February 8, 2024 • 71 mins
The labyrinth of personal healing is often clouded with the shame and secrecy of our deepest struggles. Embark with me, Tarek Ali, as I traverse the raw and intimate pathways of my own self-discovery, laying bare the battles with anxiety and the transformative power of returning to one's roots. This episode is a candid revelation, an invitation to listeners to journey alongside as I unpack the layers of my past that have sculpted the person I am today. From the gentrifying streets of Los Angeles to the private recesses of personal trauma, we tackle the complexities of self-worth, body autonomy, queerness, and the messiness of healing.
Through the lens of my own narrative, we examine several things: the intersection of queer identity and navigating sexuality, bringing to light the stereotypes within the LGBTQ+ community and the struggles for self-acceptance in the face of social pressures; reclaiming your body when past experiences stole it from you; and rekindling the relationship you have with you body after a lifetime of self-abuse. I share poignant moments from my own childhood and the journey towards reclaiming my body's narrative. It's a story of growth, self-love, and the courage to confront the demons of one's past. As we navigate the intricate dance of self-discovery, we laugh, we learn, and perhaps most importantly, we find solace in the shared experiences of our struggles.
This heartfelt episode culminates in a celebration of vulnerability and the solace found in expressing one's truth. It's a reminder that healing is an ongoing process, one that requires grace, self-compassion, and an unwavering commitment to authenticity. I leave you with thoughts steeped in hope and encouragement, urging you to embrace your journey with kindness and reflection, and to continue the conversation on self-compassion as we part ways. Thank you for lending your ears and hearts; may this dialogue resonate with you as much as it has with me, Tarek Ali.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode covers explicit material and has
trigger warnings for eatingdisorders and sexual assault.
Now let's get to the episode.
Hello, beautiful people,welcome back to that
conversation with Turik Ali, apodcast where we have the heart
conversations that help us grow.
So if you're watching thevisual, you see me smiling, but
(00:28):
I'm actually really nervous.
I'm usually always nervous whenI come to do this.
You know, before, when I firststarted this podcast, that used
to scare me.
When I say scare, I mean in away of like I would want to stop
.
But now I know I sit in it, Iwork with the anxiety.
(00:51):
I still go after what I wantwith the anxiety and I always
get what I'm after, and thething that I'm after is to just
be myself and to just speak andjust express myself.
You know, when I really careabout something, I always feel
like I have to show up to it, Ihave to like rise to the
occasion and I have to becomesomething.
(01:11):
I have to and we've talkedabout this.
Right, this is what I mean likeit's a continuous journey.
You are never like really donehealing, because like this
doesn't come up a lot andactually I don't really feel it
in any other part of my careeror life.
There may be things thattrigger it, but this is the only
(01:32):
time, like when I sit down todo this podcast, I do feel like
I have to become something or bea little bit more perfect, and
I just remind myself that youjust gotta be you.
You just gotta be you.
Yeah, today's episode is whatI'm really nervous about, and
because it's extremelytransparent.
(01:53):
So I do want to preface thisepisode by saying that this is
not for kids.
This is an episode where youknow this whole podcast is about
me sharing my journey ofhealing, how I am continuously
healing myself, learning how toheal, healing others, all of
that right, and the only wayjust like my.
The last episode and bottled upI was like the only way we can
(02:16):
really get to the healing is ifwe're honest, right, and so this
is something that has been apart of my journey, and it's a
major part is not something Ican just skip over, because then
I feel like I will be cheatingyou all out of it.
I will be cheating you all outof the truth of, like, the
messiness and dirtiness and themud of healing.
(02:36):
It's great, you know when it isfilling you up, but it can be
really heavy, it can be reallyhard and you see that with the
people I bring on this podcast,you see that with me.
So I just want to continuouslybe honest and so, if you've been
here before, you know we startwith a story and that story will
lead into the purpose of theepisode.
So that story today is going tobe me catching you guys up on
(03:01):
the holidays.
So for the holidays I went backhome to Maryland.
Right, I used to not reallyenjoy going home.
It used to be veryuncomfortable for me.
It was just a lot of trauma andpain and a lot of things.
I just went through growing uplike homelessness and juggled
through homes and my mom and dadand it just was a lot.
(03:24):
And every time I went home itjust I was just ready to leave.
Like in college, I had nochoice.
You know they would kick youout the dorms and stuff.
So I would go home and just bewaiting to go back to college.
And you know, when I graduatedI went back out of routine.
But as I started to heal andit's not that I hate it going,
(03:45):
it's just like I said I justdidn't heal a lot of things and,
like now, going home is arecharge for me, you know, as
I've moved a lot.
I'm 26 now and I've moved todifferent cities.
I live different places, I'vebeen to college and now, you
(04:06):
know, I'm in LA.
I'm working in theentertainment business and you
know, in LA, everybody here, youknow people come to LA to make
things happen, right.
You come here to make yourdreams come true.
You know people don't move fromNew York to LA all the way
across the country and leavetheir friends and family just to
.
You know, meet new people.
Some people do, but you knowwhat I mean.
(04:26):
Like, most of the people hereare trying to make something
happen, right, and so everybodyhere is working and getting to
the next thing and the cost ofliving is high.
So it's, you know, you reallygot to be on your grind, and so
I find that the intersocial youknow culture here I don't really
enjoy much.
You know that stereotype youhear of, like people saying you
(04:49):
know you meet people in LA andthey're like, oh, how many
followers you have, or like,what do you do?
It's kind of true, and even ifit's not that directly, people
are trying to gauge how muchmoney you have, what you do, how
they can network with you, whatthey can get out of you.
You know you can be upset aboutthat all you like, but at the
end of the day, like I said, alot of people come here to get
(05:12):
to the next level and that ishow you get to the next level.
It's networking, it's thepolitics of it all.
You know I used to likecomplain about that, but that is
also the same thing.
And the reason I am where I amin my career today was because I
did network and certain peoplemet me.
They liked me, they liked mywork and they were like oh my
gosh, I would love to work withyou, boom.
And so I'm very grateful.
(05:34):
That's me always finding thepositive side.
But because of that and alsobeing known, I don't know, I
think people meet me and it'smore of an image and they go off
of what they know already orwhat they have seen, instead of
getting to know me.
And I do.
You know, a lot of it isself-imposed anxiety as well, of
(05:54):
thinking I have to be a certainway.
But long story short, I, whenI'm in LA, I pretty much just
work and rest and hang out withmy little village.
I don't really go out much.
Like I said, I don't reallyenjoy the intersocial culture
here as much, so that can bereally draining because work
becomes my life.
You know you should have awork-life balance and it's going
(06:16):
home.
And you know, with people thathave known me before I was a
social media phenomenon.
You know, when I started 10years ago, like they've known me
through each season, like youknow that's the great thing
about family is like no matterwho you change into, what you
grow into, like whatever youbecome, they know every version
(06:41):
of you before and there's anessence, right, that is the same
and that is what they know andthey attach to.
You know you can present howyou like, you can put on
whatever clothes you want, butwe know what's under that and we
know what has stayed herethrough all of your changes,
through the different jobs,through the different schools,
through the different cities, isthis thing about you that has
(07:02):
never changed and that is yourcore, that is your essence, that
is your being and it'ssomething so refreshing about
going home to be around peoplethat, no matter how successful
or how much I'm doing or howmuch I'm not doing, they love
Tariq, they love me, and evenoutside of family, just the
(07:24):
culture of like Maryland andVirginia.
Like you know, I'm fromMaryland, but also Southern
Virginia, so like Portsmouth,virginia Beach, chesapeake, and
so you know, going there peoplelive very ordinary, everyday,
normal lives, you know, likethey have a job, they have a
family and they have friends.
I mean that sounds likeeveryone, but what I mean is
(07:44):
like they go to their job andthey go to their job to pay
their bills and like the thingsthat they go to for happiness.
The things that they talk aboutin conversation is about things
that like matter in terms oflike politics.
How are you actually doing inyour life?
How is your cousin, your mom,like getting to know one another
?
And I feel like here a lot ofthe talk in LA is about work and
(08:07):
business.
So even when I'm not working, Iam still working because work
is just becoming my life.
So going home is so refreshing.
I don't have to think aboutwhat I'm wearing, I don't have
to think about wearing makeup, ahaircut, like I literally am
just living my life and I'll betreated the same as if I was the
most polished, most paid, most,whatever Like, and that kind of
(08:29):
freedom is one.
It grounds me and brings meback to earth, because living in
LA, especially with like thedistribution of wealth here and
how there's like so muchhomelessness and poverty, yet
you'll look across the streetand see Lamborghini trucks and
Bentley's and you know theposhness and the luxury, but
(08:51):
then there's so many peoplestruggling and it's just not a
real place Like this.
It's just like a.
It's a I call it like adifferent world.
But so going back, you know,home just reminds me of where I
come from, what truly matters tome and who I am.
And so, with that comfort, youknow, I hung out, of course,
(09:15):
with like my best friends thathave been my best friends since
like high school and college,and I was hanging out with them
and we're like all catching upbecause, like you know, some of
us are coming home and then someof them still live there, but
like we're catching up and so,like I said, I'm with my best
friends, we're reallycomfortable, I'm happy, and you
know how it goes when you'recatching up with your best
friends.
You know you're asking aboutwork how's work going, and it's
(09:36):
it's more about like, how do youlike your job, or I'm thinking
about getting a new job, youknow, just catching up with your
friends, and so eventually weget to the topic of like dating.
You know, love life, and one ofmy friends is like I haven't
had sex in a year and other onestalking about when they had sex
.
And me I was like, girl, I'vebeen having a whole lot of sex.
I have just been hoeing, youknow, just joking like, but
(09:59):
serious.
I was like yeah, I just beenhaving a lot of sex and they
said to ring and I said what Isaid, but no, it's been.
It's funny because before that,before we even got on the topic
of sex, I was saying how youknow, with my work, I don't do
anything that God doesn't tellme to do.
And you guys have heard me saythat.
And so my friend made a jokeand was like, after I said I was
(10:21):
having a lot of sex, my friendmade a joke and said did God
tell you to do that?
And I was like, well, actuallyhe did.
And it was like to read I saidyou know what?
This is going to be my nextpodcast episode?
And it was like to read no, andI was like no y'all.
But seriously I said, hmm, Ihad a moment.
You know, y'all know if you, ifyou're not new to this podcast,
(10:45):
you know you're going to be abig fan of this podcast.
If you're not new to thispodcast, y'all know when I have
my moments, I said hmm, I said,wow, this is my podcast.
It was in that moment when itactually did click to me what my
magic was.
I mean, I knew what it was, butit was in this moment.
It was so clear that you know,I come here and I'm really just
(11:07):
sharing my journey.
But I share things that areusually seem as shameful.
I share the things that peopledon't share because it's
shameful.
People will judge them, peoplewill criticize them, people will
think differently about them.
All of those things Right.
And I come here and I share itbecause God gave me the
anointing and the power to beable to articulate it and also
(11:30):
the provision he gives me duringthat healing journey on how to
take care of myself.
All of that Right.
But I come here and I share itand so many people resonate with
it because, like I said, I'mhuman, I'm not alone.
And right, this glad nominationand you guys tuning in, let's
meet.
And you know you are not alone,I'm not alone, and you know so.
(11:55):
I come here to share, becausethis is my anointing, this is
what I'm was put on this earthto do, but it is up to you to
keep it private.
But I was telling my friends.
I said, you know, that isactually exactly how.
I know that this should be mynext podcast episode, because
I'm sharing this with you guys,because you're my best friends
(12:17):
and like I feel really safe.
I know, no matter what,nothing's gonna change.
Y'all are gonna just be curiousand want to know more, but
you're not.
It nothing's gonna change afterthis.
You just like okay, girl, shegoing through, she having her
little moment, whatever rightlike.
And I realized if it was anyother group of people, if I had
just like, just met them, Iwouldn't have came up out and
(12:40):
just said that.
And it was because I was in asafe space that I felt safe to
share that.
But even in safe spaces, mostpeople don't feel comfortable to
say that.
And I realized that thispodcast is Me creating that safe
space to share the things thatare usually seen as shameful, so
(13:02):
that I can give you a newoutlook and new understanding of
it.
And when I said that God toldme to do it, I meant that, and
what I meant by that is, like,god is within me, god is my
intuition, god is always tryingto direct me to healing and my
well-being and what's best forme, and I explained to them.
You know how.
(13:22):
You know, having so much sexhas been like, so empowering for
me.
It was something so it had beenso liberating, it had been so
fulfilling, and so, yes, I wascomfortable to tell them.
But I I, you know I have gonethrough a lot of vitriol and
(13:43):
hatred and Dragging and trollingonline.
Where I come here and I amvulnerable and I share myself
and I've done it for ten yearsnow, and there has been moments
where People do judge me andcriticize me and tear me apart
and make me look a certain wayand it hurts Because I'm just
trying to be here, to be openand to connect with people and
(14:05):
to help them feel confident andhuman and their experience and
and the fear comes up of like Ijust want to be loved and I just
want to be accepted and I don'twant to be Torn apart, and so
that is what took me some time,like that's why I've been
procrastinating this episode.
I knew I wanted to do thisepisode for like a month or two
(14:27):
now and before you know old mewould jump to doing it and push
myself because of the pressureof work, right and and and they
they want the video, they wantthe podcast and to wreak, you
can't stop.
You got to make money, you gotto do like all of that, right.
But now I've healed to a placenow where I have to heal myself
(14:50):
first before I can heal anyoneelse.
It's just like you have to takecare of yourself before you can
do that job or go to work.
We spend so much time Trying tobe perfect, trying to be
something, trying to get to agoal, that we Leave our
well-being, our health, ourhealing as something to do when
(15:11):
we get extra time.
When no, it is just asimportant as the work, because
you cannot do the work unlessyou're okay.
And also, now that I am healingother people, I know that the
only way and the only reason Iknow how to help people heal and
heal others is Is because I'vehealed myself.
I don't ever want to pushmyself to do something that I
(15:33):
don't want to do, because if Ido, it won't be authentic, it
won't be real and it would justnot be fair to me.
And I love me and I want toAlways ask myself is this me
loving myself?
And so I had to make sure thatI Was okay with sharing this
with strangers, sharing this andallowing people to do what they
(15:56):
want with it, because I'vealready done the work to build
my confidence and and to love onmyself and to tell myself it's
okay, tariq, you love me likethis, this is, this is how you
are expressing yourself in thistime.
This is the season you're in.
It's okay, and I wasn't readyin December.
I was still, you know, a littleshaken by.
(16:19):
I was still.
I still had shame around whatI'm about to share with you, and
now I'm so empowered by thisexperience and what it has given
me, now that it doesn't controlme.
It has actually given me morestrength over it.
Okay, so, let me get right intoit.
(16:39):
Okay so, you know, triggerwarning.
Okay, I already told you guys,this is not for kids, this
episode, but we, we don't getinto it.
Okay so, look, I, I did notlike my body for most of my life
and you know, I grew up, youknow, obese in some years and I
(17:01):
was bullied at school.
I was bullied by my family, mybrothers, my cousin, like they
would like hold me down and pokemy stomach and call me fatty.
And you know, like I Did, I didnot like my body so much to the
point where I Would go to gymearly and elementary all grade
(17:21):
school when I was, when I hadgym, I would go to gym early
just so I could change Early,before people came in there,
because I didn't want people tosee my body.
I hated beaches, I hated poolsbecause I had to take off my
shirt.
And that's so crazy because youguys see now how much I love
the beach, right, I'm always atthe beach.
But to think that like I wasscared of the beach, like
(17:46):
because of having to take myshirt off, and you know I would
sometimes be in the sand and belike, oh, I'm tired and they'd
like to reek it in the water andI will go with my shirt and it
like to reek, take off yourshirt.
And it got really bad to a pointwhere you know I was starved
myself.
I was really young, likelooking up diets and starving
myself, and when I say starvingmyself, like literally going
(18:08):
Days without eating and likereally trying not to eat, I
would, you know, go downstairsand like picket my food and
really just not eat.
I would eat enough just to getup from the table, and not just
for like one week or two weeks,but to the point where my mom
Would watch me eat to make surethat I did eat, and when she
(18:29):
wasn't, you know, with me, youknow Because my dad, you know I
was with my dad.
They were separated all my life.
My mom would be like, oh, didyou eat?
You eating right?
And like, whenever my weightwould fluctuate if I got smaller
, she'd be like to wreak.
Are you eating?
All the way up into my teenageyears?
Because they know about when Iwas younger, because I had an
(18:50):
eating disorder, you know I wentto the doctor when I was in
like fourth or fifth grade andhe told me I was obese and you
know he wanted to do some tests.
And my dad, you know, we wenthome and and you know he told me
not to eat for the rest of thatday and to come back in the
morning.
And my dad, you know, dinnerhappened that night and he was
(19:10):
like to read come eat, and I waslike the doctor said, you know
I shouldn't eat, and he was likethree, that doctor Don't know
what he talking about.
You are just fine, and you know, I, I, I Would have loved to
believe him, but to also haveevery single person around me
making fun of my body and to notbe the size of the people
(19:31):
around me.
I Thought the doctor was rightand so when my dad didn't take
me to the hospital, I kind oftook it upon myself to take care
of my body image and my health,and so, as a child, the answer
to that was starving myself, andthat was one part of, you know,
(19:52):
the relationship I had with mybody.
But I was also, when I wasyounger.
I was sexually assaulted, youknow, continuously, for years,
by my older stepbrother, and youknow when do I want to go with
(20:14):
that?
What are you comfortable with?
To Rick, you know, somethingI'm trying to do, you know, is
is is be more aware of of whyI'm sharing instead of over
sharing, and the reason I'msharing that is because I Was
(20:42):
young, I was a baby.
Hmm, I was a baby, I was, itwas over years, so it was like
kindergarten, first, second,third grade right and you know,
he was in like high school andbeing made fun of for my body
and also being different.
I was queer, I was feminine, Iwas, you know, I I Felt
(21:07):
invisible and unseen and unheardand there was a lot of things
that I needed and it made mefeel good, made me feel good,
but the conditioning that it did, to my mind, was that I had to
give my body In order to getthat attention, to get that love
(21:31):
, to get that special time,because it was, like you know,
in the middle of the night hewould come and like he would
have like a secret, like, youknow, wink, or something where I
knew it would happen orwhatever.
And it made me feel special andand I Remember that feeling,
right, you know, I remember thatfeeling and you know the reason
(21:57):
I'm sharing that is because itMentally conditioned me to
commodify, I would say, my bodyand a way of I had to give my
body to get the things that Ineeded.
And then, when my family didfind out and it stopped and I
(22:19):
was still getting made fun offor my body and as I'm going
into middle school, I'm likestruggling with my weight and
I'm not struggling you hear thatMessaging, right, that language
struggling with my body.
I'm a child.
I was not struggling with mybody, but I was struggling with
loving and accepting my body.
Hmm, right, and what happenedin those middle school years,
(22:47):
especially going through pubertyand learning that I was queer
and Learning, and I mean, in away of like I'm starting to get
hormones and I'm starting to seewhat gets me, you know, you
know a little more firm Me.
Leave it to me to have somecomic relief in this moment.
But yes, and and the my middleschool years, something happened
(23:12):
where I kind of disassociatedfrom my body.
My body became something I hadto Give.
It was like I said it was acommodity.
I also had to change it, I hadto fix it.
I was always in in a battlewith my body.
I tried continuously to getconsistent in the gym and I
(23:35):
would like Tell myself to wreak.
Do you want to lose weight?
Then you need to get in the gymand then, if I didn't lose the
weight that I wanted, I would bemad at my body.
And then also, because of, youknow, my, my eating disorder in
the starving, I actually reallylove food and so I also another
side of my eating disorder wasbinge eating.
Because I love eating.
(23:55):
I love eating and and you knowI come from southern Virginia.
That's why I was like born andraised in my younger years
before my unknock would took mein and my family's southern Like
soul food is not like soul food.
Saturday is like no, you can goto my grandma's house right now
.
There will be some some otherpork chops with some collard
greens.
Back about cheap, you know whatI mean.
Like it's regular food so, andwe are cooks, we all cook really
(24:17):
well so I love eating andeating makes me feel good.
And so when I was working outand I wasn't losing the weight
that I wanted to lose, I wouldtear myself apart, I would tear
my body apart and then thatwould lead me into a depression
and then to feel better, I wouldjust eat a lot, like it was
just a really bad cycle.
And in when you pull back andjust become aware of that
(24:41):
experience Right, instead ofbeing judgmental of like, oh,
that's sad, that's this, that'sright, that's wrong Just become
aware I I saw the type ofrelationship I had with my body.
I was telling it what to do,what I wanted from it, and when
it didn't give me what I wanted,I hated it more.
I would like see myself in themirror.
(25:02):
I'm like, oh, you don't lookgood in this.
Like I don't like how I look inthis.
Like I did not like Takingpictures I don't.
You really won't even find morethan five.
Or you see the same pictures ofme when I show my body when I
was younger.
Because I would avoid full-bodypictures, I and the ones that I
did find I would delete, Iwould throw away, I would burn.
(25:24):
And so now in my adulthood, Idon't have as many pictures of
when I was younger because ofhow much I hated my body and
this didn't change.
This was you know.
You know I Went into highschool and college with with
that kind of relationship withmy body because all my life you
(25:45):
are the reason people made funof me.
You are the reason that I neverfit in.
You were the reason that I wassingle doubt.
You were the reason that I wastaking advantage of.
You were the reason Hmm, youwere the reason I didn't love
(26:14):
myself.
You were the reason I wasdepressed a lot of times, why I
hid myself in my bedroom.
You were the reason and that'show I felt with my body.
So I disassociated from it in away where there's me and then
there's my body and that kind ofsounds crazy.
But that was just one part ofit.
(26:35):
It was this next part thatreally helped me understand it
in a different way.
I learned that I was queer, in away of knowing for sure that I
was attracted to boys in middleschool.
I had always been attracted toboys.
Before middle school I realizedhow like oh, that's why I
really cared about that friendand I knew that they were cute,
(26:57):
I liked them, I knew I was it,but I didn't know it, it wasn't
conscious, right, and it wasn'tuntil high school, where I'm
from.
In middle school I was inPortsmouth, virginia, chesapeake
, all of that and it was a hoodand so a lot of the people were
having sex in the hood.
(27:17):
I'm just being honest earlyit's not the best environment
with the best examples.
So people were having sexaround me and I wasn't really
having sex one, because I wasqueer in Virginia, there wasn't
really many options.
But when I did start learningmore about my queerness and what
(27:37):
that really meant in thatsexual world, I'm a baby gay at
this point.
So people are telling me,because I was a little bit more
feminine, that I was like abottom.
Now, for my girls, if you don'tknow what a bottom is, okay,
google it.
I'm not about to give a Googleit girl, top, bottom and verse
all that.
Yeah, I just assumed that I wasa bottom.
(27:59):
Okay, I'll explain a little bit.
Okay, a bottom is the one whois doing the bending.
Well, so, pretty much a bottomis the one who is, like you know
, bending over and giving, youknow, the back door Boom.
I think I've made that veryclear.
And because, like most queerpeople you know, we came from a
(28:22):
heterosexual.
Well, no, it's not most, but welive in a heterosexual,
heteronormative excuse me,heteronormative society and
world, which means that the normis to be straight.
And so when we do, you know, gointo living into our truth and
being queer and being gay orwhatever you are, a lot of
(28:44):
people transfer all of what wehave already learned into that
new life.
But it's completely different.
It's not a man and a woman,it's not a man and a man, but
all we know is what we've beengiven.
So we see feminine and we thinkbottom, you know.
And so people told me and justassumed that I was a bottom and
with that conditioning that Ihad from my childhood, you know,
(29:04):
my body was something that Iwould give so that I could get
that love and attention and care, and you know all of that.
And so if guys came to me andassumed I was a bottom and
that's what they wanted from meand they want, you know, if
we're dating and sex is a partof that, I just figured that
that's what I had to give inorder to, you know, have love.
(29:26):
And I'm not I'm not saying tosay that it was like a horrible
experience every time but withthat conditioning I never really
went into sex or I never reallyhad the approach or feeling
going into sex or having sexthat this is for me.
I was always thinking about howI was performing.
(29:49):
Was I bending right?
Am I arching my back?
Am I like, do I look good?
Does he think I'm fat?
Like it was all that anxiety.
It was so much anxiety of justmaking sure that I'm doing what
he needs so that he doesn'tleave Right.
And so sex, you know, it becamerun of the mill at some point.
(30:10):
You know, my first boyfriend Ihad, and you know, when I was in
college and you know I enjoyedit for what it was, you know,
but I was never pressed to havesex, like and if you watch
videos of me on YouTube you'llhear me say it all the time Like
I'm not really that sexual, I'mnot really into sex like that,
and I really like I could be ina relationship and go without
(30:31):
having sex, like literally wecould just do like foreplay and
I could probably just watch pornand do my own, like I would be
fine.
Um, and that's because sexreally I had never really
enjoyed it for myself and,believe it or not, it wasn't
until my last relationship thatthe one I always tell you guys
(30:52):
about that was, you know,abusive emotionally and mentally
that I actually started workingon my relationship with my body
.
Because we met at the beginningof the pandemic.
I had just moved to LA, I hadjust graduated college, it was
like May 2020.
Um, I met him on Tinder.
We were on lockdown and he wasconsistent and yeah, and.
(31:16):
But we actually did have goodlove in the beginning, right,
like it was fulfilling, it wasgreat.
And in our relationship hereally loved my body.
Like you know, I didn't like mybody and, like I said, this was
the pandemic.
So we're eating Uber eats everysingle day and like I'm a
foodie, he's a foodie, we loveto eat, um, so I gained like 30
(31:40):
pounds, like I was over like 200pounds.
Um, and even through that, likeit ruined my confidence because
I felt less of value because ofwhat I had been the
relationship I already had withmy body.
Right, but through all of mysizes, he was still attracted to
(32:00):
me.
And you know I would be in themirror like, say, we're in the
bathroom and we just woke up andI'm brushing my teeth, he's
brushing his teeth and I wouldbe like I look so fat.
He was like, hey, like he woulddefend my body.
He was like, stop talking aboutyourself like that.
And I did it a lot and I didn'teven realize it until how many
times he had to stop me.
And you know he would say likeyour body is beautiful.
(32:23):
And you know, at first Ithought he was just saying that
because, of course, witheverything I've been through
with my body, I've had friends,family, people tell me to read
you look okay to read, you'renot fat, to read, you're this or
whatever.
I've had people try to affirmme all my life.
When it came to my body, thathim saying it in the beginning I
(32:45):
was like he just saying thatcause he's my boyfriend.
But being that close andintimate with a person and
seeing him like watch me fromafar with my shirt off and like
really getting you know hornyand like really being attracted
and turned on by my body was Iwas really confused.
I would like literally look athim with a confused face, just
(33:07):
like this.
I looked at myself one day andI said to Rik well, if he can
love your body, why, why?
Why can't you love your body?
You know and this was after Iwould say I had three huge
fights in my life that I had tofight to love my blackness, my
queerness and my body.
And, believe it or not, my bodywas the hardest one of the
(33:30):
three.
But I told myself to Rik if hecan love your body, I think you
can too.
You did it with your blackness,you did it with your queerness,
you can do it with your body.
You can.
And this is also why I say youknow, everybody is not in a good
position or in the goodenvironment to heal, because
(33:54):
going on that healing journey,opening up that Pandora box, is
heavy.
It was heavy.
I had to deal with my assaultfrom being a child, talking
about it in ways and going.
You know, my methods of healingare going back to an old part
(34:17):
of myself and inner child,visualizing going to them,
giving them the words that theydeserve, giving them the love
that they wish they would havehad in that moment, bringing
them to the present back with meand leaving the trauma there.
But going back there, it was sodark and it was so heavy.
And I remember traveling backto that time and the first time
(34:41):
I had sex.
After that, like when myhealing journey of my body
started, my first time havingsex with my boyfriend, I felt
like I was being raped and Ijust started crying.
He was like are you okay?
Are you okay?
And I?
So it's heavy and it, and whenyou first start it is going to
(35:03):
feel like why am I doing this?
This feels counterproductive,but through that anxiety,
through the trembling andthrough the shaking, I hugged
and loved myself and told myselfI was safe.
In that healing.
There were a plethora of thingsthat I did to help heal my
(35:24):
relationship with my body, andI'm actually going to add you
know exactly what I did to healthat relationship on the
subscriber version of thispodcast so that you can go get
those extra clips.
But for the sake of thisepisode and whole lot of sex, I
just want to I'm sharing that tolet you know of how much work
it took and one of the thingsthat I did do I had to change my
(35:48):
mindset.
This is not.
I'm not just, I'm not here fora service.
Okay, this should bepleasurable for me.
Sex should be pleasurable.
Can we remember that Sometimeswe forget that you know we get
so much in the performance andyou know what this person thinks
and do I look?
Sex should be pleasurable andlet me use a different word,
(36:12):
because pleasurable is alwaysused with sex.
It should be enjoyable, itshould be fun, it should be
something that you enjoy.
It should not be torture.
I realized that I was justfeeding that trauma of the
assault that I went through bycontinuously putting myself and
my body through unenjoyable,anxiety inducing intercourse
(36:37):
where I am just not comfortableand my body was hurting.
But, like I said, Idisassociated myself from my
body, so if it was hurting I waslike well, girl, I just this is
the cost, but I'm okay, right,like my body, whatever, but like
, I'll be okay, I'll get what Ineed after this, right, like I
got what I needed after the love, the, the, the, whatever, the,
(36:58):
the boyfriend staying orwhatever it was I was after, but
I just had to give my body.
So in this, in this process ofbuilding a relationship with my
body that was healthy, that welove each other, that we work
together, that we are one, I hadto start asking myself are you
comfortable?
Do you want to do this, notjust having sex?
(37:21):
Because we went on a couple ofdates and like, now we're here
and I did entertain it a bit andif I pull out now, who cares?
You can change your mindwhenever you want.
Before, during it, you can stopwhen you want, and I never gave
myself that agency before.
And so in the relationship Imade it a goal to have fun
(37:44):
during sex, like instead of liketrying to perform and do like
the pornoes.
I was giggling.
You know I'm a goofy person, soyou know making little jokes
here and there.
You know making them laugh andlike it's fun, so that we want
to have sex.
It's not like can we do ittomorrow For me and everything
I've been through.
I don't want to be in anysituation where my body is
(38:06):
uncomfortable and I'm doingsomething that my body is not
saying yes to.
It has been through enoughtrauma and at any moment.
If it's not, then I am going toprotect my body, just like an
inner child.
Actually, thank you, I'm notfeeling it no more.
Oh yes, and my friends laugh atme because I have several times
(38:28):
in the middle of sex.
I'm not feeling it no more.
I'm sorry.
You know, you have the agencyin the right to change your mind
.
It is your body.
You don't owe anyone.
Your body, it's your body.
And after a lifetime of peoplehaving opinions, scrutiny and
(38:48):
and making me hate myselfbecause of their thoughts on my
body, I, mm-hmm, I startedloving myself to a point where I
wanted to protect my body in away where, baby, I Get to decide
what happens with this.
This is mine, and so you know,though there was a lot of pain
(39:11):
in that last relationship it did.
I will always give it itsflowers for what it did for my
relationship with my body,because I don't know if that
would have been impossible inAny other Realm, like I think it
had to be with an intimatepartner that loved me through
(39:33):
the different shapes and showedme that my body was deserving of
love.
And when I learned that it wasdeserving of love, I wanted to
be the main person to give it to, and so when we broke up and
sex did become Comfortable forme, I started to allow myself to
just Explore my sexuality Also,just considering that like
(39:59):
being a queer person in highschool and middle school and
college, like I was always.
You know, and a lot of queerpeople will identify with this I
was always the gay best friend,like my girlfriends had
boyfriends.
My girlfriends were gettingpregnant in high school, like
they were having regular sex.
It was me, a Couple other gaypeople in the school that we
were not attracted to each other.
Okay, so we had to livevicariously through our
(40:23):
girlfriends, our guy friends,like seeing you guys have
relationships and boyfriends andValentine's and the quarterback
and the cheerleader dating.
We didn't have that.
We didn't have that.
And then when I went to college, I was really just in the
library all day and nightBecause I was a bio major in
pre-med and then on the weekendsI was doing YouTube.
So I really never really hadspace to explore my sexuality.
(40:47):
So when sex did become fun andcomfortable for me, I Wanted to
allow myself the space toexplore my sexuality because I
didn't know it.
I Didn't know it.
I didn't know what I liked.
I didn't know what I liked insex.
I didn't know what my identitywas in sex.
Like you know, I, just like Isaid, I assumed I was a bottom,
(41:09):
because what a feminine aspectsand what people told me, like I
didn't know a Large part ofmyself and especially if I'm
gonna be giving my body andexperiencing my body with other
people sexually, I want to knowwhat my identity is.
I want to know what I like.
I, if I am to be pleasure andif this is supposed to be a good
experience, I need to know whatI do and don't like, what I am
(41:30):
and not am not comfortable with.
I want to know what's out there.
You know, like I, have lived ina heterosexual scope all my life
and Continuously because andstill because, it's a
heteronormative world and so wedon't see.
We didn't learn gay sex insixth grade when we were
watching those movies in gym andhealth class.
(41:51):
I, I didn't see movies with gaysex.
Growing up like we, we don'tknow anything.
And so, when I did finally getto the point of Allowing myself
this space to seek and to learnmyself and to learn myself
sexually, I just gave myself thespace to just explore.
(42:14):
And so, you know, I did a lot ofdifferent things and you know,
it was one thing I'm a sharethat I was like not sure if I
was gonna share, but there's areason I want to share.
You know, I didn't even knowwhat a bathhouse was.
Okay, wow, I'm gonna share this.
Okay, I didn't even know what abathhouse was.
Okay.
Another thing that you canGoogle but I went to a bathhouse
(42:37):
just for the shits and gigglesof it, right, and you know, not
even going there to have sex,just the idea of this is sexual.
This is something I've neverexperienced.
Apparently, you know, this issomething that is popular in the
gay community.
Whatever, just removing thejudgment, because, like, when
(42:58):
you first hear that the firstthing that comes up is judgment,
like, especially with sex,right, it's like, oh, who going
there?
Why, I'm gonna watch you.
And I said, in this healingjourney and especially in this
journey of seeking myself, theonly way that I can learn myself
is if I don't judge myself.
I have to let myself show mewho I am, and then I have to
accept that I Will never learnwho I am if I have these
(43:20):
barricades up of judgment andshame, of saying don't do that.
Though that don't do that.
It's like a food that you nevertasted, but you saying you
don't like it.
You never, you never try todarling, you know.
And so I went into it with nojudgment.
I was just like, oh okay, abathhouse.
And Wow, it was actually a Hugeturning point in my journey
(43:42):
because it was so empowering.
Like I just told you, I grew upgoing to gym early, just so I
could change before people cameand to be, you know, in the
bathhouse.
You just have like a towel on,but to just be walking around
and people are naked, differentbody sizes, shapes and colors,
and I mean just Just all of that.
(44:02):
And at first I felt extremelyuncomfortable because of my body
, but then I realized nobody,then nobody care, and it was so
many different body types that Iwas just like, oh, okay, and
then To see other people beingso free with their bodies,
whether it was just being nakedor walking around with a shirt
(44:22):
off or, you know having sex,like Just living their lives and
not worrying about judgment,just like this is a space to do
what you want to do, girl.
And you know they got a pool injacuzzi.
So you know I love a, I'm awater sign girl, so I definitely
, you know, did a little splashin jacuzzi.
I was scared, though, you know,cuz you know it's a bathhouse
Anyways.
Anyways, also it was soempowering because you know,
(44:47):
like People go there to have sexand like, like I said though I
wasn't there for sex peopleattractive, okay, I'm a catch, I
will reach out for me too, butyou know I was just being
curious.
So, but you know people wouldlike reach out and like they do
this thing where, like they justlike grab your wrists or like
your back or like Try to pullyou so that, like you can have
sex.
And I was just there justlooking.
(45:09):
You know I'm just looking, I'lllet you know if I need some
help and they would move on,they would, they would let go of
me and I could just go back tojust being free.
And as a person who hadexperienced Continuous sexual
(45:35):
assault growing up from someonewho was my family member, it was
so empowering to have theagency to say no and to have
them respect it, to actuallyhave dominion over my body.
(45:56):
It it became Literally justgoing, became a practice of
building my confidence andcomfort and my body and in my
sexuality, and it's Because ofmy story and everything I've
shared with you today.
You see how that could beempowering for me, right?
And it's because you were openand curious and aware, instead
(46:20):
of just stopping at judgment andsaying, for this net and the
bath up Because you were openand curious.
This is why I say curiosity ishow we build connection, because
when you just sit here and youare aware and curious, and every
time you want to judge you likenope, that's being judgmental
You're able to resonate Becausethis is my story, right?
This is how my healing journeyhas gone.
(46:43):
That was empowering for me.
It's not gonna be the same foryou.
Maybe there may be some thingsin your journey and your healing
journey that most people willsee as shameful.
Most people would judge you,criticize you, think of you
differently, stop being friendswith you.
I lost friends, I lost a bestfriend in this journey because
(47:09):
they started judging me andtreating me different and in
Seeing me different because ofhow more open I was to the idea
of sexuality.
And sometimes we say we're opento things and we, we accept
things until it's like actuallyin our face and close to home
(47:36):
and you don't even realize thatyou're slut shaming.
And so I'm saying this to saythat the healing journey, the
reason I'm sure it gets dirtyand it gets radical I'm a really
radical, open type of person.
So my healing methods, like Ithink God puts me through all of
(47:58):
this and because it is soradical, you're able to pick out
the true themes, you're able toreally see it, it's like a
really good TV show, like it's ayou know when you watch a movie
and it's like, wow, okay, sothe door was just open, it's a
movie, right, it's for the story.
So I think God puts me throughExtreme examples and I call
myself an extremophile becauseI'm willing to go to the radical
(48:21):
Lymphs to love myself and toaccept myself and to heal and to
learn.
You know, just experiencesomething and just see what it
taught me and what it did for meand if it didn't, just don't do
it again.
And it's not Saying yes toevery single thing.
There's no right or wrong.
I Think I'm really just tryingto drill that there is no right
(48:42):
or wrong.
You get to decide how yourhealing journey looks for you,
and so in this journey you haveto just be really intentional
about slowing down andidentifying judgment so that
when you know that you'rejudging yourself or putting
confinements on yourself, youcan pull back and just be aware,
(49:04):
write it down, Journal.
Hmm, I've been having a lot ofsex.
What does a sex do for me?
Well, I do enjoy it, like thetouching, and I do be lonely
when I'm not having sex.
Am I going to the sex becauseit's making me feel connected
and not alone?
Ask yourself, that feeling willcome up.
(49:26):
Ask yourself when you felt thatsimilar feeling another time,
maybe when you were younger?
When's other times that youfeel alone?
Was it when daddy wasn't therewhen you were younger?
Was it you know your friendswho haven't reached out like,
become aware of your experience?
Instead of you having too muchsex, you doing that to cope.
(49:49):
Like when you just stop atjudgment, you leave out so many
opportunities to learn aboutyourself, and the more you learn
about yourself, the better youunderstand how to heal yourself.
And so you know.
The bathhouse really just helpedme really remove a lot of the
shame and a lot of the judgmentaround sex and myself and my
(50:17):
body and allowing myself to havesex and to talk about sex.
That shame and that judgment ofnot talking about it is why you
know STDs and STIs run rampantis because when we don't talk
about it it becomes somethinghidden.
And when it becomes somethinghidden we can't talk about how
to do it safe, how to do ithealthy, how to recognize when
(50:41):
it is unhealthy for you, whenit's toxic, like when we talk
about it, when we're open andwhen we're curious and aware, we
can learn more about it so thatwe can help each other and be
there for each other.
And this is why I think therapyis important for everyone,
because therapy taught me somuch about what is judgment and
what is curiosities andawareness right.
(51:04):
And so when I would talk to mytherapist and talk about you
know, like maybe me being onJack or me having sex, I would
say it in a way of I would likekind of be afraid to tell her
one because she's not queer andI am, and also like that shame
that I have, you know, as aqueer person and you know they
think you know, the world callsus sexual beings and just all of
(51:25):
that right, and so I alreadyhad shame and so I would hold a
lot of it back and she wouldjust be curious, like asking
questions.
And with every answer, the moreI told her about some of the
sex I was having, there was nojudgment.
It's a space for me to existand to just be me, and through
no judgment I'm able.
When I know that I could justbe myself, just like when I go
(51:48):
home to those friends, right, Ihear so much that's inside of me
that deserves to be out here,that deserves to come out.
And when we surround ourselvesin judgmental spaces and spaces
where we can't express ourselves, there's so much bottled end
that we don't even know becausewe don't even have the space to
express it and let it out.
(52:08):
It's in these therapy sessionsthat, like I would share things
and I'm usually, you know,reacted with, just like my
friends did, but they're justbeing friends like, like
surprised and shocked, like, oh,did God take it to do that?
Like we just joking.
But like in therapy, it's justher just being curious and just
becoming aware and just makingnote.
(52:30):
I'm like, oh okay, what do youlike about the sex and you know,
with no judgment I'm able to,like, really think about it.
You know there's so many thingsthat we impose shame and
judgment on ourselves because ofwhat the world has put on us or
has put in society, even if youhaven't received it directly.
(52:51):
You see the slut shaming, yousee, you know homophobia, you
see a texturism, you see all ofthese things in the world and so
, even if it, you don't get awhack, even if it doesn't come
towards you, you see it, so youwant to avoid it right?
So I just operated in the worldand in my life trying to
(53:13):
protect myself from that shame.
Because who wants shame?
Because I have become moreaware, with curiosity, awareness
, judgment and shame looks likewhen I do it to myself and in
therapy, I'm able to identify itin the world and I knew
personally like I don't slutshame and in a way of like I
(53:34):
really believe like girl, if youwant to do it, do it like girl,
of that show life, get yourlife girl, like I've never
really been the person to like,shame you for something that you
are, because girl I am.
So look at me, my eyebrows,everything about me, girl, I'm
just going to be me.
I'm going to be just me, andyou know I say I'm going to be
different, but it's because I'mjust being me.
I'm not living in theconfinements that society makes
(53:57):
and says is right and wrong.
So wrong is having a whole lotof sex and not valuing your body
, and then right is don't have alot of sex and you know,
whatever.
And so I knew that I didn'timpose that on other people.
But during this time, I was alsobattling and struggling with
the judgment that you know, andthe shame that was larger than
(54:20):
me.
You know, I can't like pickmyself up by the bootstraps and
take myself out of society.
I have been living in aconditioning for 26 years that
tells me that this is wrong andthat this is shameful, you know.
And so every time I wanted tobeat myself up, I had to stop
and be like well, tariq, you'renot hurting anyone and you want
(54:41):
this and this is healthy, you'refine, you're just having sex.
The only thing that says thatthis is wrong is slut shaming.
Give me one other reason whyBecause you're not valuing your
body.
But actually this is me valuingmy body, because my body is
telling me that it feelscomfortable and that it wants to
(55:02):
do this and that it'spleasurable and it's enjoying it
.
Right, I'm checking in with mybody, I'm communicating with my
body.
That is valuing my body.
And this also gave me adifferent perspective and
understanding of misogyny, noteven being a woman, but it gave
(55:22):
me a huge understanding ofmisogyny.
Because when you look at thedifferences and this is what's
so interesting about being queerbecause when you look at men,
they are allowed to have thatfreedom of just allowing
themselves that pleasure andthen also getting tokens and
(55:42):
cool points because they'rehaving a lot of sex Right.
There's no stipulations on that.
They're not not valuing theirbody when they go out and have
sex right.
And women, the more they havesex, the lower their value goes.
But like, we're talking aboutthe same thing here, we're
talking about the same thinghere Sex and if she's safe,
(56:06):
she's not harming herself, she'snot doing it to cope for
something else, like before Iwas doing it for something right
, to get acceptance, to get love.
If I'm doing it because I wantit for me, I want to have sex
like, uh, I'm not doing this foryou, I'm doing this for me.
If anything, I'm gifting myselfJust how you give yourself ice
(56:28):
cream after working hard for along day, girl.
And also making that cleardistinction of how, like, men
and women are seen differently.
With this, it helped me reallyidentify that oh, that's just
slut shaming.
That's what they use againstwomen, that's misogyny, that's
this Like.
This is not rooted in anythinga value of substance.
(56:50):
This is literally just used tokeep you, this demographic, from
having sex because the mendon't want you to.
And hey, there's a longerconversation about this right
when we could talk aboutspirituality, religion, whatever
, whatever your beliefs are.
But I'm speaking about a humanexperience because there's a lot
(57:10):
of different layers to thisconversation.
But what I'm tapping into isabout you having once and you
wanting something for yourself,not to cope for something, but
because you want it and givingit to yourself and not depriving
(57:31):
yourself of it because of theshame that it may come with or
what people will think about youor what people will say about
you.
And college, I had sex once ayear and then, yeah, yeah, like
once a year, like once or twicea year, and I'll do like four
play here and there, but, likeyou know, penetration like once
a time.
You know what I mean After webroke up and now, sex was a good
(57:52):
experience for me.
I was open to it.
So if a guy and not even if aguy wanted it with me, if I
wanted it with a guy, I would beopen to it and I would allow
myself to have fun.
And you know, it was just ahealthy balance at that point.
I think at that point I wasjust having sex like when it
(58:13):
comes and when it happens, likeI wasn't really actively seeking
sex, it just when it happens,like you know, I meet a guy,
maybe I'm at the club, maybe I'min Mexico, somebody kissed me,
I'm like chow, I'm a heavylittle night girl, you know and
boom, and then you know it don'thappen again for two months.
Like you know, like that, likeit was regular, right.
But this is when the whole lotof sex comes in, because in the
(58:40):
episode you deserve help, right?
I told you guys about that.
I was professionally diagnosedwith depression and anxiety from
my psychiatrist and I startedZoloft.
So it'll be like a year thatI've been on Zoloft and like
March, and you know, thisdepression was the hardest
(59:03):
depression I've ever beenthrough.
You know what they say aboutdepression is it comes in
different waves and it comes,and it usually comes back harder
because what happens isdepression is like the flu,
right, but the thing is people,it's a sickness but people think
it goes away, but really youjust learn how to manage it.
It's still there and that's whythings trigger us.
(59:25):
You know depression is fromfear and emotions from the past.
Anxiety is from the future, theworrying of what will happen.
Depression is from the past.
So those triggers and thoseheavy and sad emotions that you
get from the past, thedepression is still there.
The trigger brings it up, right, and so you just learn how to
(59:46):
manage it over time and you getbetter with managing it.
So when you get depressed againfrom maybe something else or
whatever, it sometimes will comeback harder because it's
compounded.
And so you know, going into thisdepression, I, like I said in
that episode, you Deserve Help.
(01:00:07):
I just allowed myself to hitrock bottom because I'm always
just trying to be the best, towreak and be perfect.
Well, not anymore, but like.
That was where I was at andwhen I just allowed myself to
just fall and to need help andto need support and to just
allow myself to exist and allowmyself to be human to wreak.
(01:00:28):
You went through a lot oftrauma.
You went through a lot oftrauma and you went through a
lot of stress and you were goingthrough a lot of stress at the
time and you're depressed and so, yeah, you will be sad and yeah
, you won't want to do hobbies.
You want, like, make more spacefor yourself and love on
(01:00:49):
yourself than judging it.
Judging it is like it's rightor wrong.
I don't want to be doing it.
Make space, it's okay.
Tariq, you're depressed.
What can I do for you right now?
What do you need?
And sometimes there's no answer.
It's just the fact that I'masking.
And making space for myself washealing, right, and so, going
(01:01:10):
into this depression, I didalready, however, know my coping
mechanisms Bench eating I eatfor comfort.
That's one Ever since moving toLA.
Smoking is something that Iwould do when I'm depressed or
anxious.
It just puts me in a differentstate, and it was something that
(01:01:31):
I would do to cope.
Also, working a lot, justkeeping myself constantly
working, and the return that itgave me whether it's likes money
, success that always made me.
It gave me like a small dose ofhappiness and I would just keep
chasing it, and so I would justwork a lot and also attention
(01:01:55):
from like guides.
And so, like you know, in mypast episode, hidden Depression,
I was talking about how I waslike on Jacked and I was like on
the dating apps and just likemessaging people and just seeing
who wanted me, but like notactually meeting up with people.
The difference now was that sexhad became a pleasurable thing
(01:02:15):
for me and after leaving therapyand being able to see me being
a sexual being and that notbeing shameful, and coming back
into earth, coming back into mylife, and I'm like wait, I don't
find it shameful.
I don't declare having a lot ofsex shameful.
I'm not hurting anyone, it'ssafe.
(01:02:37):
You know I'm taking theprecautions needed while having
sex and also making space ingrace for I'm depressed and you
know it's not, hmm, surrenderingto the depression.
It's kind of like like notfighting with yourself.
A lot of times in depression wefight with ourselves to get
(01:03:00):
better, so hard that it makes usmore depressed.
You know you're depressed butyou expect to have a holly,
jolly week all week You'redepressed.
So if you have a depressed dayor if you have a day where you
do smoke and you didn't want toor you did have sex to cope.
You're depressed and it's okay.
Just keep making space andloving on yourself and that love
(01:03:21):
and the support and space thatyou give yourself will make you
better.
The only thing is, because I wasalso depressed, it was, so it
was such a confusing time, right?
Because, like, I want to always, always, always be myself and
express myself the way that Iwish and feel, as long as it is
(01:03:44):
not harmful to other people orsomeone else, right?
And so there's a lot ofthoughts that come in, that is
the depression, that is theanxiety, and then there's other
voices, and then there's there'sa lot of confusion, there's a
lot of trying to figure out, andso I always just try to slow
down and meditate and rememberto make space for myself and
make sure that I'm taking careof myself.
(01:04:06):
So and so this is that yin andyang, right, because, wow, a
whole lot of sex and allowingmyself to explore my sexuality
was very healing and empoweringfor me, and a different season,
when I was depressed, it wasalso very toxic for me, because
(01:04:26):
I was just doing it to cope, Iwas doing it to feel that
pleasure, just the feeling like,because now I actually enjoyed
the feeling of sex.
I would go to it when I didn'tfeel good, because I wanted to
feel pleasure.
I wanted to feel good and, inaddition to that, because I had
not had a lot of sex growing upor in my life in general, I felt
(01:04:51):
new and I also was like, well,I'm new here, it's like my first
year on the block and I'm justhaving fun.
It's like a 16 year old thatjust started having sex right.
So it became difficult for meand I'm sharing this because I
wanted to show how something canbe healing in one season of
(01:05:12):
your life and toxic in another,just how my ex was healing in
one season of our relationship,but it was abusive and toxic,
and another.
And also what heals me may notheal.
You is very, very personal towho you are, your experience and
(01:05:35):
your DNA and that's why, when Ido bring people on this podcast
, I have to get to know them.
I have to let them talk a lot,I have to become curious and
aware of who they are, becausewhat I tell one person is it's
not it.
The practices are the same, buthow you practice it is
different for everyone, and sofor me, in the different pool of
(01:05:59):
like I'm enjoying this, I'mhaving fun, it's just
pleasurable, and then I'm alsousing this to cope.
It required so much intentionand awareness for me and grace,
because there's going to betimes where you're just doing it
and then there's going to betimes that you're trying to cope
(01:06:21):
.
And the only way that I couldactually heal was if I became
aware of why I was going to it,because when I stop and I ask
myself why and I check in withmyself and I slow down, it's all
about the intention, right,because if I'm going to it
(01:06:43):
intentionally, you know not tocope with something that's not,
that's not pouring and feedinginto my depression, but if it is
going into coping and there'ssomething hidden under here, you
got to just be honest withyourself, and the way that you
can encourage more honesty fromyourself is by not judging
yourself.
(01:07:04):
You will be more honest if youknow that you can be honest and
like I would be honest withmyself and be like I am going to
this to cope and I'd be likeokay, you know, like this is not
what we, this is not thedirection we were going in.
But go ahead, girl, you're notgoing to die from one night and
I'd be like yes, thanks, okay,we're going to do better after
this.
(01:07:25):
A friendship, a goodrelationship with myself.
The more space you giveyourself, the less you will take
up, and I promise you, just tryit.
It sounds insane, but I promiseyou it's the loving and
accepting relationship that wehave with ourselves that heals
us.
That's what fills you up.
That's what fills you up.
(01:07:46):
It's the fulfillment that youget from it, and it was that
kind of radical love and radicalacceptance that I had for
myself that slowed down the sex,that slowed down the binge
eating, that slowed down thesmoking, because I didn't need
to cope as much.
The only thing I needed wasjust love.
(01:08:10):
I was also able to see thepeople who loved me in every
season and different versionsand how I was expressing myself
and what I was going through didnot define who I was.
I allowed myself to open up andto be something that I had
never saw of myself before.
I received so much rejection,but through that I received even
(01:08:37):
greater acceptance from peopleI didn't even know could love me
that much.
So I really made this episodeto encourage you to not be so
hard on yourself on this journey, to allow yourself to show you
who you are and how you areexpressing yourself in this
(01:08:59):
moment and become aware of itand accept it and make space for
it.
And when I say remove thejudgment, that doesn't mean that
you can't have once.
Wanting to not have as much sexis not judging.
Judging is you shouldn't behaving that much sex.
(01:09:20):
Having that much sex isn'tright.
I was having that much sex andtelling myself not to rake.
We have them fun right now, butwe do want to get.
You know, we want to.
You know, not go to this iscoping and I'm like I know, I
know, I know that's therelationship.
So giving them space, but theredoesn't need to be judgment.
And so, yes, that is, you know,a whole lot of sex.
(01:09:46):
I'm really happy because, youknow now you know the sex has
like really been slowing downfor me.
You know I was having a lot ofsex and a lot of it was coping.
And then, you know, as I healedand I allowed myself that space
and like being aware of myself,giving myself the space to not
(01:10:06):
be perfect, and after a while,you know, I just started that
space I was giving myself.
It was so much love, you know,a lot of times we think to get
out of depression we need somuch love from the outside world
.
But honestly, what will get youout of it even faster, and even
take the time out of it Evenstronger, is the love that we
(01:10:28):
show to ourselves.
And it was because I was soaccepting of myself and loving
of myself when I lost friendsbecause of this space I gave
myself.
I lost friends because I wasshowing and revealing who I was
in this season and in thismoment and how I was expressing
myself, and I didn't changemyself to keep them.
(01:10:51):
I left them walk away so that Icould love them myself, because
I knew I needed that space toheal.
It's so funny because at the endof all of these podcast
episodes I really never know ifit's what I really like said or
if it's great, and then I go toedit and I'll be like, oh wow, I
ate.
But I thank you guys, I loveyou so much.
(01:11:15):
I really hope that this podcasttouched someone and I hope that
you just have grace and youaccept yourself in a way that
you haven't before.
I love you.
My name is Tariq Ali.
Please rate and review.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's it.
I think I'm done.
(01:11:36):
Okay, yeah, bye guys.
This episode covers explicit material and has
trigger warnings for eatingdisorders and sexual assault.
Now let's get to the episode.
Hello, beautiful people,welcome back to that
conversation with Turik Ali, apodcast where we have the heart
conversations that help us grow.
So if you're watching thevisual, you see me smiling, but
(00:28):
I'm actually really nervous.
I'm usually always nervous whenI come to do this.
You know, before, when I firststarted this podcast, that used
to scare me.
When I say scare, I mean in away of like I would want to stop
.
But now I know I sit in it, Iwork with the anxiety.
(00:51):
I still go after what I wantwith the anxiety and I always
get what I'm after, and thething that I'm after is to just
be myself and to just speak andjust express myself.
You know, when I really careabout something, I always feel
like I have to show up to it, Ihave to like rise to the
occasion and I have to becomesomething.
(01:11):
I have to and we've talkedabout this.
Right, this is what I mean likeit's a continuous journey.
You are never like really donehealing, because like this
doesn't come up a lot andactually I don't really feel it
in any other part of my careeror life.
There may be things thattrigger it, but this is the only
(01:32):
time, like when I sit down todo this podcast, I do feel like
I have to become something or bea little bit more perfect, and
I just remind myself that youjust gotta be you.
You just gotta be you.
Yeah, today's episode is whatI'm really nervous about, and
because it's extremelytransparent.
(01:53):
So I do want to preface thisepisode by saying that this is
not for kids.
This is an episode where youknow this whole podcast is about
me sharing my journey ofhealing, how I am continuously
healing myself, learning how toheal, healing others, all of
that right, and the only wayjust like my.
The last episode and bottled upI was like the only way we can
(02:16):
really get to the healing is ifwe're honest, right, and so this
is something that has been apart of my journey, and it's a
major part is not something Ican just skip over, because then
I feel like I will be cheatingyou all out of it.
I will be cheating you all outof the truth of, like, the
messiness and dirtiness and themud of healing.
(02:36):
It's great, you know when it isfilling you up, but it can be
really heavy, it can be reallyhard and you see that with the
people I bring on this podcast,you see that with me.
So I just want to continuouslybe honest and so, if you've been
here before, you know we startwith a story and that story will
lead into the purpose of theepisode.
So that story today is going tobe me catching you guys up on
(03:01):
the holidays.
So for the holidays I went backhome to Maryland.
Right, I used to not reallyenjoy going home.
It used to be veryuncomfortable for me.
It was just a lot of trauma andpain and a lot of things.
I just went through growing uplike homelessness and juggled
through homes and my mom and dadand it just was a lot.
(03:24):
And every time I went home itjust I was just ready to leave.
Like in college, I had nochoice.
You know they would kick youout the dorms and stuff.
So I would go home and just bewaiting to go back to college.
And you know, when I graduatedI went back out of routine.
But as I started to heal andit's not that I hate it going,
(03:45):
it's just like I said I justdidn't heal a lot of things and,
like now, going home is arecharge for me, you know, as
I've moved a lot.
I'm 26 now and I've moved todifferent cities.
I live different places, I'vebeen to college and now, you
(04:06):
know, I'm in LA.
I'm working in theentertainment business and you
know, in LA, everybody here, youknow people come to LA to make
things happen, right.
You come here to make yourdreams come true.
You know people don't move fromNew York to LA all the way
across the country and leavetheir friends and family just to
.
You know, meet new people.
Some people do, but you knowwhat I mean.
(04:26):
Like, most of the people hereare trying to make something
happen, right, and so everybodyhere is working and getting to
the next thing and the cost ofliving is high.
So it's, you know, you reallygot to be on your grind, and so
I find that the intersocial youknow culture here I don't really
enjoy much.
You know that stereotype youhear of, like people saying you
(04:49):
know you meet people in LA andthey're like, oh, how many
followers you have, or like,what do you do?
It's kind of true, and even ifit's not that directly, people
are trying to gauge how muchmoney you have, what you do, how
they can network with you, whatthey can get out of you.
You know you can be upset aboutthat all you like, but at the
end of the day, like I said, alot of people come here to get
(05:12):
to the next level and that ishow you get to the next level.
It's networking, it's thepolitics of it all.
You know I used to likecomplain about that, but that is
also the same thing.
And the reason I am where I amin my career today was because I
did network and certain peoplemet me.
They liked me, they liked mywork and they were like oh my
gosh, I would love to work withyou, boom.
And so I'm very grateful.
(05:34):
That's me always finding thepositive side.
But because of that and alsobeing known, I don't know, I
think people meet me and it'smore of an image and they go off
of what they know already orwhat they have seen, instead of
getting to know me.
And I do.
You know, a lot of it isself-imposed anxiety as well, of
(05:54):
thinking I have to be a certainway.
But long story short, I, whenI'm in LA, I pretty much just
work and rest and hang out withmy little village.
I don't really go out much.
Like I said, I don't reallyenjoy the intersocial culture
here as much, so that can bereally draining because work
becomes my life.
You know you should have awork-life balance and it's going
(06:16):
home.
And you know, with people thathave known me before I was a
social media phenomenon.
You know, when I started 10years ago, like they've known me
through each season, like youknow that's the great thing
about family is like no matterwho you change into, what you
grow into, like whatever youbecome, they know every version
(06:41):
of you before and there's anessence, right, that is the same
and that is what they know andthey attach to.
You know you can present howyou like, you can put on
whatever clothes you want, butwe know what's under that and we
know what has stayed herethrough all of your changes,
through the different jobs,through the different schools,
through the different cities, isthis thing about you that has
(07:02):
never changed and that is yourcore, that is your essence, that
is your being and it'ssomething so refreshing about
going home to be around peoplethat, no matter how successful
or how much I'm doing or howmuch I'm not doing, they love
Tariq, they love me, and evenoutside of family, just the
(07:24):
culture of like Maryland andVirginia.
Like you know, I'm fromMaryland, but also Southern
Virginia, so like Portsmouth,virginia Beach, chesapeake, and
so you know, going there peoplelive very ordinary, everyday,
normal lives, you know, likethey have a job, they have a
family and they have friends.
I mean that sounds likeeveryone, but what I mean is
(07:44):
like they go to their job andthey go to their job to pay
their bills and like the thingsthat they go to for happiness.
The things that they talk aboutin conversation is about things
that like matter in terms oflike politics.
How are you actually doing inyour life?
How is your cousin, your mom,like getting to know one another
?
And I feel like here a lot ofthe talk in LA is about work and
(08:07):
business.
So even when I'm not working, Iam still working because work
is just becoming my life.
So going home is so refreshing.
I don't have to think aboutwhat I'm wearing, I don't have
to think about wearing makeup, ahaircut, like I literally am
just living my life and I'll betreated the same as if I was the
most polished, most paid, most,whatever Like, and that kind of
(08:29):
freedom is one.
It grounds me and brings meback to earth, because living in
LA, especially with like thedistribution of wealth here and
how there's like so muchhomelessness and poverty, yet
you'll look across the streetand see Lamborghini trucks and
Bentley's and you know theposhness and the luxury, but
(08:51):
then there's so many peoplestruggling and it's just not a
real place Like this.
It's just like a.
It's a I call it like adifferent world.
But so going back, you know,home just reminds me of where I
come from, what truly matters tome and who I am.
And so, with that comfort, youknow, I hung out, of course,
(09:15):
with like my best friends thathave been my best friends since
like high school and college,and I was hanging out with them
and we're like all catching upbecause, like you know, some of
us are coming home and then someof them still live there, but
like we're catching up and so,like I said, I'm with my best
friends, we're reallycomfortable, I'm happy, and you
know how it goes when you'recatching up with your best
friends.
You know you're asking aboutwork how's work going, and it's
(09:36):
it's more about like, how do youlike your job, or I'm thinking
about getting a new job, youknow, just catching up with your
friends, and so eventually weget to the topic of like dating.
You know, love life, and one ofmy friends is like I haven't
had sex in a year and other onestalking about when they had sex
.
And me I was like, girl, I'vebeen having a whole lot of sex.
I have just been hoeing, youknow, just joking like, but
(09:59):
serious.
I was like yeah, I just beenhaving a lot of sex and they
said to ring and I said what Isaid, but no, it's been.
It's funny because before that,before we even got on the topic
of sex, I was saying how youknow, with my work, I don't do
anything that God doesn't tellme to do.
And you guys have heard me saythat.
And so my friend made a jokeand was like, after I said I was
(10:21):
having a lot of sex, my friendmade a joke and said did God
tell you to do that?
And I was like, well, actuallyhe did.
And it was like to read I saidyou know what?
This is going to be my nextpodcast episode?
And it was like to read no, andI was like no y'all.
But seriously I said, hmm, Ihad a moment.
You know, y'all know if you, ifyou're not new to this podcast,
(10:45):
you know you're going to be abig fan of this podcast.
If you're not new to thispodcast, y'all know when I have
my moments, I said hmm, I said,wow, this is my podcast.
It was in that moment when itactually did click to me what my
magic was.
I mean, I knew what it was, butit was in this moment.
It was so clear that you know,I come here and I'm really just
(11:07):
sharing my journey.
But I share things that areusually seem as shameful.
I share the things that peopledon't share because it's
shameful.
People will judge them, peoplewill criticize them, people will
think differently about them.
All of those things Right.
And I come here and I share itbecause God gave me the
anointing and the power to beable to articulate it and also
(11:30):
the provision he gives me duringthat healing journey on how to
take care of myself.
All of that Right.
But I come here and I share itand so many people resonate with
it because, like I said, I'mhuman, I'm not alone.
And right, this glad nominationand you guys tuning in, let's
meet.
And you know you are not alone,I'm not alone, and you know so.
(11:55):
I come here to share, becausethis is my anointing, this is
what I'm was put on this earthto do, but it is up to you to
keep it private.
But I was telling my friends.
I said, you know, that isactually exactly how.
I know that this should be mynext podcast episode, because
I'm sharing this with you guys,because you're my best friends
(12:17):
and like I feel really safe.
I know, no matter what,nothing's gonna change.
Y'all are gonna just be curiousand want to know more, but
you're not.
It nothing's gonna change afterthis.
You just like okay, girl, shegoing through, she having her
little moment, whatever rightlike.
And I realized if it was anyother group of people, if I had
just like, just met them, Iwouldn't have came up out and
(12:40):
just said that.
And it was because I was in asafe space that I felt safe to
share that.
But even in safe spaces, mostpeople don't feel comfortable to
say that.
And I realized that thispodcast is Me creating that safe
space to share the things thatare usually seen as shameful, so
(13:02):
that I can give you a newoutlook and new understanding of
it.
And when I said that God toldme to do it, I meant that, and
what I meant by that is, like,god is within me, god is my
intuition, god is always tryingto direct me to healing and my
well-being and what's best forme, and I explained to them.
You know how.
(13:22):
You know, having so much sexhas been like, so empowering for
me.
It was something so it had beenso liberating, it had been so
fulfilling, and so, yes, I wascomfortable to tell them.
But I I, you know I have gonethrough a lot of vitriol and
(13:43):
hatred and Dragging and trollingonline.
Where I come here and I amvulnerable and I share myself
and I've done it for ten yearsnow, and there has been moments
where People do judge me andcriticize me and tear me apart
and make me look a certain wayand it hurts Because I'm just
trying to be here, to be openand to connect with people and
(14:05):
to help them feel confident andhuman and their experience and
and the fear comes up of like Ijust want to be loved and I just
want to be accepted and I don'twant to be Torn apart, and so
that is what took me some time,like that's why I've been
procrastinating this episode.
I knew I wanted to do thisepisode for like a month or two
(14:27):
now and before you know old mewould jump to doing it and push
myself because of the pressureof work, right and and and they
they want the video, they wantthe podcast and to wreak, you
can't stop.
You got to make money, you gotto do like all of that, right.
But now I've healed to a placenow where I have to heal myself
(14:50):
first before I can heal anyoneelse.
It's just like you have to takecare of yourself before you can
do that job or go to work.
We spend so much time Trying tobe perfect, trying to be
something, trying to get to agoal, that we Leave our
well-being, our health, ourhealing as something to do when
(15:11):
we get extra time.
When no, it is just asimportant as the work, because
you cannot do the work unlessyou're okay.
And also, now that I am healingother people, I know that the
only way and the only reason Iknow how to help people heal and
heal others is Is because I'vehealed myself.
I don't ever want to pushmyself to do something that I
(15:33):
don't want to do, because if Ido, it won't be authentic, it
won't be real and it would justnot be fair to me.
And I love me and I want toAlways ask myself is this me
loving myself?
And so I had to make sure thatI Was okay with sharing this
with strangers, sharing this andallowing people to do what they
(15:56):
want with it, because I'vealready done the work to build
my confidence and and to love onmyself and to tell myself it's
okay, tariq, you love me likethis, this is, this is how you
are expressing yourself in thistime.
This is the season you're in.
It's okay, and I wasn't readyin December.
I was still, you know, a littleshaken by.
(16:19):
I was still.
I still had shame around whatI'm about to share with you, and
now I'm so empowered by thisexperience and what it has given
me, now that it doesn't controlme.
It has actually given me morestrength over it.
Okay, so, let me get right intoit.
(16:39):
Okay so, you know, triggerwarning.
Okay, I already told you guys,this is not for kids, this
episode, but we, we don't getinto it.
Okay so, look, I, I did notlike my body for most of my life
and you know, I grew up, youknow, obese in some years and I
(17:01):
was bullied at school.
I was bullied by my family, mybrothers, my cousin, like they
would like hold me down and pokemy stomach and call me fatty.
And you know, like I Did, I didnot like my body so much to the
point where I Would go to gymearly and elementary all grade
(17:21):
school when I was, when I hadgym, I would go to gym early
just so I could change Early,before people came in there,
because I didn't want people tosee my body.
I hated beaches, I hated poolsbecause I had to take off my
shirt.
And that's so crazy because youguys see now how much I love
the beach, right, I'm always atthe beach.
But to think that like I wasscared of the beach, like
(17:46):
because of having to take myshirt off, and you know I would
sometimes be in the sand and belike, oh, I'm tired and they'd
like to reek it in the water andI will go with my shirt and it
like to reek, take off yourshirt.
And it got really bad to a pointwhere you know I was starved
myself.
I was really young, likelooking up diets and starving
myself, and when I say starvingmyself, like literally going
(18:08):
Days without eating and likereally trying not to eat, I
would, you know, go downstairsand like picket my food and
really just not eat.
I would eat enough just to getup from the table, and not just
for like one week or two weeks,but to the point where my mom
Would watch me eat to make surethat I did eat, and when she
(18:29):
wasn't, you know, with me, youknow Because my dad, you know I
was with my dad.
They were separated all my life.
My mom would be like, oh, didyou eat?
You eating right?
And like, whenever my weightwould fluctuate if I got smaller
, she'd be like to wreak.
Are you eating?
All the way up into my teenageyears?
Because they know about when Iwas younger, because I had an
(18:50):
eating disorder, you know I wentto the doctor when I was in
like fourth or fifth grade andhe told me I was obese and you
know he wanted to do some tests.
And my dad, you know, we wenthome and and you know he told me
not to eat for the rest of thatday and to come back in the
morning.
And my dad, you know, dinnerhappened that night and he was
(19:10):
like to read come eat, and I waslike the doctor said, you know
I shouldn't eat, and he was likethree, that doctor Don't know
what he talking about.
You are just fine, and you know, I, I, I Would have loved to
believe him, but to also haveevery single person around me
making fun of my body and to notbe the size of the people
(19:31):
around me.
I Thought the doctor was rightand so when my dad didn't take
me to the hospital, I kind oftook it upon myself to take care
of my body image and my health,and so, as a child, the answer
to that was starving myself, andthat was one part of, you know,
(19:52):
the relationship I had with mybody.
But I was also, when I wasyounger.
I was sexually assaulted, youknow, continuously, for years,
by my older stepbrother, and youknow when do I want to go with
(20:14):
that?
What are you comfortable with?
To Rick, you know, somethingI'm trying to do, you know, is
is is be more aware of of whyI'm sharing instead of over
sharing, and the reason I'msharing that is because I Was
(20:42):
young, I was a baby.
Hmm, I was a baby, I was, itwas over years, so it was like
kindergarten, first, second,third grade right and you know,
he was in like high school andbeing made fun of for my body
and also being different.
I was queer, I was feminine, Iwas, you know, I I Felt
(21:07):
invisible and unseen and unheardand there was a lot of things
that I needed and it made mefeel good, made me feel good,
but the conditioning that it did, to my mind, was that I had to
give my body In order to getthat attention, to get that love
(21:31):
, to get that special time,because it was, like you know,
in the middle of the night hewould come and like he would
have like a secret, like, youknow, wink, or something where I
knew it would happen orwhatever.
And it made me feel special andand I Remember that feeling,
right, you know, I remember thatfeeling and you know the reason
(21:57):
I'm sharing that is because itMentally conditioned me to
commodify, I would say, my bodyand a way of I had to give my
body to get the things that Ineeded.
And then, when my family didfind out and it stopped and I
(22:19):
was still getting made fun offor my body and as I'm going
into middle school, I'm likestruggling with my weight and
I'm not struggling you hear thatMessaging, right, that language
struggling with my body.
I'm a child.
I was not struggling with mybody, but I was struggling with
loving and accepting my body.
Hmm, right, and what happenedin those middle school years,
(22:47):
especially going through pubertyand learning that I was queer
and Learning, and I mean, in away of like I'm starting to get
hormones and I'm starting to seewhat gets me, you know, you
know a little more firm Me.
Leave it to me to have somecomic relief in this moment.
But yes, and and the my middleschool years, something happened
(23:12):
where I kind of disassociatedfrom my body.
My body became something I hadto Give.
It was like I said it was acommodity.
I also had to change it, I hadto fix it.
I was always in in a battlewith my body.
I tried continuously to getconsistent in the gym and I
(23:35):
would like Tell myself to wreak.
Do you want to lose weight?
Then you need to get in the gymand then, if I didn't lose the
weight that I wanted, I would bemad at my body.
And then also, because of, youknow, my, my eating disorder in
the starving, I actually reallylove food and so I also another
side of my eating disorder wasbinge eating.
Because I love eating.
(23:55):
I love eating and and you knowI come from southern Virginia.
That's why I was like born andraised in my younger years
before my unknock would took mein and my family's southern Like
soul food is not like soul food.
Saturday is like no, you can goto my grandma's house right now
.
There will be some some otherpork chops with some collard
greens.
Back about cheap, you know whatI mean.
Like it's regular food so, andwe are cooks, we all cook really
(24:17):
well so I love eating andeating makes me feel good.
And so when I was working outand I wasn't losing the weight
that I wanted to lose, I wouldtear myself apart, I would tear
my body apart and then thatwould lead me into a depression
and then to feel better, I wouldjust eat a lot, like it was
just a really bad cycle.
And in when you pull back andjust become aware of that
(24:41):
experience Right, instead ofbeing judgmental of like, oh,
that's sad, that's this, that'sright, that's wrong Just become
aware I I saw the type ofrelationship I had with my body.
I was telling it what to do,what I wanted from it, and when
it didn't give me what I wanted,I hated it more.
I would like see myself in themirror.
(25:02):
I'm like, oh, you don't lookgood in this.
Like I don't like how I look inthis.
Like I did not like Takingpictures I don't.
You really won't even find morethan five.
Or you see the same pictures ofme when I show my body when I
was younger.
Because I would avoid full-bodypictures, I and the ones that I
did find I would delete, Iwould throw away, I would burn.
(25:24):
And so now in my adulthood, Idon't have as many pictures of
when I was younger because ofhow much I hated my body and
this didn't change.
This was you know.
You know I Went into highschool and college with with
that kind of relationship withmy body because all my life you
(25:45):
are the reason people made funof me.
You are the reason that I neverfit in.
You were the reason that I wassingle doubt.
You were the reason that I wastaking advantage of.
You were the reason Hmm, youwere the reason I didn't love
(26:14):
myself.
You were the reason I wasdepressed a lot of times, why I
hid myself in my bedroom.
You were the reason and that'show I felt with my body.
So I disassociated from it in away where there's me and then
there's my body and that kind ofsounds crazy.
But that was just one part ofit.
(26:35):
It was this next part thatreally helped me understand it
in a different way.
I learned that I was queer, in away of knowing for sure that I
was attracted to boys in middleschool.
I had always been attracted toboys.
Before middle school I realizedhow like oh, that's why I
really cared about that friendand I knew that they were cute,
(26:57):
I liked them, I knew I was it,but I didn't know it, it wasn't
conscious, right, and it wasn'tuntil high school, where I'm
from.
In middle school I was inPortsmouth, virginia, chesapeake
, all of that and it was a hoodand so a lot of the people were
having sex in the hood.
(27:17):
I'm just being honest earlyit's not the best environment
with the best examples.
So people were having sexaround me and I wasn't really
having sex one, because I wasqueer in Virginia, there wasn't
really many options.
But when I did start learningmore about my queerness and what
(27:37):
that really meant in thatsexual world, I'm a baby gay at
this point.
So people are telling me,because I was a little bit more
feminine, that I was like abottom.
Now, for my girls, if you don'tknow what a bottom is, okay,
google it.
I'm not about to give a Googleit girl, top, bottom and verse
all that.
Yeah, I just assumed that I wasa bottom.
(27:59):
Okay, I'll explain a little bit.
Okay, a bottom is the one whois doing the bending.
Well, so, pretty much a bottomis the one who is, like you know
, bending over and giving, youknow, the back door Boom.
I think I've made that veryclear.
And because, like most queerpeople you know, we came from a
(28:22):
heterosexual.
Well, no, it's not most, but welive in a heterosexual,
heteronormative excuse me,heteronormative society and
world, which means that the normis to be straight.
And so when we do, you know, gointo living into our truth and
being queer and being gay orwhatever you are, a lot of
(28:44):
people transfer all of what wehave already learned into that
new life.
But it's completely different.
It's not a man and a woman,it's not a man and a man, but
all we know is what we've beengiven.
So we see feminine and we thinkbottom, you know.
And so people told me and justassumed that I was a bottom and
with that conditioning that Ihad from my childhood, you know,
(29:04):
my body was something that Iwould give so that I could get
that love and attention and care, and you know all of that.
And so if guys came to me andassumed I was a bottom and
that's what they wanted from meand they want, you know, if
we're dating and sex is a partof that, I just figured that
that's what I had to give inorder to, you know, have love.
(29:26):
And I'm not I'm not saying tosay that it was like a horrible
experience every time but withthat conditioning I never really
went into sex or I never reallyhad the approach or feeling
going into sex or having sexthat this is for me.
I was always thinking about howI was performing.
(29:49):
Was I bending right?
Am I arching my back?
Am I like, do I look good?
Does he think I'm fat?
Like it was all that anxiety.
It was so much anxiety of justmaking sure that I'm doing what
he needs so that he doesn'tleave Right.
And so sex, you know, it becamerun of the mill at some point.
(30:10):
You know, my first boyfriend Ihad, and you know, when I was in
college and you know I enjoyedit for what it was, you know,
but I was never pressed to havesex, like and if you watch
videos of me on YouTube you'llhear me say it all the time Like
I'm not really that sexual, I'mnot really into sex like that,
and I really like I could be ina relationship and go without
(30:31):
having sex, like literally wecould just do like foreplay and
I could probably just watch pornand do my own, like I would be
fine.
Um, and that's because sexreally I had never really
enjoyed it for myself and,believe it or not, it wasn't
until my last relationship thatthe one I always tell you guys
(30:52):
about that was, you know,abusive emotionally and mentally
that I actually started workingon my relationship with my body
.
Because we met at the beginningof the pandemic.
I had just moved to LA, I hadjust graduated college, it was
like May 2020.
Um, I met him on Tinder.
We were on lockdown and he wasconsistent and yeah, and.
(31:16):
But we actually did have goodlove in the beginning, right,
like it was fulfilling, it wasgreat.
And in our relationship hereally loved my body.
Like you know, I didn't like mybody and, like I said, this was
the pandemic.
So we're eating Uber eats everysingle day and like I'm a
foodie, he's a foodie, we loveto eat, um, so I gained like 30
(31:40):
pounds, like I was over like 200pounds.
Um, and even through that, likeit ruined my confidence because
I felt less of value because ofwhat I had been the
relationship I already had withmy body.
Right, but through all of mysizes, he was still attracted to
(32:00):
me.
And you know I would be in themirror like, say, we're in the
bathroom and we just woke up andI'm brushing my teeth, he's
brushing his teeth and I wouldbe like I look so fat.
He was like, hey, like he woulddefend my body.
He was like, stop talking aboutyourself like that.
And I did it a lot and I didn'teven realize it until how many
times he had to stop me.
And you know he would say likeyour body is beautiful.
(32:23):
And you know, at first Ithought he was just saying that
because, of course, witheverything I've been through
with my body, I've had friends,family, people tell me to read
you look okay to read, you'renot fat, to read, you're this or
whatever.
I've had people try to affirmme all my life.
When it came to my body, thathim saying it in the beginning I
(32:45):
was like he just saying thatcause he's my boyfriend.
But being that close andintimate with a person and
seeing him like watch me fromafar with my shirt off and like
really getting you know hornyand like really being attracted
and turned on by my body was Iwas really confused.
I would like literally look athim with a confused face, just
(33:07):
like this.
I looked at myself one day andI said to Rik well, if he can
love your body, why, why?
Why can't you love your body?
You know and this was after Iwould say I had three huge
fights in my life that I had tofight to love my blackness, my
queerness and my body.
And, believe it or not, my bodywas the hardest one of the
(33:30):
three.
But I told myself to Rik if hecan love your body, I think you
can too.
You did it with your blackness,you did it with your queerness,
you can do it with your body.
You can.
And this is also why I say youknow, everybody is not in a good
position or in the goodenvironment to heal, because
(33:54):
going on that healing journey,opening up that Pandora box, is
heavy.
It was heavy.
I had to deal with my assaultfrom being a child, talking
about it in ways and going.
You know, my methods of healingare going back to an old part
(34:17):
of myself and inner child,visualizing going to them,
giving them the words that theydeserve, giving them the love
that they wish they would havehad in that moment, bringing
them to the present back with meand leaving the trauma there.
But going back there, it was sodark and it was so heavy.
And I remember traveling backto that time and the first time
(34:41):
I had sex.
After that, like when myhealing journey of my body
started, my first time havingsex with my boyfriend, I felt
like I was being raped and Ijust started crying.
He was like are you okay?
Are you okay?
And I?
So it's heavy and it, and whenyou first start it is going to
(35:03):
feel like why am I doing this?
This feels counterproductive,but through that anxiety,
through the trembling andthrough the shaking, I hugged
and loved myself and told myselfI was safe.
In that healing.
There were a plethora of thingsthat I did to help heal my
(35:24):
relationship with my body, andI'm actually going to add you
know exactly what I did to healthat relationship on the
subscriber version of thispodcast so that you can go get
those extra clips.
But for the sake of thisepisode and whole lot of sex, I
just want to I'm sharing that tolet you know of how much work
it took and one of the thingsthat I did do I had to change my
(35:48):
mindset.
This is not.
I'm not just, I'm not here fora service.
Okay, this should bepleasurable for me.
Sex should be pleasurable.
Can we remember that Sometimeswe forget that you know we get
so much in the performance andyou know what this person thinks
and do I look?
Sex should be pleasurable andlet me use a different word,
(36:12):
because pleasurable is alwaysused with sex.
It should be enjoyable, itshould be fun, it should be
something that you enjoy.
It should not be torture.
I realized that I was justfeeding that trauma of the
assault that I went through bycontinuously putting myself and
my body through unenjoyable,anxiety inducing intercourse
(36:37):
where I am just not comfortableand my body was hurting.
But, like I said, Idisassociated myself from my
body, so if it was hurting I waslike well, girl, I just this is
the cost, but I'm okay, right,like my body, whatever, but like
, I'll be okay, I'll get what Ineed after this, right, like I
got what I needed after the love, the, the, the, whatever, the,
(36:58):
the boyfriend staying orwhatever it was I was after, but
I just had to give my body.
So in this, in this process ofbuilding a relationship with my
body that was healthy, that welove each other, that we work
together, that we are one, I hadto start asking myself are you
comfortable?
Do you want to do this, notjust having sex?
(37:21):
Because we went on a couple ofdates and like, now we're here
and I did entertain it a bit andif I pull out now, who cares?
You can change your mindwhenever you want.
Before, during it, you can stopwhen you want, and I never gave
myself that agency before.
And so in the relationship Imade it a goal to have fun
(37:44):
during sex, like instead of liketrying to perform and do like
the pornoes.
I was giggling.
You know I'm a goofy person, soyou know making little jokes
here and there.
You know making them laugh andlike it's fun, so that we want
to have sex.
It's not like can we do ittomorrow For me and everything
I've been through.
I don't want to be in anysituation where my body is
(38:06):
uncomfortable and I'm doingsomething that my body is not
saying yes to.
It has been through enoughtrauma and at any moment.
If it's not, then I am going toprotect my body, just like an
inner child.
Actually, thank you, I'm notfeeling it no more.
Oh yes, and my friends laugh atme because I have several times
(38:28):
in the middle of sex.
I'm not feeling it no more.
I'm sorry.
You know, you have the agencyin the right to change your mind
.
It is your body.
You don't owe anyone.
Your body, it's your body.
And after a lifetime of peoplehaving opinions, scrutiny and
(38:48):
and making me hate myselfbecause of their thoughts on my
body, I, mm-hmm, I startedloving myself to a point where I
wanted to protect my body in away where, baby, I Get to decide
what happens with this.
This is mine, and so you know,though there was a lot of pain
(39:11):
in that last relationship it did.
I will always give it itsflowers for what it did for my
relationship with my body,because I don't know if that
would have been impossible inAny other Realm, like I think it
had to be with an intimatepartner that loved me through
(39:33):
the different shapes and showedme that my body was deserving of
love.
And when I learned that it wasdeserving of love, I wanted to
be the main person to give it to, and so when we broke up and
sex did become Comfortable forme, I started to allow myself to
just Explore my sexuality Also,just considering that like
(39:59):
being a queer person in highschool and middle school and
college, like I was always.
You know, and a lot of queerpeople will identify with this I
was always the gay best friend,like my girlfriends had
boyfriends.
My girlfriends were gettingpregnant in high school, like
they were having regular sex.
It was me, a Couple other gaypeople in the school that we
were not attracted to each other.
Okay, so we had to livevicariously through our
(40:23):
girlfriends, our guy friends,like seeing you guys have
relationships and boyfriends andValentine's and the quarterback
and the cheerleader dating.
We didn't have that.
We didn't have that.
And then when I went to college, I was really just in the
library all day and nightBecause I was a bio major in
pre-med and then on the weekendsI was doing YouTube.
So I really never really hadspace to explore my sexuality.
(40:47):
So when sex did become fun andcomfortable for me, I Wanted to
allow myself the space toexplore my sexuality because I
didn't know it.
I Didn't know it.
I didn't know what I liked.
I didn't know what I liked insex.
I didn't know what my identitywas in sex.
Like you know, I, just like Isaid, I assumed I was a bottom,
(41:09):
because what a feminine aspectsand what people told me, like I
didn't know a Large part ofmyself and especially if I'm
gonna be giving my body andexperiencing my body with other
people sexually, I want to knowwhat my identity is.
I want to know what I like.
I, if I am to be pleasure andif this is supposed to be a good
experience, I need to know whatI do and don't like, what I am
(41:30):
and not am not comfortable with.
I want to know what's out there.
You know, like I, have lived ina heterosexual scope all my life
and Continuously because andstill because, it's a
heteronormative world and so wedon't see.
We didn't learn gay sex insixth grade when we were
watching those movies in gym andhealth class.
(41:51):
I, I didn't see movies with gaysex.
Growing up like we, we don'tknow anything.
And so, when I did finally getto the point of Allowing myself
this space to seek and to learnmyself and to learn myself
sexually, I just gave myself thespace to just explore.
(42:14):
And so, you know, I did a lot ofdifferent things and you know,
it was one thing I'm a sharethat I was like not sure if I
was gonna share, but there's areason I want to share.
You know, I didn't even knowwhat a bathhouse was.
Okay, wow, I'm gonna share this.
Okay, I didn't even know what abathhouse was.
Okay.
Another thing that you canGoogle but I went to a bathhouse
(42:37):
just for the shits and gigglesof it, right, and you know, not
even going there to have sex,just the idea of this is sexual.
This is something I've neverexperienced.
Apparently, you know, this issomething that is popular in the
gay community.
Whatever, just removing thejudgment, because, like, when
(42:58):
you first hear that the firstthing that comes up is judgment,
like, especially with sex,right, it's like, oh, who going
there?
Why, I'm gonna watch you.
And I said, in this healingjourney and especially in this
journey of seeking myself, theonly way that I can learn myself
is if I don't judge myself.
I have to let myself show mewho I am, and then I have to
accept that I Will never learnwho I am if I have these
(43:20):
barricades up of judgment andshame, of saying don't do that.
Though that don't do that.
It's like a food that you nevertasted, but you saying you
don't like it.
You never, you never try todarling, you know.
And so I went into it with nojudgment.
I was just like, oh okay, abathhouse.
And Wow, it was actually a Hugeturning point in my journey
(43:42):
because it was so empowering.
Like I just told you, I grew upgoing to gym early, just so I
could change before people cameand to be, you know, in the
bathhouse.
You just have like a towel on,but to just be walking around
and people are naked, differentbody sizes, shapes and colors,
and I mean just Just all of that.
(44:02):
And at first I felt extremelyuncomfortable because of my body
, but then I realized nobody,then nobody care, and it was so
many different body types that Iwas just like, oh, okay, and
then To see other people beingso free with their bodies,
whether it was just being nakedor walking around with a shirt
(44:22):
off or, you know having sex,like Just living their lives and
not worrying about judgment,just like this is a space to do
what you want to do, girl.
And you know they got a pool injacuzzi.
So you know I love a, I'm awater sign girl, so I definitely
, you know, did a little splashin jacuzzi.
I was scared, though, you know,cuz you know it's a bathhouse
Anyways.
Anyways, also it was soempowering because you know,
(44:47):
like People go there to have sexand like, like I said though I
wasn't there for sex peopleattractive, okay, I'm a catch, I
will reach out for me too, butyou know I was just being
curious.
So, but you know people wouldlike reach out and like they do
this thing where, like they justlike grab your wrists or like
your back or like Try to pullyou so that, like you can have
sex.
And I was just there justlooking.
(45:09):
You know I'm just looking, I'lllet you know if I need some
help and they would move on,they would, they would let go of
me and I could just go back tojust being free.
And as a person who hadexperienced Continuous sexual
(45:35):
assault growing up from someonewho was my family member, it was
so empowering to have theagency to say no and to have
them respect it, to actuallyhave dominion over my body.
(45:56):
It it became Literally justgoing, became a practice of
building my confidence andcomfort and my body and in my
sexuality, and it's Because ofmy story and everything I've
shared with you today.
You see how that could beempowering for me, right?
And it's because you were openand curious and aware, instead
(46:20):
of just stopping at judgment andsaying, for this net and the
bath up Because you were openand curious.
This is why I say curiosity ishow we build connection, because
when you just sit here and youare aware and curious, and every
time you want to judge you likenope, that's being judgmental
You're able to resonate Becausethis is my story, right?
This is how my healing journeyhas gone.
(46:43):
That was empowering for me.
It's not gonna be the same foryou.
Maybe there may be some thingsin your journey and your healing
journey that most people willsee as shameful.
Most people would judge you,criticize you, think of you
differently, stop being friendswith you.
I lost friends, I lost a bestfriend in this journey because
(47:09):
they started judging me andtreating me different and in
Seeing me different because ofhow more open I was to the idea
of sexuality.
And sometimes we say we're opento things and we, we accept
things until it's like actuallyin our face and close to home
(47:36):
and you don't even realize thatyou're slut shaming.
And so I'm saying this to saythat the healing journey, the
reason I'm sure it gets dirtyand it gets radical I'm a really
radical, open type of person.
So my healing methods, like Ithink God puts me through all of
(47:58):
this and because it is soradical, you're able to pick out
the true themes, you're able toreally see it, it's like a
really good TV show, like it's ayou know when you watch a movie
and it's like, wow, okay, sothe door was just open, it's a
movie, right, it's for the story.
So I think God puts me throughExtreme examples and I call
myself an extremophile becauseI'm willing to go to the radical
(48:21):
Lymphs to love myself and toaccept myself and to heal and to
learn.
You know, just experiencesomething and just see what it
taught me and what it did for meand if it didn't, just don't do
it again.
And it's not Saying yes toevery single thing.
There's no right or wrong.
I Think I'm really just tryingto drill that there is no right
(48:42):
or wrong.
You get to decide how yourhealing journey looks for you,
and so in this journey you haveto just be really intentional
about slowing down andidentifying judgment so that
when you know that you'rejudging yourself or putting
confinements on yourself, youcan pull back and just be aware,
(49:04):
write it down, Journal.
Hmm, I've been having a lot ofsex.
What does a sex do for me?
Well, I do enjoy it, like thetouching, and I do be lonely
when I'm not having sex.
Am I going to the sex becauseit's making me feel connected
and not alone?
Ask yourself, that feeling willcome up.
(49:26):
Ask yourself when you felt thatsimilar feeling another time,
maybe when you were younger?
When's other times that youfeel alone?
Was it when daddy wasn't therewhen you were younger?
Was it you know your friendswho haven't reached out like,
become aware of your experience?
Instead of you having too muchsex, you doing that to cope.
(49:49):
Like when you just stop atjudgment, you leave out so many
opportunities to learn aboutyourself, and the more you learn
about yourself, the better youunderstand how to heal yourself.
And so you know.
The bathhouse really just helpedme really remove a lot of the
shame and a lot of the judgmentaround sex and myself and my
(50:17):
body and allowing myself to havesex and to talk about sex.
That shame and that judgment ofnot talking about it is why you
know STDs and STIs run rampantis because when we don't talk
about it it becomes somethinghidden.
And when it becomes somethinghidden we can't talk about how
to do it safe, how to do ithealthy, how to recognize when
(50:41):
it is unhealthy for you, whenit's toxic, like when we talk
about it, when we're open andwhen we're curious and aware, we
can learn more about it so thatwe can help each other and be
there for each other.
And this is why I think therapyis important for everyone,
because therapy taught me somuch about what is judgment and
what is curiosities andawareness right.
(51:04):
And so when I would talk to mytherapist and talk about you
know, like maybe me being onJack or me having sex, I would
say it in a way of I would likekind of be afraid to tell her
one because she's not queer andI am, and also like that shame
that I have, you know, as aqueer person and you know they
think you know, the world callsus sexual beings and just all of
(51:25):
that right, and so I alreadyhad shame and so I would hold a
lot of it back and she wouldjust be curious, like asking
questions.
And with every answer, the moreI told her about some of the
sex I was having, there was nojudgment.
It's a space for me to existand to just be me, and through
no judgment I'm able.
When I know that I could justbe myself, just like when I go
(51:48):
home to those friends, right, Ihear so much that's inside of me
that deserves to be out here,that deserves to come out.
And when we surround ourselvesin judgmental spaces and spaces
where we can't express ourselves, there's so much bottled end
that we don't even know becausewe don't even have the space to
express it and let it out.
(52:08):
It's in these therapy sessionsthat, like I would share things
and I'm usually, you know,reacted with, just like my
friends did, but they're justbeing friends like, like
surprised and shocked, like, oh,did God take it to do that?
Like we just joking.
But like in therapy, it's justher just being curious and just
becoming aware and just makingnote.
(52:30):
I'm like, oh okay, what do youlike about the sex and you know,
with no judgment I'm able to,like, really think about it.
You know there's so many thingsthat we impose shame and
judgment on ourselves because ofwhat the world has put on us or
has put in society, even if youhaven't received it directly.
(52:51):
You see the slut shaming, yousee, you know homophobia, you
see a texturism, you see all ofthese things in the world and so
, even if it, you don't get awhack, even if it doesn't come
towards you, you see it, so youwant to avoid it right?
So I just operated in the worldand in my life trying to
(53:13):
protect myself from that shame.
Because who wants shame?
Because I have become moreaware, with curiosity, awareness
, judgment and shame looks likewhen I do it to myself and in
therapy, I'm able to identify itin the world and I knew
personally like I don't slutshame and in a way of like I
(53:34):
really believe like girl, if youwant to do it, do it like girl,
of that show life, get yourlife girl, like I've never
really been the person to like,shame you for something that you
are, because girl I am.
So look at me, my eyebrows,everything about me, girl, I'm
just going to be me.
I'm going to be just me, andyou know I say I'm going to be
different, but it's because I'mjust being me.
I'm not living in theconfinements that society makes
(53:57):
and says is right and wrong.
So wrong is having a whole lotof sex and not valuing your body
, and then right is don't have alot of sex and you know,
whatever.
And so I knew that I didn'timpose that on other people.
But during this time, I was alsobattling and struggling with
the judgment that you know, andthe shame that was larger than
(54:20):
me.
You know, I can't like pickmyself up by the bootstraps and
take myself out of society.
I have been living in aconditioning for 26 years that
tells me that this is wrong andthat this is shameful, you know.
And so every time I wanted tobeat myself up, I had to stop
and be like well, tariq, you'renot hurting anyone and you want
(54:41):
this and this is healthy, you'refine, you're just having sex.
The only thing that says thatthis is wrong is slut shaming.
Give me one other reason whyBecause you're not valuing your
body.
But actually this is me valuingmy body, because my body is
telling me that it feelscomfortable and that it wants to
(55:02):
do this and that it'spleasurable and it's enjoying it
.
Right, I'm checking in with mybody, I'm communicating with my
body.
That is valuing my body.
And this also gave me adifferent perspective and
understanding of misogyny, noteven being a woman, but it gave
(55:22):
me a huge understanding ofmisogyny.
Because when you look at thedifferences and this is what's
so interesting about being queerbecause when you look at men,
they are allowed to have thatfreedom of just allowing
themselves that pleasure andthen also getting tokens and
(55:42):
cool points because they'rehaving a lot of sex Right.
There's no stipulations on that.
They're not not valuing theirbody when they go out and have
sex right.
And women, the more they havesex, the lower their value goes.
But like, we're talking aboutthe same thing here, we're
talking about the same thinghere Sex and if she's safe,
(56:06):
she's not harming herself, she'snot doing it to cope for
something else, like before Iwas doing it for something right
, to get acceptance, to get love.
If I'm doing it because I wantit for me, I want to have sex
like, uh, I'm not doing this foryou, I'm doing this for me.
If anything, I'm gifting myselfJust how you give yourself ice
(56:28):
cream after working hard for along day, girl.
And also making that cleardistinction of how, like, men
and women are seen differently.
With this, it helped me reallyidentify that oh, that's just
slut shaming.
That's what they use againstwomen, that's misogyny, that's
this Like.
This is not rooted in anythinga value of substance.
(56:50):
This is literally just used tokeep you, this demographic, from
having sex because the mendon't want you to.
And hey, there's a longerconversation about this right
when we could talk aboutspirituality, religion, whatever
, whatever your beliefs are.
But I'm speaking about a humanexperience because there's a lot
(57:10):
of different layers to thisconversation.
But what I'm tapping into isabout you having once and you
wanting something for yourself,not to cope for something, but
because you want it and givingit to yourself and not depriving
(57:31):
yourself of it because of theshame that it may come with or
what people will think about youor what people will say about
you.
And college, I had sex once ayear and then, yeah, yeah, like
once a year, like once or twicea year, and I'll do like four
play here and there, but, likeyou know, penetration like once
a time.
You know what I mean After webroke up and now, sex was a good
(57:52):
experience for me.
I was open to it.
So if a guy and not even if aguy wanted it with me, if I
wanted it with a guy, I would beopen to it and I would allow
myself to have fun.
And you know, it was just ahealthy balance at that point.
I think at that point I wasjust having sex like when it
(58:13):
comes and when it happens, likeI wasn't really actively seeking
sex, it just when it happens,like you know, I meet a guy,
maybe I'm at the club, maybe I'min Mexico, somebody kissed me,
I'm like chow, I'm a heavylittle night girl, you know and
boom, and then you know it don'thappen again for two months.
Like you know, like that, likeit was regular, right.
But this is when the whole lotof sex comes in, because in the
(58:40):
episode you deserve help, right?
I told you guys about that.
I was professionally diagnosedwith depression and anxiety from
my psychiatrist and I startedZoloft.
So it'll be like a year thatI've been on Zoloft and like
March, and you know, thisdepression was the hardest
(59:03):
depression I've ever beenthrough.
You know what they say aboutdepression is it comes in
different waves and it comes,and it usually comes back harder
because what happens isdepression is like the flu,
right, but the thing is people,it's a sickness but people think
it goes away, but really youjust learn how to manage it.
It's still there and that's whythings trigger us.
(59:25):
You know depression is fromfear and emotions from the past.
Anxiety is from the future, theworrying of what will happen.
Depression is from the past.
So those triggers and thoseheavy and sad emotions that you
get from the past, thedepression is still there.
The trigger brings it up, right, and so you just learn how to
(59:46):
manage it over time and you getbetter with managing it.
So when you get depressed againfrom maybe something else or
whatever, it sometimes will comeback harder because it's
compounded.
And so you know, going into thisdepression, I, like I said in
that episode, you Deserve Help.
(01:00:07):
I just allowed myself to hitrock bottom because I'm always
just trying to be the best, towreak and be perfect.
Well, not anymore, but like.
That was where I was at andwhen I just allowed myself to
just fall and to need help andto need support and to just
allow myself to exist and allowmyself to be human to wreak.
(01:00:28):
You went through a lot oftrauma.
You went through a lot oftrauma and you went through a
lot of stress and you were goingthrough a lot of stress at the
time and you're depressed and so, yeah, you will be sad and yeah
, you won't want to do hobbies.
You want, like, make more spacefor yourself and love on
(01:00:49):
yourself than judging it.
Judging it is like it's rightor wrong.
I don't want to be doing it.
Make space, it's okay.
Tariq, you're depressed.
What can I do for you right now?
What do you need?
And sometimes there's no answer.
It's just the fact that I'masking.
And making space for myself washealing, right, and so, going
(01:01:10):
into this depression, I didalready, however, know my coping
mechanisms Bench eating I eatfor comfort.
That's one Ever since moving toLA.
Smoking is something that Iwould do when I'm depressed or
anxious.
It just puts me in a differentstate, and it was something that
(01:01:31):
I would do to cope.
Also, working a lot, justkeeping myself constantly
working, and the return that itgave me whether it's likes money
, success that always made me.
It gave me like a small dose ofhappiness and I would just keep
chasing it, and so I would justwork a lot and also attention
(01:01:55):
from like guides.
And so, like you know, in mypast episode, hidden Depression,
I was talking about how I waslike on Jacked and I was like on
the dating apps and just likemessaging people and just seeing
who wanted me, but like notactually meeting up with people.
The difference now was that sexhad became a pleasurable thing
(01:02:15):
for me and after leaving therapyand being able to see me being
a sexual being and that notbeing shameful, and coming back
into earth, coming back into mylife, and I'm like wait, I don't
find it shameful.
I don't declare having a lot ofsex shameful.
I'm not hurting anyone, it'ssafe.
(01:02:37):
You know I'm taking theprecautions needed while having
sex and also making space ingrace for I'm depressed and you
know it's not, hmm, surrenderingto the depression.
It's kind of like like notfighting with yourself.
A lot of times in depression wefight with ourselves to get
(01:03:00):
better, so hard that it makes usmore depressed.
You know you're depressed butyou expect to have a holly,
jolly week all week You'redepressed.
So if you have a depressed dayor if you have a day where you
do smoke and you didn't want toor you did have sex to cope.
You're depressed and it's okay.
Just keep making space andloving on yourself and that love
(01:03:21):
and the support and space thatyou give yourself will make you
better.
The only thing is, because I wasalso depressed, it was, so it
was such a confusing time, right?
Because, like, I want to always, always, always be myself and
express myself the way that Iwish and feel, as long as it is
(01:03:44):
not harmful to other people orsomeone else, right?
And so there's a lot ofthoughts that come in, that is
the depression, that is theanxiety, and then there's other
voices, and then there's there'sa lot of confusion, there's a
lot of trying to figure out, andso I always just try to slow
down and meditate and rememberto make space for myself and
make sure that I'm taking careof myself.
(01:04:06):
So and so this is that yin andyang, right, because, wow, a
whole lot of sex and allowingmyself to explore my sexuality
was very healing and empoweringfor me, and a different season,
when I was depressed, it wasalso very toxic for me, because
(01:04:26):
I was just doing it to cope, Iwas doing it to feel that
pleasure, just the feeling like,because now I actually enjoyed
the feeling of sex.
I would go to it when I didn'tfeel good, because I wanted to
feel pleasure.
I wanted to feel good and, inaddition to that, because I had
not had a lot of sex growing upor in my life in general, I felt
(01:04:51):
new and I also was like, well,I'm new here, it's like my first
year on the block and I'm justhaving fun.
It's like a 16 year old thatjust started having sex right.
So it became difficult for meand I'm sharing this because I
wanted to show how something canbe healing in one season of
(01:05:12):
your life and toxic in another,just how my ex was healing in
one season of our relationship,but it was abusive and toxic,
and another.
And also what heals me may notheal.
You is very, very personal towho you are, your experience and
(01:05:35):
your DNA and that's why, when Ido bring people on this podcast
, I have to get to know them.
I have to let them talk a lot,I have to become curious and
aware of who they are, becausewhat I tell one person is it's
not it.
The practices are the same, buthow you practice it is
different for everyone, and sofor me, in the different pool of
(01:05:59):
like I'm enjoying this, I'mhaving fun, it's just
pleasurable, and then I'm alsousing this to cope.
It required so much intentionand awareness for me and grace,
because there's going to betimes where you're just doing it
and then there's going to betimes that you're trying to cope
(01:06:21):
.
And the only way that I couldactually heal was if I became
aware of why I was going to it,because when I stop and I ask
myself why and I check in withmyself and I slow down, it's all
about the intention, right,because if I'm going to it
(01:06:43):
intentionally, you know not tocope with something that's not,
that's not pouring and feedinginto my depression, but if it is
going into coping and there'ssomething hidden under here, you
got to just be honest withyourself, and the way that you
can encourage more honesty fromyourself is by not judging
yourself.
(01:07:04):
You will be more honest if youknow that you can be honest and
like I would be honest withmyself and be like I am going to
this to cope and I'd be likeokay, you know, like this is not
what we, this is not thedirection we were going in.
But go ahead, girl, you're notgoing to die from one night and
I'd be like yes, thanks, okay,we're going to do better after
this.
(01:07:25):
A friendship, a goodrelationship with myself.
The more space you giveyourself, the less you will take
up, and I promise you, just tryit.
It sounds insane, but I promiseyou it's the loving and
accepting relationship that wehave with ourselves that heals
us.
That's what fills you up.
That's what fills you up.
(01:07:46):
It's the fulfillment that youget from it, and it was that
kind of radical love and radicalacceptance that I had for
myself that slowed down the sex,that slowed down the binge
eating, that slowed down thesmoking, because I didn't need
to cope as much.
The only thing I needed wasjust love.
(01:08:10):
I was also able to see thepeople who loved me in every
season and different versionsand how I was expressing myself
and what I was going through didnot define who I was.
I allowed myself to open up andto be something that I had
never saw of myself before.
I received so much rejection,but through that I received even
(01:08:37):
greater acceptance from peopleI didn't even know could love me
that much.
So I really made this episodeto encourage you to not be so
hard on yourself on this journey, to allow yourself to show you
who you are and how you areexpressing yourself in this
(01:08:59):
moment and become aware of itand accept it and make space for
it.
And when I say remove thejudgment, that doesn't mean that
you can't have once.
Wanting to not have as much sexis not judging.
Judging is you shouldn't behaving that much sex.
(01:09:20):
Having that much sex isn'tright.
I was having that much sex andtelling myself not to rake.
We have them fun right now, butwe do want to get.
You know, we want to.
You know, not go to this iscoping and I'm like I know, I
know, I know that's therelationship.
So giving them space, but theredoesn't need to be judgment.
And so, yes, that is, you know,a whole lot of sex.
(01:09:46):
I'm really happy because, youknow now you know the sex has
like really been slowing downfor me.
You know I was having a lot ofsex and a lot of it was coping.
And then, you know, as I healedand I allowed myself that space
and like being aware of myself,giving myself the space to not
(01:10:06):
be perfect, and after a while,you know, I just started that
space I was giving myself.
It was so much love, you know,a lot of times we think to get
out of depression we need somuch love from the outside world
.
But honestly, what will get youout of it even faster, and even
take the time out of it Evenstronger, is the love that we
(01:10:28):
show to ourselves.
And it was because I was soaccepting of myself and loving
of myself when I lost friendsbecause of this space I gave
myself.
I lost friends because I wasshowing and revealing who I was
in this season and in thismoment and how I was expressing
myself, and I didn't changemyself to keep them.
(01:10:51):
I left them walk away so that Icould love them myself, because
I knew I needed that space toheal.
It's so funny because at the endof all of these podcast
episodes I really never know ifit's what I really like said or
if it's great, and then I go toedit and I'll be like, oh wow, I
ate.
But I thank you guys, I loveyou so much.
(01:11:15):
I really hope that this podcasttouched someone and I hope that
you just have grace and youaccept yourself in a way that
you haven't before.
I love you.
My name is Tariq Ali.
Please rate and review.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's it.
I think I'm done.
(01:11:36):
Okay, yeah, bye guys.
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