Healing Without Losing Yourself: 4 Lessons on Trauma, Courage & Freedom with Dana Mason

In this episode, Lisane Basquiat sits down with Dana Mason to explore Rhythms of Healing, a program blending hip hop, meditation, and wellness practices. Dana shares her journey from the music industry to holistic healing, and how music, culture, and sound can be powerful tools for releasing trauma and reconnecting mind, body, and soul

Learn how to set boundaries without guilt. Join Lisane's next Protect Your Peace Shaping Session today: https://shapingfreedom.com/boundaries-workshop

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Where does trauma live in your body? So not only
are you doing the mind work, but what are you
doing to make rewire your body and your nervous system
and to release that trauma It lives in your body,
so you can be sitting in therapy and talk therapy,

(00:26):
which is how some people end up doing for years
and years and years and not really hitting the milestones
of actually moving forward and healing.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
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, Lysan Basquiato. Hip hop has always been
about more than music. It's a movement about culture, resilience,
survival and freedom. It's a demand to be seen in

(01:02):
the face of systems designed to erase and silence what
they are unwilling to confront. At its heart, it's always
been about telling the stories of our collective lived experiences
of struggles, survival and celebration. Hip hop is truth telling
to a beat. My guest today is Dana Mason. She

(01:24):
and doctor James P. Norris are taking that truth into
the healing space with their program Rhythms of Healing. It's
not therapy as usual. It's a cultural revolution in mental health.
By blending hip hop culture, meditation and wellness practices, they're
opening new doors for connection, community, and healing. Dana's roots

(01:45):
are in the music industry, working with legends like Snoop Dogg,
Lenny Kravitz, whose concert I just saw two weeks ago,
and David Bowie. She now channels that deep understanding of
our rhythm and culture into her healing work. Doctor Norris,
who's not with us today, brings the clinical expertise and
psychological framework to make this work accessible to practitioners and

(02:08):
to the community. As a team committed to this much
needed healing work, they're proving that when we honor our culture,
we open new pathways for transformation. So in this conversation,
we're going to talk about the power of music, what
it means to heal with that erasing identity, and how
music itself can become medicine. This is a conversation about

(02:33):
breaking barriers and reimagining what freedom looks like when we
allow ourselves to be healed in mind, body, and soul.
I am so excited about this conversation. Today, I walked
into the studio stro Media here in Los Angeles and

(02:59):
walked up and met my next guest for the very
first time. And we're actually starting this conversation about ten
minutes late because we have been chitty chatting for like
thirty minutes. Okay, and I get and we kept saying,
we keep saying like, Okay, stop talking, Okay, let's save
it for the interview. So here we are. We're actually
going to do the interview now.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm soorry
kitty today.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I walked in here and this lady is like, Oh
my goodness, we're going to be friends. Okay, I want
to start with this we talked. I want to get
into like what sparked rhythms of healing, But first I'd
love to step back a little bit and provide some
context to how you yourself, uh stepped into this new

(03:47):
realm and new chapter of your life, because I know
you've done extensive work within the music industry, and how
did you get from that to the doorway the chapter
of that initiative.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, it's been a journey. I started here and I
moved to Los Angeles thirty years ago to get into
the music business, and it was everything. It was my
intention to be you know, the next silvir Own And
for those of you that don't know who she is,
she is the woman of the music business who's now

(04:24):
the CEO and chairman of Warner Electric Atlantic. And so
that was my career path and you know, had an
exceptional time being in the music business, but also not
realizing how inceptually toxic it is to your mental and

(04:49):
spiritual and physical well being. He said when we were
talking a little bit earlier. It's like, you know, I
moved here with a focus, with the plan and even
though I'm I'm not an artist, I was on the
music business side, in marketing. It was still important for
me to make my dreams come true, just like if

(05:09):
I were to be an artist, and so I couldn't fail,
like no matter what, So no matter what environment, no
matter what was going on, you know, it's like you
white knuckle it through and you keep moving. Yeah, And
that was what we know. And I was also taught
you don't leave one job without having another, you know.
So it's all of you know, that old programming that

(05:32):
you know gets baked in from you know, our generations before,
and that risk taking of stepping out and really trusting
yourself when things don't feel right, and again not having
the language to understand what that is, and so you
end up staying way too long in places that aren't

(05:54):
good for you, and that those are toxic work environments.
And while I was enjoying, you know, being around creatives
and putting out records and you know, I was here
with all the gangster apt but that's how I started
at Priority Records. So I had that cubes, I had
you know, the West Side Connections, all of it, and

(06:16):
which I loved. And so it got to a point
where I just I burned out, and again not having
that language, I literally said I'm done because I was
going to work, and the moment I'm exiting the freeway,
my body's breaking out in hives all over. I didn't

(06:37):
know what it was, and this was the first time.
I'm like, my doctor's like, oh, well, you know, you're
just nervous or you have anxiety, and again just pushed aside,
and I was prescribed I think it was xanax or something,
and I tried it and I'm not the medicine person.
So again I'm dosing and I'm trying to figure out
and I'm like this is making me even more insane.

(07:00):
And it was finally to the point where I just
had to just stop it all and I quit the
music business at the technically the height of my career,
and I moved to the beach. I cut off all
my hair and I sat on the beach with the
intention of Okay, God, what are we doing? Yeah, And
it's like, I can't keep showing up like this in

(07:22):
what I say that I love to do and having
to put on this heavy armor and to be this
person that I'm truly not at the core in order
to survive just in the environment that I'm working in.
And that was my breaking point. So I sat on
the beach and thank God for my best friend because
everybody else thought I was just absolutely out of my mind,

(07:45):
which you know, technically I was, But it was the
best thing for me because it got me to the
point where I started doing the deeper work on myself.
And that's when, like I said, in the world of
the Woo Woo, they call that the dark night of
the soul. Moment your soul cracks open. And it changed

(08:05):
the direction of where I was going or how I
was supposed to show up in the music business, and
I didn't know. I was like, so I'm going through
I'm meeting healers, I'm doing all of this deeper inner work,
and then I'm also starting to train and doing some
of these healing modalities. Again, I'm still trying to figure

(08:27):
out what I'm going to do in the music business
with all of this and trying to make these two
worlds come together. And it took a minute. I was
terrified because I didn't know what I didn't know, and
finally getting to the point where I got stepped back
into the business. But I was different, and the difference

(08:49):
was I understood I was aware of energy. I was
aware of, you know, trying to navigate spaces and people
and what energy belonged to me, what belonged to others,
what not to take on as my for as my
stuff and let other people's stuff be their stuff. And

(09:11):
this comes back to everything your podcast is about about
boundaries like I didn't have that. I didn't have those words,
that language and saying no and not you know, and
being okay with saying no because as people pleasers, we're
you know, we're here, we're aimed to please. We got
to make it happen no matter what anybody asks anything
of us. We got to do it. And it was

(09:34):
you know, in those early stages of me saying that's
not good for me, and it was practiced. Is like
a muscle, It was a lot of practice.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
It's where the goal is to put a smile on
someone else's face. You're not even in.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
It nowhere in it.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
There are so many things to unpack here, And as
we do, I encourage the audience to think about some
of the playlist that's playing in your head, because we
step into the world as adults with these phrases that
have been shared with us. We were laughing about it earlier, Dana, like,
you know, taking a nap in the middle of the day,

(10:11):
What are you you know, lazy? What do you mean,
what do you mean you're tired? What do you mean
you can't take on more? What you know? And some
of us, some of us, were taught to question ourselves
in that. There are so many parallels between the story

(10:32):
that you just shared and I know, certainly my story,
you know, my story of making the transition from that lifestyle.
Not I was in financial services, not in the music industry.
I was in financial services, but had all of those
same issues thoughts, conversations with myself about how we're all

(10:54):
doing this and this is supposed to be what success
looks like. And now I'm an executive okay, and I'm
making more money Okay, that's great. And I have a
title okay, and I have a corporate cretic all right,
that's great. And everyone around me at the time wondering
what was wrong with me because I was starting that

(11:16):
internal pushback because it just didn't make sense for me.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
It didn't feel good.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
It didn't feel good, it didn't the strategy that everyone
seemed to be having to have. I'm this person here
at work, but believe me, I'm a much different person
outside of work. But I'm like, but you're toxic as heck.
There's no way how you do one thing is how

(11:41):
you do everything right. And so really me trying to
survive within that environment, which is kind of what I'm
hearing in your story, meant that I wasn't thriving anywhere
because my focus was on survival. And by sun day
I would have what they refer to today as like

(12:02):
the Sunday scaries or whatever, but for me, it was
literally Saturday. I was like conked out yep, Sunday, I'd
get up and do all the things, but I would
have this feeling in the pit of my belly that
I now recognize as my third chakra. But it was
like this feeling in the pit of my belly of
like I don't wanna, don't make me, but I have to.
And you know, and all.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Of that matter what industry no show up in and
I mean even to even be more nuanced, it's like
how we show up as black women in corporate right,
That's a whole another layer exactly, And so all of
those things of trying to figure out how this makes

(12:46):
sense for me. I was. I had the nickname of
Evelina Wow, and I am people know me as like that.
I'm very calm, very nice, but in those moments, and
especially in the environment that I'm in, it's like I'm
having to be this person in order to fend off,

(13:07):
you know, upper management. And my track was much slower.
We could talk about it. My track was much slower
because I stayed in integrity with how I moved through
the business, and which is again a whole other conversation.
And I said, it doesn't technically doesn't matter what industry

(13:29):
and it just it's you would think that just being
in this the entertainment and you know, because it's creativity
and the creativity and the fun and the you know,
the all the lights, but behind the scenes, it's still
that it's the same environment that you would find in
any other corporate And I said, and then with no
hold bars, you know, at least with some corporation.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
There were some there, some parameters.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, some place to sit and my gosh, you know,
it's like you just didn't know. And then to fast
forward as I continue to do these trainings and things
to work with myself. When I re entered into the
music business, it was this is when I got into

(14:13):
frequencies and understanding how frequencies affect the body, and that
came with doing tuning fork therapy and training through that
and then relaying it all back to music. And one
of the things that I ended up at Hidden Beach Recording,
so I moved into R and B. I was out

(14:35):
of the rap game, and to be around true musicians
that talked about music and scales and frequency and being
privy to these amazing recording sessions with the artists that
were on the label, again just added another coloring and
a layer of what was going on in the background

(14:57):
for me, because again, you know, living two lives, so
you know, I have my whole little wou life and
then you know, but I'm still back into the music
business and doing marketing, and so I never thought like
getting to where I am now, I didn't know where
all of that was leading up to. So when you
talk when you talk about God's plan, yes, I didn't know.

(15:20):
I had no idea and you know, all the iterations.
But to get me to where Rhythms of Healing is
now part of my life, I met doctor James Norris.
It's actually known as doctor J. I call him Doc,
so I shortened it even shorter. He was the creator

(15:41):
of Rhythms of Healing and I met him actually on
hip Hop's fiftieth birthday.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh wow, like the day.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
I was doing. I was asked to do a panel
in South Central for the White Hall Arts Academy. They
were doing this big hip hop celebration and when a
mutual friend of ours, a guy that was moderating the panel,
introduced me to doctor j. He is so calm and
cool and kicked back and he's like, I was like,

(16:13):
you're a doctor and it's like, yeah, you know, doing
mental health and psychiatrists. I was like, wow, he's like,
I think there's some things we could do together. So
it became a conversation and shortly after this is what
twenty twenty three and right and moving it to the fall,
we started collaborating and he loved all of the things

(16:37):
that I was doing with the Eastern Eastern healing modalities,
and we started talking of like where I was pivoting
into next is I was just about to start and
open my own practice in holistic health, okay, And so
that is when we started collaborating. And when he presented

(16:58):
me with Rhythms of Healing, I thought it was incredible.
And he's born and raised in La just a brilliant
mind and also a hip hop fan, and so I
was like, oh, we could talk hip hop all day.
I was like, mental health stuff, that's cool, but let's

(17:19):
get back to these lyrics and songs. What's your top five?
He's like, what's your top five? And you know, we're
going back and forth, and then I really was able
to see, like, after reading he had a syllabus, his
curriculum that he created for rhythms of healing. He also
has another model, which we call the CARE the community
Care model, and CARE is an acronym and that stands

(17:42):
for connectedness, acknowledgement, resilience, and emergence And in those modules
it through social emotional learning, is that, and that's what
he was teaching. So with that, I was able to
marry the skills that I have in meta citation, sound
therapy and really apply those to that particular acronym. And

(18:07):
that's how we curated those workshops, the Community Care workshops, Okay,
And so those workshops are just a small, I guess,
microcosm of what the overall thirteen week rhythms of healing
cohort intensive is.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
And what is the intention, like, what is rhythms of healing.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Rhythms of healing? The intention is to bring group mental
health therapy to black and brown communities and for people
for us to show up in those communities. And because
representation is everything, one, we already know the stigma of

(18:47):
what it is to even talk about mental health in
our community and what it looks like. I mean, there's
a stigma mental health in general. And I think the
only brilliant thing that happened through the pandemic is that
mental health was talked about.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
More because it was on the forefront.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Because it was on the forefront, so it broke the
stigma of what mental health is, how it shows up,
and the different ways it shows up. And so coming
out of that, it's like, Okay, that's great for overall,
but what does that look like in our community? And
then on top of that, who's showing up in these

(19:25):
positions to actually administer and hold space for the people
in our community? And you know, as much as you know,
we don't want to make it about a black and
white thing, but you know, one talking about mental health
is its own thing, but also just being in the
medical system is its own stigma. And how black and

(19:49):
mind communities have been misdiagnosed, mistreated and not or not
diagnosed or take care of.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
It all and misunderstood because it is a very nuanced,
very and unique experience.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
It's the cultural aspect of things. So again, you know,
when there's doctor J shows up into a grouth, a
youth group of young black and brown kids or college students,
and he's able to talk about mental health from a
clinical standpoint, but also he's teaching in his sweatshirt and

(20:25):
his baseball hat and his Jordan's and and not only
just through the clinical practice, but the lived experience because
of the cultural nuances that happened. And that's the brilliant part.
And then for me, you know, Eastern medicine.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Come on, like I can bring that to it.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
And then but bringing it into our community, because I've
even found resistance because even when I was going through
all of my trainings, you know, I wasn't walking alone.
I did have my three really good friends. We were
all on the spiritual journey together. So but we would
show up in these spaces and it would just be us.
We were the only people of color going through the

(21:09):
training or even not even just the training, even just
going through the sessions of you know, reiki and all
of all. Like I said, all of the things, and
meditation finally got to a place where I found a
meditation practice that actually worked, and it was Vedic meditation

(21:29):
that didn't happen until twenty thirteen. I'd tried before. But
again go back to our community, and meditation is met
with resistance because it's not of Jesus, it's not of
the Bible. So we have our religious nuances that keep
us in a certain box. And you know, again that's

(21:50):
we can dive more into that conversation. So for me,
when teaching these workshops, I'm not teaching meditation from the
space of where it originated from. I talked about the history,
but I talked about the mechanics and the science behind meditation,
which is what I learned in my training. So when

(22:10):
you can demystify what meditation is and actually how it
affects the body and the mind, then you can get
past the potential cultural nuances or religious laces.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yes, let's talk about that. What what is meditation?

Speaker 1 (22:40):
What happens meditation? For me, I tried, you know, and
again they didn't have all the apps and things available
back then, so it was you know, you think, you
sit down, you're supposed to get quiet, You're supposed to
sit in this stoic position, uncomfortable and be uncomfortable, and
your mind is, you know, singing back and forth, and

(23:01):
you're trying to fight all these things, and you're like, wait,
my mind's not cliet. Oh, my mind's not client. And
then I'm frustrated and then I'm done, like what are
we doing?

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Okayoh, meditated?

Speaker 1 (23:11):
If we got to ten minutes, and so when I
actually found my teacher, his name is Lightwatkins. He taught
veadic meditation, which is also known as transcendental meditation TM.
His teacher, Tom Knowles, was a proxy in a student

(23:34):
of Mahrishi Mahashi Yogi. Ma Harishi mahash Yogi is known
for the yogi that taught the Beatles to meditate when
they went to ashram in India. He was responsible for
bringing meditation to the West in the early fifties and so,
and this style of meditation is twenty minutes twice a day.

(23:58):
And when you go through the training, the initiation process,
they tell you like, your brain's not you're not supposed
to be so stoic in its approach, and to get comfortable.
And they call this this is the the urban version
because we're urban dwellers. We're not monks. We're not sitting
we're not sitting still, We're not sitting in these uncomfortable

(24:19):
positions are off in a mountain somewhere. So twenty minutes
twice a day you get your mantra and that's what
allows your mind to get to that space of quietness.
And so once I found this practice. I was like, oh,
this is the one that works. I get it now

(24:42):
and that and so during my initiation process again is
they go through you get of course, you get the
Sanskrit aspect of things and the I would say, the
pageantry of what it means to be initiated as a
Vedic meditator. But in during those session it was like,
over the course of four to five days, we learn

(25:04):
about the science, we learn about the mechanics, the actual
mechanics of meditating, so it's not such this unattainable thing
that you can't do. And then, like I said, fast forward,
you know, meditation, thank goodness, which I love. You know,

(25:25):
shows up for whoever needs it. So you have the apps,
you have the guided meditations, you have all these different
forms of meditation that you just have to find what
works for you.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
And I think at the end of the day, it
really is about opening up space in your life to
spend some time with yourself. Yeah, and to really hear
what's going on.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
For you and a lot of people. It's a scary
place to sit, very very to sit still and then listen.
The listening part, Oh God forbid, you got some instructions.
You got to do after that.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
So then there's the aspect of courage of leaning into
you just got some very specific internal instructions of what
you should be doing next. And it's a scary thing,
like goosebum yeah right now.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Because we treat ourselves the way that we treat we retreat,
we treat the feedback that we receive from ourselves oftentimes
the same way that we retreat the feedback that we
get from other people. Like no, no, I'm not going
to do that because if I just try harder get

(26:39):
them to understand and we do it, we do it
to other people, and we do it to ourselves too.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
If I can't get out of my head enough, yeah yeah.
And if we get and I can say this, we
can talk about I call it the S word surrender.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Okay, I want you.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
I'm just gonna love that over to you because this thing,
I think that is.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
The biggest thing because I know that for me, I
was taught to fight. I'm just gonna say it. I
was taught to fight at the time. I didn't know
that that's what it was, but to fight to keep
people away, right because I was safest. And I'm saying
this in all air quotes because it's all not true

(27:21):
right to fight to keep people away, because the more
that I could keep people away, the safer I was.
And the problem with that is that when you fight
to keep to keep people out, you wind up alone
on the inside, misable, miserable because we're not meant to

(27:42):
be up in there by ourselves. No right.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
It leads to what feels safe, what is safe, and
how to be vulnerable. And again this is language that
I got nothing long ago, but it's feelings safe in
my Bible. Was just literally just having this conversation with
my best friend yesterday. Even through all of the stages

(28:07):
and my own personal evolution and all the things and
all my modalities and all my practices, I'm evalue. I'm
still evaluating you. I feel safe in my body.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Because it's a practice.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's a practice and having the awareness and then putting
it into play is two different things. And that's why
I think even in our mental health space, it you know,
going back to the work that Doc and I do,
it's like talk therapy and all listenings are amazing tools,

(28:41):
but when you really think about where does trauma.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Live in your body?

Speaker 1 (28:47):
In your body so not only are you doing the
mind work and the rewiring here, but what are you
doing to make rewire your body and your nervous system
and to release and.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Release exactly because it lives, It.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Lives in your body. So you can be sitting in
therapy and talk therapy, which is how some people end
up doing for years, years and years and not really
hitting the milestones of where of actually moving forward and healing.
And I say, I for my clients and people that

(29:25):
I would say, I don't want to have to see
you forever, Like if I'm doing my job properly, that's right,
we're getting to it and you're graduating to the or
either to the next person, because you're being with someone
for so on and you're still not going. I mean,
it's something's off, something's not right.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, And I think part of it also is the
fact that we are made up of four bodies, so
it's mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. And if all of
the focus, and this is talk therapy is very important
to get things out right. So I just want to
make sure that that's clearly understood and heard. And anything

(30:07):
that is out of harmony winds up not being as
effective as it could potentially be so talk. Therapy is
on a large scale of mental healing. That's what it is.
It's about healing these things that are in the mind.
But then how do you release the places where we

(30:29):
hold our emotion? Because if you right now, any one
of us where to sit and think, like, if there's
some tightness, if there's something that you're feeling, or something
that's going on for you, or something that's keeping you
up at night, it lives in your body. You feel
it in your body. There is a place in your
body where we grow accustomed to feeling.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Uncomfortable, accustomed to pain.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, the frog in your throat, that feeling of anxiety.
And your third chakra, which is like your solar proxyst
right from your belly, right or our back or wherever
the places are that that energy is being held. How
does sound healing help?

Speaker 1 (31:12):
It's frequency. We're all made up of energy and frequency
and what I've learned through my training, and it's the
music that we listen to. Our voice, you know, our
words carry frequency, and when you understand frequency, you can

(31:34):
understand how it heals the body and help assist in
healing the body. There's certain frequencies that resonate with certain
chakras of the body that work, you know, the in
general speaking. So it's like the five twenty eight, which
they call the love frequency, and that's the overall general

(31:57):
feeling frequency. Theirs of four thirty two, and that is
I call that the love frequency, or not I but
it's called the love frequency. And one of the things
I learned all through my studies is that music that
we listen to, no matter which genre, has been tuned

(32:21):
to the four forty frequency, which is a disruptive frequency
to the harmonic, the natural harmonics of your body. And
this was done during the time of Rockefeller when he
took over pharmaceutical industry. But again we're going to digress
and go down that little bit that pathway. But four

(32:44):
thirty two is the actual love freaking is the one
that resonates with your heart how you're the natural human
heart vibrates. So when you're playing four thirty two, there's music.
There are artists that are which I love, that are
brilliantly aware of what frequencies are and how they mas

(33:07):
mix and master their music. It's it's because it lives
in your body. And so but when you're actually talking
about sound healing, like you know when you see people
with the crystal bowls or the tuning forks and all
the other instruments, those are very specific. Each one of
those bulls are different notes and different and are tuned

(33:30):
to different frequencies. My bulls are actually made with rose
quartz in four in that were made with the fourth
tune to the four thirty two frequency. So each note
has still carries its own frequency, and so when they're
when it's playing, that's when you're working through all the
harmonics of the body. And then when you get into

(33:54):
like the more hands on with the tuning forks, those
tuning forks are all in. There's different sets of tuning forks,
so there's some that are tuned to the frequency of
the planets that each planet resonates at its own frequency,
and when it's applied to the body. I had to
learn acupuncture because those acupuncture points then again back to

(34:19):
Eastern medicine, where you would technically put the needles is
where the tuning forks go, and so it opens up
the meridians and the body. When you know the meridians
in the body and how acupuncture works, so now you're
applying frequency to those very same points that they would

(34:41):
put the needles into open up the meridians that go
through the body, which ultimately is what you're trying to do,
is heal disease in the body.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Yeah, I saw something recently and this is for those
folks who maybe think, well, okay, sound wooo where if
you I think they the person who's using a bowl,
and they were showing how water responded, how water responds

(35:09):
to the sound frequency. And it reminded me that we
being what are we eighty percent water, sixty percent water,
a lot of water, right, and so that is what
actually happens inside of our physical body, and that's what

(35:31):
our cells are experiencing exactly, this kind of recalibration.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
It's exactly it. It's calibrating. And there are hospitals now
that are using their doctors that understand the power of
sound frequent sound healing, and they're playing sound instruments. In
certain words. There's and we can go all the way
back to the rough machine, which was invented back in

(35:58):
the twenties, and you know, again we can go off
into the conspiracies of that, but this doctor created this
frequency machine that ultimately cured cancer. And there are clinics
and frequencies and clinics and hospitals. Now that again you

(36:20):
have to know where to go. But they use these
high tech frequency machines to treat breast cancer and different diseases,
gall bladder cancer, different diseases, sick of cell, and they
completely destroy the and it's specific to the corrupted cells

(36:45):
of the body. So again, you know there's the actual
clinical aspect of that. And then we get into the
health and wellness industry of it all where people are going,
you know, a way to you know, do yoga and
you know, have all these amazing experiences with you know,
sound healing that happens, but trauma informed yoga. You know

(37:09):
when we talk about the body and releasing, so it's
like it's movement as well that helps with releasing the
trauma and the body. Meditation. That's what meditation is. It
is literally every time you sit down, you're destressing the body.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
You're countering all of that activity, yes, to bring yourself
back into center.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
To bring yourself back into your natural harmonics. And it
was a beautiful analogy my teacher shared when we were training.
It's like before meditation, it's like your body is the
garden hose that's left outside. Yes, and so it gets,
you know, all caught up with all the mud and

(37:54):
the and then when you turn the faucet on and
the water strying to come through, it's pushing a little
a little bit at a time. Yeah, and then finally
it opens up the pathway. And that's what meditation does.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yeah, that's a fantastic metaphor for it. We were talking before,
or you mentioned and I don't want to lose this thought.
What you described in your experience before stepping into this
chapter of your life was in some ways creating a
persona in order to exist within the world that you

(38:34):
were in. And I think that's an important thing to
just like, for a moment, step more and step back,
like twenty minutes, right. I think that's a really important
thing because I think that that's probably where the folks
who come to your work are because they're in the

(38:54):
space of having created a persona, and creating a persona
me that you kind of contort yourself completely into another
way of being that you create in order to be
in certain spaces. Like you mentioned that you were Evelina,
which is very hard.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
It's hard to even say it. And it was only
because I was being assertive, right right, that's literally what
it wasn't like, you know, I was completely There were
a few moments I had my moments where yeah, you know,
but yeah, no, it's exactly that. And it's like being
assertive literally not taken, you know, from anybody. Yeah, and

(39:42):
it's And then again, at the time, I'm literally touring
with groups of rappers and their entourages, and more often
than not, I was the only woman. Yeah, you know,
so here I am dealing with all this and how
do I show up? You know? And everybody used to
say it. I went from being called milk and cookies

(40:03):
because everybody thought I was so sweet and so innocent too.
Oh no, but you better watch out for that one
cause you know. But again, it was hard for me
to be that person because I didn't feel I needed to.
I was taught again, I'm smart, I do my work,
put my head down, get it done, and it shouldn't
be anything else left to it. But no, there was

(40:28):
managing harassment. I'm managing all of the things in between,
just to get through my daily task of my job.
And it's like, how am I supposed to make this
make sense? And like you said, you don't realize that
it chips away at your emotional wellbeing, it hips away

(40:50):
at your spiritual well and your mental wellbeing. And it
was showing up with my whole left side of my
body breaking out in hives.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And that's kind of that space where you look at
yourself in the mirror and you realize that that's what
it looks like. I think when you a person looks
in the mirror and they say, wow, I didn't recognize myself,
it's because you've created a persona. So for a person
who may be in that space right now, what was

(41:19):
the pathway like? And I know I've been in that
space for sure, Like I had my dark knighted soul.
I had my moment where I was like, what is
going on here? Because I know who you really are
and you're not this mad all the time, Like what's
going on right? And it was because I created a

(41:41):
persona to survive in the situation that I was in,
you know, professionally and personally and all that at the time. So,
because there are so many people who are in that
space right now right what advice do you have for
those folks? Like or what did you do that you

(42:01):
that that could help someone else to at least start
to chip away at it, because it's not an overnight thing.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
It's not a prossy. And the one thing I could say,
I found myself constantly praying for courage.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Courage was the biggest thing, because courage to do something new,
courage to step out of and not be again we're
talking about survival. Did not want to not have a job,
you know, And you know I'm trying to be a
functioning adult, you know. And was I being irresponsible if

(42:41):
I just quit? And so you have all these narratives
that are running or that were running in my mind
of just because you don't like something, you know, you
don't just quit, like grow up, grow up?

Speaker 2 (42:55):
What are you doing? What do you think that you're
not supposed to be happy?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
All?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Which is a lie? But which is all of it lies?
It's maybe not happy joy.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
And again, I know for me, my choices were different
because I wasn't married and I didn't have children, so
my choices were solely my own and I didn't have
to think about what those the repercussions of those choices
if I did just up and quit. And I was like,
because if I have to live in a tent on
the beach and eat from and no, it was I
could figure it out. But at the same time, you know,

(43:31):
and I say this to people that had said I
find themselves, and it's especially in our current climate, is
it's really about going inward because you can you are
so distracted by all the noise, all the stories, everything
that's going on. I'm not saying like, bury your head

(43:52):
in the sand. We're not talking about that. It's about
being aware and under it. It has taken a very long
time for me to understand my my true power of
who I am. And we hear, we hear the cliches
of your you know, you're the creator of your life
and you're but it's really true, it's very true. But

(44:16):
it comes from a place of I know, for me,
of doing a lot of inner work to get to
that place. Because it's one thing to hear it, it's
one thing to acknowledge it, and it's a different thing
to actually embody it.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yes, which is surrender is kind of where.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
It starts, back to the surrender.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Back to surrender, because you have to be open.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Back to the surrender and trusting, trusting that you're going
to be okay. And it's in those moments where you know,
I look back, even in my scariest of times, even
pivoting at you know, halftime in my life. I'm pivoting
careers and starting over and doing something new and stepping
out in front of me sitting in front of cameras
absolutely never never ever, And so I'm doing those things

(45:04):
because it took all of those little dudges of in
that muscle of trusting myself, thank God, to have beautiful
people around me to encourage me and to reflect back
to me how powerful and strong and smart I am,

(45:25):
especially in those days when I'm hiding under my bed,
you know, or not feeling my best or like, oh,
I didn't show up because I had to cuss that
person out over there the other day.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
I didn't show up as my best self, shut up
as your human self.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah, And so it's all of those things. So it's
not it's I can say, it's not a solo trip.
It is my tribe, and it's my tribe that really
helps and support. So if I say to people, find
your people, find your people that make you feel loved

(46:01):
and encouraged and all of those things, because and that
don't show up only when you're winning, because I have
those people too. And again, there's a place for everybody,
you know, but your true tribe are the people that
show up when I quit my job. But I moved

(46:22):
to the beach and I cut off all my hair,
and my best friend's like, what do you need? You
need some groceries, you know, Okay, So it's you know,
it's it's people like that. And so I've been very
very very blessed and very fortunate to have that support
system around me, and especially when I'm making decisions that

(46:44):
don't seem.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
To be you know, with the similar to the ones
you've made in the past.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah, you know, new decisions, new decisions.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Riding a bike the first time is always a little bit.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
It's scary. It's very scary, and it's my intention to you,
you know, in all the work that I've done, whether
it was with my artist or in the space I am,
now it's like I've truly and I've always been this
person I always wanted to be of service, like how
can I be of service? And what how that shows
up without overgiving and with the boundaries. So now it's

(47:21):
like I can be of service without the guilt or
the shame and not the overgive overgiving yea, and that
I think that is where the freedom lies. The sweet
spot absolutely.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
So what I'm hearing is surrender, a willingness to hear
and listen to yourself and trust yourself and trusting yourself
and courage. Courage are the three. I mean, you listed
a bunch and that's but I think those those are
the ones that popped up for me, right and what

(47:58):
you shared. So let's talk about rhythms of healing and
how you all are taking hip hop and like practically

(48:20):
like what is it? What? What is it?

Speaker 1 (48:23):
It's great? So in our in our community care workshops,
we suppose we'll start there because that's where we've been
workshopping our syllabus. So what I call it, I call
it the remix because, like I said, Doc established this
with you know, his work that he's been doing. So
when I came on board and added my piece to it,

(48:45):
I call it the remix. So when we're in class,
we go through we have our curriculum that we go
through which again we go through the care model and
and again it's it's technically group therapy and we try
to keep the group sessions in an intimate space no more.
Fifteen is a stretch, but below ten is the best.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
And who are you working with? Is it practitioners?

Speaker 1 (49:10):
It's anybody, anybody. The groups that we've done work with
have been with young people in college campuses excellent, so
we're getting them in their young adult stage. But we
do have workshops for practitioners which I can get to.
So when we're there, we are we're going through the process.

(49:30):
And what ends up happening every time we don't finish
the syllabus because it ends up people end up really
opening up and sharing and it is literally like our
little legitd And you know, I'm back to what's the agenda?
We got to hit these marks and go to.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
The road map. It's just I have like one hundred
and fifty not have a lot of questions here. It's like, well,
it's it's literally the road map.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
And so when we get into it, and we use
hip hop as the opener because music is a universe.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
But I want to hear, I want to hear how Okay,
so how does hip hop.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Especially with young people? Because you know us like we
can we can get into it. So in the way
we've created the syllabus, We've interjected with lyrics, so we
discuss lyrics. We pick certain songs and discuss lyrics as
they relate to the curriculum. Oh wow, okay, so there's

(50:28):
you know, we're in our space of connectedness. You know,
there's a song by Kendrick Lamar. So we go into
Kendrick Lamar lyrics and we dissect the lyrics and then
we throw it back to the students, the young people, like, well,
what's the song that resonated for you? That then connectedness
as we're going through this deep dive of what connectedness
means and the social emotional learning aspects of how to

(50:52):
connect when you're coming out of trauma, so you know,
we really get into the clinical aspects of that. And
so then I circle around with Okay, here's this is
what meditation does and what it means to be connected.
And so that's when I go into the mechanics of
meditation and how it connects your mind and body, spirit,

(51:15):
and then you know, and then I take them through
a short meditation. So and a lot of times I
found people have especially which I love the younger group
because they're open and they've explored already yes, and they
know and they're like, oh, yeah, I meditate all the
time or you know again, and it's not always the
sitting still. That's what I'm trained in. And you know,

(51:36):
it can show up as I'm shooting baskets and it's
my quiet time where I'm shooting baskets or I'm gardening
or whatever. That quiet time is for you to be
connected when you're not disturbed.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
I appreciate you sharing that because I think that, like
you shared in the beginning, there's this image, image and
vision of meditation as like you know, you're sitting up
on a hill somewhere by yourself, nobody's around, you have
some you know, with your fingers and all of that,
and that's lovely space for that, and there's a space

(52:12):
for it. But meditation is whatever helps you get back
to that space of your centeredness and connection to yourself
so that you can hear yourself speak right, and that
that's the thing. And I do love the fact that
you can be working with college students today and a

(52:33):
generation ago. Right, you say meditation to a young person,
they're like, what are you talking about? You know, what's right?
And the fact that you can step into that space
and have these college students say.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
That they they meditate, they meditate.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Already, like it, what a wonderful thing for all of us.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
It is, and and the beauty of our and what
we The syllabus actually is a walk away book we
leave with them as well, and it's over seventy pages
and so there's an interactive portion of it where we
have videos because again I pull videos from current rappers,

(53:14):
MC's entertainers who talk about it. J Cole is an
avid meditator, Kendrick Lamar as an avid meditator, and then
we go into I have clips of Kobe talking about
what meditation does for him and his game, you know,
and so and bringing it into like I said, out
of the Woo Woo to people that look like us,

(53:36):
the music that you listen to, so it makes it
relatable and which is again what I didn't have and
definitely not before and especially even when I was going
through the training, Like there the moment I tried to
share with them, like what are you doing? Are you
doing that weird stuff?

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Okay, yeah, I got a lot of that too, And
you're the saying people when I moved out here, I'm
from the East cost the Northeast, and when I moved
out here, folks like, oh, you just want to be
by the ocean, and you know whatever, all the stuff,
all the crap talk that you do in the Northeast.
And then those same people a few years later are like, well,

(54:15):
what are you doing? Because you seem happy and that is.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
The absolute product of you doing the work. Because but
it's like with anything, like you know, Doc is a
is a avid Christian. And so when we talk about
what religion brings into these spaces, I've walked away with

(54:42):
beautiful messages from Christianity. I was raised as a Christian,
same with Islam, same with Buddhism. And how does that
show up for me? And it's not one thing or another.
It's like when you see a person that's happy or

(55:03):
things are always going love for them, or what are
they doing and they just so happen to be a Christian,
that's what's going to make me interested in Christianity. Or
if they happen to be Muslim or like following their
path and seeing their life, like that's what's going to
make me interested in studying Islam and meditation. They said
I didn't have to go, you know, as I'm learning

(55:24):
all this new stuff, and I had a friend who
was just like, you know again, because you're excited and
you want to learn something and you want to tell
everybody about it, and everybody's like, I'm cool, and just
devastated that nobody wanted to learn. I was like, no,
you how you show up is your advertisement.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
That's the commercial.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
That's the commercial right.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
There, And you can say whatever you choose to say.
But at the end of the day, it's We were
talking about this earlier in reference to Billy Johnson. I'm
gonna put them on the stage here for a second.
Repertoire was sitting over there looking very very like, don't
look at me, don't talk with me. We were talking
about the fact that what you remember about him, and

(56:11):
what I've witnessed other observed other people saying about him,
is that they remember how he made them feel. So
you can say whatever it is that you want to say.
Right our energy is always talking. It's the loudest thing
about us. So we can persona from now until tomorrow.

(56:35):
We can get all made up and you know, dressed
up and all that great stuff, but at the end
of the day, it's our energy that speaks the loudest,
and how you treat people. Yeah, and it's the loudest.
It speaks the loudest to other people, but it also
speaks the loudest to ourselves. Because that's what you were
talking about in the beginning, like that, going full circle.

(56:58):
Your energy was speaking to you. And for a minute
there you were like, no, I'm going to plow through
because I got at a music industry, I got a plan.
I gotta stay focused, you know, cut it out. Then
you're fine, right until your energy started to scream. And
I think it happens to it? Why, No, it happens
to all of us. And the real thing is what

(57:19):
do you do when you know whether someone else can
see it or not, when you know that your energy
is speaking to.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
You And thank god, it was just it's it's stopped there,
because normally that's what turns into diseases exactly. So now
you're dealing with and yes, and so how it manifests
in your body, the cancers, the migraines, the skin disease

(57:47):
like everything.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
And other things that I know aren't technically disease, but
the disease in the ways that you interact with people,
the disease of toxic relationships, the disease of not setting boundaries,
of walking around feeling jacked up all the time. Those
are also things that throw us off, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
And you can't function the brain FuG and that's distress,
the anxiety and how it shows up.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
I want to ask you one question before that. I
don't want to leave without asking you. And again, we
could be sitting here for hours, so we have to
bring this out over some tear or some wine or
some whatever. What does it mean to heal without erasing identity?

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Oh, that's a good question.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
That could be a doctor J question.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
It could be, and I think if I were to
channel my doctor J channel, it would be it goes
back to the being authentic, being back to you, your
authentic self. And hopefully when you're in pursuit of your

(59:05):
healing journey, you find people that honor that and are
not trying to want being being overlooked and having again
again the importance of representation, and which is why doctor
J was so adamant about doing the work that he

(59:28):
did even through his dissertation. And he's a published author,
He's published written many articles on the subject, and I
think his dissertation was in hip hop Counseling, which is
a thing that he's trademarked and understanding how the authenticity
and just the elements the culture of hip hop is

(59:50):
that self Like you said it so perfectly when you
opened It's like, Oh, that's what hip hop is. It's
that cultural, that self expression of the place that we
didn't have where we didn't have the outlets, we didn't
have the couches and the doctors or the access and
because we didn't even talk about, you know, the idea

(01:00:11):
of just having the financial means to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Sit, which is a completely different Yeah, but I think
that's the importance of it. It's meeting people where they are,
and I think that we don't get that a lot
of the time. It's like, in order to function in
this society, we believe and many of us were taught

(01:00:36):
to believe. And I think that younger folks today are
taking a different stance, but we're taught to believe that
you have to leave who you are at the door,
and that includes hip hop, that includes anything that makes
you It's the code switching. It's total code switching right
where you have to erase your identity in order to

(01:00:58):
be accepted in this society. And I love the fact
that you all are are our staking claim in these
things that are a very important part of the culture
of black people in this country, you know, and hip
hop is it is our it's culture.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
It just is our culture. And yeah, and for the
longest time, I'm not sure where it still lands, but
hip hop is still the number one consumed by everybody.
By everybody that's our tour and been in countries, English
is not their first language, but they know every lyric
that's on the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
I didn't get to see it but in person, but
I saw Kendrick I think it was in Portugal recently
over this summer, and you know, I've kind of watched
I was kind of like, you know, foming because I
was I got to get to one of its concerts.
But it was just incredible. And it's always incredible to

(01:01:57):
see musicians and music and you know, hip hop all
over the world.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
It translates so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
It translates so wonderfully all over the world. And how
you don't have to know the language, but you can
feel the energy of it right and the storytelling in
that we are going to have. I'm trying I'm like,
where do we stop?

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
I don't know. I think the one thing I've definitely
wanted to say to leave you with is doctor J
and I created the Rhythms of Healing certification class. Please
goes back to how it goes out to the community. Please,
And it's everything that we teach in our workshop. You
go online and it's in the process of being a

(01:02:46):
credited a continue education credit for those that are in
their graduate or postgraduate work. Excellent, but it also is
for social workers, teachers, community leaders. And we've had people
go through the process that again are white people that
aren't necessarily you know, hip hop fans, and are like,

(01:03:06):
how can we do this? And it's not And again
it's not giving up your identity.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
It's like you for either side. Thank you for saying that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
For either side. So you as a clinician, because again,
most mental health clinicians are you know, there's only we're
at like three percent of people of color that are
mental health clinicians in this country.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
So more three percent of mental health clinicians in this country.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Of all the mental health, of all the mental health
are of color. Yes, And so you're more than likely
to if you're seeking mental health. You're more than likely
not going to find a person of color depending on
where you are geographically, thank God for telehealth, but again
where you are. So again we want everybody to take

(01:03:55):
this because it gives them the cultural nuance and the
opportunities to learn when they are sitting with clients of
color to have this approach and again in its most
authentic way, and we say it in hip hop, but
the formula can be used for whatever type of music

(01:04:17):
that you want to use as if you want to
use music as that bridge to come into in building
that trust factor, because that's why I said we open
with music. Everybody can talk about music and your top
five that's right, you know, So it's important. So we
really wanted to and so our goal is to build
a network of our rhythms of healing counselors so people

(01:04:40):
across the country can you'll know where to find somebody
where you can go into. Like I said, you're in
a boys and girls club, or you're a school counselor,
or you're a teacher or a social worker. Again, just
an extra set of skills too. And again, most people
aren't talking about the modalities of how to get into meditation,

(01:05:01):
and I talk about gut health too. We didn't get
to the whole aspect of like how that affects your mental.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Health, but as you're going to come back and we're
going to do it all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Thank you. So yeah, so that's important. So those are
the three things that doctor J and I are working
on as having the counselor certification, we do our community
care workshops, and then we're leading into we haven't built
into it yet, but the thirteen week cohort, which is
the intensive, and those are set up to hit specific demographic.

(01:05:36):
So our first demographic will be Black men eighteen and up,
and then we'll go to Latino women eighteen and up
and you know, and we'll switch out those cohorts as
needed as the needed shows itself.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
So on one let, on one hand, you said it,
and we'll make sure that that information is available, that
we share those three things. Thank you. And then how
can we support you besides getting the word out there?

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
That's it? And I said, if even if it's not
with us, be courageous and do the work yourself, because
the more you can show up for yourself, the better
you can show up in your community and for your
loved ones. That's right, because when you're a mess, you're
no good to anybody else. I remember seeing Nipsey Hustle

(01:06:32):
talk about this in an interview on twenty four seven
Hip Hop. It's like, when you're in survival mode, you're
only your your yourself, you know, your self focused. So
once you're able to get out of survival mode is
when you can actually put your attention on your community,
your loved ones in a in a healthy way. And

(01:06:53):
that's the way that you'll be able to I think
when you show up for yourself, you'll be able to
show up better for other Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
I once said that, I have said it a few
times that a lot of times what we believe is
dealing with people in our childhood where you know, we
have childhood traumas really just people who were burned out,
people who didn't who could not or chose not to

(01:07:21):
do the very things that you suggested, surrender, have the courage,
build a tribe, take care.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Of yourself, even have the language or have the language,
you know what that language is to exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to
sit down and have this chat to so grateful. One
other thing that I want to say to the audience
is if you know of mental health professionals, teachers, guide

(01:07:55):
whoever the groups of people are that Dana just meant,
send them to your website.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
Rhythm Healing yea dot us.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Okay, send them to Rhythms of Healing dot us. We'll
also put it in the show notes. We'll put it
into any captions you know for socials and things, because
I think that we want to get as many people
into that field as possible. So in this country, we
need air traffic controllers, and we need people getting certain

(01:08:33):
and we need more mental health professionals. We need more
folks doing the work, mental health professionals doing this work
because we are in a society and a culture that
really really needs it. Dana, I'm so happy that we
had a chance to meet each other. Thank you so
much for coming. This episode for me lands so deeply

(01:08:57):
because it really speaks to what so many people are
going through and be challenged with today, and that is
like a lack of congruence between or a lack of
personal integrity. And I don't mean this in a judgmental way, right,
but where there's something awry and My hat's off to

(01:09:18):
you for having the courage to do that work, because
had you not right, you would have not been You
wouldn't be here today telling the story and glowing in
the way that you are and just a glow with
so much beauty internal external enjoy and doing this amazing work.

(01:09:43):
So thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
I'm so grateful. I don't even know this is what
are the words Ilse love to have of that? Times
a thousand? Yeah, thank you. This has been wonderful. I
so appreciate you having me here and with doctor J.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
That's right, hey, doctor J. You're here. And to those
of you who are listening, thank you so much for listening.
Always uh and again as always, like, share, comment, engage
with us on social media. Make sure that you also
find rhythms of healing dot us, engage with them, and

(01:10:25):
be courageous.