January 14, 2026 • 53 mins
For many Black women, higher education has long been framed as both a pathway to security and a form of social currency. But when does the pursuit of another degree serve our growth—and when does it distract us from the work we actually want to do?
In this episode, I'm joined by Melissa Ifill, LCSW for a thoughtful conversation about the “grad school urge,” credential collecting, and the complicated relationship Black women have with education, labor, and legitimacy. Together, we explore the emotional, cultural, and political forces that push so many of us toward advanced degrees—and what it looks like to pause, reflect, and choose intentionally.
About the Podcast
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
Resources & Announcements
If this episode resonated, JOIN US ON PATREON for a deeper conversation using our Free “Define Your Grad School Why” worksheet, designed to help you slow down and get clear before making a big decision.
🗓️ We’ll walk through it together during our weekly Sunday Night Live Check-In on Patreon, January 18th.
Where to Find Our Guest
Instagram: @melissaifilllcsw
Website: melissaifill.com
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Our Production Team
Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session four forty seven of Therapy
for Black Girls podcast and to January Jumpstart. We're all
locked in on our theme of metamorphosis, and today's conversation
is one you don't want to miss. We'll jump right
into it right afterward. From our sponsors. For many black women,
(01:23):
higher education has long been framed as both a pathway
to security and a form of social currency. But when
does the pursuit of another degree serve our growth? And
when does it distract us from the work we actually
want to do. In this episode, I'm joined by Melissa Eiffel,
for a thoughtful conversation about the grad school urge, credential collecting,
(01:44):
and the complicated relationship black women have with education, labor,
and legitimacy. Together, we explore the emotional, cultural, and political
forces that push so many of us towards advanced degrees,
and what it looks like to pause, reflect, and choose intentionally.
If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please
(02:05):
share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG
in Session, or join us in our Patreon channel. To
talk more about the episode, you can join us at
community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation, Melissa,
I am so glad to see you again. Thank you
(02:27):
so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I'm glad to see you again. It's been a while.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It has been.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It has been, But when we started talking about this topic,
it kind of felt like an extension of the conversation
that we've had about black women and entrepreneurship. And today
we're gonna be talking about the black girl urge, as
I call it, sometime to go back to school and
get another degree. So one as I'm thinking about this,
(02:54):
I'm thinking, I wonder if this is something that other communities,
like our white women and also like popping up with
this urge like you know what, I think I need
to go back to school.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Like I just don't know enough to know. But why
do you.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Think there is such a like a strong thread or
like a strong urge for you know, black women. When
maybe we're feeling a little bored, or we're feeling any
kind of thing, one of the things we often are
considering is, oh, I need another degree.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Or I need to go back to school.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah. It's interesting because when I went to look at
some statistics, right, and I didn't look at statistics with
regards to Black women versus white women or any other group,
But what I did notice is that when it comes
to people who tend to return to school later in life,
black women have some of the highest statistics when it
(03:45):
comes to that group. So, like more of us are
in school, we'reen in school later in life, and we're
in school when we have more responsibilities, right, so we
are caregiving either for children or for our parents. And
the reality of it is is that I also looked
at some qualitative data around why black women are choosing
to go back to school, and it's because we believe
(04:08):
that it's going to improve our social economic status. We
believe that we have a sense of responsibility to whether
it's our daughters, our nieces, our nephews, children in our community,
to be able to see people like them get an education,
and overarchingly, especially when it comes to black women wanting
(04:30):
to get a doctorate degree or a master's degree, there's
a belief that if we have a higher educational level,
that will have more impact on systems and that we'll
have a greater ability to be able to support our
own community and people who look like us by shifting
systems and being in control or the head of certain
(04:53):
systems so that we can make things better for those
coming behind us. So I think that when we look
statistics and just anecdotally, when I'm talking to women who
I'm working with who are looking at going back to school,
it's because we think that it's going to make things better.
We think that it'll either of make things better for us,
it'll make things better for our families, or it'll make
(05:14):
things better for the communities at large, which we know
is really consistent with how black women show up right.
There isn't as much of this intrinsic I want to
do this for me. There's a lot of I want
to do this for the people around me and the
circumstances around me, which is consistently with the way that
we move in life in general.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
H And I completely believe all of those stats, right,
Like it makes total sense. I think the difficult part
is that there is often this thinking, but it doesn't
often match up.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
With the reality, right, Like I think.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
We of course all of the isms are what impact, right,
Like if this were any other group, like if this
were white men kind of outpacing everybody in terms of
education all these things, we would see those changes. But
unfortunately we do not see like changes in systems and
like the ability to impact things in the ways that
we would think. Can you talk more about like why
(06:12):
that is?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, like you said the isms, right, So, the reality
of it is is that we're going back to school
and we're out pacing people in terms of the rate
of the people within our community, the rate of black
women receiving higher education degrees. But you know, we still
have a huge income gap, right, We still make sixty
nine cents on the dollar compared to white men who
(06:34):
have the same educational status as we do. So we're
seeing a shift in the circumstances, meaning that we might
make more money than we were making before, but we're
still not giving the opportunities to really make shifts in
terms of systems, or even shifts for our communities at large.
(06:55):
And then I also think that we don't do a
lot of winning the costs. So there's this idea that's
ingrained in many of us that the more educated you are,
sometimes even if you have letters before your name or
after your name, people will listen to you, people will
value your perspective more so you will have more input
and you can create systems and impact systems. But the
(07:18):
reality of it is no matter what letters you have,
it is more about the systems that we're engaging with
that really are constructed in a specific way. They're not
constructed with us in mind. They're not constructed to give
access to our point of view, and in my humble opinion,
(07:38):
they don't care how negatively we are impacted. And so
a lot of times we do this work without a
sense of oh, this is for me, this is for provido,
this is ego. However, our sense of selves and identities
become impacted because we are not able to affect the
change that we actually want. It becomes very despondent with
(08:01):
the systems that we work so hard to be a
part of, and then we receive messaging over and over
and over again, sometimes very conflicted messaging about our value. Right,
so you start off being highly valued, highly sought after,
highly coveted, and then when you get into the role,
into the position, sometimes you find yourself being a figurehead,
(08:24):
or you find yourself fighting against systems that directly reflect
to you how much they devalue you. And so one
of the things I like to always say is that
the energy with the thing stays with the thing until
that thing is dismantled or it is uprooted. And we're
often trying to join environments that are very clear about
how they're constructed and why they're constructed, which is not
(08:46):
for us, by us, or considering us, and we don't
take into account the impact that it will have on us,
not just when we're in those systems after we've gotten
these degrees, but on the journey to achieve these degrees,
the costs, the cost to our families, the course to
our self esteem, the cost to our health, and quite
(09:08):
frankly the cost of our.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Finances, Melissa, I think when I'm having conversations and I'm
sure you two with clients, I also think that a
part of what happens with like the going back to
school is that it is one of the few things
that we have control over, right, right, And so many
of us know how.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
To do school. We have been doing school for so
many years.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
This is a place where I feel very comfortable, right,
Like if I feel out of control and somewhere else
in my life, the thing that I know I'm accessful
at is being a student, right, Like, give me a
good syllabus, give me the reading.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
List, right right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And so I think, in addition to like the economic
advancements and you know, the ways that we are trying
to promote ourselves and advance ourselves and our families, I
do think that one of the subconscious things that is
often at play is this like need for control in school,
feeling like a very familiar place to be able to
get yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And I think to tackle that, this idea of a
place where we can prove that we're good enough, I
think a lot of us are really ingrained with what
it means to be a good black woman. What it
means to be a good girl in school is a
place where it's very easy to be affirmed in that
(10:25):
good girl identity, because, like you said, give me a syllabus,
give me a rubric about how I can be graded,
you know, give me a direct pathway to the degree,
and I can follow that because I know what is
at the end. And the truth about life, right, especially
when you're not in school, is I don't know what's
(10:45):
at the end. There is no hard, fast, rigid rubric
to achieve the things that we desire, especially happiness. When
I was looking at some data when it came to
this conversation, I wanted to see what packed does you know, education, money,
finances make on happiness, right, because I think my personal
(11:07):
belief is that one of the things that we're not
trained how to do enough is to be attuned to
our own joy, right, And the thing that makes the
greatest difference, I think it's It was something like sixty
one percent of the people who answered a happiness survey
said that time made the greatest difference with their happiness.
(11:27):
The ability to decide what they were going to do
with the time, and of course the resources to be
able to engage with the things that they wanted to do.
The thing about time is that when we orient ourselves
a certain way that's internal that's not about anybody else's
(11:47):
reflection to us. So if time and happiness go together,
this idea of success goodness rubric syllabus, these rules believe
that we have to follow. That's very much the antithesis
of time because you're constantly working to achieve something and
(12:08):
sometimes has nothing to do with your inner core and
what actually actually really matters to you.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Know, yeah, yeah, And I know a lot of your work,
Melissa is around like working with black women, around identity
and like your values.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And so if you had a client who was coming
to you saying, you.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Know what, I already have these three degrees, but I'm
thinking I want to go back to school, what kinds
of questions might you ask her? And like what kinds
of things might you be trying to depiece apart to
kind of figure out like, Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
What's actually driving this decision?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So my first question is always wow, like, and my
client's know me well enough. We have a great rapport.
Most of them have been looking for for some time,
and I kind of lower my glasses you know, because
we have these conversations quite often. I'm like, but why
are you doing this? Like why do you want to
do this? And we really pick apart that why right,
(13:06):
and most people just say, well, I think it's time, right,
or I think if I went back to school, I
could really make change, or I hear this quite often,
I've always dreamed about having doctor in front of my name,
or I've always dreamed about making my parents proud. So
we start with the why, and then we get even
(13:27):
more curious about some of the feelings connected to and
attached to the why. I ask them what's missing? What's missing? Right?
What is missing from your current life that you think
this additional degree would support, especially if they already have
advanced degree. Can what you're seeking if it is sort
of a structured way of learning something be achieved in
(13:50):
another way? Do you really need rentorship? Do you need
some sort of certificate program? Like? Is there another way
that what you're seeking, if it's in the realm of learning,
can actually be achieved? And then let's talk about your finances.
What are some of your financial goals, and it's going
to school going to negatively impact that, right? And what
(14:13):
are your supports. What are your supports? Many of the
women that I serve are doing multiple things at the
same time. They have families. Many of them are partnered,
but they bear the brunt of the household responsibilities. Many
of them are unpartnered, and many of us are standwid
So we're caring for parents as we're caring for our children,
(14:36):
and you know, raising children in some way, And so
what kind of supports do you have? Right? And then
we go into their sense of identity? Right? How much
of the little girl who wants to be approved of,
who wants to be supported, who wants to feel like
(14:57):
she has somewhere to go or some direct answers is
showing up in this decision. And a lot of times,
once we give it a beat without them finding the program,
signing up starting school, a lot of them wind up saying,
this actually isn't what I want to do. You know,
this actually isn't what I want to do.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
As I'm listening to you talk, I'm also wondering if
there is not a part of this urge that is
also driven by loneliness. Right, Because when you think about
for many of us, like the last time, maybe you
felt very like care free and like it was easy
to make friends and connect with other people that may
have been like college, right, And so I wonder if
that is also a part of it. Do you think
that that might play into this decision for some people?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
That's actually a very very good question, and it's something
that I haven't really thought about when it comes to school.
But I absolutely can see that we do. Like od
times we talk about the loneliness epidemic right for men,
but I find that it's that way for many of
the women that I service serve. Rather, they don't feel seen,
(16:03):
they don't feel honored, they don't feel in deep connection
with others, and the last time that they remember at
least beginning, like having a direct path to beginning relationship
is in some sort of organized and structured way, and
that tends to be school for us. I also don't
think we have very many hobbies. I think that we
(16:25):
live in a culture where we've turned hobbies and interests
into some aspects of economy. So we've made those our
part time businesses. We've developed the online personas around them
as opposed to just being in them, and so we
don't have natural third spaces, you know, where we can
(16:46):
go and where we can be engaged with things that
we love and meet other people that love the same
things and have real relationships. There's also a depth of
relationship that's missing. You might know people, but you're not
able to be vulnerable with them. You don't spend a
lot of time with them. Everyone is busy. You don't
(17:07):
know how to say to people, I miss you. And
so school is a way where there's this natural sort
of structure around time and seeing people, but it's also
not the depth of relationship that people are seeing. I
see an uptick in loneliness when my clients go to school,
and an uptick and feeling disconnected and separated from the
(17:28):
people who they have been in community with because they
feel more isolated.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
That's a really good point. What do you think are
some of the biggest misconceptions people have about obtaining advanced degrees?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
That it's going to earn them more money first and foremost,
and I think that there's a perception that it's going
to be the same as the last time they were
in school. I find that people who went to school,
whether it was high school, college, or received an advanced
degree before in school felt easy, simple, structured for them.
(18:03):
There's some sort of idea that they're going to return
to school and it's going to be the same way
when you know, most of us are older, and our
brains are going through what they're going through. Most of
the women that I work with are in perimenopause or
you know, menopause or approaching it, and our memory is,
oh child. We are on the struggle bus with memory
(18:28):
and with energy right, and so going to school is
not as easy as it was. It takes a different
set of skills and a different sensib awareness for self.
I also think that there's this idea that the faculty
are naturally going to be supportive and that they're naturally
going to be welcomed into the environment. And a lot
(18:48):
of the times, the black women who are going back
to school, especially when they're going for doctorate degrees, research
degrees or even master's degrees that allow them to take
on a v search lens. They're interested in researching things
that have to do with their lived experience. And if
you're in an environment where your lived experience is not
(19:09):
valued or that research is not seen as important, you're
fighting an uphill battle. So you can learn all of
the things, but the way that you want to embody
and promote it in the environment is a fight, and
I think many times they're not ready for that fight.
They're not ready for the fight of academia. And then
(19:31):
also not knowing what the degree that you're looking to
pursue actually offers you after you're done. Right, Some degrees
are research based, and what you are able to do
when you're done has to do with teaching, and if
you're not necessarily interested in teaching or research, sometimes that's
a shock to people because it doesn't actually allow them
(19:55):
to do what they want to do. And some people
don't even think about what they want to do after
the urge is just to get the degree. And so
there's a lot of things that you know, need to
be considered before cool.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
More from our conversation after the break, you mentioned the environment,
and I feel like even before we were seeing all
of the you know, DEI rollbacks and cutbacks and people
not prioritizing that like grad school, especially like PG programs
(20:33):
are just historically hard, right, Like we are often one
a few in a cohort. If it's like a cohort model,
like there's still just like a plethoro.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
One, right, Like they're not.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
There's not a plethora of us typically in grad programs.
And you're right, So if you're if you're looking to
research things like your lived experience or something that is
like a community support kind of thing, you are likely
not to get any support.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
What can you say about like the times that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We're living in now, right and like the like blihood
feels maybe even a little less of a chance that
you will get support from fact go to you or
even the institution itself.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I don't know if the audience is going to be
able to see my facial expressions, but I feel like
we're living in a hostile environment. I feel say the
lease to say the least, it's not a targeted environment right,
like where we are actually being targeted. I have a
hypothesis some of what's being done in terms of DEI rollbacks,
(21:32):
in terms of some of the degrees being deprofessionalized when
it comes to being able to take out higher loan amounts.
I have a hypothesis that some of that is directly
because there are so many women and specifically women of color,
Black women in particular, receiving these degrees and embedded in
(21:53):
these professions. Right and so I think that it's even
more of a hostile environment, and not just in the
academic institution, but then even the ability to gain access
to it most of us when we're going for you know,
higher degrees, right, Like we're not funded, we're not fully funded, right,
(22:14):
and so you're taking out loans and now you're not
really even able to be able to do that based
on the new rollouts from the Department of Education and
the federal loans, right. And even if you are able
to do that, the amount of stress that that causes
on you post degree in terms of how much loans
you have to what the job actually pays, right, so
(22:37):
what you're actually earning. So I think that there's socially
and culturally there and systemically, I think that there's a
direct sort of attempt to diminish what people are able
to achieve, especially women and black women in particular. My opinion,
I don't have any stats to back that up, but
(22:59):
that is my opinion. And I think that because of that, environmentally,
there's no longer a need to hide it. I think
that when we live in a society where we at
least have systems that may not truthfully purport the same
values and beliefs that they have. But like, even if
(23:20):
their language acts like it does, it gives people a
little bit more pause when they have things to say
or do that you know, go against rhetoric, right, propaganda
and rhetoric. But when the propaganda and the rhetoric is
very clear that we don't care about that, there's not
even an attempt that people have to make to act
(23:44):
like they care about that. And so when we look
at what's being funded, what's not being funded, When we
look at money not being able to be earmarked specifically
for black and brown students, for students based on gender,
when we look at socially, even I have my own
beliefs against the you know, push against the Divine nine organizations, right, Like,
(24:10):
I really think that all of that speaks to a
breakdown of access points and community and you know, ways
for us to be big and bold and accepted in
spaces that have historically been rejecting of us. And I
think that it makes room for more outright rejection without
(24:33):
even having to give language to the why. Right, it's
just this is not a fit, this is not a seah.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
You know, I hadn't thought about the impact that seeing
the ways that like our fields in particular are being
do you professionalize? Right, Like, you look at the list
and it definitely feels like it is a very high
percentage of like where you see women show up, and
especially women of color and in particular black women, right. Yeah,
But I had not thought about the mental health impact
(25:04):
of you know, like how so much of our worth
is tied to our professional identity and now how these
systems are saying like, oh, yeah, but this isn't even
a professional degree, Like this doesn't even matter anymore. And
so hearing you talk about it that way, it definitely
makes me think about, like this is yet another attack
on our mental health that I hadn't even put together yet.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, yeah, And I think that for me brings up
a chink in our armor. Right when we talk about
this idea and we kind of discussed this before when
we met last time, When we talk about this idea
of excellent, when we talk about what it means to
be black and excellent, when we really embody this idea
(25:45):
of what it means to be a good enough black
woman who is excellent, A lot of that has to
do with how we present ourselves. What are our titles,
what educational level we have if we're partnered, if we're
not partnered, what we believe, what our posture is, what
clothes we wear. A lot of identity for black women
(26:07):
is historically cloaked. And what does it mean to be
good enough? What does it mean to be good enough?
And so I think that this deprofessionalization and entitled and
I mean it has created a very big uproar and chasm,
right Like if we look at our online communities a therapists,
people are like, oh, they're coming for us, They're trying
(26:30):
to say that we're not good enough. Then you know
some people are like, oh, but they're trying to take
our money away. And then you have others who are like,
why do you want to cruise so much debt? Anyway?
Like I don't make that much money, so why do
you want to do that? And that's created a chasm
because we're kind of like inviting about its value and
if it should or it should not be valuable to us.
(26:52):
And when I say it's a chink in our armor,
I think so much of our armor and sense of
personal identity has very little to do with who we
are and very much to do with what we carry
what we can do and how we can present. And
I think that when we talk about going back to school,
sometimes that's another way that we're trying to bolster our
(27:17):
identity by how we can't present and proving that we're
good enough. You know, when we talk about loneliness, and
when we talk about black women, we can escape talking
about partnership, and we can escape talking about women who
early in life chose career and education over having children, right,
(27:41):
And some of what we're facing with a sense of
loneliness is this idea of the life that we imagined
that we would have at whatever age that we are,
we don't have. And so some of it comes from
this very real place of well, I don't have what
I thought I would have. I may not even have
(28:01):
what I want to have. How can I create something
else for myself? And I want to be clear that
there's nothing wrong with reimagining life, but reimagining life from
a place of your why and from a place of
seeing yourself as whole already without it. It's very different
(28:24):
from reimagining life and thinking that anything that you add
to your life will make you whole. Those are very
different dynamics. It gives you a very different purview, and
it also makes you act very different questions about if
you want to pursue it, and then the kind of
environment that you choose if you decide to pursue it.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, I had not thought about that.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I mean, I think, like in the larger picture, of course,
like you think about partnership as a part of this conversation.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
But I'm now reminded.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And I don't feel like I've seen this as much recently,
but I definitely feel like when I was in grad school,
there was all of this tension around Okay, are you
going to spend these prime years of your life kind
of in school or are you going to be pursuing partnership?
And it was often a taunt I think at black women, like, oh,
these degrees are not going to keep you warm, and
(29:18):
in all of these you're.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Spending all of these times, all this time trying to.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Like focus on a degree, but like what about all
these other parts of your life?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And so it definitely feels like that is something that
has been historically something we've carried.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Is this this idea that you have to choose one
or the other?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah? Yeah, And I'm absolutely with you when I when
you say that, you don't hear it as much now.
I think we hear a large narrative now, like there's
this whole thing about your boyfriend's will embarrass you. You
know what I mean, Yes, you have a right like
a husband. It's as good as you think he is.
And as you know, being a woman of a certain age,
(29:54):
I'm forty seven and I am on partner seeking partnership
as I have more conversations with women who are my age. Yeah,
I have developed the life that I'm very happy to have.
Like I think before there was this idea of it
either or so, like either you're going to do this
or you're going to do that. I think more of
us as we get older in age and as our
(30:16):
children leave the home and things of that nature, we're
looking at the end, right, And so I want to
be clear that I don't necessarily think that it needs
to be like, oh, you're trying to go back to
school because you lonely, Like I don't want to feed
that narrative. And we have to be aware of all
(30:37):
of the factors embedded in our why once again, not
because it'll make you necessarily choose something different, but how
you enter the space of what you're choosing can be
different and it can be healthier, right. And I do
want us to be clear about our wives because I
really have worked with women who have done damage to
(30:59):
their body when it comes to returning to school because
of how they have re entered the space. So, if
you're working full time, you are caregiving for children and
or parents, or if you're a partnered you may have
a job that requires a lot of you in addition
to just being employed. And we tend to want to
do things with excellence, right, give, I will all overgive
(31:23):
And you're taking a full courseload in a graduate program,
like can your body really withstand that? Like we all
have unique genetic imprint about what our body can withsin.
I know personally for me, when my body is overstressed,
anxiety and depression becomes super high ended in my every
(31:45):
day and this is what makes room for our bodies
to start to break down. Right, Because we also have
to know when to say whan when to take a break.
So if you're entering this realm from a place loanliness
that you have an unpacked from a place of trying
to find goodness that you haven't identified because you're trying
(32:07):
to recreate a life because you haven't dealt with the
sadness so for what you don't have, or because you
want other people to look to you and say, ooh,
she did it and you don't know that, right, that's
not in your consciousness. You can be subconsciously creating sickness, illness,
greater stress for yourself that you haven't adequately identified or
(32:30):
put in place the supports that you need to be
able to withstand the joint.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
More from our conversation after the break. So what does
that support typically look like? Melissa, Like, let's say you
know I've done the work I've identified, Like, Okay, I
think I'm going back for the right reasons, but you
do still need support. What does that support look like?
(32:57):
And how do you start to build it?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
So the first level of support that I tell people
to look at is what kind of schedule is going
to suit you best? Right? So, like, what is the
structure of the learning environment that you're going on? Is
it in Purson, is it online? Is it hybrid? Right?
Then what kind of environment do you need to feel
like you can excel and do well? Right? So, some
(33:22):
people can withstand a environment that is not supportive, right,
meaning they can go into their show, do the work,
they have a supportive family and friends team who they
can vent to if things get tough. They feel like
they may have other people in different spheres of academia,
not at the school they're assigned to. So the school
(33:43):
that they're signed to serves, you know, more utility. And
then there are those of us me, I'm not going
back to school lack and I'll never not. However, if
I were to say yes to that, I know I
need an environment where I can see and taught to
people and like feel connected and feel supported and feel
(34:04):
cared about. That is important to you know, my emotional constitution.
So you know, what do you need emotionally in that environment?
Then what do you need from the people around you
based on the schedule that you've chosen, right, you know,
based on the type of coursework that's there? Do you
need somebody to pick up your children? Right? Do you
(34:24):
need a reduced schedule at work? Do you need a
job that understands that there's some days or you know,
sometime periods where a school might be more intense or
more hectic, and so you know, projects that work might
shift how long have you been at your job to
where they may give you this leeway? Does your job
offer time or for school or some sort of funding
(34:48):
for school? So what do you need in the environment
around you? Do you need meal prep right? Do you
need somebody who can help you prepare meals? Do you
need you know a good girlfriend to talk to. Do
you need to schedule a massage regularly because the embody
needs to be worked out? Do you need to go
run your labs with your doctor to see what your
(35:08):
health is like right now? Like? What do you need physically, emotionally,
tangibly in the environment and in your personal life to
be able to sustain your journey? And then I always
ask people to set up their boundaries. How will you
know if this continues to be for you? There's a
(35:30):
sticktuitiveness that some of us have. Right, I've made my bed,
so I have to lie in it. This degree is
going to take me five years. I have to chruch
through all five right, come hell of high water, no
matter how it is impacting you. And so what are
your boundaries? If you see it to start impact your
(35:50):
children in certain ways? Will you give yourself permission to
pause if it starts to impact your health in certain ways.
Can you give yourself permission to pause and will you
know that this no longer serves you so that you
can begin to make some concrete decisions and always be
aware of its impact. You know. One of the things
(36:12):
that I had to come to terms with, Like I said,
not going back to school, but working multiple jobs has
always been a thing for me. I really sat down,
and I have worked two three jobs, side projects the
majority of my professional career, or had a job, you know,
like when I was a director of a nonprofit and
(36:34):
we did like residential programs. I was on call twenty
four hours a day to be gusuations about days a
year you know, in office, our office vacation not And
what gave me pause because I wasn't even aware of
the impact of it was having on me. But what
gave me pause was the impact that was having on
my data. And I didn't have the consciousness to be
(36:54):
able to even check in. Right. I was like, this
is what we do. We live in New York City,
we make good money, right like, we need to live
a certain way. And when I realized the impact that
it was happening on her, I had to say, oh,
is this worth it? Is this really worth it to me?
(37:14):
And once I realized it wasn't, I completely shifted my
life right and then got her some supports that she
needed for the residual, right for the residual. So we
need to have our boundaries. We need to understand what
makes the difference for us, and I cannot we live
in forty seventy economy. I just want to be very
(37:36):
clear about that. We live in forty seventy economy, and
so what does it mean for you and your family
if you're taking on more debt, the amount of stress
and that I see the debt from student loans bring
to the people that I work with, to the families,
some of them have been like that degree wasn't worth
(37:57):
it to me. I'm making the extra three, four or
five thousand dollars a year and I have a cool
fifty to sixty seventy one hundred dollars in debt and
I'm paying more with student loans. So actually my income
is less than it was before I went to school.
So we have to begin to define our parameters about
not just the why, but the kinds of lives that
(38:18):
we want, and at what point is the impact not
worth it? Right, So it's the juice worth the squeeze.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, you know, I really appreciate you talking about the sticktuitiveness,
because that was going to be a question I have
for you. Is that I think it is like both
the blessing and the curse of like how black women
often show up right, like you give us a task,
like we are going to master it, and like do excellent.
But I think that also means that we are often
not giving ourselves grace and like not giving our self
(38:47):
permission to hit the escape button right, like rah, this
was a good idea, but not so much anymore?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
And then what is excellence? Sometimes we judge ourselves by
excellent space on the outcome that we achieve, not recognizing
that the circumstances that we have to function under to
be able to get the same outcome as someone else
are very, very very different. So we wind up working harder,
feeling very much ashamed. I feel like we're doing something
(39:14):
wrong when the environments that we've chosen to be in
are not environments that actually serve what outcomes we're seeking.
And then we internalize that like it's something wrong with us,
and it's a very natural thing, because we can be
very outcomes driven. A part of this stuitiveness is I've
decided I want to do this, not just and here's
(39:38):
the real kicker, not just that I want to do this,
but I want to do this in this timeframe, and
if I don't do it in this timeframe, I fail. So,
from what I understand about the doctor degree and even
some master's degrees, you have to write something, you have
to research something, write something, then get approval, and you
(40:02):
also have to be published. Like some of that is
outside of your control. If you have committee members who
don't want to work with you for real, well, first
of all, if it's hard for you to find committee members,
then you have ones who've been pressured to work with you,
don't really want to work with you for real, don't
really believe in your topic, think you should be researching
(40:22):
things differently, right, constantly want to give you these like
minor corrections that have nothing to do with nothing for real,
or they constantly contradict themselves. Or it's hard for you
to get published because it is hard for you to
find a journal that is interested in your topic, or like,
some of that is outside of your control. But yet
(40:43):
you internalize it like there's something wrong, what's you And
for women who are used to being very successful and
you know, doing things that they set their mind to,
it's not just the getting into school and then doing
the coursework. It's also how we manage what we deem
is not being successful because of all of these external
(41:04):
factors that have nothing to do with our worst and value,
nothing to do with our worth and value. And then
now that's an additional layer of stress because it's not
just what you're doing, it's also how you're internalizing what
you deem to be successful if it's completely outside of
your control because you're doing your best, and so I
think that's another marker of it. Sometimes it takes you
(41:26):
longer if you're really committed to doing this, if you
checked out your why and everything lines up, you got
your support. Sometimes we need grace for how long. It's
not going to take you two, three, four years. It
might take you five, six, seven, right, and so how
you carry that time, how you carry that length of
time is more important than the amount of time I
(41:50):
would rather use. I would rather see you carry seven
years well, in healthy, in whole right than do three
or four stressed out sick, ill, suppressed, anxious, and then
not really able to meet your other responsibilities and obligations,
well those things that matter, like for your legacy in
(42:13):
terms of your family.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Right, so you've already talked with us about, you know,
like the lack of hobbies that we will sometimes have.
Do you have other thoughts about how we can kind
of redefine and reimagine our relationship to success that is
outside of going back to school.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
That's such a deep question for me, and actually maybe
even a little emotional one. I have personally found that
since my daughter has been at college, like and even
as I was preparing for it her last year of
high school. Oh, like, I don't know a hobby, Like,
what do I actually love to do? Right besides work
and help people? Like? What do I actually love to do?
(42:53):
And what I had to realize is some of what
I've loved to do, I do it through my work.
But then what if I did it out right? I
love to read. I absolutely love to read. I read
a lot for work, but what if I read a
lot for pleasure?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Right?
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I love to meet new people and talk to them
and be supportive. Well, what if that look like volunteering
in a way that allowed me to leave that there
is opposed to bring it home. Right? So what if
I just gave out meals? Right? What if I was
a part of a women's group but didn't lead it right?
But if I receive support as opposed to give it right?
So it is really about understanding what parts of life
(43:35):
do you enjoy? And then is it the way that
you're engaging with those things that are not really you know,
supportive of a full life, but it's more geared towards productivity, right,
So I think that's the piece. Right. How are we
viewing what is productive? Is it only productive if it
(43:55):
yields income? Is it only productive if it yields results
for or someone else? Is it only productive if someone
else can look at it and say that it's beneficial?
Is it enough that it brings you a sense of joy,
a sense of peace, a sense of connection to self,
a sense of connection to creator? Right? How are we
(44:19):
internalizing or looking at the lives that we're building from
a sense of internal mechanisms versus external When we looked
at when I was looking at the studies around while
black women in particular want to go back to college,
so much of it was external. It had to do
(44:39):
with a sense of productivity and a sense of community,
and not really things, not much of it had to
do with a sense of internal joy and peace and
connection or purpose. And so really we orienting ourselves when
we're looking at the lives that we're building and really
(45:00):
investigating what we're seeing as productive and valuable and worthy.
And sometimes just because it makes me smile, like for real,
for me, just like that makes it worthy enough.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah. So when listen to the conversation we're having today
as a part of our January Jumpstar series, and our
theme for this year is all about metamorphosis, Oh.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I am not ever I love that reaction. So so
to stay with the theme, in one word, what does
your twenty twenty six metamorphosis look like?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Oh, you should have prepare me for this question.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
This is the best preparation.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
But that's seed. I was just having a conversation about
this this morning. Wow. Sovereignty, sovereignty. Yeah, I've been pretty
vocal in my like my personal channels and things like
that about the shift I've made in my spiritual and
(46:17):
professionally even ACNA your spiritual professional personal life over the
past few years, right. Like I had a group practice,
I closed it down. I was part of the largest
spiritual community, and you know, I decided that that was
not for me anymore. My daughters in college and I
am a bird launcher, right, and so sovereignty. This is
(46:41):
the first time in my life I've lived my life
for me, that I'm constructing a life for me, what
feels aligned for me, and not that I'm not still
in community or that I don't still take care of
my daughter. I'm still very much integral with my family,
but it's coming from this place of where am I centered,
what is grounding for me? What is whole for me?
(47:03):
And I've been working on developing curriculum, actually developed curriculum,
but been teaching a course on ego and you know,
personal development for the past two years. And as I've
done that work, when we do that kind of work,
we have to be doing that kind of work for ourselves, right,
And so really understanding what aspects of myself I've developed
(47:24):
that have been very much rooted in community that no
longer serve me, right, that have been really rooted, and
what's best for others and how cannot support others and
have completely completely taken myself out of the equation. So
what does it mean to be interdependent? What does it
mean to be sovereign and whole? As I am, as
(47:45):
I love other people and support other people and care
for other people. I'm being taken on a journey, you
know what I mean. And my imagination is like, oh,
some interesting things are about to happen. But sovereignty, sovereignty,
I've been placed earthside this lifetime with a purpose for
(48:05):
me as well as for others. And so what does
that look like to twenty twenty six? Sovereignty?
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Love it?
Speaker 1 (48:13):
What's one thing you're protecting more fiercely this year?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Oh? My joy, my joy, you know, my joy. I
think it's very easy to with the spirit of stick suitiveness,
with the spirit of care, with the spirit of responsibility,
the spirit of responsibility. I've agreed to this, so I
have to do it, or I have these bills to pay,
(48:41):
or I have this idea of what things should be.
Without giving myself the opportunity, without giving ourselves the opportunity
to consistently reimagine, consistently check in to see if it
still works for us, Consistently check in to see the
way that we thought it would work needs to be shifted, right,
is it actually working that way? And so joy is
(49:03):
not the state of consistently being happy with something or
like consistentitly being happy in life. No, joy is the
ability to be connected to self, to be connected to peace,
and to have the tools that you need at all
times to be brought back to censor no matter what
you're going through. The things I've been through in the
past two years have really taught me and shown me like, oh,
(49:27):
like I thought I needed that. Like I thought I
needed that that way, like that thing that way to
be happy. I thought I needed that thing that way
to feel good about myself. I thought I needed that,
you know. And it's like mm hmm. The sadness will come,
the grieving will come, the awareness of the lass will come,
(49:51):
and I can still access my joy. Right. The anxiety
will be present, right, the fear will be present, and
I can still access my joy. So yeah, I'm always
protecting my joy. I'm always wanting to come back to
what's this about? Does it actually serve me? And so
that's what I'm protecting fiercely, fiercely, Like anything can go anybody.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
Right, anybody and anything.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Anything can you mean, yeah, that love that.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
We will definitely want to stay in touch with you
so that we can follow this journey that you are
kind of embarking on yours for yourself, because I feel
like it is something that gives others permission to do
some of that for their themselves as well.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
Where can we stay connected with you?
Speaker 1 (50:39):
What is your website as well as any social media
channels you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Yeah, so I still have Melissa Eiffel dot com. However,
the websites tends to be most active on in terms
of like sending emails out, news service and things like that.
Is reflecting Joy, reflecting hyphenjoy dot com. And then the
oh the two social media because I'm actually more active
on reds now that I am on Instagram, so threads
(51:03):
in Instagram both, Melissa, I feel OLSSW perfect.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
We'll be sure to include that in the show notes.
And I appreciate you sharing that new website because I
wasn't aware that you were doing something new on that,
so I got to sign up so I can give
my lessons as well.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yes, doctor Joy, please continue to keep doing what you're doing.
You are quiet, You're not one of those people that's
like loud about everything, and when you choose to do
something and when you choose to speak, it is meaningful.
And so I just want to encourage you to continue, continue, continue,
because I can only imagine in the spaces that you're
(51:40):
in it's not always easy, and so I just want
to encourage you to continue. So thank you for this platform. Always.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Thank you, Melissa. It's always a treat to chat with you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Thank you for joining us again. Absolutely, I'm so glad
Melissa was able to join me for today's conversation. To
learn more about her and her work, be sure to
visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com
slash session four forty seven, and don't forget to text
two of your girls right now and tell them to
check out the episode. Did you know that you could
(52:12):
leave us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for
the podcast. If there's a book or movie you'd like
us to review or have topics you think we should discuss,
drop us a message at Memo dot fm slash Therapy
for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind.
We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're
looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist
(52:32):
directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. Don't
forget to follow us over on Instagram at Therapy for
Black Girls, and make sure to join us over at
our Patreon community for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content,
and much more. You can join us at community dot
Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was produced by
(52:52):
Elise Ellis, Indychubu, and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by
Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again
this week.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Week.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all
real soon.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Take good care,
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session four forty seven of Therapy
for Black Girls podcast and to January Jumpstart. We're all
locked in on our theme of metamorphosis, and today's conversation
is one you don't want to miss. We'll jump right
into it right afterward. From our sponsors. For many black women,
(01:23):
higher education has long been framed as both a pathway
to security and a form of social currency. But when
does the pursuit of another degree serve our growth? And
when does it distract us from the work we actually
want to do. In this episode, I'm joined by Melissa Eiffel,
for a thoughtful conversation about the grad school urge, credential collecting,
(01:44):
and the complicated relationship black women have with education, labor,
and legitimacy. Together, we explore the emotional, cultural, and political
forces that push so many of us towards advanced degrees,
and what it looks like to pause, reflect, and choose intentionally.
If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please
(02:05):
share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG
in Session, or join us in our Patreon channel. To
talk more about the episode, you can join us at
community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation, Melissa,
I am so glad to see you again. Thank you
(02:27):
so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I'm glad to see you again. It's been a while.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It has been.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It has been, But when we started talking about this topic,
it kind of felt like an extension of the conversation
that we've had about black women and entrepreneurship. And today
we're gonna be talking about the black girl urge, as
I call it, sometime to go back to school and
get another degree. So one as I'm thinking about this,
(02:54):
I'm thinking, I wonder if this is something that other communities,
like our white women and also like popping up with
this urge like you know what, I think I need
to go back to school.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Like I just don't know enough to know. But why
do you.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Think there is such a like a strong thread or
like a strong urge for you know, black women. When
maybe we're feeling a little bored, or we're feeling any
kind of thing, one of the things we often are
considering is, oh, I need another degree.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Or I need to go back to school.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah. It's interesting because when I went to look at
some statistics, right, and I didn't look at statistics with
regards to Black women versus white women or any other group,
But what I did notice is that when it comes
to people who tend to return to school later in life,
black women have some of the highest statistics when it
(03:45):
comes to that group. So, like more of us are
in school, we'reen in school later in life, and we're
in school when we have more responsibilities, right, so we
are caregiving either for children or for our parents. And
the reality of it is is that I also looked
at some qualitative data around why black women are choosing
to go back to school, and it's because we believe
(04:08):
that it's going to improve our social economic status. We
believe that we have a sense of responsibility to whether
it's our daughters, our nieces, our nephews, children in our community,
to be able to see people like them get an education,
and overarchingly, especially when it comes to black women wanting
(04:30):
to get a doctorate degree or a master's degree, there's
a belief that if we have a higher educational level,
that will have more impact on systems and that we'll
have a greater ability to be able to support our
own community and people who look like us by shifting
systems and being in control or the head of certain
(04:53):
systems so that we can make things better for those
coming behind us. So I think that when we look
statistics and just anecdotally, when I'm talking to women who
I'm working with who are looking at going back to school,
it's because we think that it's going to make things better.
We think that it'll either of make things better for us,
it'll make things better for our families, or it'll make
(05:14):
things better for the communities at large, which we know
is really consistent with how black women show up right.
There isn't as much of this intrinsic I want to
do this for me. There's a lot of I want
to do this for the people around me and the
circumstances around me, which is consistently with the way that
we move in life in general.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
H And I completely believe all of those stats, right,
Like it makes total sense. I think the difficult part
is that there is often this thinking, but it doesn't
often match up.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
With the reality, right, Like I think.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
We of course all of the isms are what impact, right,
Like if this were any other group, like if this
were white men kind of outpacing everybody in terms of
education all these things, we would see those changes. But
unfortunately we do not see like changes in systems and
like the ability to impact things in the ways that
we would think. Can you talk more about like why
(06:12):
that is?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, like you said the isms, right, So, the reality
of it is is that we're going back to school
and we're out pacing people in terms of the rate
of the people within our community, the rate of black
women receiving higher education degrees. But you know, we still
have a huge income gap, right, We still make sixty
nine cents on the dollar compared to white men who
(06:34):
have the same educational status as we do. So we're
seeing a shift in the circumstances, meaning that we might
make more money than we were making before, but we're
still not giving the opportunities to really make shifts in
terms of systems, or even shifts for our communities at large.
(06:55):
And then I also think that we don't do a
lot of winning the costs. So there's this idea that's
ingrained in many of us that the more educated you are,
sometimes even if you have letters before your name or
after your name, people will listen to you, people will
value your perspective more so you will have more input
and you can create systems and impact systems. But the
(07:18):
reality of it is no matter what letters you have,
it is more about the systems that we're engaging with
that really are constructed in a specific way. They're not
constructed with us in mind. They're not constructed to give
access to our point of view, and in my humble opinion,
(07:38):
they don't care how negatively we are impacted. And so
a lot of times we do this work without a
sense of oh, this is for me, this is for provido,
this is ego. However, our sense of selves and identities
become impacted because we are not able to affect the
change that we actually want. It becomes very despondent with
(08:01):
the systems that we work so hard to be a
part of, and then we receive messaging over and over
and over again, sometimes very conflicted messaging about our value. Right,
so you start off being highly valued, highly sought after,
highly coveted, and then when you get into the role,
into the position, sometimes you find yourself being a figurehead,
(08:24):
or you find yourself fighting against systems that directly reflect
to you how much they devalue you. And so one
of the things I like to always say is that
the energy with the thing stays with the thing until
that thing is dismantled or it is uprooted. And we're
often trying to join environments that are very clear about
how they're constructed and why they're constructed, which is not
(08:46):
for us, by us, or considering us, and we don't
take into account the impact that it will have on us,
not just when we're in those systems after we've gotten
these degrees, but on the journey to achieve these degrees,
the costs, the cost to our families, the course to
our self esteem, the cost to our health, and quite
(09:08):
frankly the cost of our.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Finances, Melissa, I think when I'm having conversations and I'm
sure you two with clients, I also think that a
part of what happens with like the going back to
school is that it is one of the few things
that we have control over, right, right, And so many
of us know how.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
To do school. We have been doing school for so
many years.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
This is a place where I feel very comfortable, right,
Like if I feel out of control and somewhere else
in my life, the thing that I know I'm accessful
at is being a student, right, Like, give me a
good syllabus, give me the reading.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
List, right right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And so I think, in addition to like the economic
advancements and you know, the ways that we are trying
to promote ourselves and advance ourselves and our families, I
do think that one of the subconscious things that is
often at play is this like need for control in school,
feeling like a very familiar place to be able to
get yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And I think to tackle that, this idea of a
place where we can prove that we're good enough, I
think a lot of us are really ingrained with what
it means to be a good black woman. What it
means to be a good girl in school is a
place where it's very easy to be affirmed in that
(10:25):
good girl identity, because, like you said, give me a syllabus,
give me a rubric about how I can be graded,
you know, give me a direct pathway to the degree,
and I can follow that because I know what is
at the end. And the truth about life, right, especially
when you're not in school, is I don't know what's
(10:45):
at the end. There is no hard, fast, rigid rubric
to achieve the things that we desire, especially happiness. When
I was looking at some data when it came to
this conversation, I wanted to see what packed does you know, education, money,
finances make on happiness, right, because I think my personal
(11:07):
belief is that one of the things that we're not
trained how to do enough is to be attuned to
our own joy, right, And the thing that makes the
greatest difference, I think it's It was something like sixty
one percent of the people who answered a happiness survey
said that time made the greatest difference with their happiness.
(11:27):
The ability to decide what they were going to do
with the time, and of course the resources to be
able to engage with the things that they wanted to do.
The thing about time is that when we orient ourselves
a certain way that's internal that's not about anybody else's
(11:47):
reflection to us. So if time and happiness go together,
this idea of success goodness rubric syllabus, these rules believe
that we have to follow. That's very much the antithesis
of time because you're constantly working to achieve something and
(12:08):
sometimes has nothing to do with your inner core and
what actually actually really matters to you.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Know, yeah, yeah, And I know a lot of your work,
Melissa is around like working with black women, around identity
and like your values.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And so if you had a client who was coming
to you saying, you.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Know what, I already have these three degrees, but I'm
thinking I want to go back to school, what kinds
of questions might you ask her? And like what kinds
of things might you be trying to depiece apart to
kind of figure out like, Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
What's actually driving this decision?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So my first question is always wow, like, and my
client's know me well enough. We have a great rapport.
Most of them have been looking for for some time,
and I kind of lower my glasses you know, because
we have these conversations quite often. I'm like, but why
are you doing this? Like why do you want to
do this? And we really pick apart that why right,
(13:06):
and most people just say, well, I think it's time, right,
or I think if I went back to school, I
could really make change, or I hear this quite often,
I've always dreamed about having doctor in front of my name,
or I've always dreamed about making my parents proud. So
we start with the why, and then we get even
(13:27):
more curious about some of the feelings connected to and
attached to the why. I ask them what's missing? What's missing? Right?
What is missing from your current life that you think
this additional degree would support, especially if they already have
advanced degree. Can what you're seeking if it is sort
of a structured way of learning something be achieved in
(13:50):
another way? Do you really need rentorship? Do you need
some sort of certificate program? Like? Is there another way
that what you're seeking, if it's in the realm of learning,
can actually be achieved? And then let's talk about your finances.
What are some of your financial goals, and it's going
to school going to negatively impact that, right? And what
(14:13):
are your supports. What are your supports? Many of the
women that I serve are doing multiple things at the
same time. They have families. Many of them are partnered,
but they bear the brunt of the household responsibilities. Many
of them are unpartnered, and many of us are standwid
So we're caring for parents as we're caring for our children,
(14:36):
and you know, raising children in some way, And so
what kind of supports do you have? Right? And then
we go into their sense of identity? Right? How much
of the little girl who wants to be approved of,
who wants to be supported, who wants to feel like
(14:57):
she has somewhere to go or some direct answers is
showing up in this decision. And a lot of times,
once we give it a beat without them finding the program,
signing up starting school, a lot of them wind up saying,
this actually isn't what I want to do. You know,
this actually isn't what I want to do.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
As I'm listening to you talk, I'm also wondering if
there is not a part of this urge that is
also driven by loneliness. Right, Because when you think about
for many of us, like the last time, maybe you
felt very like care free and like it was easy
to make friends and connect with other people that may
have been like college, right, And so I wonder if
that is also a part of it. Do you think
that that might play into this decision for some people?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
That's actually a very very good question, and it's something
that I haven't really thought about when it comes to school.
But I absolutely can see that we do. Like od
times we talk about the loneliness epidemic right for men,
but I find that it's that way for many of
the women that I service serve. Rather, they don't feel seen,
(16:03):
they don't feel honored, they don't feel in deep connection
with others, and the last time that they remember at
least beginning, like having a direct path to beginning relationship
is in some sort of organized and structured way, and
that tends to be school for us. I also don't
think we have very many hobbies. I think that we
(16:25):
live in a culture where we've turned hobbies and interests
into some aspects of economy. So we've made those our
part time businesses. We've developed the online personas around them
as opposed to just being in them, and so we
don't have natural third spaces, you know, where we can
(16:46):
go and where we can be engaged with things that
we love and meet other people that love the same
things and have real relationships. There's also a depth of
relationship that's missing. You might know people, but you're not
able to be vulnerable with them. You don't spend a
lot of time with them. Everyone is busy. You don't
(17:07):
know how to say to people, I miss you. And
so school is a way where there's this natural sort
of structure around time and seeing people, but it's also
not the depth of relationship that people are seeing. I
see an uptick in loneliness when my clients go to school,
and an uptick and feeling disconnected and separated from the
(17:28):
people who they have been in community with because they
feel more isolated.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
That's a really good point. What do you think are
some of the biggest misconceptions people have about obtaining advanced degrees?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
That it's going to earn them more money first and foremost,
and I think that there's a perception that it's going
to be the same as the last time they were
in school. I find that people who went to school,
whether it was high school, college, or received an advanced
degree before in school felt easy, simple, structured for them.
(18:03):
There's some sort of idea that they're going to return
to school and it's going to be the same way
when you know, most of us are older, and our
brains are going through what they're going through. Most of
the women that I work with are in perimenopause or
you know, menopause or approaching it, and our memory is,
oh child. We are on the struggle bus with memory
(18:28):
and with energy right, and so going to school is
not as easy as it was. It takes a different
set of skills and a different sensib awareness for self.
I also think that there's this idea that the faculty
are naturally going to be supportive and that they're naturally
going to be welcomed into the environment. And a lot
(18:48):
of the times, the black women who are going back
to school, especially when they're going for doctorate degrees, research
degrees or even master's degrees that allow them to take
on a v search lens. They're interested in researching things
that have to do with their lived experience. And if
you're in an environment where your lived experience is not
(19:09):
valued or that research is not seen as important, you're
fighting an uphill battle. So you can learn all of
the things, but the way that you want to embody
and promote it in the environment is a fight, and
I think many times they're not ready for that fight.
They're not ready for the fight of academia. And then
(19:31):
also not knowing what the degree that you're looking to
pursue actually offers you after you're done. Right, Some degrees
are research based, and what you are able to do
when you're done has to do with teaching, and if
you're not necessarily interested in teaching or research, sometimes that's
a shock to people because it doesn't actually allow them
(19:55):
to do what they want to do. And some people
don't even think about what they want to do after
the urge is just to get the degree. And so
there's a lot of things that you know, need to
be considered before cool.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
More from our conversation after the break, you mentioned the environment,
and I feel like even before we were seeing all
of the you know, DEI rollbacks and cutbacks and people
not prioritizing that like grad school, especially like PG programs
(20:33):
are just historically hard, right, Like we are often one
a few in a cohort. If it's like a cohort model,
like there's still just like a plethoro.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
One, right, Like they're not.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
There's not a plethora of us typically in grad programs.
And you're right, So if you're if you're looking to
research things like your lived experience or something that is
like a community support kind of thing, you are likely
not to get any support.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
What can you say about like the times that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We're living in now, right and like the like blihood
feels maybe even a little less of a chance that
you will get support from fact go to you or
even the institution itself.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I don't know if the audience is going to be
able to see my facial expressions, but I feel like
we're living in a hostile environment. I feel say the
lease to say the least, it's not a targeted environment right,
like where we are actually being targeted. I have a
hypothesis some of what's being done in terms of DEI rollbacks,
(21:32):
in terms of some of the degrees being deprofessionalized when
it comes to being able to take out higher loan amounts.
I have a hypothesis that some of that is directly
because there are so many women and specifically women of color,
Black women in particular, receiving these degrees and embedded in
(21:53):
these professions. Right and so I think that it's even
more of a hostile environment, and not just in the
academic institution, but then even the ability to gain access
to it most of us when we're going for you know,
higher degrees, right, Like we're not funded, we're not fully funded, right,
(22:14):
and so you're taking out loans and now you're not
really even able to be able to do that based
on the new rollouts from the Department of Education and
the federal loans, right. And even if you are able
to do that, the amount of stress that that causes
on you post degree in terms of how much loans
you have to what the job actually pays, right, so
(22:37):
what you're actually earning. So I think that there's socially
and culturally there and systemically, I think that there's a
direct sort of attempt to diminish what people are able
to achieve, especially women and black women in particular. My opinion,
I don't have any stats to back that up, but
(22:59):
that is my opinion. And I think that because of that, environmentally,
there's no longer a need to hide it. I think
that when we live in a society where we at
least have systems that may not truthfully purport the same
values and beliefs that they have. But like, even if
(23:20):
their language acts like it does, it gives people a
little bit more pause when they have things to say
or do that you know, go against rhetoric, right, propaganda
and rhetoric. But when the propaganda and the rhetoric is
very clear that we don't care about that, there's not
even an attempt that people have to make to act
(23:44):
like they care about that. And so when we look
at what's being funded, what's not being funded, When we
look at money not being able to be earmarked specifically
for black and brown students, for students based on gender,
when we look at socially, even I have my own
beliefs against the you know, push against the Divine nine organizations, right, Like,
(24:10):
I really think that all of that speaks to a
breakdown of access points and community and you know, ways
for us to be big and bold and accepted in
spaces that have historically been rejecting of us. And I
think that it makes room for more outright rejection without
(24:33):
even having to give language to the why. Right, it's
just this is not a fit, this is not a seah.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
You know, I hadn't thought about the impact that seeing
the ways that like our fields in particular are being
do you professionalize? Right, Like, you look at the list
and it definitely feels like it is a very high
percentage of like where you see women show up, and
especially women of color and in particular black women, right. Yeah,
But I had not thought about the mental health impact
(25:04):
of you know, like how so much of our worth
is tied to our professional identity and now how these
systems are saying like, oh, yeah, but this isn't even
a professional degree, Like this doesn't even matter anymore. And
so hearing you talk about it that way, it definitely
makes me think about, like this is yet another attack
on our mental health that I hadn't even put together yet.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, yeah, And I think that for me brings up
a chink in our armor. Right when we talk about
this idea and we kind of discussed this before when
we met last time, When we talk about this idea
of excellent, when we talk about what it means to
be black and excellent, when we really embody this idea
(25:45):
of what it means to be a good enough black
woman who is excellent, A lot of that has to
do with how we present ourselves. What are our titles,
what educational level we have if we're partnered, if we're
not partnered, what we believe, what our posture is, what
clothes we wear. A lot of identity for black women
(26:07):
is historically cloaked. And what does it mean to be
good enough? What does it mean to be good enough?
And so I think that this deprofessionalization and entitled and
I mean it has created a very big uproar and chasm,
right Like if we look at our online communities a therapists,
people are like, oh, they're coming for us, They're trying
(26:30):
to say that we're not good enough. Then you know
some people are like, oh, but they're trying to take
our money away. And then you have others who are like,
why do you want to cruise so much debt? Anyway?
Like I don't make that much money, so why do
you want to do that? And that's created a chasm
because we're kind of like inviting about its value and
if it should or it should not be valuable to us.
(26:52):
And when I say it's a chink in our armor,
I think so much of our armor and sense of
personal identity has very little to do with who we
are and very much to do with what we carry
what we can do and how we can present. And
I think that when we talk about going back to school,
sometimes that's another way that we're trying to bolster our
(27:17):
identity by how we can't present and proving that we're
good enough. You know, when we talk about loneliness, and
when we talk about black women, we can escape talking
about partnership, and we can escape talking about women who
early in life chose career and education over having children, right,
(27:41):
And some of what we're facing with a sense of
loneliness is this idea of the life that we imagined
that we would have at whatever age that we are,
we don't have. And so some of it comes from
this very real place of well, I don't have what
I thought I would have. I may not even have
(28:01):
what I want to have. How can I create something
else for myself? And I want to be clear that
there's nothing wrong with reimagining life, but reimagining life from
a place of your why and from a place of
seeing yourself as whole already without it. It's very different
(28:24):
from reimagining life and thinking that anything that you add
to your life will make you whole. Those are very
different dynamics. It gives you a very different purview, and
it also makes you act very different questions about if
you want to pursue it, and then the kind of
environment that you choose if you decide to pursue it.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, I had not thought about that.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I mean, I think, like in the larger picture, of course,
like you think about partnership as a part of this conversation.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
But I'm now reminded.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And I don't feel like I've seen this as much recently,
but I definitely feel like when I was in grad school,
there was all of this tension around Okay, are you
going to spend these prime years of your life kind
of in school or are you going to be pursuing partnership?
And it was often a taunt I think at black women, like, oh,
these degrees are not going to keep you warm, and
(29:18):
in all of these you're.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Spending all of these times, all this time trying to.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Like focus on a degree, but like what about all
these other parts of your life?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And so it definitely feels like that is something that
has been historically something we've carried.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Is this this idea that you have to choose one
or the other?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah? Yeah, And I'm absolutely with you when I when
you say that, you don't hear it as much now.
I think we hear a large narrative now, like there's
this whole thing about your boyfriend's will embarrass you. You
know what I mean, Yes, you have a right like
a husband. It's as good as you think he is.
And as you know, being a woman of a certain age,
(29:54):
I'm forty seven and I am on partner seeking partnership
as I have more conversations with women who are my age. Yeah,
I have developed the life that I'm very happy to have.
Like I think before there was this idea of it
either or so, like either you're going to do this
or you're going to do that. I think more of
us as we get older in age and as our
(30:16):
children leave the home and things of that nature, we're
looking at the end, right, And so I want to
be clear that I don't necessarily think that it needs
to be like, oh, you're trying to go back to
school because you lonely, Like I don't want to feed
that narrative. And we have to be aware of all
(30:37):
of the factors embedded in our why once again, not
because it'll make you necessarily choose something different, but how
you enter the space of what you're choosing can be
different and it can be healthier, right. And I do
want us to be clear about our wives because I
really have worked with women who have done damage to
(30:59):
their body when it comes to returning to school because
of how they have re entered the space. So, if
you're working full time, you are caregiving for children and
or parents, or if you're a partnered you may have
a job that requires a lot of you in addition
to just being employed. And we tend to want to
do things with excellence, right, give, I will all overgive
(31:23):
And you're taking a full courseload in a graduate program,
like can your body really withstand that? Like we all
have unique genetic imprint about what our body can withsin.
I know personally for me, when my body is overstressed,
anxiety and depression becomes super high ended in my every
(31:45):
day and this is what makes room for our bodies
to start to break down. Right, Because we also have
to know when to say whan when to take a break.
So if you're entering this realm from a place loanliness
that you have an unpacked from a place of trying
to find goodness that you haven't identified because you're trying
(32:07):
to recreate a life because you haven't dealt with the
sadness so for what you don't have, or because you
want other people to look to you and say, ooh,
she did it and you don't know that, right, that's
not in your consciousness. You can be subconsciously creating sickness, illness,
greater stress for yourself that you haven't adequately identified or
(32:30):
put in place the supports that you need to be
able to withstand the joint.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
More from our conversation after the break. So what does
that support typically look like? Melissa, Like, let's say you
know I've done the work I've identified, Like, Okay, I
think I'm going back for the right reasons, but you
do still need support. What does that support look like?
(32:57):
And how do you start to build it?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
So the first level of support that I tell people
to look at is what kind of schedule is going
to suit you best? Right? So, like, what is the
structure of the learning environment that you're going on? Is
it in Purson, is it online? Is it hybrid? Right?
Then what kind of environment do you need to feel
like you can excel and do well? Right? So, some
(33:22):
people can withstand a environment that is not supportive, right,
meaning they can go into their show, do the work,
they have a supportive family and friends team who they
can vent to if things get tough. They feel like
they may have other people in different spheres of academia,
not at the school they're assigned to. So the school
(33:43):
that they're signed to serves, you know, more utility. And
then there are those of us me, I'm not going
back to school lack and I'll never not. However, if
I were to say yes to that, I know I
need an environment where I can see and taught to
people and like feel connected and feel supported and feel
(34:04):
cared about. That is important to you know, my emotional constitution.
So you know, what do you need emotionally in that environment?
Then what do you need from the people around you
based on the schedule that you've chosen, right, you know,
based on the type of coursework that's there? Do you
need somebody to pick up your children? Right? Do you
(34:24):
need a reduced schedule at work? Do you need a
job that understands that there's some days or you know,
sometime periods where a school might be more intense or
more hectic, and so you know, projects that work might
shift how long have you been at your job to
where they may give you this leeway? Does your job
offer time or for school or some sort of funding
(34:48):
for school? So what do you need in the environment
around you? Do you need meal prep right? Do you
need somebody who can help you prepare meals? Do you
need you know a good girlfriend to talk to. Do
you need to schedule a massage regularly because the embody
needs to be worked out? Do you need to go
run your labs with your doctor to see what your
(35:08):
health is like right now? Like? What do you need physically, emotionally,
tangibly in the environment and in your personal life to
be able to sustain your journey? And then I always
ask people to set up their boundaries. How will you
know if this continues to be for you? There's a
(35:30):
sticktuitiveness that some of us have. Right, I've made my bed,
so I have to lie in it. This degree is
going to take me five years. I have to chruch
through all five right, come hell of high water, no
matter how it is impacting you. And so what are
your boundaries? If you see it to start impact your
(35:50):
children in certain ways? Will you give yourself permission to
pause if it starts to impact your health in certain ways.
Can you give yourself permission to pause and will you
know that this no longer serves you so that you
can begin to make some concrete decisions and always be
aware of its impact. You know. One of the things
(36:12):
that I had to come to terms with, Like I said,
not going back to school, but working multiple jobs has
always been a thing for me. I really sat down,
and I have worked two three jobs, side projects the
majority of my professional career, or had a job, you know,
like when I was a director of a nonprofit and
(36:34):
we did like residential programs. I was on call twenty
four hours a day to be gusuations about days a
year you know, in office, our office vacation not And
what gave me pause because I wasn't even aware of
the impact of it was having on me. But what
gave me pause was the impact that was having on
my data. And I didn't have the consciousness to be
(36:54):
able to even check in. Right. I was like, this
is what we do. We live in New York City,
we make good money, right like, we need to live
a certain way. And when I realized the impact that
it was happening on her, I had to say, oh,
is this worth it? Is this really worth it to me?
(37:14):
And once I realized it wasn't, I completely shifted my
life right and then got her some supports that she
needed for the residual, right for the residual. So we
need to have our boundaries. We need to understand what
makes the difference for us, and I cannot we live
in forty seventy economy. I just want to be very
(37:36):
clear about that. We live in forty seventy economy, and
so what does it mean for you and your family
if you're taking on more debt, the amount of stress
and that I see the debt from student loans bring
to the people that I work with, to the families,
some of them have been like that degree wasn't worth
(37:57):
it to me. I'm making the extra three, four or
five thousand dollars a year and I have a cool
fifty to sixty seventy one hundred dollars in debt and
I'm paying more with student loans. So actually my income
is less than it was before I went to school.
So we have to begin to define our parameters about
not just the why, but the kinds of lives that
(38:18):
we want, and at what point is the impact not
worth it? Right, So it's the juice worth the squeeze.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, you know, I really appreciate you talking about the sticktuitiveness,
because that was going to be a question I have
for you. Is that I think it is like both
the blessing and the curse of like how black women
often show up right, like you give us a task,
like we are going to master it, and like do excellent.
But I think that also means that we are often
not giving ourselves grace and like not giving our self
(38:47):
permission to hit the escape button right, like rah, this
was a good idea, but not so much anymore?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
And then what is excellence? Sometimes we judge ourselves by
excellent space on the outcome that we achieve, not recognizing
that the circumstances that we have to function under to
be able to get the same outcome as someone else
are very, very very different. So we wind up working harder,
feeling very much ashamed. I feel like we're doing something
(39:14):
wrong when the environments that we've chosen to be in
are not environments that actually serve what outcomes we're seeking.
And then we internalize that like it's something wrong with us,
and it's a very natural thing, because we can be
very outcomes driven. A part of this stuitiveness is I've
decided I want to do this, not just and here's
(39:38):
the real kicker, not just that I want to do this,
but I want to do this in this timeframe, and
if I don't do it in this timeframe, I fail. So,
from what I understand about the doctor degree and even
some master's degrees, you have to write something, you have
to research something, write something, then get approval, and you
(40:02):
also have to be published. Like some of that is
outside of your control. If you have committee members who
don't want to work with you for real, well, first
of all, if it's hard for you to find committee members,
then you have ones who've been pressured to work with you,
don't really want to work with you for real, don't
really believe in your topic, think you should be researching
(40:22):
things differently, right, constantly want to give you these like
minor corrections that have nothing to do with nothing for real,
or they constantly contradict themselves. Or it's hard for you
to get published because it is hard for you to
find a journal that is interested in your topic, or like,
some of that is outside of your control. But yet
(40:43):
you internalize it like there's something wrong, what's you And
for women who are used to being very successful and
you know, doing things that they set their mind to,
it's not just the getting into school and then doing
the coursework. It's also how we manage what we deem
is not being successful because of all of these external
(41:04):
factors that have nothing to do with our worst and value,
nothing to do with our worth and value. And then
now that's an additional layer of stress because it's not
just what you're doing, it's also how you're internalizing what
you deem to be successful if it's completely outside of
your control because you're doing your best, and so I
think that's another marker of it. Sometimes it takes you
(41:26):
longer if you're really committed to doing this, if you
checked out your why and everything lines up, you got
your support. Sometimes we need grace for how long. It's
not going to take you two, three, four years. It
might take you five, six, seven, right, and so how
you carry that time, how you carry that length of
time is more important than the amount of time I
(41:50):
would rather use. I would rather see you carry seven
years well, in healthy, in whole right than do three
or four stressed out sick, ill, suppressed, anxious, and then
not really able to meet your other responsibilities and obligations,
well those things that matter, like for your legacy in
(42:13):
terms of your family.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Right, so you've already talked with us about, you know,
like the lack of hobbies that we will sometimes have.
Do you have other thoughts about how we can kind
of redefine and reimagine our relationship to success that is
outside of going back to school.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
That's such a deep question for me, and actually maybe
even a little emotional one. I have personally found that
since my daughter has been at college, like and even
as I was preparing for it her last year of
high school. Oh, like, I don't know a hobby, Like,
what do I actually love to do? Right besides work
and help people? Like? What do I actually love to do?
(42:53):
And what I had to realize is some of what
I've loved to do, I do it through my work.
But then what if I did it out right? I
love to read. I absolutely love to read. I read
a lot for work, but what if I read a
lot for pleasure?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Right?
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I love to meet new people and talk to them
and be supportive. Well, what if that look like volunteering
in a way that allowed me to leave that there
is opposed to bring it home. Right? So what if
I just gave out meals? Right? What if I was
a part of a women's group but didn't lead it right?
But if I receive support as opposed to give it right?
So it is really about understanding what parts of life
(43:35):
do you enjoy? And then is it the way that
you're engaging with those things that are not really you know,
supportive of a full life, but it's more geared towards productivity, right,
So I think that's the piece. Right. How are we
viewing what is productive? Is it only productive if it
(43:55):
yields income? Is it only productive if it yields results
for or someone else? Is it only productive if someone
else can look at it and say that it's beneficial?
Is it enough that it brings you a sense of joy,
a sense of peace, a sense of connection to self,
a sense of connection to creator? Right? How are we
(44:19):
internalizing or looking at the lives that we're building from
a sense of internal mechanisms versus external When we looked
at when I was looking at the studies around while
black women in particular want to go back to college,
so much of it was external. It had to do
(44:39):
with a sense of productivity and a sense of community,
and not really things, not much of it had to
do with a sense of internal joy and peace and
connection or purpose. And so really we orienting ourselves when
we're looking at the lives that we're building and really
(45:00):
investigating what we're seeing as productive and valuable and worthy.
And sometimes just because it makes me smile, like for real,
for me, just like that makes it worthy enough.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah. So when listen to the conversation we're having today
as a part of our January Jumpstar series, and our
theme for this year is all about metamorphosis, Oh.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I am not ever I love that reaction. So so
to stay with the theme, in one word, what does
your twenty twenty six metamorphosis look like?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Oh, you should have prepare me for this question.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
This is the best preparation.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
But that's seed. I was just having a conversation about
this this morning. Wow. Sovereignty, sovereignty. Yeah, I've been pretty
vocal in my like my personal channels and things like
that about the shift I've made in my spiritual and
(46:17):
professionally even ACNA your spiritual professional personal life over the
past few years, right. Like I had a group practice,
I closed it down. I was part of the largest
spiritual community, and you know, I decided that that was
not for me anymore. My daughters in college and I
am a bird launcher, right, and so sovereignty. This is
(46:41):
the first time in my life I've lived my life
for me, that I'm constructing a life for me, what
feels aligned for me, and not that I'm not still
in community or that I don't still take care of
my daughter. I'm still very much integral with my family,
but it's coming from this place of where am I centered,
what is grounding for me? What is whole for me?
(47:03):
And I've been working on developing curriculum, actually developed curriculum,
but been teaching a course on ego and you know,
personal development for the past two years. And as I've
done that work, when we do that kind of work,
we have to be doing that kind of work for ourselves, right,
And so really understanding what aspects of myself I've developed
(47:24):
that have been very much rooted in community that no
longer serve me, right, that have been really rooted, and
what's best for others and how cannot support others and
have completely completely taken myself out of the equation. So
what does it mean to be interdependent? What does it
mean to be sovereign and whole? As I am, as
(47:45):
I love other people and support other people and care
for other people. I'm being taken on a journey, you
know what I mean. And my imagination is like, oh,
some interesting things are about to happen. But sovereignty, sovereignty,
I've been placed earthside this lifetime with a purpose for
(48:05):
me as well as for others. And so what does
that look like to twenty twenty six? Sovereignty?
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Love it?
Speaker 1 (48:13):
What's one thing you're protecting more fiercely this year?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Oh? My joy, my joy, you know, my joy. I
think it's very easy to with the spirit of stick suitiveness,
with the spirit of care, with the spirit of responsibility,
the spirit of responsibility. I've agreed to this, so I
have to do it, or I have these bills to pay,
(48:41):
or I have this idea of what things should be.
Without giving myself the opportunity, without giving ourselves the opportunity
to consistently reimagine, consistently check in to see if it
still works for us, Consistently check in to see the
way that we thought it would work needs to be shifted, right,
is it actually working that way? And so joy is
(49:03):
not the state of consistently being happy with something or
like consistentitly being happy in life. No, joy is the
ability to be connected to self, to be connected to peace,
and to have the tools that you need at all
times to be brought back to censor no matter what
you're going through. The things I've been through in the
past two years have really taught me and shown me like, oh,
(49:27):
like I thought I needed that. Like I thought I
needed that that way, like that thing that way to
be happy. I thought I needed that thing that way
to feel good about myself. I thought I needed that,
you know. And it's like mm hmm. The sadness will come,
the grieving will come, the awareness of the lass will come,
(49:51):
and I can still access my joy. Right. The anxiety
will be present, right, the fear will be present, and
I can still access my joy. So yeah, I'm always
protecting my joy. I'm always wanting to come back to
what's this about? Does it actually serve me? And so
that's what I'm protecting fiercely, fiercely, Like anything can go anybody.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
Right, anybody and anything.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Anything can you mean, yeah, that love that.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
We will definitely want to stay in touch with you
so that we can follow this journey that you are
kind of embarking on yours for yourself, because I feel
like it is something that gives others permission to do
some of that for their themselves as well.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
Where can we stay connected with you?
Speaker 1 (50:39):
What is your website as well as any social media
channels you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Yeah, so I still have Melissa Eiffel dot com. However,
the websites tends to be most active on in terms
of like sending emails out, news service and things like that.
Is reflecting Joy, reflecting hyphenjoy dot com. And then the
oh the two social media because I'm actually more active
on reds now that I am on Instagram, so threads
(51:03):
in Instagram both, Melissa, I feel OLSSW perfect.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
We'll be sure to include that in the show notes.
And I appreciate you sharing that new website because I
wasn't aware that you were doing something new on that,
so I got to sign up so I can give
my lessons as well.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yes, doctor Joy, please continue to keep doing what you're doing.
You are quiet, You're not one of those people that's
like loud about everything, and when you choose to do
something and when you choose to speak, it is meaningful.
And so I just want to encourage you to continue, continue, continue,
because I can only imagine in the spaces that you're
(51:40):
in it's not always easy, and so I just want
to encourage you to continue. So thank you for this platform. Always.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Thank you, Melissa. It's always a treat to chat with you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Thank you for joining us again. Absolutely, I'm so glad
Melissa was able to join me for today's conversation. To
learn more about her and her work, be sure to
visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com
slash session four forty seven, and don't forget to text
two of your girls right now and tell them to
check out the episode. Did you know that you could
(52:12):
leave us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for
the podcast. If there's a book or movie you'd like
us to review or have topics you think we should discuss,
drop us a message at Memo dot fm slash Therapy
for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind.
We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're
looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist
(52:32):
directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. Don't
forget to follow us over on Instagram at Therapy for
Black Girls, and make sure to join us over at
our Patreon community for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content,
and much more. You can join us at community dot
Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was produced by
(52:52):
Elise Ellis, Indychubu, and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by
Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again
this week.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Week.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all
real soon.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Take good care,
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