handsp. I know that ain't
the same as picking out new Kurt. It's okay, Like
I know it's not the same, but this is what
I've decided. I can commit to with my work schedule
plus my husband's work schedule, and on a realistic number
of money that we can actually spend on things. So
(17:14):
I decided I was gonna become this person. I'm like,
you know, I'm just gonna have like fall hand soaps,
fall candles. Then I'm gonna have like the sort of
holiday winter esque hand soaps candles. Okay, then we're gonna
have a springtime situation. Then we're gonna have summer, then
we're gonna go back again to fall, and I'm just
(17:36):
gonna switch these out. And at first I did this
because I love hosting. My husband I both love hosting
people at our home. So I like for people to
go into your bathroom and they've got a nice candle there,
a nice bathroom spray, a nice hand soap to represent
the season. Then the pandemic happened and hardly no one
(18:12):
was coming over here. So I was like, well, I
treat myself to nice hand soaps and nice candles because
I like it and it's our house and we should
enjoy our home as well. Okay, now let's discuss my
main place for purchasing these items. I'm not gonna lie
is TJ Max, and I do have times that I
(18:36):
order from like a small business that specializes in making candles.
I do have times that I do that, but for
the most part, that doesn't happen often because when I
typically am in need of candles, it's like a spur
of the moment decision that I've made. So yes, I
started out hoping I would become a person that would
(18:58):
switch out the hand soaps and the candy seasonally, but
the pandemic has really brought me to a place where
emotions have caused me to go to TJ Max and
get candle wasted. First of all, there's not that much
damage I can do going to get candle wasted. That's
different than getting purse wasted or shoe wasted. The amount
of money that I'm gonna spend is not gonna be
(19:19):
like something that is really terrible to have to explain,
you know, on like the bills when my husband's looking
at like, why is it thousands of dollars on candle?
It's not gonna be thousands of dollars on candles. It's
gonna be however much I've decided I'm gonna be wasted with.
But it's still gonna be a reasonable amount of money, right, Okay.
I have gotten candle wasted because something really sad happened
(19:41):
and I was like, I need some candles in here.
I need the comfort of the way the light of
candles is so like warm and cozy. I need the
comfort of the scent of these candles. Okay. I have
gone to get candle wasted because something really great happened,
and I was like, I want to celebrate myself by
when Christmas time comes, having a candle that smells like
(20:03):
a Christmas tree, even if I don't actually have a
Christmas tree. Okay, Okay, So I have a lot of
reasons that have led me to getting candle wasted, and
you know, it's been a wonderful experience. But let me
tell y'all. One of the last times I went to
get candle wasted. It was earlier this year. Something very
very sad had happened, and I was like, you know what,
I'm over life right now, I'm going I went to Starbucks.
(20:26):
I treated myself to a little oh. I think because
it was earlier in the year, it was before springtime
had come in, so some of the holiday drinks were
still around and that's my main time. That Starbucks is
like my thing. I really don't go to Starbucks often
because in the area we live, we have so many
amazing like mom and pop shop coffee places, like local coffee,
So normally I'm doing that. But during the holiday time,
(20:49):
which we are now in and approaching, there's some Starbucks
drinks that I just I do need to have, so
I treat myself to Starbucks. And unfortunately for me, there
is a TJ Max like three doors down from this Starbucks,
so I go over there. I am sad to the hilt.
I'm just filling my little cart up with all the
candles I can think to buy at the moment, and
(21:09):
there is a gentleman who is standing near me, also
looking at the candles. He is humming, humming, humming, just
a wonderful sweet tune that for some reason is in
his mind that day. And I'm kind of looking at
the candles, putting a couple in my cart, and then
he's humming, and it kind of like I'm looking at
(21:31):
him out of my peripheral vision, so kind of looks
to me like he's humming. I see him picking up
candles and it looks like he's doing a dance. So
I actually turned to look at him, and y'all, I
realize that he's shoplifting. He's doing this sort of it
looks very like this choreographed routine where he's humming and
he's picking up the candles, and he has this like
(21:53):
way that he's sort of dropping them down into his
book bag, and then he'll grab another one with the
other hand and drop it down into his book bag.
So at this time I realized a couple of things.
Number One, I realize I'm not going to be the
one to blow the whistle on this man, you know,
shoplifting these candles. I don't know why he's shoplifting them.
(22:15):
You know, maybe they're for a boo. You know, maybe
he just likes to have his candles to smell nice
and wherever he lives, and this is the method he's
chosen to receive these can I don't know either way.
I was like, you know, I'm not going to be
telling on you today. But also I can't be standing
here while you do this, So then I have to
(22:36):
take my car and do like a pretend shop where
I like go all the way around TJ Max for
a while and go looking at some other stuff when
we know good and well. I came up in there
because I wanted to get these candles, And in a way,
it was kind of like a little chuckle that I
got to myself on what was a very sad day
that day, because I was like, Wow, I'm having a
terrible day that has led me to these candles. And
(22:57):
whatever's going on in this man's life that has brought
up to the place where he is shoplifting these candles. Wow. Mm.
So I came back, of course, hoping that he hadn't
taken all the good ones and he was gone. Finished
my candle situation, and I was like, hmm, you have
so many things happen to you when you go to
get candle wasted. And let me tell you, I've learned
now that candles can also be a part of spiritual practice. Right.
(23:22):
So I keep a candle or two in my office.
I like to light a candle sometimes when I'm working,
if I'm working on something that I feel nervous about,
I like to have a lavender candle in my office.
Right now, my favorite candle is actually a pumpkin spice
latte candle, and it smells so amazing, and I cannot
(23:43):
really have coffee like that very much. So to be
able to have a candle where I can have that
coffee smell every day has been very nice. I have
candles that I like for when I need to wind down.
I got this idea from one of my best friends, Adrian.
She told me that sometimes she'll have a candle that
when the day is over, she'll light that candle, and
(24:03):
just the scent and the action of lighting it is
her way of telling herself like work is over, the
day is done, We're winding down now. I like to
have candles in each bathroom. I realize that those of
you that are listening that have little ones or little
kids in your house, this is not an option for you,
so I do understand that. But since there are no
(24:25):
kids here and it's just my husband and I and
for the most part, a lot of our friends don't
have little little ones, that would be like reaching up
putting a hand on a candle. We keep candles in
the bathrooms, and I probably need to have a separate
conversation with you about why it's important to me to
keep candles in the bathroom. Let me do a side
note right here, I actually just did a rant with
(24:45):
my assistant Lee about my need for candles to be
in the bathroom. Okay, listen, everybody has to go to
the bathroom, and sometimes people are at your house and
they have to go. Number two. Okay, my husband and
I have hosted many food holidays. Sometimes up to like
twenty people have been in our house at one time.
(25:09):
I know that some of those people gonna have to
go ahead and do a serious bathroom situation. Here's what
I don't want for you. I don't want you to
have trepidation. You know, it's a bathroom. That's what you're
supposed to go in there and do. I go ahead
and light a candle for you. Number one, because I'm
thinking of you, but also because the candle is gonna
(25:32):
help your situation. If you end up having you know,
a surprise boobo or something come up with you, or
maybe it wasn't a surprise and you knew it was happening,
you had to rush in there and go ahead and
handle that. You know, I provide you with the candle
in the bathroom. I'm thinking about you, I'm thinking about me.
I'm thinking about who has to go in the bathroom
after you. I'm thinking how you don't want to be
(25:53):
embarrassed by however it is left there after you had
to do your business. I only provide you with a candle.
I provide you with bathroom spray too. I can't tell
you how many other people's bathrooms I've been in that
have neither of these things. I understand for the people who,
for safety reasons cannot keep campbells in their bathrooms, at
(26:16):
least have a spray people. Okay, and let me let
me let me speak a word to the event planners
in this situation. Okay. I told you all that I
used to go and travel all of the country doing
all types of events, and nine times out of ten,
you know, I think this might be particular to churches
for some reason, because a lot of times when you're
(26:38):
no I was about to say this is just particular churches,
but it's not, because sometimes this happens to you in
a venue. A lot of places where people are performing,
where speakers are speaking, there'll be a big green room
and guess what the green room only has what one bathroom?
Do you know how many artists or speakers need to
(26:59):
get at number two out of the way before they
go on stage. Y'all couldn't bring a candle in here?
Y'all couldn't bring some spray? Do you know? I have
had to go before I go on stage, And it's like,
you want to go ahead and take care of that.
You don't want to be out here on stage. You're
already having so many things to think about when you're performing.
(27:20):
You're paying attention to the audience, You're remembering your material,
You're gauging from the crowd like how things are going.
You can't also hold your pelvist together to make sure
you don't go to the bathroom. No, you need to
clear that situation. Bladder and bowels need to be cleared
out before you go on stage. And those are just
the rules. I don't make the rules. Those are the rules. Okay.
(27:42):
Let me tell you about a time that I had
to go real bad in the green room and the
bathroom is like near a bunch of people. Okay, so
you're already worried like him, the people hear me when
I'm in here. You're hoping the music is loud enough. Whatever.
I had to go and look around, y'all, there's no
spray the room, except there is a spray. There's a
(28:04):
bottle of lavender scented spray starch. That was all I
had to help me and the others who would have
to come to the bathroom after me. Right, I shook
that spray starch and sprayed it. But what it's spray starch.
It literally just right to the floor. It's not aerosol.
(28:24):
It's for your shirts. It's for mister lavender pants who
wants to put creases in his genes for some reason. Okay,
it is starch, but that's what I had, So that's
what I used. So when you were in my home,
if you were ever to be in my actual living
room and you're a guest over here, there's a candle
(28:45):
and there's bathroom spray. And if for some reason a
candle isn't safe, so we've got little kids in the house,
there's bathroom spray. You feel me, because the people need it. Okay,
if you have an office, put spray in the bathroom.
Put it there. It makes the world better for everyone. Okay,
(29:08):
that's my ram. Also, I use candless as a way
to be an indication of the rooms I have finished
cleaning up when I'm cleaning the house. So it's like once,
it's like here we have vacuumed, here we have dusted.
I light a candle in that room. I go to
the next room. You know, a lot of times my
(29:29):
husband and I are doing this together, so he's doing
the floors and I'm doing the countertops. In the kitchen,
light a candle. I like having candles as this way
of knowing when something's about to begin, when something's about
to end, as a comfort for your guests in their
time of need. Let me speak another word about candles.
(29:49):
One of my friends said something to me that I
thought was so powerful. And I don't know if she
said it because she grew up doing this in her
own you know, religious traditions that she grew up with.
But I told her something that had happened in my
life that was rough. It was rough, rough, rough, rough.
I told it to her and she said, you know
(30:12):
what she said, I'm going to light a candle for you.
And she explained to me that for her, when she
would light candles, that that was prayer to her. That
she would have sometimes specific candles in the house that
she would light, and just the action of lighting that
(30:33):
candle was this way of saying in her soul that
she's thinking of this person, of the things that they're
going through, she's remembering them. That for her, that was
an action of prayer which I thought was so powerful,
and I think about that a lot. This is a
season of time, as you were listening to this in
the fall, this is a season of time for me
(30:53):
where I really really love to have candles in the
house during this season, and it's a good way to
hold space to remember. I didn't know how much comfort
it would bring me to have someone say they will
light a candle for me, and I have thought many
times I also want to be loving and gentle enough
to myself to light a candle for myself sometimes too,
(31:15):
and even the action of lighting a candle for someone.
Sometimes people are going through such hard things that you
don't have the words to say to them. If you
are a person who prays, you might not even have
the words to pray. But the action of lighting that
candle can be this expression of what's in your heart
(31:35):
even if you don't have the words to say. So
speaking of words to say, apparently I have a lot
of words to say about candles. So Yankee candle sponsor me.
Other things I do that are treat yourself moments. For me,
I enjoy a pasta night where I just cook pasta
(31:56):
for one. My husband works most weekends, so I have
a lot of like Friday and Saturday nights to myself,
and sometimes I hang out with a girlfriend, Like really,
the concept of her living room really does happen for
me with my girlfriend. So sometimes I'll have a girlfriend
come over and we'll piece together some litt snacks or
meals or whatever between her house and mine, or sometimes
(32:20):
will order food or make food. But I've enjoyed some
Friday nights, especially because Friday. I don't know how y'all feel,
but sometimes Fridays I feel like that is not a
day I want to have any social activities. On Friday night,
I just want to be at home. I just want
to chill, especially if it's been a long week. And
part of the pasta night is me also learning to
(32:40):
enjoy my own company that I also like to hang
out with myself. I have lots of people I love
to hang out with two but that I can also
love to hang out with me. So sometimes I'll take
whatever leftover veggies we have for the week and make
pasta like that. Sometimes I'll find a recipe that I
really want to try, and I might run by the
(33:01):
store and just pick up those ingredients and just making
enough pasta. It's not the same cooking that I might
do during the week that I'm trying to do meal
prep and make enough to last for a few days
or several days, you know, it's just something to eat
for that night. And that is a wonderful way that
I love to treat myself. Also, I will say wash
(33:23):
Day has become a big opportunity for me to treat myself.
And those of you that are listening that have natural hair,
all the black women listening that have natural hair, know
what I mean about wash day. Wash Day is this
tradition in the natural hair community. And for me, at first,
when I first went natural, wash Day was just like
(33:46):
a lot of learning because I hadn't dealt with my
natural hair in twenty years, you know, so it was
mostly like educational and experimenting. But now that I've been
natural over ten years, I have an idea, you know,
of the products my hair likes, of the routine that's
good for my hair. And shout out to my hairstylist,
Brandy Simms. She has helped me so much to continue
(34:09):
with healthy regimens for my hair. But I used to
bemoan wash day taking, you know, a long time, and
now I just like to actually plan a day to
wash my hair where I can take my time, where
I'm not rushing for it to be done for anything,
and just luxuriating in my hair products, in the way
(34:33):
they smell, in the way they feel on my hair,
in getting a chance to investigate how my hair is doing.
Is it thinning out in some places that I didn't notice,
is it growing? You know, just all of that taking
time to tend to myself. And I think for me,
and I know for a lot of black women who
(34:54):
have natural hair, there's still a lot of stigma that
we have to undo about what we were taught about
our hair, that our hair is too much, that our
hair needs to be tamed or controlled or whatever those
things are. And just letting my hair be itself. And
when I'm taking my time with my hair, that's also
(35:15):
taking time with me and that I deserve that whenever possible.
And I wanted to close by talking about this because
I know a lot of times when we say terms
like self care, which I talked about this a little
bit in my conversation with Bethany B. Wilkinson recently, when
we talk about self care, sometimes this what I've been
(35:38):
talking about is what comes up. Right. We are talking
about ways we panmper ourselves maybe, and that's not all
that self care is. And I hope to have some
other episodes to talk to you all more about that.
But I want to talk about ways you can treat
yourself that don't involve money or big ticket items, because
(35:58):
treating ourselves, even self care, is not only for the rich,
the wealthy, the people who have this blah blah blah money.
You know, treating yourself does not have to involve money.
And there were many times in my life where I
couldn't afford to get candle wasted. There are times now
(36:20):
that there are things I would love to treat myself
to financially that I may not be able to. But
there are ways to still luxuriate even without having to
dole out all this money. So here are some ways
you can treat yourself that may not involve spending lots
of money or may not involve these big ticket items.
You can treat yourself to a nap. There are some
(36:43):
days that you just need a nap, and when you can,
you should treat yourself to that. Naps are free, but
they can also be really great if you're having trouble
sleeping at night, if you are going through some things
in your health or hormonally. For some of us, treat
(37:04):
yourself to a nap. You can also treat yourself to
moments of silence or moments of quiet. I know, for
some of you listening, you may have a very bustling household.
You may have children in your household. You may have
a household it's full of lots of pets, lots of
family members. You know, for some of my friends that
have households like that, they say the bathroom is their
(37:27):
one place, or their car when they have like that
one part of their commute that it's just them in
the car. You can treat yourself to a moment of silence,
a moment of quiet. You can treat yourself to a
dance party. If you have an album that you love,
you can play that album while you're by yourself and
have an opportunity to just dance. Nobody's looking. You don't
(37:50):
have to be worried about that. You can treat yourself
to some music that you love, some music that makes
you feel good. You can treat yourself to a listening party.
And this is something that my husban and I used
to do when we were living in our old place
that we have been able to do for many years
that I hope to get back to it. But we
used to have a listening party at our house and
(38:10):
we would invite all of our friends that were working
in artistic creative industry. We would invite them over. We
would pick an album. We would play the album from
beginning to end, and we would all just sit and
listen to it, and people would bring their journals. They
might bring a sketch pad or a canvas and they
(38:32):
might draw, or they might write, or they might just
sit and listen. And then after we finished listening to
the album, we would talk about what it meant to us,
or maybe we'd share whatever we had decided to create,
if we had created something while we listened. And this
is something you can do with some people that you love.
(38:53):
It's something that you can do just by yourself, you know,
take yourself back to a time where we might have
listened to an album all the way through, or take
yourself through a playlist that you love and listen to
that playlist, have that teenage moment that many of us
had where we really just had our headphones in and
got to enjoy our music. You can treat yourself to
(39:16):
books from the library. The library is such a rich
resource in our community. I hope that you're supporting your
local library. It's such a great place. I definitely have
had times in life where I cannot go to these
bookstores and buy more books, but I could go to
the library. I did that as a child a lot.
(39:38):
They have newspapers there and books there. They have music
and DVDs there. You can even check out ebooks from
the library as well. Those are things that you can
have a chance to experience that are ways you can
treat yourself that don't cost you anything. You can treat
yourself to books you already have in your own library.
(39:59):
And this is something where I really need to take
my own advice here because sometimes I'm kind of a
book collector. I don't know if any of you are
like this, and so there are some books that like
they come out and I'm just like, man, I want
to have a copy of that in my library, and
I buy it and then years go by it and
I never actually read the book. And so just even
returning to some of the books that you may have
around that you haven't had the chance to read can
(40:21):
be a wonderful way to treat yourself. And my last
tip of a way that you can treat yourself that
doesn't have to cost you money, that doesn't have to
be a big ticket item, is talking with someone who
makes you laugh and leaves you feeling full and not drained.
That's a beautiful way to treat yourself. I thought that
(40:41):
was such a powerful question when my coach asked me,
who are the people that bring you comfort? You know,
and people that bring me comfort are the people that
I can wear whatever when I'm around them that there's
a lot of joy and honesty and our relationship. So
(41:02):
think about who that is. You probably had a name
that came to your mind already when I said that.
Call that person, you know, if they can safely visit
with you, if you can meet up somewhere, or if
they can come to your house, You go to their house,
hang out in person. If you can't do that safely,
try zoom If you're all zoomed out, try talking on
the phone or having some other app where you can
(41:24):
communicate with them. Try to spend time with people that
are not always there to drain you, to take from you.
Think about the people that really leave you feeling refreshed, replenished.
They leave you feeling filled up and refueled in the
best way. Those are some ways that you can treat
yourself that don't have to cost you any money. Whatever happens,
(41:47):
whatever you decide, are your methods of treating yourself. You
deserve it. So I hope this week you are thinking
about at least one way that you can treat yourself.
This week. Think about something that you can do for
yourself to celebrate yourself, to make yourself laugh. If it's
something that you want to buy, buy it. If it's
(42:09):
something that you can get without buying anything, then do that.
But as our great innovators Tom and Donna from Parks
and Recreation taught us, whatever you do this week, treat yourself.
Thanks for listening. Her with Amina Brown is produced by
(42:40):
Matt Owen for Solo Graffiti Productions as a part of
the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks
for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review
the podcast.
Hey, y'all, Welcome back to Her with Amina Brown. And
if you didn't know it, I'm Amina Brown, which that
works out super conveniently for the title of this podcast.
Today we are talking about treat Yourself. In season four,
(00:34):
Episode four of Parks and Recreation, Tom and Donna introduce
one of my favorite concepts, treat Yourself Day. I hope
I have some Parks and rec fans listening. I've learned
quite a few things the last few years of life,
and then some particular things about what it means to
treat myself during the pandemic and all of the additional
(00:57):
stressors that so many of us are walking through right now.
So I thought it would be cool to dive into
some of this for today's episode. I wanted to share
with you all a few things that I use to
treat myself. I'm working with a coach right now and
we were talking about just some tough things that I've
been navigating these past few months, and one of the
(01:19):
things that came up in our conversation is when you're
going through something that's really difficult, to think about what
you can do to bring your self comfort during that time.
And I thought that was a really powerful thing to
sort of put my brain around. As she and I
(01:40):
were talking about it, and we talked in the session
about what are the things that I do that bring
me comfort? And who are the people that bring me comfort?
So I throw that powerful question out to you all
today as we talk about treat yourself, and for us,
we're not talking about just treat yourself day. We're talking
about how to have a rhythm of treating yourself, which
(02:04):
I think can be such a fun thing and a
wonderful thing too. So that's what kind of got me
thinking about that because that was part of my homework
assignment that I wanted to give to myself coming out
of the session with her. I wanted to think about
what are the things that bring me comfort? What are
the ways I can treat myself. So the first thing
(02:25):
I thought about is certain smell good things bring me comfort.
That is one of my first go tos for how
I treat myself. This applies to candles, shower gel, body sprays,
bathroom sprays, and essential oil. Particularly when I'm using essential
oil in a diffuser right, Smell is really important to me.
(02:49):
There's something about certain fragrances that just having a really
nice shower gel that I love the smell of, you know,
like that feeling in the shower or having a bath
bomb that I love, and being able to smell peach
or mango or vanilla or sandalwood, mahogany. They're just so
(03:15):
many fragrances like that that bring me comfort. But also
the different fragrances sort of have different roles for me.
I think I'm a very compartmentalized thinker in this regard.
So when it comes to like relaxation, I love lavender.
That's my first go to. When I traveled on the
(03:37):
road a lot, I would have like a little travel
essential oil diffuser and I would have my like one
hundred percent you know, lavender essential oil, and sometimes I
would mix it with peppermint, or sometimes I would mix
it with eucalyptus. And even having that in the room
when I traveled, first of all made it feel a
little more like home, but also just help helps make
(04:01):
my mind realize it's time to wind down for the day,
It's time to let go of whatever the stressors were
of the day. I love vanilla as well, and I
love mango. I love rose as a scent a lot
more than I thought I would. I've never been a
person that traditionally loved roses. My husband knows me so
(04:24):
well and knows about me that when he gets me flowers,
he typically never gets me roses for the most part,
because he knows if I'm going to get flowers. I
love a bouquet of all these different flowers. I love sunflowers.
I haven't been a person that loved rose or that
rose fragrance. And of course it depends, you know what
it is, right that sometimes you're smelling sort of this
(04:45):
imitation of rose fragrance. But I got into this shower
gel that I love that smells like rose, and then
it had a matching lotion to it, and I think,
actually it's a mixture of rose and something sweet the
way it smells. So I love rose. That's one of
my favorite things. And I have sense for all sorts
(05:09):
of different things. I have the sense I use to relax.
I have certain sense I like for when I want
to focus on work. I have certain sense I like
for date night or sexy time mm hmm. Because the
living room is a place for grown people. The her
living room is a place for grown people, mm hmm.
And I have certain sense I like for what I
(05:30):
need to clean up, or certain sense I like to
smell that makes the house feel like, oh, yes, it's clean. Right.
I'm sure many of you and I said that you
have like certain sense that you remember maybe in your parents'
house growing up, or your grandparents or wherever you grew up.
Some of my friends tell me it's fabuloso. That is
the sin that they're like, yes, things are clean when
(05:52):
I smell that or pine salt. For me, it's always
something that's between, like something that smells lemony and that
smells like bleach, that feels like the house is clean. Okay, yes,
we love to see that. The fact that I love
things that smell good and that things that smell a
certain way like bring me comfort. This leads me to
(06:16):
one of my major treat your self purchases candles. Okay,
I want to discuss I want to just sit in
a moment and talk about candles for a second. So,
first of all, in my pre pandemic life, I had
a mostly road life, which meant the rhythm that my
(06:38):
husband and I had For the most part, we spent
many years you know, traveling together, and then there was
a period of time where we were starting to get
gigs that weren't where both of us were booked. So
I might be booked in this place and he might
be booked over here, right, But either way, we were
still sort of having these seasons of time that were
very event based. It was either based on travel or
(07:01):
based on even like they were local events, there were
still events event schedule you had to stick to, right,
versus our home life. When we had time at home,
time in our offices, just to get to experience what
home is like. And I think that I think that
brought out a couple of things. I think sometimes that
(07:23):
meant that we didn't really have the time to make
our home feel like home, right. And then I think
there were also times that there were certain things we
really gravitated towards doing because we so enjoyed the time
that we got to spend at home. Because even all
(07:43):
of the creature comforts that you know, you can think
about doing when you're traveling, it's like it's still not
going to be home. There's nothing that's going to be
like home, right. And there would be some periods of time,
especially once Matt and I got to the point where
where we were doing our business together. We were in
our business together, but we were doing work with separate clients.
(08:07):
We were doing separate events that we weren't doing together.
There would be these different moments of rise and fall
in the schedule where sometimes it would get really busy
for him, but it would totally slow down for me,
right and typically in pre pandemic times that would happen
in the summer and around the holiday time between Thanksgiving
(08:30):
and kind of Christmas time. For the summer, for me,
things would kind of slow down. A lot of the
events that I was doing weren't really going in the summer.
I was talking at a lot of colleges back then,
I was doing a lot of conference work, and conference
work kind of follows a school schedule, you know, a bit,
you know. So it was sort of like by the
time the summer came, my whole schedule would be cleared,
(08:53):
and that would be the time that my husband would
be really busy working having different events. He was doing,
different clients he worked with. So I would always joke
with him that that was my time to sort of
have a short period of time to act like I
was a stay at home wife and I want to
(09:13):
talk about what my fantasy is about being a stay
at home wife really entailed, you know, because it's one thing.
And my friend, some of my friends who are stay
at home wives or partners who are stay at home
parents will tell me this, it's a very different experience
when you are the partner in the relationship that stays
(09:33):
home when the other when either the other person is
rich or both of y'all are rich, And all of
my dreams of being a stay at home wife were
based on being rich. My friends who were you know,
stay at home wives, partners, parents, right, they would say, yeah,
this job is challenging, period, but it's especially challenging when
(09:57):
I'm stay at home and now like we on a
tight budget. You know, that's different. What you do with
your spare time is different. But my grandiose dreams, you know,
whenever we hear the term, which no one says anymore,
and I don't see them anymore. But I remember when
I was growing up, rich people were always like eating
bond bonds, or when other people would make a reference
(10:18):
to someone rich, they would be like, they don't do
anything but sit in their house and eat bond bonds.
And like, now I'm like, what is a bond bond.
How can I get one? I'm gonna find out about
that and report back to y'all. So I would like
joke with my husband like, wow, you know, I don't
have any events, any work to do, Like I'm gonna
have two months or I'm gonna live my like dreams
(10:40):
stay at home wife life. Now, of course, my husband
and I are not rich, okay, so I could not
do the things that were really in my dreams to do,
like buy new curtains, you know, just start getting all
the flooring redone in the house, you know, for no
reason but that my mood has changed, you know, get
things painted in the house. Decide this whole furniture set
(11:03):
is nothing and I need a new set of furniture.
You know. Those were kind of like my dreams of
what I wanted to do. And I thought I was
going to be a rich, stay at home life. And
I will tell y'all something. I was thirty one when
I married my husband, and I have to have a
separate episode probably telling y'all a little bit more about
(11:23):
my dating history. But I didn't start dating as an
adult until I was probably twenty five twenty six. Was
my first time really going on dates as a grown woman,
you know, separate from high school and college, right, And
I remember at the time that I was between twenty
five and twenty seven. I would go out to all
these different you know, events and mingle things in the city,
(11:47):
and a lot of the men who approached me and
wanted to go on dates with me were anywhere from
seven to ten years my seniorear. So if we just
used the ten years as an example, if I'm twenty
six at the time, there were men who were thirty
six wanting to go out on dates with me, and
a couple of them were rich or wealthier, well to
(12:09):
do men. Some of them were not rich, but they
were well off in the sense that they were well
established in their careers. They made good money. And I
learned from these dates, which never made it to relationships.
They would just be these you know, one, two, three dates,
and they'd be like, no, no, thank you. I learned
from these dates the type of woman that they were
(12:29):
looking for, and a lot of them were looking for
a woman that was going to be willing to become
a well to do or rich stay at home wife.
They were looking for someone that was willing to give
up her career entirely, who was willing to have children
if possible, who was willing to manage their household, make
(12:51):
sure there was food ready for them to eat when
they got home. And then you were pretty much going
to spend the rest of your time like decorating the house,
going to get your manicure pace, to cure facials, whatever
stuff you do like that, and that was going to
be your life. And in my mid twenties, I contemplated it, y'all, Okay,
I contemplated it because I was like, you know, I'm
working this job. I don't like, you know, I'm meeting
(13:13):
these men who are willing to sort of buy me
out of this life of having to be concerned with
this money, Like maybe this is a thing that I
could really do. And then I discovered, oh my gosh, no,
I can't do this. One of the guys I dated,
it's clear that he never made it to a relationship
with me because I still cannot remember his name, but
(13:35):
I remember that I called him mister lavender Pants among
my friends because one of our dates, he came to
the date wearing lavender pants and they weren't It wasn't
just that they were lavender, and then that threw me
off for some reason. It was also that they were
starched to the high heavens, y'all. They were starch like.
He didn't starch them himself. He sent them to the
(13:56):
cleaners and was like heavy starch, Like if he he
took those pants off, which he never did that I
saw him, okay, but if he took those pants off,
those pants would have stood up on their own. It's
how heavy they were starched. Plus he out on sandals
and black church stocks under the sandals. I digress. So,
mister lavender pants. I don't even remember how we met, y'alledge.
(14:20):
Remember we went on a couple of dates, and he
was starting to ask me like, so, you know, you
work at blah blah blah company. You know, how's that going.
Do you see yourself like climbing the ladder there? And
I was like, no, I definitely don't see myself climbing
the ladder there. And he was like okay. He was like,
do you see yourself wanting to have children? I was
like yeah, he was like okay. And then you know,
(14:41):
as we're continuing to talk, I'm realizing like, oh, do
you cook? Like I'm realizing, Oh, I thought we were
on a date. I'm kind of on like an interview
situation with you. And he was basically like, I'm this
happened to me more than once during this season of life,
in particular dating men of this age, this happened more
than once, where it just came down to, like, would
(15:02):
you if if this dating turns into a relationship and
then we decide we're gonna get married, it's been the
rest of our lives together, would you give up your
job and do these things for me, which basically meant,
you know, if we have kids, you taken care of kids,
you take care of the household, you're managing all those things.
When I get home, I want there to be like
(15:22):
some food on the table, and then I want there
to be sex. That's basically the agreement. And I was like, well,
I don't know that I would mind that life, but
I do like intend on being a writer, though, so
there would be sometimes that I'm sure I'd be writing
a book or working on an article or an essay
or something, and things would always get kind of tricky
(15:44):
when you got to that part. So I guess I
got close potentially to my dream of being what I imagined
is a rich stay at home wife. But there was
some agreements there, y'all that I just couldn't keep up.
I just couldn't keep up with that. I was like,
I think, I think what you're saying you want is
I think you want like something that's like a combination
(16:08):
of like a nanny, a made a cook, a house
manager that also has sex with you somehow, And that
is not what I want for my future. So I
rescinded that life. However, whenever these times come where my
work slows down and my husband's work is so much busier,
(16:30):
my main thing that I can afford to treat myself
to do as a I don't know where I am.
It's not a rich stay at home wife, as a
stay at home wife that has a few dollars for
two months, it's normally two months. I have this experience
and then it's like boom, I got to get back
to work. The schedule has picked up. Now I treat
(16:53):
myself to seasonal candles and handsp. I know that ain't
the same as picking out new Kurt. It's okay, Like
I know it's not the same, but this is what
I've decided. I can commit to with my work schedule
plus my husband's work schedule, and on a realistic number
of money that we can actually spend on things. So
(17:14):
I decided I was gonna become this person. I'm like,
you know, I'm just gonna have like fall hand soaps,
fall candles. Then I'm gonna have like the sort of
holiday winter esque hand soaps candles. Okay, then we're gonna
have a springtime situation. Then we're gonna have summer, then
we're gonna go back again to fall, and I'm just
(17:36):
gonna switch these out. And at first I did this
because I love hosting. My husband I both love hosting
people at our home. So I like for people to
go into your bathroom and they've got a nice candle there,
a nice bathroom spray, a nice hand soap to represent
the season. Then the pandemic happened and hardly no one
(18:12):
was coming over here. So I was like, well, I
treat myself to nice hand soaps and nice candles because
I like it and it's our house and we should
enjoy our home as well. Okay, now let's discuss my
main place for purchasing these items. I'm not gonna lie
is TJ Max, and I do have times that I
(18:36):
order from like a small business that specializes in making candles.
I do have times that I do that, but for
the most part, that doesn't happen often because when I
typically am in need of candles, it's like a spur
of the moment decision that I've made. So yes, I
started out hoping I would become a person that would
(18:58):
switch out the hand soaps and the candy seasonally, but
the pandemic has really brought me to a place where
emotions have caused me to go to TJ Max and
get candle wasted. First of all, there's not that much
damage I can do going to get candle wasted. That's
different than getting purse wasted or shoe wasted. The amount
of money that I'm gonna spend is not gonna be
(19:19):
like something that is really terrible to have to explain,
you know, on like the bills when my husband's looking
at like, why is it thousands of dollars on candle?
It's not gonna be thousands of dollars on candles. It's
gonna be however much I've decided I'm gonna be wasted with.
But it's still gonna be a reasonable amount of money, right, Okay.
I have gotten candle wasted because something really sad happened
(19:41):
and I was like, I need some candles in here.
I need the comfort of the way the light of
candles is so like warm and cozy. I need the
comfort of the scent of these candles. Okay. I have
gone to get candle wasted because something really great happened,
and I was like, I want to celebrate myself by
when Christmas time comes, having a candle that smells like
(20:03):
a Christmas tree, even if I don't actually have a
Christmas tree. Okay, Okay, So I have a lot of
reasons that have led me to getting candle wasted, and
you know, it's been a wonderful experience. But let me
tell y'all. One of the last times I went to
get candle wasted. It was earlier this year. Something very
very sad had happened, and I was like, you know what,
I'm over life right now, I'm going I went to Starbucks.
(20:26):
I treated myself to a little oh. I think because
it was earlier in the year, it was before springtime
had come in, so some of the holiday drinks were
still around and that's my main time. That Starbucks is
like my thing. I really don't go to Starbucks often
because in the area we live, we have so many
amazing like mom and pop shop coffee places, like local coffee,
So normally I'm doing that. But during the holiday time,
(20:49):
which we are now in and approaching, there's some Starbucks
drinks that I just I do need to have, so
I treat myself to Starbucks. And unfortunately for me, there
is a TJ Max like three doors down from this Starbucks,
so I go over there. I am sad to the hilt.
I'm just filling my little cart up with all the
candles I can think to buy at the moment, and
(21:09):
there is a gentleman who is standing near me, also
looking at the candles. He is humming, humming, humming, just
a wonderful sweet tune that for some reason is in
his mind that day. And I'm kind of looking at
the candles, putting a couple in my cart, and then
he's humming, and it kind of like I'm looking at
(21:31):
him out of my peripheral vision, so kind of looks
to me like he's humming. I see him picking up
candles and it looks like he's doing a dance. So
I actually turned to look at him, and y'all, I
realize that he's shoplifting. He's doing this sort of it
looks very like this choreographed routine where he's humming and
he's picking up the candles, and he has this like
(21:53):
way that he's sort of dropping them down into his
book bag, and then he'll grab another one with the
other hand and drop it down into his book bag.
So at this time I realized a couple of things.
Number One, I realize I'm not going to be the
one to blow the whistle on this man, you know,
shoplifting these candles. I don't know why he's shoplifting them.
(22:15):
You know, maybe they're for a boo. You know, maybe
he just likes to have his candles to smell nice
and wherever he lives, and this is the method he's
chosen to receive these can I don't know either way.
I was like, you know, I'm not going to be
telling on you today. But also I can't be standing
here while you do this, So then I have to
(22:36):
take my car and do like a pretend shop where
I like go all the way around TJ Max for
a while and go looking at some other stuff when
we know good and well. I came up in there
because I wanted to get these candles, And in a way,
it was kind of like a little chuckle that I
got to myself on what was a very sad day
that day, because I was like, Wow, I'm having a
terrible day that has led me to these candles. And
(22:57):
whatever's going on in this man's life that has brought
up to the place where he is shoplifting these candles. Wow. Mm.
So I came back, of course, hoping that he hadn't
taken all the good ones and he was gone. Finished
my candle situation, and I was like, hmm, you have
so many things happen to you when you go to
get candle wasted. And let me tell you, I've learned
now that candles can also be a part of spiritual practice. Right.
(23:22):
So I keep a candle or two in my office.
I like to light a candle sometimes when I'm working,
if I'm working on something that I feel nervous about,
I like to have a lavender candle in my office.
Right now, my favorite candle is actually a pumpkin spice
latte candle, and it smells so amazing, and I cannot
(23:43):
really have coffee like that very much. So to be
able to have a candle where I can have that
coffee smell every day has been very nice. I have
candles that I like for when I need to wind down.
I got this idea from one of my best friends, Adrian.
She told me that sometimes she'll have a candle that
when the day is over, she'll light that candle, and
(24:03):
just the scent and the action of lighting it is
her way of telling herself like work is over, the
day is done, We're winding down now. I like to
have candles in each bathroom. I realize that those of
you that are listening that have little ones or little
kids in your house, this is not an option for you,
so I do understand that. But since there are no
(24:25):
kids here and it's just my husband and I and
for the most part, a lot of our friends don't
have little little ones, that would be like reaching up
putting a hand on a candle. We keep candles in
the bathrooms, and I probably need to have a separate
conversation with you about why it's important to me to
keep candles in the bathroom. Let me do a side
note right here, I actually just did a rant with
(24:45):
my assistant Lee about my need for candles to be
in the bathroom. Okay, listen, everybody has to go to
the bathroom, and sometimes people are at your house and
they have to go. Number two. Okay, my husband and
I have hosted many food holidays. Sometimes up to like
twenty people have been in our house at one time.
(25:09):
I know that some of those people gonna have to
go ahead and do a serious bathroom situation. Here's what
I don't want for you. I don't want you to
have trepidation. You know, it's a bathroom. That's what you're
supposed to go in there and do. I go ahead
and light a candle for you. Number one, because I'm
thinking of you, but also because the candle is gonna
(25:32):
help your situation. If you end up having you know,
a surprise boobo or something come up with you, or
maybe it wasn't a surprise and you knew it was happening,
you had to rush in there and go ahead and
handle that. You know, I provide you with the candle
in the bathroom. I'm thinking about you, I'm thinking about me.
I'm thinking about who has to go in the bathroom
after you. I'm thinking how you don't want to be
(25:53):
embarrassed by however it is left there after you had
to do your business. I only provide you with a candle.
I provide you with bathroom spray too. I can't tell
you how many other people's bathrooms I've been in that
have neither of these things. I understand for the people who,
for safety reasons cannot keep campbells in their bathrooms, at
(26:16):
least have a spray people. Okay, and let me let
me let me speak a word to the event planners
in this situation. Okay. I told you all that I
used to go and travel all of the country doing
all types of events, and nine times out of ten,
you know, I think this might be particular to churches
for some reason, because a lot of times when you're
(26:38):
no I was about to say this is just particular churches,
but it's not, because sometimes this happens to you in
a venue. A lot of places where people are performing,
where speakers are speaking, there'll be a big green room
and guess what the green room only has what one bathroom?
Do you know how many artists or speakers need to
(26:59):
get at number two out of the way before they
go on stage. Y'all couldn't bring a candle in here?
Y'all couldn't bring some spray? Do you know? I have
had to go before I go on stage, And it's like,
you want to go ahead and take care of that.
You don't want to be out here on stage. You're
already having so many things to think about when you're performing.
(27:20):
You're paying attention to the audience, You're remembering your material,
You're gauging from the crowd like how things are going.
You can't also hold your pelvist together to make sure
you don't go to the bathroom. No, you need to
clear that situation. Bladder and bowels need to be cleared
out before you go on stage. And those are just
the rules. I don't make the rules. Those are the rules. Okay.
(27:42):
Let me tell you about a time that I had
to go real bad in the green room and the
bathroom is like near a bunch of people. Okay, so
you're already worried like him, the people hear me when
I'm in here. You're hoping the music is loud enough. Whatever.
I had to go and look around, y'all, there's no
spray the room, except there is a spray. There's a
(28:04):
bottle of lavender scented spray starch. That was all I
had to help me and the others who would have
to come to the bathroom after me. Right, I shook
that spray starch and sprayed it. But what it's spray starch.
It literally just right to the floor. It's not aerosol.
(28:24):
It's for your shirts. It's for mister lavender pants who
wants to put creases in his genes for some reason. Okay,
it is starch, but that's what I had, So that's
what I used. So when you were in my home,
if you were ever to be in my actual living
room and you're a guest over here, there's a candle
(28:45):
and there's bathroom spray. And if for some reason a
candle isn't safe, so we've got little kids in the house,
there's bathroom spray. You feel me, because the people need it. Okay,
if you have an office, put spray in the bathroom.
Put it there. It makes the world better for everyone. Okay,
(29:08):
that's my ram. Also, I use candless as a way
to be an indication of the rooms I have finished
cleaning up when I'm cleaning the house. So it's like once,
it's like here we have vacuumed, here we have dusted.
I light a candle in that room. I go to
the next room. You know, a lot of times my
(29:29):
husband and I are doing this together, so he's doing
the floors and I'm doing the countertops. In the kitchen,
light a candle. I like having candles as this way
of knowing when something's about to begin, when something's about
to end, as a comfort for your guests in their
time of need. Let me speak another word about candles.
(29:49):
One of my friends said something to me that I
thought was so powerful. And I don't know if she
said it because she grew up doing this in her
own you know, religious traditions that she grew up with.
But I told her something that had happened in my
life that was rough. It was rough, rough, rough, rough.
I told it to her and she said, you know
(30:12):
what she said, I'm going to light a candle for you.
And she explained to me that for her, when she
would light candles, that that was prayer to her. That
she would have sometimes specific candles in the house that
she would light, and just the action of lighting that
(30:33):
candle was this way of saying in her soul that
she's thinking of this person, of the things that they're
going through, she's remembering them. That for her, that was
an action of prayer which I thought was so powerful,
and I think about that a lot. This is a
season of time, as you were listening to this in
the fall, this is a season of time for me
(30:53):
where I really really love to have candles in the
house during this season, and it's a good way to
hold space to remember. I didn't know how much comfort
it would bring me to have someone say they will
light a candle for me, and I have thought many
times I also want to be loving and gentle enough
to myself to light a candle for myself sometimes too,
(31:15):
and even the action of lighting a candle for someone.
Sometimes people are going through such hard things that you
don't have the words to say to them. If you
are a person who prays, you might not even have
the words to pray. But the action of lighting that
candle can be this expression of what's in your heart
(31:35):
even if you don't have the words to say. So
speaking of words to say, apparently I have a lot
of words to say about candles. So Yankee candle sponsor me.
Other things I do that are treat yourself moments. For me,
I enjoy a pasta night where I just cook pasta
(31:56):
for one. My husband works most weekends, so I have
a lot of like Friday and Saturday nights to myself,
and sometimes I hang out with a girlfriend, Like really,
the concept of her living room really does happen for
me with my girlfriend. So sometimes I'll have a girlfriend
come over and we'll piece together some litt snacks or
meals or whatever between her house and mine, or sometimes
(32:20):
will order food or make food. But I've enjoyed some
Friday nights, especially because Friday. I don't know how y'all feel,
but sometimes Fridays I feel like that is not a
day I want to have any social activities. On Friday night,
I just want to be at home. I just want
to chill, especially if it's been a long week. And
part of the pasta night is me also learning to
(32:40):
enjoy my own company that I also like to hang
out with myself. I have lots of people I love
to hang out with two but that I can also
love to hang out with me. So sometimes I'll take
whatever leftover veggies we have for the week and make
pasta like that. Sometimes I'll find a recipe that I
really want to try, and I might run by the
(33:01):
store and just pick up those ingredients and just making
enough pasta. It's not the same cooking that I might
do during the week that I'm trying to do meal
prep and make enough to last for a few days
or several days, you know, it's just something to eat
for that night. And that is a wonderful way that
I love to treat myself. Also, I will say wash
(33:23):
Day has become a big opportunity for me to treat myself.
And those of you that are listening that have natural hair,
all the black women listening that have natural hair, know
what I mean about wash day. Wash Day is this
tradition in the natural hair community. And for me, at first,
when I first went natural, wash Day was just like
(33:46):
a lot of learning because I hadn't dealt with my
natural hair in twenty years, you know, so it was
mostly like educational and experimenting. But now that I've been
natural over ten years, I have an idea, you know,
of the products my hair likes, of the routine that's
good for my hair. And shout out to my hairstylist,
Brandy Simms. She has helped me so much to continue
(34:09):
with healthy regimens for my hair. But I used to
bemoan wash day taking, you know, a long time, and
now I just like to actually plan a day to
wash my hair where I can take my time, where
I'm not rushing for it to be done for anything,
and just luxuriating in my hair products, in the way
(34:33):
they smell, in the way they feel on my hair,
in getting a chance to investigate how my hair is doing.
Is it thinning out in some places that I didn't notice,
is it growing? You know, just all of that taking
time to tend to myself. And I think for me,
and I know for a lot of black women who
(34:54):
have natural hair, there's still a lot of stigma that
we have to undo about what we were taught about
our hair, that our hair is too much, that our
hair needs to be tamed or controlled or whatever those
things are. And just letting my hair be itself. And
when I'm taking my time with my hair, that's also
(35:15):
taking time with me and that I deserve that whenever possible.
And I wanted to close by talking about this because
I know a lot of times when we say terms
like self care, which I talked about this a little
bit in my conversation with Bethany B. Wilkinson recently, when
we talk about self care, sometimes this what I've been
(35:38):
talking about is what comes up. Right. We are talking
about ways we panmper ourselves maybe, and that's not all
that self care is. And I hope to have some
other episodes to talk to you all more about that.
But I want to talk about ways you can treat
yourself that don't involve money or big ticket items, because
(35:58):
treating ourselves, even self care, is not only for the rich,
the wealthy, the people who have this blah blah blah money.
You know, treating yourself does not have to involve money.
And there were many times in my life where I
couldn't afford to get candle wasted. There are times now
(36:20):
that there are things I would love to treat myself
to financially that I may not be able to. But
there are ways to still luxuriate even without having to
dole out all this money. So here are some ways
you can treat yourself that may not involve spending lots
of money or may not involve these big ticket items.
You can treat yourself to a nap. There are some
(36:43):
days that you just need a nap, and when you can,
you should treat yourself to that. Naps are free, but
they can also be really great if you're having trouble
sleeping at night, if you are going through some things
in your health or hormonally. For some of us, treat
(37:04):
yourself to a nap. You can also treat yourself to
moments of silence or moments of quiet. I know, for
some of you listening, you may have a very bustling household.
You may have children in your household. You may have
a household it's full of lots of pets, lots of
family members. You know, for some of my friends that
have households like that, they say the bathroom is their
(37:27):
one place, or their car when they have like that
one part of their commute that it's just them in
the car. You can treat yourself to a moment of silence,
a moment of quiet. You can treat yourself to a
dance party. If you have an album that you love,
you can play that album while you're by yourself and
have an opportunity to just dance. Nobody's looking. You don't
(37:50):
have to be worried about that. You can treat yourself
to some music that you love, some music that makes
you feel good. You can treat yourself to a listening party.
And this is something that my husban and I used
to do when we were living in our old place
that we have been able to do for many years
that I hope to get back to it. But we
used to have a listening party at our house and
(38:10):
we would invite all of our friends that were working
in artistic creative industry. We would invite them over. We
would pick an album. We would play the album from
beginning to end, and we would all just sit and
listen to it, and people would bring their journals. They
might bring a sketch pad or a canvas and they
(38:32):
might draw, or they might write, or they might just
sit and listen. And then after we finished listening to
the album, we would talk about what it meant to us,
or maybe we'd share whatever we had decided to create,
if we had created something while we listened. And this
is something you can do with some people that you love.
(38:53):
It's something that you can do just by yourself, you know,
take yourself back to a time where we might have
listened to an album all the way through, or take
yourself through a playlist that you love and listen to
that playlist, have that teenage moment that many of us
had where we really just had our headphones in and
got to enjoy our music. You can treat yourself to
(39:16):
books from the library. The library is such a rich
resource in our community. I hope that you're supporting your
local library. It's such a great place. I definitely have
had times in life where I cannot go to these
bookstores and buy more books, but I could go to
the library. I did that as a child a lot.
(39:38):
They have newspapers there and books there. They have music
and DVDs there. You can even check out ebooks from
the library as well. Those are things that you can
have a chance to experience that are ways you can
treat yourself that don't cost you anything. You can treat
yourself to books you already have in your own library.
(39:59):
And this is something where I really need to take
my own advice here because sometimes I'm kind of a
book collector. I don't know if any of you are
like this, and so there are some books that like
they come out and I'm just like, man, I want
to have a copy of that in my library, and
I buy it and then years go by it and
I never actually read the book. And so just even
returning to some of the books that you may have
around that you haven't had the chance to read can
(40:21):
be a wonderful way to treat yourself. And my last
tip of a way that you can treat yourself that
doesn't have to cost you money, that doesn't have to
be a big ticket item, is talking with someone who
makes you laugh and leaves you feeling full and not drained.
That's a beautiful way to treat yourself. I thought that
(40:41):
was such a powerful question when my coach asked me,
who are the people that bring you comfort? You know,
and people that bring me comfort are the people that
I can wear whatever when I'm around them that there's
a lot of joy and honesty and our relationship. So
(41:02):
think about who that is. You probably had a name
that came to your mind already when I said that.
Call that person, you know, if they can safely visit
with you, if you can meet up somewhere, or if
they can come to your house, You go to their house,
hang out in person. If you can't do that safely,
try zoom If you're all zoomed out, try talking on
the phone or having some other app where you can
(41:24):
communicate with them. Try to spend time with people that
are not always there to drain you, to take from you.
Think about the people that really leave you feeling refreshed, replenished.
They leave you feeling filled up and refueled in the
best way. Those are some ways that you can treat
yourself that don't have to cost you any money. Whatever happens,
(41:47):
whatever you decide, are your methods of treating yourself. You
deserve it. So I hope this week you are thinking
about at least one way that you can treat yourself.
This week. Think about something that you can do for
yourself to celebrate yourself, to make yourself laugh. If it's
something that you want to buy, buy it. If it's
(42:09):
something that you can get without buying anything, then do that.
But as our great innovators Tom and Donna from Parks
and Recreation taught us, whatever you do this week, treat yourself.
Thanks for listening. Her with Amina Brown is produced by
(42:40):
Matt Owen for Solo Graffiti Productions as a part of
the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks
for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review
the podcast.
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