November 10, 2025 • 47 mins
In this powerful episode of Shaping Freedom, host Lisane Basquiat sits down with Dr. ShantaQuilette Develle — a wellness educator, content creator, and heart health advocate whose journey of resilience has inspired millions. After surviving a heart attack and multiple strokes, Dr. ShantaQuilette transformed her pain into purpose, using humor, honesty, and faith to spark conversations about healing, self-advocacy, and joy.
Dr. Develle opens up about the ego-driven version of her former self and how life’s hardest moments forced her to listen deeply and realign with her divine purpose. Through heartfelt storytelling, she shares lessons on letting go of control, embracing gratitude, and recognizing that true purpose isn’t what we do — it’s who we do it for. Her perspective invites listeners to reframe adversity as an invitation to grow closer to God and themselves.
The conversation dives into the importance of women, especially Black women, becoming active participants in their own rescue — in health, faith, and life. Dr. ShantaQuilette stresses that “treatment doesn’t always take place in hospitals; it takes place in habits,” urging listeners to advocate fiercely for their wellness, listen to their bodies, and take accountability for their healing.
Closing on a message of empowerment, Dr. Develle reminds us that reinvention is always possible. Healing isn’t perfect — it’s a process. By extending grace to ourselves, setting boundaries, and finding joy in small things, we can live fully and intentionally. As she says, “You have to be a participant in your rescue and in your reinvention.”
Learn how to set boundaries without guilt. Join Lisane's next Protect Your Peace Shaping Session today: https://shapingfreedom.com/boundaries-workshop
Dr. Develle opens up about the ego-driven version of her former self and how life’s hardest moments forced her to listen deeply and realign with her divine purpose. Through heartfelt storytelling, she shares lessons on letting go of control, embracing gratitude, and recognizing that true purpose isn’t what we do — it’s who we do it for. Her perspective invites listeners to reframe adversity as an invitation to grow closer to God and themselves.
The conversation dives into the importance of women, especially Black women, becoming active participants in their own rescue — in health, faith, and life. Dr. ShantaQuilette stresses that “treatment doesn’t always take place in hospitals; it takes place in habits,” urging listeners to advocate fiercely for their wellness, listen to their bodies, and take accountability for their healing.
Closing on a message of empowerment, Dr. Develle reminds us that reinvention is always possible. Healing isn’t perfect — it’s a process. By extending grace to ourselves, setting boundaries, and finding joy in small things, we can live fully and intentionally. As she says, “You have to be a participant in your rescue and in your reinvention.”
Learn how to set boundaries without guilt. Join Lisane's next Protect Your Peace Shaping Session today: https://shapingfreedom.com/boundaries-workshop
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I said, God, give me what I need, now what
I want. Give me exactly what you see and not
what I see. Before David was king, when it was
time for him to do what he was he needed
to do, God didn't just hand him a crown. He
gave him Goliath. He didn't give him an army. He
didn't give him a soul. He gave him one stone.
(00:27):
I'm not an expert. I'm a witness. I am the
live experience.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the Shaping Freedom Podcast, where we dive into
conversations that inspire personal growth, transformation and clarity and challenging times.
I'm your host, Lissan Basquiao.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
You know how sometimes there's a person that you see
from afar and you observe over time, and a person
who just clicks. And this woman that I am getting
ready to introduce you all too, is that person Doctor
Chance Quilette Develle Carter Williams, who has after her name NBA, PhD,
(01:15):
cfe EA, and CPLC. I don't even know what all
of those are. I know that the ones that I
do know, I'm very very impressed with. She's a wellness educator,
a content creator, a heart health advocate who uses humor
to open serious conversations about life, health, parenting, and the
(01:36):
power of self advocacy. After surviving a heart attack and
multiple strokes, doctor Chanta turned her pain into a platform.
Her tiktoks and talks reached millions of people, including me,
especially Black women, reminding us that wellness isn't just about surviving.
It's about reclaiming your power, your laughter, and your freedom.
(01:59):
Today we're going to talk about what it means to
turn a crisis into clarity and how choosing yourself, your health,
your peace, your truth can literally save your life. Doctor
(02:19):
Chanta Collette, thank you so much for acceptation.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I would not to say who was that? Who are
you talking about? I don't even know to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Talking about you, lady, talking about you. First of all,
thank you so much for accepting the limitation. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
The pleasure is mine. The pleasure is mine. I know
it took us a while to get here, which is
interesting because I get so many podcasts requests and it's
from scammers, and so we don't know what is real
and what is not, and so we were able to
It's a great thing that we were able to wei
you all out and I was able to find myself
(02:58):
here today with you, So I am grateful. I didn't
know that they're doing podcast scamming. I'm oh, yes, that's
how I lost. I lost almost my million followers because
of that, because of because of a podcast scam that
was uh sounded like it was legit and uh it
(03:20):
was not. And so they took over my Facebook, took
over my Facebook, took over my followers. I got the
channel back, but I never got my followers back. So yeah,
it happens to the best of us.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
People does the scamming everything a podcast like.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Listen and it seems like it's a it's a it's
a thing to do now, But I'm like, I will
make an example of it out of me if I try.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
It must be Wow, well I was. I want to
dive into your story because the just the little pieces
of it that I've been able to uh bear witness
to through social media have been fascinating. But before I
get there, I want to say that you're one of
the cleanest women that I know. And I see you
on line and your hats and you're fit.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
You just.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
What an inspiration? What's inspiration? Because you pull it together.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
One thing's not the cool are gonna do is put
on some clothes. That's That's what I hear you say.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
And I'm like, well, she's saying, and what is she
wearing today? What?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I uh?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
In all seriousness, I think one of the things, and
one of the reasons that I really wanted to chat
with you, is because you exude joy. And I know
that from the things that have happened in your life
that we'll get into in a moment, those aren't all
wonderful things, especially when we're dealing with our health and
(04:50):
that kind of thing. But you exude joy and it's
something that so many of us seem almost afraid to embrace.
And I think that in that, I think is what's
most inspirational about the work that you're doing through creating
content online is showing people, and women, in black women
(05:13):
in particular, how accessible joy is just a simple thing
like joy. You know. So I want to thank you
for that.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, you're welcome, You're welcome. I thank God for the
ability to be able to exude that, you know, because
life is hard. It is hard for a lot of us,
and as we age, you know, there's so many things
that we're juggling. We're juggling age, we're juggling aging parents,
(05:47):
we're juggling balance, children still living at home. You know,
there's so much out there, so it's easy for us
to fall back on the wayside and forget what joy
looks like, forget what peace looks like, uh, and to
become easily frustrated and and mad, you know, and and
(06:09):
mad at the at the world. You know, I said
something yesterday talking to my followers on live. And you know,
it's easy to wake up and complain. It's easy to
wake up and be mad. But I said, even just
thinking about being able to wake up and just having
the ability to argue with something, argue with somebody is
(06:29):
a is a blessing because you have to be alive
and a sound mind to do so.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So we you know, we can easily forget about what
gratitude looks like and what life really looks like, and
forget about those small things that matter. Right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Thank you so much for that. I think for me,
I really connected to the time and my son is
my children are grown, I have grandchildren, right, and I
remember raising my son during the time that he was
a teenager and I think one of the things that
(07:14):
really resonated with me was you're busting up in your
son's room and I think there's stuff above their blown
place us up and calling his name so many times,
and it just brought me back to that, right to
these experiences of that are you know, as a parent,
you know, you go through different things, and sometimes there
(07:36):
are challenges and sometimes a kid's room isn't clean or
whatever those things are. But I think that you open
up a door for people to be able to see
that as a part of life and something that you
don't have to be upset about all the time. Just
get it out and keep it going, you know, and
(07:57):
have fun with your children and allow your children to
see you for who you are authentically. Yeah, and I
want to I want to get into I'll let you
choose your own defining moment. Okay, I know that there
is some hell things that happened, but I would love
to have you share with us, like what was a
(08:19):
defining moment for you?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Just realizing that a lot of the things that I
had focus on and a lot of the things that
I was striving for in life was ego driven. And
when I say ego driven, I say, edging God out right.
(08:44):
A lot of times we build our lives and we
think that we're including God, and because we don't see
it pan out the way that we want to, we
tend to snatch the pin and try to start writing ourselves,
like God, Okay, well I don't like that comma there.
I don't like the excavation. You know, why is there?
(09:06):
You know why why we tak space?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Why you double spacing in between the paragraphs? Okay? So
uh so yeah, so we we tend to edge God
out and we snatched a pen while he's writing. And
I was doing a lot of that because I really
have my life planned out the way I thought it
should be. And God was like, no, you're saying what
it should be, but this is what it's supposed to be.
(09:31):
And so you're still You're so busy chasing that old
version of you, that smaller version of you, you can't
even see what I'm doing in front of you. And
so when I had my stroke after having this was
my second stroke, after having a you know, a stroke,
a heart attack is then another stroke, it was really
(09:53):
the moment that God sat me. I allowed God to
sit me down and I was able to listen and
not talk while he was talking and trying to interrupt.
You know, I really came to terms with my mortality
(10:13):
and what that looks like and how if we waste it,
you know, we miss out on so much, we miss
out on so much if we just allowed God to
do what's He's been allowing God to call us to
what we're supposed to do, and that's and that's purpose.
And a lot of times people look at purpose and say,
(10:35):
purpose is what I'm doing. No purpose is who you're
doing it for, who you're called to do it for.
And so once I realized what that looked like, and
then I was able to, you know, and high insight
see everything, every detail of what was happening in my life.
Because before my stroking heart attack, I was already advocating
(10:57):
for women. I was already I was advocating for women
in health, but for metastatic breast cancer. And so I
had been impacted, uh in a way where you know,
my friends and my aunt were affected. And so I
was on this mission and I was driven and uh,
and I thought I was walking in my purpose, but
(11:20):
God was like, there's some details still missing. There's some
details still missing, and I started having my own health issues,
and so this was a way to bring me closer,
closer to the identity of the woman that I was
helping and that I was supporting because I wasn't having
any health issues. You know, I'm you know, I'm thriving,
(11:40):
and I'm doing these events and I'm happy doing these events,
and I'm raising awareness and raising money. But there's still
something missing. It's that empathy part. It's to be able
to not have to shed off all these layers. These
women are talking to me, and I'm and i'm and
I'm sympathizing, but I can't really I'm empathy, but I
can't really understand the whole picture. And so when I
(12:05):
became impacted, then I had a closer I was able
to see them for true, for who they truly are,
not not as just a patient, but the humanity of it,
the overall person, who they used to be, who they're
(12:26):
striving to be, who they're going to become, who they
used to be, all these things.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Did you did you know that something was missing? Did
you sense that because sometimes we you know, prayer is
a one way conversation, you know, we just get in
there and start talking and then we just pack our
little things up and get up and walk away and
go about our business. Right, did you know.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, that's where ego comes in. That's where edging God
out comes in. It's like I was, in a way,
running running from from the bigger side of who Chanta
Coolette was becoming. I was chasing the smaller version. The
smaller version was comfortable. It was comfortable, It was easy,
(13:15):
you know. Uh, it was stagnant, right, It had no
it didn't have any real drive behind it, you know.
But who God has made me to be now is
a force to be reckoned with the enemy, seeing what
the what the enemy meant to do, to destroy, to devour,
(13:40):
to kill. I'm his greatest nightmare. I am his greatest
nightmare because I know who God has called me to be,
and I'm and I'm walking in that one step at
a time. I'm not looking on the left, I'm not
looking on the right. I'm not opening the door letting
the enemy in on the passenger side, because you let
(14:03):
him in on the passage side. He says, there for
a while, he gonna try to he gonna try.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
To drive, You're gonna run you right off the road
right and so and so those are the things that
we have to be mindful of, and.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
We have to really sit in and listen to what
God is doing and really have to be connected to
the word. A lot of times we read the word,
but we don't understand it. You know. It's like it's
like I was, you know, before David was king. You know, uh,
everybody everybody was looking around at David and saying, all
(14:41):
what David. When it was time for him to to
to do what he was he needed to do. God
didn't just hand him a crown. He gave him Goliath.
That He gave him Goliath. And he didn't give him
an army. He didn't give him a sword, he didn't
give him armor. He gave them one stone, one stone
(15:05):
in faith and that and David became king. And so
so those are the things we had a lot of
times we look at the easy way, We look at
the easy way out, like nothing worth having worth moving
(15:27):
driving forward to doesn't come without hard work, doesn't come
without obstacles. You know, you see some of the biggest
corporations in the world file bankruptcy multiple times, but they're
still around and they're still thriving, and some of them
are bigger and better than they ever were, you know.
So uh, I realized that these these obstacles, these challenges,
(15:52):
made me into the woman that I am now. And
I have gratitude. I have gratitude before I do anything.
I extend gratitude for just the little things God has
(16:16):
given me. Nothing materialistic, nothing without you know, having you know, money,
and things like just being able to breathe, just being
able to have a sound mind, just being able to
walk into the room and tell my son to pick
that stuff up off that floor, being able to see
my husband and wake up in the morning, those things,
you know, just having a breath of fresh air is
(16:42):
something to extend so much gratitude, because not everybody is
extended that on a daily basis. We lose someone. We
lose somebody yesterday, we lost somebody today, and we'll lose
someone tomorrow and it continues on. So we we need
to know that we have an expiration date and that
(17:05):
until that day comes, you need to live your life
to the fullest. You need to be able to have peace,
have joy, have happiness, be able to extend love to others,
be able to receive love and be able to take
(17:31):
care and honor this vessel that God has given us,
and take care of it and nourish it. We're not
here just to perish. You're not here just to work
and die. We all have purpose. We are all assigned somebody.
(17:54):
I always say those people when they say, well you're trying.
God has a sign me, a certain individual, a certain
demographic of people, and no one but me can live
through that, live through that that journey. Nobody else is
assigned that journey but me. Nobody else is given this
(18:17):
assignment but me. And you have your own assignment. Everybody
has their own assignment. You just have to to wake
up and realize what that is. And sometimes the best
growth comes in silence, just listening, just listening and being
(18:38):
willing to outgrow, outgrow the sense of normalcy that you've
been used to.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It is not easy, and it's not easy I tell
you that, Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
But it's the one foot.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
He'll to tell, he'll.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
To tell, he'll to tell, he'll tell.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
You know, here'll tell. People often ask how and if
you could? And I know that there are some health
things that happen. I know that you know you talked
about silence and allowing the silence so that you can
hear God speaks, you can hear what you're truly meant
to do. And if you could break that down into
(19:21):
like three things, like the first couple of steps that
someone can take that a woman who's hearing you can
take without having to go through all the stuff you
had to go through to kind of get into a line.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
You gotta have. You gotta have a stroke, girl, you
gotta way right?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Like, how how can if you? Yeah? How? Because that's
the thing that I really love and want to share
with people. It's the how we all know. You know,
people want to feel better, they want to be able
to receive joy, they want to be able to have
How do you.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Do that first believing that it can happen first, believing
in it? First, believing that it can happen. Yeah, you know,
I go by the word. Let's go back to the
woman with the issue, with the issue with the blood.
She had to go out. She had to go out
(20:22):
and find Jesus to touch the hem of his cloth,
the hem of his garment to get healing. She didn't
do that by just sitting First, she had to believe
it would happen. Then she had to get up and
put the work into it. She had to go out
(20:43):
amongst the people, amongst the crowd to find it. And
then once she found it, she was healed.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So we have to we have to become we have
to participate in our rescue. We have to participate in
our own rescue.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
See, God will send us the boat, He will send
us the people, but we have to get into the boat.
We have to be willing to get in the water.
We have to be willing to paddle until we get
to the destination. And a lot of times we see,
we see the help, we see the boat, but were
scared to get into the water. We scared of the
(21:27):
water getting murky, We scared of the waves. We can't see,
we can't see land around us, so we don't know
where we're going, so we get scared before we even
get there, so we don't get on. So the first
thing is believing there's a vision, seeing it and believing
(21:49):
that it can come to fruition, and then putting the
action behind it. Just like with our health, there's no
good of me sitting up here looking pretty with my
makeup on and my wig on and my blood pressure
is one seventy eight over one oh two. It's just
(22:10):
a pig and lipstick, right, it's just a It's just
like I said, it's a it's a it's a it's
a it's a it's it's just a facade. It's a
prop it's not it's not real. So what we have
to do is we have to take action. So when
we go to the doctor and the doctor says, hey,
(22:30):
this is what you need to do. This is what
I'm prescribing you. This is your daily regiment. You have
to stick to it. And if you don't stick to it,
then your blood pressure will be high, you start having
hard palpitations, you're not monitoring your blood pressure, and the
next thing you know, you're in the hospital. See, it's
(22:55):
not always what they say. Treatment is not always has
to take place in the hospital. It takes place in habits.
And that's what anything, whether you're trying to search for
a good job, you try to search for you want
a new man, everything comes with habits. It's an action
based plan. First, believe in what God says he's gonna do,
(23:18):
then having the having the faith, and then put in
the work. Work without what they say, faith without work
is dead. That's dead, it's absent. I can talk about
all the good jobs I want, and I can pray
for I can pray for all the jobs. But if
I ain't looking for.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Nan you mean, my soulmate's not gonna just drop down.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
You gotta go find. You gotta go outdoors to find
a needle in a haystack. See. I told God when
I met before I met my husband, I said, God,
give me what I need and not what I want,
because everything that I was I wanted was based off
of materials. It was superficial, right, And I said, God,
(24:08):
give me what I need, now what I want. Give
me exactly what you see and not what I see,
because what I was seeing was based off of insecurity,
was based off of fear, ignorance, and ego. Right. But
(24:29):
then when I prayed that prayer, I didn't go looking.
I wasn't, you know. I was worried about my healing
and taking care of my daughter. And I happened to
go out one night the day before my birthday, October third,
two thousand and one, and I met Roy Williams, Jr.
(24:50):
And it wasn't it And here's the thing. It wasn't.
It wasn't at church. It wasn't, you know, on the
bus stop. It wasn't you know, at a conference. It
wasn't on airplane. It was at will my other say
a bar I say happy hour? He says a barx.
But we were at a happy hour, not the traditional
place that you think that two people would find love, right,
(25:13):
But we did. But we did because God knew that
we needed each other. And the same prayer that I
was praying, he was praying right, and God connected us.
And how And now looking twenty almost twenty five years later,
everything that I would have wanted in a man would
(25:37):
have not been able to manage or be able to
nurture and care for me like the God, the man
that God positioned me for, the man that was going
to nurture me through a stroke and a heart attack,
(25:58):
be able to take away his own independ and and
and and have to deal with his own mental health
and physical and health to take care of me. Being
able to give all that up to be able to
take care of me. That's what sickness and health means.
(26:19):
That's what and so when we are when we are praying,
God knows our heart, but he also knows what we need.
Because people say, you know, God gives you the desires
of the you know, your heart, but he also says
he gives you the desires of your heart in his will.
So everything that you desire in your heart don't mean
(26:39):
it's the will of God.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And then we find out and then we find out that, yeah,
and we're like, oh, what happened.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And sometimes he gives you what you don't want, what's
not in the will, just so you can see that
that's not it. Yeah, And so you know, sometimes love
and marriage and all those things are not meant for everybody. Everybody,
if I would marry everybody that had a great testimony
was not mad. Now every most of everybody who did
(27:07):
a great thing was full of mets. It had a
lot of mess, you know, outside of Jesus. You know,
they had a lot of myths going on with them.
But for the most part, you have to see what
God has for you, understand what God has for you
his plan, and be content in that. Yeah, that's what's
(27:28):
That's what the word said. I will say that's what
I believe, But that's what the words say. That's what
I interpret.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah, I love what you said. Treatment. I keep looking
back at it because it's so profound. Treatment doesn't always
take place in the hospital. It takes place in our habits.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, prevention over treatment. It is easier to prevent disease
than to treat it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
You talk about self advocacy, and I also really enjoy
that you talk about what's happening as it's going along,
because I know you've done You've been talking about metopause.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, I'm on the other side of that, Thank goodness.
That was an interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Ride, very interesting ride.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
But you talk about self advocacy and you stand and
I know that you are such a profoundly educated and
well put together woman. And I know I'm focusing on
the social media part of it, your presence there, right,
(28:31):
and that's not your whole life. It's the platform through
which you're sharing things. So that's the reason why I'm
going there. But you talk about self advocacy, and you
talk a lot about what's happening with you. What do
you want to say to women, Black women in particular
about advocating for themselves. You spoke before about like doing
(28:54):
what the doctor tells you to do and following those instructions.
How do you merge that, you know, the instruction with
advocating for yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, I try to do that with humor, but I
also try to do it in a way that women
will listen. I'm not the nurturer when it comes to
(29:27):
advocating for yourself, because that is something that you should do.
That is a requirement, right, and it shouldn't be something.
It shouldn't be something that I have to baby you through.
So I am very straightforward in the conversation because I
(29:47):
think tough love is needed. The women that I am
talking to, they need tough love. And so I come
from a place of what I would have wanted somebody
to say to me, right, And I know when I
say it, it will be received because that's what God
(30:09):
put on my heart to say. It is so important
because as Black women, we are misrepresented, we are highly dismissed.
There are so many disparities in the health system that
(30:32):
are not subtle, they are are overt, and so a
lot of times when you are pushed back into a corner,
you do one of two things. You either fight or
you just walk away. You just give up, you put
your hands up and you just walk away. And I
don't want women to walk away. I want them to
(30:56):
fight for their life. I want them to fight for
their purpose. I want them to advocate for themselves and
their well being because they deserve it. Each and every
one of us deserve to be here. But we also
have to put the first foot forward in doing so.
(31:21):
And so when our doctors tell us know and when
our doctors dismiss us, we have to stand ten toes
down in the sentiment of I know what's going on
with me, and I know my body better than anyone knows.
I am the CEO of my health. And you treat
(31:43):
your body like an organization. See, you can't keep coming
to your manager with the same report with errors without
without either being critiqued or fired. So I tell you
you treat your doctor as such. If you keep telling
(32:06):
me the same thing and nothing's changing. If we can't,
if we keep measuring the outcomes the same way, then
we won't have any change. Okay. So that means I
have to find someone new to take over the job,
(32:27):
because now we have because now retention is going on,
morale is low, productivity is down in the organization. Now
it's affecting our finances and now we got to end
up filing bankruptcy. We defunct, We got to file bankruptcy
and close down. And that's essentially what will happen to
(32:47):
your body if you allow someone to keep dismissing you, ignoring,
ignoring your symptoms, and treating you just like a number.
You're not only a patient, you're here men being And
there's a level of responsibility that a doctor should have,
but there's also a level of responsibility that patients should
(33:09):
have on themselves. And so you make the final call.
And so if you're not comfortable with what your doctors
saying in the moment, I always tell my doctor, well,
if you can't give me a referral, or if you
can't prescribe me in medication, or if you can't do
this particular testing, that I need you to write that
you refuse to care for me, that you refuse to
(33:37):
take initiative on my health plan. He's not gonna write that.
He's not gonna help. He's not gonna write that. The
doctors work for you. They work for you. And I
(34:05):
know a lot of times because we we were nine
to five, we don't have time to be running back
and forth to the doctor.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
It can.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It can be frustrating, it can. It can discourage you,
It can make you, it can make you sad. That's
That's how the best way I could describe my situation
of being misdiagnosed and dismissed. I was sad, but then
(34:35):
I had to come to the relations realization that being
sad was not changing anything.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
You were sad about the response that you were getting
from the doctors.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I was sad about the response of being dismissed and
knowing that innately that something was going on with me,
knowing my body and that nobody would would miss to me,
but also being also being intimidated by the doctor because
(35:09):
of his pedigree. You know, I'm not a medical doctor.
I'm not a physician, So who am I to challenge
what this medical professional has been trained to do for
so many years? But now I realize, oh, you've been
(35:30):
trained eight years and all you can do is tell me.
Something my grandmother would tell me is drink some water,
don't be stressed, quit my job. I could get that
for free. We have to make these doctors work, that's
what they were put in the position to do. You know,
(35:52):
and you and you don't get a lot of time, like, Hey,
I'm an accountant by training. Okay, I mess up on
a P and L. I mess up on a balance sheet.
You know, Funds get distributed incorrectly, but nobody dies. Nobody
is put in a situation that could be prevented, you know,
(36:18):
versus stage one cancer versus stage four. Because I told
you all the time that this pain on my left
side was not muscular, skeletal. Is a tumor growing on
my ovary. And now because you dismissed it as just
some random pain or divert articulitis or whatever you want
(36:44):
to call it, you miss the mark. So we have
to be we have to be in tune with our
bodies to know, Okay, this is not normal, this doesn't
feel right, and I will be willing to get two, three, four,
five opinions before I just say nothing's wrong and sit
(37:09):
down and allow it to linger and manifested something bigger exactly.
You know, it comes down to, I think the relationship
that we're in with ourselves as compared to how we
treat other people, you know, because if they're you know,
(37:33):
I know many many women who are on this planet
as the shiro, you know, throwing on our capes coming
running to help, which is a beautiful thing, and can fly.
And I said, you call yourself superwoman. You call yourself superwoman,
and she row, you need to have some. You need
(37:54):
to have some. You need to be able to fly,
You need to have some X rayvation. You are a
human being.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, And I think that having that sitting in a
doctor's office or anywhere in front of anyone and knowing
that there's something going on in here and not advocating
for ourselves, I think is a reflection of the way
that we care for ourselves. Right, Because when we love ourselves,
(38:24):
when we care for ourselves, you're going to fight, you will.
You're going to fight for yourself. You're going to the
same way that you would fight for your child, for
your best friend, for your mother, for your grandmother. Where
you're like, no, no, no, no, she's saying something's up with her.
You're going to look at this or if it's not you,
we're going to go somewhere else. Absolutely, we have to
(38:46):
do that for ourselves, even when we're exhausted, even when
we're sad, even when we're tired, right, And I think
that sometimes we're waiting for someone to save us, and
that's how it goes. We have to save ourselves. We
have to save ourselves, and we have to have faith.
(39:07):
They always say, save yourself, cause nobody's coming to rescue
That's right, nobody's coming to rescue us.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You gotta save you. You have to save yourself. And
like I said too, and that's why I'm so strong
and I'm so strong with my message because I know
to know better is to do better. And we perish
due to the lack of knowledge because we're we're not educated,
(39:36):
or we don't have anybody that's holding us accountable. We
just fall by the wayside of the world and we
just just become part of it, you know. And so
we just have our focus of going to work every day.
I don't have time to go to the doctor. I
gotta take care of my children. I gotta make sure
(39:56):
the bills are paid. I can't miss work, you know,
all these things, but not realizing the children, the job,
the bills, the husband, those things don't matter if you're
(40:22):
not here, that's right. They become somebody else's job. And
people will say on your obituary, oh baby, she did
a good job. She went above, and she went above
and beyond for everybody.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
How do you take care of yourself today? Having gone
through what you've gone through, What does your routine look
like today?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I am very intentional. I say, I am my greatest hobby.
I am my best investment. There is no investment greater
than me. Oh, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
They say, what's a little saying? She believes who she
says she is. She believe you who she says she
says to be who she be, something like I say it,
but I believe that, and I believe that God gave
me one two, three, four five more chances. So I
could be an example, but I could also be a
(41:26):
great a greater asset to the people that I'm here for.
I'm not an expert. I'm a witness. I am the
lived experience. So when I wake up in the morning,
(41:47):
I extend gratitude. I take a breath of fresh air.
Depending on what the weather is like, I'll ground, I'll
listen to my words, write. My affirmation is down every day.
I don't wake up every day. Sometimes I wake I
go to bed sleepy, I wake up sleepy. But I'm
(42:10):
in tuned to that. So if I wake up sleepy,
that means I'm not gonna overdo it. I'm not gonna
over extend myself, you know. And for the person who
doesn't have, you know, who has to get up and
go to work and have to you still have to
give yourself a peace of mind. You have to look
at you have to look at your agenda and see
(42:32):
where you can prioritize. And I bring balance. That's no
such thing. Balance is like the scales is always going
like this.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
The only way they're balanced when there's nothing in them.
They're just kind of stand.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So you have to prioritize. You have to prioritize, and
you have to focus on what's important and get rid
and get rid of the low hanging fruit.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
And sometimes the low hanging fruit it's not just that
you're doing the nine to five and working in your
children and all of that. Sometimes the low hanging fruit
is that relationship that you know.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Right, the low hanging fruit, the low lightning fruit.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Right that that hour and a half that you spent
talking to that person about fifty other people, you can
take a little bit from that and put pour that
into yourself.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I said, we don't need to be alone, we need
people to leave us alone. But we have to do
it because we say that have you drag them? If
you drag them to well, here's the thing. Here's the
thing about accountability. A lot of times people are always
always speaking about the word no and how no is
(43:53):
a is a fool. So I always say no is
the answer and the explanation and the explanation right. But
a lot of times we will tell everybody else no,
but we won't say anything to ourselves. So while you're
you know, the first thing we want to do on
a break and when we have time off be like, well,
(44:16):
I'm gonna get a massage, I'm gonna go get I'm
gonna go give me a petticare, I'm gonna get my
nails done. I'm gonna go have brunch with my girlfriends.
All of this is running. It's not rest. All of
this is running. It's not self care because you're moving,
your brain is constantly going, you're going from one place
to another, you're scrolling through social media. You're not getting
(44:37):
any rest. And then you get back home and you're like,
I'm tired. Why am I so tired? You go on
vacation and it's not a vacation, because when you go
on the vacation and you just can't sit and lay
down in the hotel, or just sit down at the beach,
or sit down at the pool and read a book
every day, or just close your eyes and go to sleep. No,
(44:59):
you want to go zipline. You want to get in
the you want to get in there. You want to
go mountain climbing, y'all. Want to go out every night.
You want to party, You get in the water every
single day. You do all of that, and then you
come back home and now you need a vacation from
the vacation.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
That's right, that's right, because you didn't take you didn't
make good use of that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
And then sometimes the people that we need peace from
we taking them on vacation. You don't need a vacation.
You need to stop taking the people on a vacation
with you.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's right. Yeah, When people hear your story, what do
you want them to walk away with.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I want them to see my resilience, my perseverance, perseverance,
but I also want them to see the imperfection I
want to see. Let them know that there's nobody, there's
there's nothing perfect in healing. There's nothing perfect and healing.
(46:05):
It takes time. I didn't get here. I didn't get
here overnight. I didn't get here in a year. I
didn't get here in two years. I'm still evolving. This
is six years. This is six years in Yeah. So
I want them to know that recovery is a process
(46:26):
and it can be done, and you can reinvent yourself
at any age.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Say that again for the women in the back who
are resisting.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
That you can reinvent yourself at any age. Remember you
have to be a participant in your rescue and in
your reinvention.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Doctor Chantecoleade, how can we support you?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Continue to follow me, hey, Shanta qu on all platforms,
continue to pray for me. To you to love on me.
That's the most inexpensive, well most expensive thing you can
do is love on me and pray for me. But
(47:11):
I also want you to love on yourself. I want
you to find joy. I want you to find peace.
I want you to find happiness. That's how you can
support me finding that thing that brings happiness in your life.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I have enjoyed this conversation immensely. Thank you so very much,
Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing so generously.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
You're welcome and thank you. I hope to see you again.
I said, God, give me what I need, now what
I want. Give me exactly what you see and not
what I see. Before David was king, when it was
time for him to do what he was he needed
to do, God didn't just hand him a crown. He
gave him Goliath. He didn't give him an army. He
didn't give him a soul. He gave him one stone.
(00:27):
I'm not an expert. I'm a witness. I am the
live experience.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the Shaping Freedom Podcast, where we dive into
conversations that inspire personal growth, transformation and clarity and challenging times.
I'm your host, Lissan Basquiao.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
You know how sometimes there's a person that you see
from afar and you observe over time, and a person
who just clicks. And this woman that I am getting
ready to introduce you all too, is that person Doctor
Chance Quilette Develle Carter Williams, who has after her name NBA, PhD,
(01:15):
cfe EA, and CPLC. I don't even know what all
of those are. I know that the ones that I
do know, I'm very very impressed with. She's a wellness educator,
a content creator, a heart health advocate who uses humor
to open serious conversations about life, health, parenting, and the
(01:36):
power of self advocacy. After surviving a heart attack and
multiple strokes, doctor Chanta turned her pain into a platform.
Her tiktoks and talks reached millions of people, including me,
especially Black women, reminding us that wellness isn't just about surviving.
It's about reclaiming your power, your laughter, and your freedom.
(01:59):
Today we're going to talk about what it means to
turn a crisis into clarity and how choosing yourself, your health,
your peace, your truth can literally save your life. Doctor
(02:19):
Chanta Collette, thank you so much for acceptation.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I would not to say who was that? Who are
you talking about? I don't even know to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Talking about you, lady, talking about you. First of all,
thank you so much for accepting the limitation. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
The pleasure is mine. The pleasure is mine. I know
it took us a while to get here, which is
interesting because I get so many podcasts requests and it's
from scammers, and so we don't know what is real
and what is not, and so we were able to
It's a great thing that we were able to wei
you all out and I was able to find myself
(02:58):
here today with you, So I am grateful. I didn't
know that they're doing podcast scamming. I'm oh, yes, that's
how I lost. I lost almost my million followers because
of that, because of because of a podcast scam that
was uh sounded like it was legit and uh it
(03:20):
was not. And so they took over my Facebook, took
over my Facebook, took over my followers. I got the
channel back, but I never got my followers back. So yeah,
it happens to the best of us.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
People does the scamming everything a podcast like.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Listen and it seems like it's a it's a it's
a thing to do now, But I'm like, I will
make an example of it out of me if I try.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
It must be Wow, well I was. I want to
dive into your story because the just the little pieces
of it that I've been able to uh bear witness
to through social media have been fascinating. But before I
get there, I want to say that you're one of
the cleanest women that I know. And I see you
on line and your hats and you're fit.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
You just.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
What an inspiration? What's inspiration? Because you pull it together.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
One thing's not the cool are gonna do is put
on some clothes. That's That's what I hear you say.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
And I'm like, well, she's saying, and what is she
wearing today? What?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I uh?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
In all seriousness, I think one of the things, and
one of the reasons that I really wanted to chat
with you, is because you exude joy. And I know
that from the things that have happened in your life
that we'll get into in a moment, those aren't all
wonderful things, especially when we're dealing with our health and
(04:50):
that kind of thing. But you exude joy and it's
something that so many of us seem almost afraid to embrace.
And I think that in that, I think is what's
most inspirational about the work that you're doing through creating
content online is showing people, and women, in black women
(05:13):
in particular, how accessible joy is just a simple thing
like joy. You know. So I want to thank you
for that.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, you're welcome, You're welcome. I thank God for the
ability to be able to exude that, you know, because
life is hard. It is hard for a lot of us,
and as we age, you know, there's so many things
that we're juggling. We're juggling age, we're juggling aging parents,
(05:47):
we're juggling balance, children still living at home. You know,
there's so much out there, so it's easy for us
to fall back on the wayside and forget what joy
looks like, forget what peace looks like, uh, and to
become easily frustrated and and mad, you know, and and
(06:09):
mad at the at the world. You know, I said
something yesterday talking to my followers on live. And you know,
it's easy to wake up and complain. It's easy to
wake up and be mad. But I said, even just
thinking about being able to wake up and just having
the ability to argue with something, argue with somebody is
(06:29):
a is a blessing because you have to be alive
and a sound mind to do so.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So we you know, we can easily forget about what
gratitude looks like and what life really looks like, and
forget about those small things that matter. Right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Thank you so much for that. I think for me,
I really connected to the time and my son is
my children are grown, I have grandchildren, right, and I
remember raising my son during the time that he was
a teenager and I think one of the things that
(07:14):
really resonated with me was you're busting up in your
son's room and I think there's stuff above their blown
place us up and calling his name so many times,
and it just brought me back to that, right to
these experiences of that are you know, as a parent,
you know, you go through different things, and sometimes there
(07:36):
are challenges and sometimes a kid's room isn't clean or
whatever those things are. But I think that you open
up a door for people to be able to see
that as a part of life and something that you
don't have to be upset about all the time. Just
get it out and keep it going, you know, and
(07:57):
have fun with your children and allow your children to
see you for who you are authentically. Yeah, and I
want to I want to get into I'll let you
choose your own defining moment. Okay, I know that there
is some hell things that happened, but I would love
to have you share with us, like what was a
(08:19):
defining moment for you?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Just realizing that a lot of the things that I
had focus on and a lot of the things that
I was striving for in life was ego driven. And
when I say ego driven, I say, edging God out right.
(08:44):
A lot of times we build our lives and we
think that we're including God, and because we don't see
it pan out the way that we want to, we
tend to snatch the pin and try to start writing ourselves,
like God, Okay, well I don't like that comma there.
I don't like the excavation. You know, why is there?
(09:06):
You know why why we tak space?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Why you double spacing in between the paragraphs? Okay? So
uh so yeah, so we we tend to edge God
out and we snatched a pen while he's writing. And
I was doing a lot of that because I really
have my life planned out the way I thought it
should be. And God was like, no, you're saying what
it should be, but this is what it's supposed to be.
(09:31):
And so you're still You're so busy chasing that old
version of you, that smaller version of you, you can't
even see what I'm doing in front of you. And
so when I had my stroke after having this was
my second stroke, after having a you know, a stroke,
a heart attack is then another stroke, it was really
(09:53):
the moment that God sat me. I allowed God to
sit me down and I was able to listen and
not talk while he was talking and trying to interrupt.
You know, I really came to terms with my mortality
(10:13):
and what that looks like and how if we waste it,
you know, we miss out on so much, we miss
out on so much if we just allowed God to
do what's He's been allowing God to call us to
what we're supposed to do, and that's and that's purpose.
And a lot of times people look at purpose and say,
(10:35):
purpose is what I'm doing. No purpose is who you're
doing it for, who you're called to do it for.
And so once I realized what that looked like, and
then I was able to, you know, and high insight
see everything, every detail of what was happening in my life.
Because before my stroking heart attack, I was already advocating
(10:57):
for women. I was already I was advocating for women
in health, but for metastatic breast cancer. And so I
had been impacted, uh in a way where you know,
my friends and my aunt were affected. And so I
was on this mission and I was driven and uh,
and I thought I was walking in my purpose, but
(11:20):
God was like, there's some details still missing. There's some
details still missing, and I started having my own health issues,
and so this was a way to bring me closer,
closer to the identity of the woman that I was
helping and that I was supporting because I wasn't having
any health issues. You know, I'm you know, I'm thriving,
(11:40):
and I'm doing these events and I'm happy doing these events,
and I'm raising awareness and raising money. But there's still
something missing. It's that empathy part. It's to be able
to not have to shed off all these layers. These
women are talking to me, and I'm and i'm and
I'm sympathizing, but I can't really I'm empathy, but I
can't really understand the whole picture. And so when I
(12:05):
became impacted, then I had a closer I was able
to see them for true, for who they truly are,
not not as just a patient, but the humanity of it,
the overall person, who they used to be, who they're
(12:26):
striving to be, who they're going to become, who they
used to be, all these things.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Did you did you know that something was missing? Did
you sense that because sometimes we you know, prayer is
a one way conversation, you know, we just get in
there and start talking and then we just pack our
little things up and get up and walk away and
go about our business. Right, did you know.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, that's where ego comes in. That's where edging God
out comes in. It's like I was, in a way,
running running from from the bigger side of who Chanta
Coolette was becoming. I was chasing the smaller version. The
smaller version was comfortable. It was comfortable, It was easy,
(13:15):
you know. Uh, it was stagnant, right, It had no
it didn't have any real drive behind it, you know.
But who God has made me to be now is
a force to be reckoned with the enemy, seeing what
the what the enemy meant to do, to destroy, to devour,
(13:40):
to kill. I'm his greatest nightmare. I am his greatest
nightmare because I know who God has called me to be,
and I'm and I'm walking in that one step at
a time. I'm not looking on the left, I'm not
looking on the right. I'm not opening the door letting
the enemy in on the passenger side, because you let
(14:03):
him in on the passage side. He says, there for
a while, he gonna try to he gonna try.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
To drive, You're gonna run you right off the road
right and so and so those are the things that
we have to be mindful of, and.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
We have to really sit in and listen to what
God is doing and really have to be connected to
the word. A lot of times we read the word,
but we don't understand it. You know. It's like it's
like I was, you know, before David was king. You know, uh,
everybody everybody was looking around at David and saying, all
(14:41):
what David. When it was time for him to to
to do what he was he needed to do. God
didn't just hand him a crown. He gave him Goliath.
That He gave him Goliath. And he didn't give him
an army. He didn't give him a sword, he didn't
give him armor. He gave them one stone, one stone
(15:05):
in faith and that and David became king. And so
so those are the things we had a lot of
times we look at the easy way, We look at
the easy way out, like nothing worth having worth moving
(15:27):
driving forward to doesn't come without hard work, doesn't come
without obstacles. You know, you see some of the biggest
corporations in the world file bankruptcy multiple times, but they're
still around and they're still thriving, and some of them
are bigger and better than they ever were, you know.
So uh, I realized that these these obstacles, these challenges,
(15:52):
made me into the woman that I am now. And
I have gratitude. I have gratitude before I do anything.
I extend gratitude for just the little things God has
(16:16):
given me. Nothing materialistic, nothing without you know, having you know, money,
and things like just being able to breathe, just being
able to have a sound mind, just being able to
walk into the room and tell my son to pick
that stuff up off that floor, being able to see
my husband and wake up in the morning, those things,
you know, just having a breath of fresh air is
(16:42):
something to extend so much gratitude, because not everybody is
extended that on a daily basis. We lose someone. We
lose somebody yesterday, we lost somebody today, and we'll lose
someone tomorrow and it continues on. So we we need
to know that we have an expiration date and that
(17:05):
until that day comes, you need to live your life
to the fullest. You need to be able to have peace,
have joy, have happiness, be able to extend love to others,
be able to receive love and be able to take
(17:31):
care and honor this vessel that God has given us,
and take care of it and nourish it. We're not
here just to perish. You're not here just to work
and die. We all have purpose. We are all assigned somebody.
(17:54):
I always say those people when they say, well you're trying.
God has a sign me, a certain individual, a certain
demographic of people, and no one but me can live
through that, live through that that journey. Nobody else is
assigned that journey but me. Nobody else is given this
(18:17):
assignment but me. And you have your own assignment. Everybody
has their own assignment. You just have to to wake
up and realize what that is. And sometimes the best
growth comes in silence, just listening, just listening and being
(18:38):
willing to outgrow, outgrow the sense of normalcy that you've
been used to.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It is not easy, and it's not easy I tell
you that, Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
But it's the one foot.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
He'll to tell, he'll.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
To tell, he'll to tell, he'll tell.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
You know, here'll tell. People often ask how and if
you could? And I know that there are some health
things that happen. I know that you know you talked
about silence and allowing the silence so that you can
hear God speaks, you can hear what you're truly meant
to do. And if you could break that down into
(19:21):
like three things, like the first couple of steps that
someone can take that a woman who's hearing you can
take without having to go through all the stuff you
had to go through to kind of get into a line.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
You gotta have. You gotta have a stroke, girl, you
gotta way right?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Like, how how can if you? Yeah? How? Because that's
the thing that I really love and want to share
with people. It's the how we all know. You know,
people want to feel better, they want to be able
to receive joy, they want to be able to have
How do you.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Do that first believing that it can happen first, believing
in it? First, believing that it can happen. Yeah, you know,
I go by the word. Let's go back to the
woman with the issue, with the issue with the blood.
She had to go out. She had to go out
(20:22):
and find Jesus to touch the hem of his cloth,
the hem of his garment to get healing. She didn't
do that by just sitting First, she had to believe
it would happen. Then she had to get up and
put the work into it. She had to go out
(20:43):
amongst the people, amongst the crowd to find it. And
then once she found it, she was healed.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So we have to we have to become we have
to participate in our rescue. We have to participate in
our own rescue.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
See, God will send us the boat, He will send
us the people, but we have to get into the boat.
We have to be willing to get in the water.
We have to be willing to paddle until we get
to the destination. And a lot of times we see,
we see the help, we see the boat, but were
scared to get into the water. We scared of the
(21:27):
water getting murky, We scared of the waves. We can't see,
we can't see land around us, so we don't know
where we're going, so we get scared before we even
get there, so we don't get on. So the first
thing is believing there's a vision, seeing it and believing
(21:49):
that it can come to fruition, and then putting the
action behind it. Just like with our health, there's no
good of me sitting up here looking pretty with my
makeup on and my wig on and my blood pressure
is one seventy eight over one oh two. It's just
(22:10):
a pig and lipstick, right, it's just a It's just
like I said, it's a it's a it's a it's
a it's a it's it's just a facade. It's a
prop it's not it's not real. So what we have
to do is we have to take action. So when
we go to the doctor and the doctor says, hey,
(22:30):
this is what you need to do. This is what
I'm prescribing you. This is your daily regiment. You have
to stick to it. And if you don't stick to it,
then your blood pressure will be high, you start having
hard palpitations, you're not monitoring your blood pressure, and the
next thing you know, you're in the hospital. See, it's
(22:55):
not always what they say. Treatment is not always has
to take place in the hospital. It takes place in habits.
And that's what anything, whether you're trying to search for
a good job, you try to search for you want
a new man, everything comes with habits. It's an action
based plan. First, believe in what God says he's gonna do,
(23:18):
then having the having the faith, and then put in
the work. Work without what they say, faith without work
is dead. That's dead, it's absent. I can talk about
all the good jobs I want, and I can pray
for I can pray for all the jobs. But if
I ain't looking for.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Nan you mean, my soulmate's not gonna just drop down.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
You gotta go find. You gotta go outdoors to find
a needle in a haystack. See. I told God when
I met before I met my husband, I said, God,
give me what I need and not what I want,
because everything that I was I wanted was based off
of materials. It was superficial, right, And I said, God,
(24:08):
give me what I need, now what I want. Give
me exactly what you see and not what I see,
because what I was seeing was based off of insecurity,
was based off of fear, ignorance, and ego. Right. But
(24:29):
then when I prayed that prayer, I didn't go looking.
I wasn't, you know. I was worried about my healing
and taking care of my daughter. And I happened to
go out one night the day before my birthday, October third,
two thousand and one, and I met Roy Williams, Jr.
(24:50):
And it wasn't it And here's the thing. It wasn't.
It wasn't at church. It wasn't, you know, on the
bus stop. It wasn't you know, at a conference. It
wasn't on airplane. It was at will my other say
a bar I say happy hour? He says a barx.
But we were at a happy hour, not the traditional
place that you think that two people would find love, right,
(25:13):
But we did. But we did because God knew that
we needed each other. And the same prayer that I
was praying, he was praying right, and God connected us.
And how And now looking twenty almost twenty five years later,
everything that I would have wanted in a man would
(25:37):
have not been able to manage or be able to
nurture and care for me like the God, the man
that God positioned me for, the man that was going
to nurture me through a stroke and a heart attack,
(25:58):
be able to take away his own independ and and
and and have to deal with his own mental health
and physical and health to take care of me. Being
able to give all that up to be able to
take care of me. That's what sickness and health means.
(26:19):
That's what and so when we are when we are praying,
God knows our heart, but he also knows what we need.
Because people say, you know, God gives you the desires
of the you know, your heart, but he also says
he gives you the desires of your heart in his will.
So everything that you desire in your heart don't mean
(26:39):
it's the will of God.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And then we find out and then we find out that, yeah,
and we're like, oh, what happened.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And sometimes he gives you what you don't want, what's
not in the will, just so you can see that
that's not it. Yeah, And so you know, sometimes love
and marriage and all those things are not meant for everybody. Everybody,
if I would marry everybody that had a great testimony
was not mad. Now every most of everybody who did
(27:07):
a great thing was full of mets. It had a
lot of mess, you know, outside of Jesus. You know,
they had a lot of myths going on with them.
But for the most part, you have to see what
God has for you, understand what God has for you
his plan, and be content in that. Yeah, that's what's
(27:28):
That's what the word said. I will say that's what
I believe, But that's what the words say. That's what
I interpret.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah, I love what you said. Treatment. I keep looking
back at it because it's so profound. Treatment doesn't always
take place in the hospital. It takes place in our habits.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, prevention over treatment. It is easier to prevent disease
than to treat it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
You talk about self advocacy, and I also really enjoy
that you talk about what's happening as it's going along,
because I know you've done You've been talking about metopause.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, I'm on the other side of that, Thank goodness.
That was an interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Ride, very interesting ride.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
But you talk about self advocacy and you stand and
I know that you are such a profoundly educated and
well put together woman. And I know I'm focusing on
the social media part of it, your presence there, right,
(28:31):
and that's not your whole life. It's the platform through
which you're sharing things. So that's the reason why I'm
going there. But you talk about self advocacy, and you
talk a lot about what's happening with you. What do
you want to say to women, Black women in particular
about advocating for themselves. You spoke before about like doing
(28:54):
what the doctor tells you to do and following those instructions.
How do you merge that, you know, the instruction with
advocating for yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, I try to do that with humor, but I
also try to do it in a way that women
will listen. I'm not the nurturer when it comes to
(29:27):
advocating for yourself, because that is something that you should do.
That is a requirement, right, and it shouldn't be something.
It shouldn't be something that I have to baby you through.
So I am very straightforward in the conversation because I
(29:47):
think tough love is needed. The women that I am
talking to, they need tough love. And so I come
from a place of what I would have wanted somebody
to say to me, right, And I know when I
say it, it will be received because that's what God
(30:09):
put on my heart to say. It is so important
because as Black women, we are misrepresented, we are highly dismissed.
There are so many disparities in the health system that
(30:32):
are not subtle, they are are overt, and so a
lot of times when you are pushed back into a corner,
you do one of two things. You either fight or
you just walk away. You just give up, you put
your hands up and you just walk away. And I
don't want women to walk away. I want them to
(30:56):
fight for their life. I want them to fight for
their purpose. I want them to advocate for themselves and
their well being because they deserve it. Each and every
one of us deserve to be here. But we also
have to put the first foot forward in doing so.
(31:21):
And so when our doctors tell us know and when
our doctors dismiss us, we have to stand ten toes
down in the sentiment of I know what's going on
with me, and I know my body better than anyone knows.
I am the CEO of my health. And you treat
(31:43):
your body like an organization. See, you can't keep coming
to your manager with the same report with errors without
without either being critiqued or fired. So I tell you
you treat your doctor as such. If you keep telling
(32:06):
me the same thing and nothing's changing. If we can't,
if we keep measuring the outcomes the same way, then
we won't have any change. Okay. So that means I
have to find someone new to take over the job,
(32:27):
because now we have because now retention is going on,
morale is low, productivity is down in the organization. Now
it's affecting our finances and now we got to end
up filing bankruptcy. We defunct, We got to file bankruptcy
and close down. And that's essentially what will happen to
(32:47):
your body if you allow someone to keep dismissing you, ignoring,
ignoring your symptoms, and treating you just like a number.
You're not only a patient, you're here men being And
there's a level of responsibility that a doctor should have,
but there's also a level of responsibility that patients should
(33:09):
have on themselves. And so you make the final call.
And so if you're not comfortable with what your doctors
saying in the moment, I always tell my doctor, well,
if you can't give me a referral, or if you
can't prescribe me in medication, or if you can't do
this particular testing, that I need you to write that
you refuse to care for me, that you refuse to
(33:37):
take initiative on my health plan. He's not gonna write that.
He's not gonna help. He's not gonna write that. The
doctors work for you. They work for you. And I
(34:05):
know a lot of times because we we were nine
to five, we don't have time to be running back
and forth to the doctor.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
It can.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It can be frustrating, it can. It can discourage you,
It can make you, it can make you sad. That's
That's how the best way I could describe my situation
of being misdiagnosed and dismissed. I was sad, but then
(34:35):
I had to come to the relations realization that being
sad was not changing anything.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
You were sad about the response that you were getting
from the doctors.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I was sad about the response of being dismissed and
knowing that innately that something was going on with me,
knowing my body and that nobody would would miss to me,
but also being also being intimidated by the doctor because
(35:09):
of his pedigree. You know, I'm not a medical doctor.
I'm not a physician, So who am I to challenge
what this medical professional has been trained to do for
so many years? But now I realize, oh, you've been
(35:30):
trained eight years and all you can do is tell me.
Something my grandmother would tell me is drink some water,
don't be stressed, quit my job. I could get that
for free. We have to make these doctors work, that's
what they were put in the position to do. You know,
(35:52):
and you and you don't get a lot of time, like, Hey,
I'm an accountant by training. Okay, I mess up on
a P and L. I mess up on a balance sheet.
You know, Funds get distributed incorrectly, but nobody dies. Nobody
is put in a situation that could be prevented, you know,
(36:18):
versus stage one cancer versus stage four. Because I told
you all the time that this pain on my left
side was not muscular, skeletal. Is a tumor growing on
my ovary. And now because you dismissed it as just
some random pain or divert articulitis or whatever you want
(36:44):
to call it, you miss the mark. So we have
to be we have to be in tune with our
bodies to know, Okay, this is not normal, this doesn't
feel right, and I will be willing to get two, three, four,
five opinions before I just say nothing's wrong and sit
(37:09):
down and allow it to linger and manifested something bigger exactly.
You know, it comes down to, I think the relationship
that we're in with ourselves as compared to how we
treat other people, you know, because if they're you know,
(37:33):
I know many many women who are on this planet
as the shiro, you know, throwing on our capes coming
running to help, which is a beautiful thing, and can fly.
And I said, you call yourself superwoman. You call yourself superwoman,
and she row, you need to have some. You need
(37:54):
to have some. You need to be able to fly,
You need to have some X rayvation. You are a
human being.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, And I think that having that sitting in a
doctor's office or anywhere in front of anyone and knowing
that there's something going on in here and not advocating
for ourselves, I think is a reflection of the way
that we care for ourselves. Right, Because when we love ourselves,
(38:24):
when we care for ourselves, you're going to fight, you will.
You're going to fight for yourself. You're going to the
same way that you would fight for your child, for
your best friend, for your mother, for your grandmother. Where
you're like, no, no, no, no, she's saying something's up with her.
You're going to look at this or if it's not you,
we're going to go somewhere else. Absolutely, we have to
(38:46):
do that for ourselves, even when we're exhausted, even when
we're sad, even when we're tired, right, And I think
that sometimes we're waiting for someone to save us, and
that's how it goes. We have to save ourselves. We
have to save ourselves, and we have to have faith.
(39:07):
They always say, save yourself, cause nobody's coming to rescue
That's right, nobody's coming to rescue us.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You gotta save you. You have to save yourself. And
like I said too, and that's why I'm so strong
and I'm so strong with my message because I know
to know better is to do better. And we perish
due to the lack of knowledge because we're we're not educated,
(39:36):
or we don't have anybody that's holding us accountable. We
just fall by the wayside of the world and we
just just become part of it, you know. And so
we just have our focus of going to work every day.
I don't have time to go to the doctor. I
gotta take care of my children. I gotta make sure
(39:56):
the bills are paid. I can't miss work, you know,
all these things, but not realizing the children, the job,
the bills, the husband, those things don't matter if you're
(40:22):
not here, that's right. They become somebody else's job. And
people will say on your obituary, oh baby, she did
a good job. She went above, and she went above
and beyond for everybody.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
How do you take care of yourself today? Having gone
through what you've gone through, What does your routine look
like today?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I am very intentional. I say, I am my greatest hobby.
I am my best investment. There is no investment greater
than me. Oh, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
They say, what's a little saying? She believes who she
says she is. She believe you who she says she
says to be who she be, something like I say it,
but I believe that, and I believe that God gave
me one two, three, four five more chances. So I
could be an example, but I could also be a
(41:26):
great a greater asset to the people that I'm here for.
I'm not an expert. I'm a witness. I am the
lived experience. So when I wake up in the morning,
(41:47):
I extend gratitude. I take a breath of fresh air.
Depending on what the weather is like, I'll ground, I'll
listen to my words, write. My affirmation is down every day.
I don't wake up every day. Sometimes I wake I
go to bed sleepy, I wake up sleepy. But I'm
(42:10):
in tuned to that. So if I wake up sleepy,
that means I'm not gonna overdo it. I'm not gonna
over extend myself, you know. And for the person who
doesn't have, you know, who has to get up and
go to work and have to you still have to
give yourself a peace of mind. You have to look
at you have to look at your agenda and see
(42:32):
where you can prioritize. And I bring balance. That's no
such thing. Balance is like the scales is always going
like this.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
The only way they're balanced when there's nothing in them.
They're just kind of stand.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So you have to prioritize. You have to prioritize, and
you have to focus on what's important and get rid
and get rid of the low hanging fruit.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
And sometimes the low hanging fruit it's not just that
you're doing the nine to five and working in your
children and all of that. Sometimes the low hanging fruit
is that relationship that you know.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Right, the low hanging fruit, the low lightning fruit.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Right that that hour and a half that you spent
talking to that person about fifty other people, you can
take a little bit from that and put pour that
into yourself.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I said, we don't need to be alone, we need
people to leave us alone. But we have to do
it because we say that have you drag them? If
you drag them to well, here's the thing. Here's the
thing about accountability. A lot of times people are always
always speaking about the word no and how no is
(43:53):
a is a fool. So I always say no is
the answer and the explanation and the explanation right. But
a lot of times we will tell everybody else no,
but we won't say anything to ourselves. So while you're
you know, the first thing we want to do on
a break and when we have time off be like, well,
(44:16):
I'm gonna get a massage, I'm gonna go get I'm
gonna go give me a petticare, I'm gonna get my
nails done. I'm gonna go have brunch with my girlfriends.
All of this is running. It's not rest. All of
this is running. It's not self care because you're moving,
your brain is constantly going, you're going from one place
to another, you're scrolling through social media. You're not getting
(44:37):
any rest. And then you get back home and you're like,
I'm tired. Why am I so tired? You go on
vacation and it's not a vacation, because when you go
on the vacation and you just can't sit and lay
down in the hotel, or just sit down at the beach,
or sit down at the pool and read a book
every day, or just close your eyes and go to sleep. No,
(44:59):
you want to go zipline. You want to get in
the you want to get in there. You want to
go mountain climbing, y'all. Want to go out every night.
You want to party, You get in the water every
single day. You do all of that, and then you
come back home and now you need a vacation from
the vacation.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
That's right, that's right, because you didn't take you didn't
make good use of that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
And then sometimes the people that we need peace from
we taking them on vacation. You don't need a vacation.
You need to stop taking the people on a vacation
with you.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's right. Yeah, When people hear your story, what do
you want them to walk away with.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I want them to see my resilience, my perseverance, perseverance,
but I also want them to see the imperfection I
want to see. Let them know that there's nobody, there's
there's nothing perfect in healing. There's nothing perfect and healing.
(46:05):
It takes time. I didn't get here. I didn't get
here overnight. I didn't get here in a year. I
didn't get here in two years. I'm still evolving. This
is six years. This is six years in Yeah. So
I want them to know that recovery is a process
(46:26):
and it can be done, and you can reinvent yourself
at any age.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Say that again for the women in the back who
are resisting.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
That you can reinvent yourself at any age. Remember you
have to be a participant in your rescue and in
your reinvention.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Doctor Chantecoleade, how can we support you?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Continue to follow me, hey, Shanta qu on all platforms,
continue to pray for me. To you to love on me.
That's the most inexpensive, well most expensive thing you can
do is love on me and pray for me. But
(47:11):
I also want you to love on yourself. I want
you to find joy. I want you to find peace.
I want you to find happiness. That's how you can
support me finding that thing that brings happiness in your life.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I have enjoyed this conversation immensely. Thank you so very much,
Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing so generously.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
You're welcome and thank you. I hope to see you again.
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