January 26, 2021 • 40 mins
February is dedicated to matters of the heart, and my guest today, Katrina McGhee, from the American Heart Association is here to encourage us to make sure that we care for our hearts! Shockingly, heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, and too many people are unaware of this. Awareness, education, and even small changes in our eating and lifestyle habits can change this story. Katrina will tell us how it's done. She'll also encourage us to WEAR RED on February 5, to help bring awareness to women's heart health, and to strike up a conversation with those in your circle about the importance of self-care. Additionally, Katrina founded the "Loving On Me Academy" which is your go-to place if you're looking to put yourself in the driver's seat of your life and your health. She'll tell us all about in today's conversation. I'll keep doling out advice on keeping your emotional heart healthy, and Katrina will continue telling you how to keep your physical heart beating long and strong. Join us! ~ Delilah
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, my friend. We have another fantastic podcast
for you today as we wrap up the first month
of the new year and head into February. February the
month of love, the month of romance, the month of
all matters of the heart. And while I have dedicated
(00:29):
my entire career, almost my whole life on radio, has
been spent talking about the ups and downs, the highs,
the lows, the hurt, the healing, the joy of our
emotional hearts, falling in love, the love of our children
and our grandchildren. Today, I'm going to be joined by
(00:51):
a very special guest that's going to encourage us to
build a better relationship with our physical hearts. Are actual
blood pumping in the chest, that organ that we all
need to live. Hearts. The month of February is American Heartment.
And when the American Heart Association encourages us to go
Red for women, the hope is that by wearing red,
(01:13):
it will help to bring awareness to the fact that
cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is a leading cause, the leading
cause of death for women, number one, ahead of all
other illnesses and injuries that's concerning. That's an issue that's
something we need to pay attention to because there's a
(01:33):
tremendous amount we can do for ourselves to increase our
heart health and reduce our chance of leaving our loved
ones behind premature ly. I mean, we gotta do what
we gotta do to stay as healthy as we can.
Write with us today on this podcast is a Force
to be Reckoned with Katrina McGee, Executive vice president of
(01:57):
the American Heart Association. She has been working to educate
folks about women's health issues for a few decades. Now
she knows what she's talking about. We're going to get
to the heart of the matter right after I give
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(02:41):
They offer free shipping on foundation returns so you can
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when you use promo code Laura at check out, Hello,
my friend, how are you? How are you? I'm so
excited to get to talk to you today. I got
to meet you years ago. I think we were in
(03:05):
Dallas or Fort Worth. It would be in Dallas and
you as my business partner. Craig says, Remember she is
a force to be reckoned with. That was his description,
and I laughed. I said, oh, I remember her. She's
like energy plus energy. You're like the energizer bunny. Absolutely,
(03:27):
I would you know what I believe in Burton with
gratitude and ending with grace. So I'm I'm just trying
to keep it positive all day long. Though I was, well,
if you start with gratitude and you end with grace,
how can you go wrong? I learned years ago a
little trick, well not a trick, but a little wisdom
or a little truth that few people share or teach,
(03:49):
and maybe they don't know it because I didn't know it.
And that is that every time I've encountered a major issue,
a major problem, something that I it was a major heartache,
every time, without fail, God used that to push me
to a much better understanding of grace, of mercy, of
(04:12):
goodness and I stopped looking at problems as problems and started,
you know, kind of reframing them as Okay, God, this
is an opportunity. This is like back to college. This
is the college of hard knocks. What are you trying
to teach me? That is the truth? So it absolutely is.
I believe that with all my heart. I asked out
(04:33):
a long time ago to help me love people like
God loves people. And I don't think I knew what
I was asking at the time, because what does he do.
He doesn't just like supernaturally cover us with that grace
and love so that oh we're so happy and and
and patient. No, he gives us those life lessons exactly, exactly.
(05:00):
Oh my goodness, that is so true. This is you know,
this is my second time working at American Heart Association,
and I told my team the first time I worked there,
I wanted to change the world, like I felt like
I could make a difference around the world, and this
was so awesome. And now I just want to love people.
(05:21):
You know, I want to make a difference to the
person in front of me, because I have discovered when
I focused on that, it totally just the atmosphere. If
you really want to transform community, you really want to
transform lives, you have to start with the people that
got places in your path and just love them, just
love them the life. And so that is that is
(05:41):
my passion. Now. It's not about trying to change the world.
It's it's one heart at a time for me. And
I'm I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful, um to be
in that position. And um yeah, even in the midst
of all of our chaos, I just feel like they're
such opportunity be and story And well, I wrote a
(06:04):
book by that title a couple of years ago, just
talking about that very thing that in order to change
the world for good, I can't see any way to
do it on a large scale except by doing it
on a small scale, by starting with the people in
your house, and then expanding to the people in your family,
and then the people in your circle and the people
(06:25):
in your community. And if we can do that, if
we can be kind and loving and generous and patient,
we can change the world for good. Yeah. I believe
that too. So I'm going to send you some copies
of my book that you can share with whoever you're
inspired to share them with. But today Katrina McGee. I
(06:47):
want to introduce you to my audience who have not
had the pleasure of meeting you, because you are such
a beautiful woman. God has graced you with external beauty
and internal beauty. But the thing that I love most
is that you have spent your entire career helping women
to love themselves and take better care of themselves. And
(07:10):
that's not a message we hear often enough. It is
absolutely true. I believe when women band together and passionate purpose,
there nothing we can't do. And it has been my
life's pleasure to teach women, equip women, empower them to
take care of themselves, of their health, to live their
(07:32):
lives with grace for themselves and for each other. And
so I am honored to meet your audience. And it's
been some time with you today. So we're going to
talk about a lot of things. First off, first and foremost,
February is American Heart Month and you are with the
American Heart Association. And I read a fact before I
interviewed you that blew me away. And this is something
(07:55):
that my podcast director, my my executive producer shared with
me that one out of three women will die of
heart diseases. That could that possibly be correct? Yeah, heart
disease is the number one killer of women. But the
challenges most of them don't know it. I mean, it's
really crazy because we think it's all these other things
(08:18):
and yet it's heart disease. And so part of what
we're doing this February in particular is founding the alarm
to younger women, to more diverse women. Um that heart
disease is the number one killer and we kind of
lived dear, We've got to get into driver's be of
our own health. How can that possibly be? When I
think of heart attack, If you say the word heart
(08:40):
attack or heart disease and I closed my eyes, I
see uh an elderly or middle aged man sitting in
front of a TV set with a beer in his hand,
you know, having a heart attack. That's what in my
mind heart disease is. And when I'm reading these statistics
and the number of young women, the number of women
(09:01):
my age and younger that are leaving us premature lee
because of heart disease, how can that speak a trita? Well,
part of it is that we just don't know and
we think it's something else. Sometimes the symptoms for women
manifest differently, so we're misdiagnosed or we missed accused ourselves.
Many of us have uncontrolled hypertension, and they call it
(09:24):
the silent killers, so you don't know you have it,
and things just get progressively worse. And then there, of course,
you know the things that we can control, like our
diet and exercise, which have been so hard lately in
the middle of the pandemic. We prioritize everything else for
and our health is the thing that gets pushed to
(09:45):
the thigh for I'm raising my hand and giving you
an amen, because that's me. That's me. I have high
blood pressure. I know I need to walk every day.
If I walk two or three miles a day, my
health is good, my heart is strong, blood pressure is
under control that with my medication. If I don't, and
because I'm home schooling the kids now and they're out
(10:07):
of school in the pandemic and work, I can't even
tell you the last time I had a chance to walk. Yeah,
it's crazy. I mean, women wear a lot of hats
and so this is definitely not a judgment. This is
not a you should be doing better type moment for me,
because I believe in embracing grace and so that you
know the things that we prioritize, they're important, that's for sure.
(10:31):
They are still things we have to do. And yet
we have to find moments, moments that we can take
the kids out and go for a walk together, or
take thirty minute time out. You know. I tell people
scheduled joy breaks in your day. The other thing that
exercise does for you, oh my goodness, it releases those
positive Endortman. Then you just you would be so amazed
(10:55):
how much a walk outside or just a little bit
of exercise will change your mental faith for the better. Amen.
That's so so true for me. I have to give
myself a time out sometimes because I'm getting fussy with
the kids, and then I just have to go out
and stand outside and breathe deep. So let's I don't
(11:16):
like statistics because I think a lot of people tune
out or get lost with statistics. But this is important
stuff to share. Uh. The number one killer of women
is cardiovascular disease, claiming the lives of one in three.
One woman dies every seventy five seconds in the world
(11:37):
from cardiovascular disease. Yeah, it's crazy, right, and yet you
don't really hear about it. And that's why our Go
Red for Women movement is so important because it is
you know, women having a conversation just like you and
I think, girl, are you taking care of yourself? When's
the last time you check your blood pressure? Let's go
out and walk together. Let's take the kids and just
(11:59):
go out for a walk. You know, it is woman
to woman standing with each other and for each other,
challenging us to take better care of ourselves. I mean,
we we have to do it, because if we don't
remind each other be each other's accountability partner, you know,
encourage each other to to see the doctor, to take
(12:19):
our blood pressure metagin, to do all the things we
know to do, we could so easily set it to
the side. Here's another fact that blew me away. And
because of my eight daughters, six of them are black women,
Black girls that are growing into black women. And I
read a statistic more than half fifty seven of women
(12:42):
of color and close to of Hispanic women have some
form of cardiovascular disease. Yeah, that's that's right, not only
to have some form of cardiovafter disease, but to have
lower outcomes from it. But you know the good news
about that is there are things we can do, and
(13:04):
so you know, I go back to sharing the words,
telling each other, you know, we have to take care
of ourselves, ensuring that you know, as as African Americans
and Latin active women, that we participate in critical trials,
that we speak up, that we get involved in our
own health care, because it is possible to survive. You know,
(13:27):
most strokes are preventable, and people don't know that. So
when people when you think about it, there is so
much that we can do to be healthier, that we
can do to take care of ourselves. And I really
like to focus there because the statistics can be overwhelming, right, like,
oh my god, I'm gonna get it anyway. But the
truth is there's a lot that you can be to
(13:48):
reduce your risk. So obviously walking, um, being healthy, making
healthy eating choices, uh, saying no to the extra Cuba
butter that I put in the mash but potatoes, Oh man,
I made, Katrina, I made the best sour cream mashed
potatoes last night. But I know they're they're not hard healthy.
(14:11):
I know that. You know what the funny thing is,
I tend to look at our diet and say, you know,
overall balanced diet. You know, everything in moderation, and so
if you are eating lots of leafy green vegetables, lean meat,
if you're not having the sour cream masctates every night,
you're probably okay. I think that we have to approach
(14:33):
our nutrition from a balanced perspective. And it's one of
the things that I love about American Heart Association is
they don't generally operate an extreme You know, um, there
is the balance to everything in life, and so part
of it is making sure that you see your health
care provider regularly, your doctor and nurse practitioner or whomever
(14:55):
takes care of your health with you, and that you
be a partner in that, like you ask questions about
how to take best care of yourself, that you challenge
things that you don't agree with and not just take
things for granted. That you take the medication um that
is prescribed, and do all you can make sure that
(15:15):
you're following an overall healthy lifestyle. You know, moderation in
our food, diet and exercise. And I don't mean exercise
like ready to fall out every day. You don't have
to go to a jam like you said, a great
walk of thirty minute walk every day will be wondrous
for your health. Okay, So what would you say if
you if you lived here closer in my area and
(15:37):
we were being safe, you know, taking all the precautions. Uh.
Should we get together once a day, once a week.
How can we assisters, friends, encourage one another, help one
another to stay healthy and build those stronger bonds of
heart love the emotional kind. What what would we do,
(15:57):
like paint a picture for me? What you would suggest
for women who are listening right now and men, because
you know we all we all need to have healthy hearts.
Just give me some simple tips you said, green leafy vegetables.
My husband and I have been making salads every night
for dinner since COVID hit because we thought, wow, we
(16:20):
really need to have a strong immune system, so let's
get more green leafy vegetables into ourselves and the kids.
So that's one change that we've made. We have a
green leafy vegetable with every meal now. But what are
some other little simple things we can do to help ourselves?
And so let me just say, you gotta have some
fun with it, right because we've been in the house
(16:42):
for a while now, or you know, we've kind of
gotten in a rut. So my girlfriends and I at
the part of this year decided to be like this
little recupe slap thing. So every week we have a
group text and we're posting in their new recupe. Because
I don't know about you, but I got tired of
everything that I could cook, so I needed to inspiration
and um, the latest thing I've had, I noticed is
(17:03):
so corny. But I made the best kale style of
the praisings and little raisins, and then I roasted the
ponds and oh my god, it was so good. And
I had this brilled case and kicking on top of it.
It was so yummy. It was so yummy. Um. But
it's about eating different things and finding things that appeal
(17:24):
to your palette, because it's not just one thing. You know,
I love Brussels sprouts. Some people hate Brussels sprouts. So
you won't know unless you try some things that you
haven't tried before. So that's the first thing I get
out of the food rut and try something. News. Do
you have a website or something where you can post
those recipes from your girl friends for all of us
(17:45):
to enjoy. Do you know what I don't have a website,
I can post those recipes, but I can give you
hundreds of recipes from the American Heart Association. There was
a great one I tried that had spaghetti splash in
it with some spaghetti us on top of it, so
instead of the noodles, you put the spaghetti sauce in there,
and it was really super yummy. So we'll have to
(18:06):
send you some links to some of those great recipes
so we can try something different. Well, we love we
We raised spaghetti squash at our farm, so we love
doing that. That's when we've been doing for years, is
using the spaghetti squash instead of noodles. But I'm just
thinking for my listeners, if they go to the American
Heart Association website, will they find a plethora of fabulous
(18:27):
recipes that they can start incorporating. Absolutely. If you go
to heart dot org, there's a healthy Living cab and
it will have recipes there for you. Uh. There is
a wonderful meditation on there called Calm Abiding when you're
feeling anxious or overwhelmed. I'm learning how to do this
(18:47):
little five to seven minute meditations is a beautiful thing. Um.
There's also some quick, simple exercise videos on what our
YouTube and our website, so really anything you need, I'm
a like overall healthy lifestyle perfectives can be found our
healthy for Good Things. Okay again, that address is heart
(19:08):
dot org. Heart dot org and that's so easy, especially
since the month of February is all about the heart,
so heart dot org and then Healthy Living and Live
Fierce are places people can go just for some some
tips to get started, because that's the hardest part. I
mean for me, once I get started, it's like a
(19:30):
ball rolling down the hill. Once the ball gets rolling,
I'm pretty good about follow through. It's the getting started. Yeah,
it's the getting started, and part of it is just
sticking with it. That's why I love that I have,
you know, girlfriends who are walking with me during the
path during the month of January, just to try different
(19:51):
things and get out of my comfort zone, and you know,
just to even introduce myself to new foods that I
don't normally eat. I mean, I know, you have a
firing growth fresh vegetables, but some people don't, you know,
I'm always surprised when I talk to people who don't
really try a variety of vegetables because there's so much
yummy stuff out there. I would have insured to state,
(20:14):
there's probably something for everyone. We picked even though it's winter.
We picked Swiss shard. I still have Swiss shard that
grows in the garden. I picked some the other day
and cooked it up for the kids and put a
little vinegar balsamic vinegar on it, and they loved it.
So introducing more vegetables, more green leafy vegetables in their
(20:36):
diet has definitely been a good thing. And again I
did that when COVID hit because I thought the best
thing we can do is be proactive, and so I
just started looking up the things that we need to
build our immune system, and it always came back to green,
leafy vegetables. Yeah. Yeah, you know, nature gives death virtually
everything we need for healthy living. And we've come so
(21:00):
far away from eating fresh fruit and vegetables on a
regular basis, and most of us have a lot of
processed food in our diet. But I find that the
more that you eat from the earth, the more you
shop on the outer rim of the supermarket in general,
the healthier you are. And so if you practice when
(21:20):
you go to the store, go a ring around the
grocery store first, shot the outer aisle of the grocery
store where all the fresh fruit and vegetables are, the
fresh meats are, the fresh Jesus are. If you can
shop the majority of the time there, you're probably eating
pretty healthy. Yeah, don't even go down those aisles with
the processed food. Don't even go down because if you
(21:41):
go down, you're gonna be tempted. A bag of chips
is gonna jump off the shelf into your cart, and
before you even get home, it'll be half gone. So
don't even go down those aisles. So true, at least
us in my house. I mean, a bag of chips
might last a day, day and a half, and I
can have little kids that live here. See that's a
(22:03):
problem with having little kids, as you always have an excuse, Oh,
I'm getting this for the kids. No you're not. No, No,
When you see me going through the line and I
have one of those little little debbies in the cart,
or I got one of those little Bama pies, the pecampie,
don't let me lie through my teeth and tell you
these are for the kids. Uh huh. So we're gonna
(22:28):
try and live in healthier lifestyles. We're gonna wear red
on the fifth of February to get everybody talking about
this and thinking about this and how can we reach
the minorities, the population that is underserved and has no
clue how important this is. How can we help our
(22:49):
sisters to live longer, live healthier, and be more blessed.
What can I do? I mean, as a mom, I
know what I'm gonna do, and I know a conversation
I'm going to have with all my girls, But what
else can I do? Well? I think one of the
things we all can do is to help spread the
words were read on February fifth, but then actively talk
about it and share the information that the Heart Association
(23:12):
puts out, you know, communities around the country. The American
Heart Association has um partnership with faith based organizations, with
organizations that serve African American and Hispanic community, and we
need volunteers all the time. So if this is your
passion point to help spread the word and under resource communities,
(23:34):
definitely reach out to your local American Heart Association and
find out how you can get engaged. If you're active
on social media where read post about it, continue to
share it with your friends that elevate the word and
then finally, you know, reach out to your circle personally.
I really feel like reaching out to the women in
(23:55):
your life that you love, reaching out to the women
you work with, those you care about, and saying, hey,
have you you know done? Have you seen your doctor
this year? Are you trying to eat healthy? Can we
do something together? I want to help women survive and
thrive during this time and be sure that we are
safe from cardiovascular disease. You know, I find that the
(24:17):
personal touch and really genuinely caring about those people around
you and opening the conversation helps you be able to
spread the word. I have a young woman who is
not one of my adult children. I mean I did
not adopt her. She has a family, but she is
a daughter of my heart, a beautiful African American woman
(24:37):
who went to see her doctor and her doctor said,
you know, you need to lose a few pounds because
your numbers are going up. And she came over and
I had made something, you know that that was not
very hard healthy, and she said, Mama, I can't. I
really want to take better care of myself and I
want to stop the problem before it starts. And I'm
(24:58):
so proud of her because she did it like, she
followed her doctor's orders and she started changing her diet
and she lost the weight. And she not only looks fabulous,
but I can tell she feels so much better. Um,
and she's like, get those mashed potatoes away from get
thee behind me, Satan with those mashed potatoes. I love it.
(25:21):
I love to hear those success stories. You know. I
think during COVID a lot of us are feeling challenge.
I bet if everybody was honest and we talked about
how much weight we've put on during COVID, we we've
probably gained enough for a football team. You know what
I'm saying. And I'm raising my hand over here too. Right, Definitely,
(25:44):
we all have. It has been a struggle to stay
active and to eat right. You want comfort food, you
feel like comfort food when the world around you is
in chaos. And again, you know, I I try to
handle that all with grace, which means that, you know,
if I feel myself game, whether I feel myself pluggish,
I used that as a reminder to get up and
get moving. I used that as an incentive to say, Okay, tomorrow,
(26:09):
I'm going to eat a salad and I'm lean chicken. Yeah,
I ate Mexican food last night and it was yummy,
And you know, I just can't beat myself up about it.
But I think, you know, it is that continuous pursuit
of good health that we're most after because you know,
none of us are going to be perfect all the time.
(26:30):
But Delilah, I believe if we if we keep good
health pop of mind, it will always bring us back
to those behaviors that we know are in our best interests.
And you know what, what your daughter did would make
a courageous choice to live fear to do with what
was in her own best interests. And it was not
easy because she's got you know, three kids at home
(26:51):
and her husband and she loves to bless them with food.
Our love language is sharing food. So it was very
courageous and very fierce for her to say, no, I
am going to take care of me. Yeah, yeah, I
love that. And when we see people doing that, I mean,
how wonderful it is that she has you to encourage
her and stand alongside her. That's what we have to
(27:12):
do for each other as sisters, right, It's just when
somebody is trying to affirm that effort, and um, I
be't what go red for women is all about to
keep for us all encouraged, to keep us all um
on the path in pursuit of good health. Uh, and
to share ideas and tips and what's working for each other.
(27:33):
So tell me about your loving on me academy. Yes, yes, yes,
So I started loving on me because I was really
passionate about helping women love themselves and each other more.
I had just come out of this um anxiety filled,
overwhelming um burnout really and I said, you know, I
(27:54):
gotta find a way to do what I love, but
to do it differently and paint a picture for us,
like what was going on in your life? What were
you doing, what choices were you making, or what was
your circumstances, Because there's there's two things in life that
we have to deal with. One of circumstances that are
visited upon us that we have no say over. We
have no say over the family were born into, our
(28:17):
ethnicity or height, are any of that. And then the
second thing is is things that are visited upon us
like circumstances of of betrayal or divorce or jobs that
are abusive. So what was going on in your world
that was leading you to this stressed out situation. I
(28:37):
was working at what I thought was my dream job
and we had a huge blow up with another nonprofit
while I was working at through the g Common, and
I started to get in this cycle of every day
trying to control everything and everybody. You know how we
see something and we feel like, no, don't do that, no, no,
(28:59):
say this that You're trying to control everybody, trying to
manage situations that are often out of your control, where
you've developed codependent relationships and where you want things to
just go along as you perceived they should be. And
I finally hit a wall where I thought the lot
of I was having a heart attack and the struck
(29:19):
at the same time, my face was getting numb, my
chest was tight, and I instead of going to the
doctor right away, I doubled up on my blood pressure
medicine because I thought, Okay, I'm in a stressful situation.
I know what this is. I'm just gonna take care
of it. And finally my son said, listen, I need
you to go to the doctor because I only have
(29:39):
one mom and I need you to take care of you.
And I gotta tell you, I've met so many women
who have symptoms who were their body their spirit is
telling them something wrong, that they're having a life interrupted moment,
but they won't stop and take care of themselves until
something catastrophic happens. And so, you know, my son said,
I don't want them to be to you. So I
(30:00):
went to the doctor. He said, you're not having a
heart attack. You're having an anxiety attack. And you're having
it all day, every day, and when you feel lightheaded,
it's because your body is not getting enough there. And
I didn't I wasn't even sure anxiety attacks were real
until I had them myself. And he said, you have
two choices. I can either put you on medication or
(30:22):
you can be courageous enough to change your circumstances like
this is not healthy for you. And so I took
some time off. In a way, I was suffering from exhaustion,
I was having the anxiety attacks, and it really was
a life interrupted moment. I just believe, you know, God
can use your life interrupted moments and take you from
what you know best to get to know him better,
(30:45):
like to really focus on what the spirit is saying
to you. And that's what happened to me. And I
started telling my story of what happened. I realized there
were so many other women around me who did not
understand how to love themselves enough to make the hard choices,
and so I ended up writing this book to take
people on that journey with me from being a hot
(31:07):
mess suffering from anxiety attacks to unconditional self worth. And um.
It was along that journey that I've met a lot
of women from around the world actually who had experienced
the same thing. And it became this movement, this loving
on Me movement, UM. And I realized, I can help
you learn to love yourself more, um, but you really
(31:29):
needed help, honestly on how to manage your advice in
your career too. So I set up a Loving on
the Academy, first to help people get in the driver's
seat of their life and to set priorities, and second
to learn to do what you love, to find a
career in what you love, or be curateous enough if
(31:50):
you're not doing that, to do something different. And that
that became my work for many, many years. And you know,
I really still do some element of that even though
I'm at American Heart now, because I have always been
in love with helping women take charge of their health
and their life and to do the things that they
are most called to do. So do you have teachers
(32:11):
at this Loving On You Academy? I mean, do you
have classes at the academy? What does it look like?
I do. I have online classes. I have three classes
that are out there currently. I'm working on another class
because you know, COVID has been a master class for
us on many things, and so I want to set
(32:33):
up a couple of more classes for that. And I
put it online because I found that so many people
did not have access to what they needed, and so
I wanted to give it to the broadest audience possible. UM.
So I set up online courses and occasionally a couple
of times the year, I also do group coaching because
(32:55):
I believe in women helping women. Uh, And that's you know,
that's that's my passion. I love putting women in charge
of their lives. I just believe it is so liberating
to be who you were created to be and who
not who you thought you had to be because somebody
else that priorities for you, or you're trying to live
(33:15):
up or down to somebody else's expectation. Amen. So if
somebody wants to take a class that the Loving on
you are Loving on Me Academy. How do they do that,
Contrina out? Where do they go? They go to Loving
on Me academy dot com and they will find all
of the classes there. You know what, I bet probably
(33:38):
of my collars every single night are women that would
benefit from that because they call me because they're stressed out.
They call me because they're trying to control their adult
children's addictions, or their partners philanderings, or they're trying to
control the finances of their household and it's out of
(33:59):
control right now out and they just they call me
because their heartbroken, because they're exhausted, because their life is
a hot mess. I have been there, and I can
so relate, you know. I talk about that in Loving
on Me, my first book, because it's so easy to
slip in a codependent relationship where we are trying to
(34:22):
control another person or live that other person's life for them,
And the truth of it is, you know, we think
that we are helping people, we think that that's the
right thing to do, but you are not called to
live anyone else's life but your own, and in truth,
those people don't love you. For that. They actually resent
(34:42):
for that. And so it is healthy and liberating when
you learn to break codependent relationship. But it is not easy.
It is not easy. And the minute you you try
to set those boundaries, I will tell you, the minute
you try to set those boundaries, the minute you start
saying no, no, no, that doesn't work for me, Nope,
(35:02):
can't do the Nope, not paying that, Nope, you're not
taking my car. Sorry, they get really mean because they
don't want they don't They don't want you to stop
being codependent. They don't want you to take care of you.
They want you to fix them. Right. Yes, that is
so very true, and yet it is completely unhealthy for
(35:26):
you and them for things to stay the way they are.
This is why I believe so much in sisterhood. This
is why I believe in women helping women and understand
the need to have a good group of girlfriends and
connections who can speak truth to you and love because
often we can't see this in ourselves. And this is
(35:48):
whether this is our health. Are like our physical health,
our mental health, our spiritual health. You know, we are
doing things that we would tell our friends. Don't do that. Now,
Oh my goodness, girl, you don't have to live it
that way. Of Course, you don't have to pay his
rent every month. Of Course you should take time for you.
But it sometimes takes somebody outside of your circumstances to
(36:11):
say those things to you. Because people see us based
on how we're living, how we're showing up the good
things that we are doing. We are constantly judging ourselves
on what we perceive we should do or it could
have done or didn't do, and and it often takes
that outside perspective. Today it really is okay, it. This
(36:33):
is a good thing that you are not doing that anymore.
It is a good thing that you're taking time for yourself.
Thank you, Katrina. Thank you for spending some time with
us today. Thank you for being passionate about women's health
and women's hearts and women's sisterhood. And any time you
want to share a healthy recipe call me. Okay, I
(36:56):
absolutely will do that. Now. I'm gonna see you when
you're red on February right, oh yeah, oh yeah. And
you know what, Red is one of my favorite colors.
I decorate with it. My house has got red accents,
and I am gonna wear red. But more importantly, I'm
really going to make it a point to talk to
my daughters, my friends, especially women of color, about the
(37:19):
importance of paying really good attention to their heart. Thank you,
thank you. It's so important and I so appreciate you.
Let me spend some time with you today. I loved it,
all right, I'll talk to you soon, Okay. Take here.
You know, for more than forty years, for more than
four decades, I have tried to be a comfort to
(37:41):
those suffering from a wounded heart. I've tried to encourage
people to live from their heart, to love from their heart.
I was a champion. I've been a champion. I've tried
to be for the healing heart, a celebrant of the
happy heart. I try to pass on all the great
advice I can a lot from my own personal experiences.
(38:04):
I've been around the block three times maybefore, and I
like to share stories other people's stories. Katrina McGhee does
the same. The only difference is that my work, my
show is about the emotional heart, the joy, the love,
(38:25):
the tears in our heart. Katrina's work is about the
physical heart, our cardiovascular health. Each of us, me and
Katrina wants you to live your best life. Live your
life to the fullest, with joy, with purpose, with intent.
Please take her advice. Do I dare say it to heart,
Live fearce, prioritize your health, live purposefully, live passionately. I
(38:49):
encourage you every single day to love someone. That's my motto,
my slogan in life. And perhaps I don't say it enough,
but the very first person that that applies to is you.
You can't love others if you're not taking care of yourself.
So take care of yourself, take care of your heart
so that you will have the strength and the energy
to take care of everyone else that you love. Valentine's
(39:13):
Day just around the corner. You know where to tune
in for the greatest love songs, the greatest love stories
of all time. I share those with you every night
this year. When you're making your plans for the loves
in your life, your sweetheart, your partner, your children, include yourself.
The month of February is a great time to kick
(39:33):
start some healthier habits. Where read on February five to
help bring awareness to women's heart health and visit where
Red day dot org to learn more and to donate
to go Red and Ladies. If you're looking for tips
and inspirations to take the next big steps in life,
in your careers and managing your health, you should visit
(39:55):
Loving on me academy dot com Loving on me academy
dot com, where you will find amazing, empowering tips and information.
Join me next time I Love Someone With Delilah, We're
going to have a fabulous podcast season, a fabulous year,
and I am excited looking forward to sharing it with you.
(40:17):
My friend m
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, my friend. We have another fantastic podcast
for you today as we wrap up the first month
of the new year and head into February. February the
month of love, the month of romance, the month of
all matters of the heart. And while I have dedicated
(00:29):
my entire career, almost my whole life on radio, has
been spent talking about the ups and downs, the highs,
the lows, the hurt, the healing, the joy of our
emotional hearts, falling in love, the love of our children
and our grandchildren. Today, I'm going to be joined by
(00:51):
a very special guest that's going to encourage us to
build a better relationship with our physical hearts. Are actual
blood pumping in the chest, that organ that we all
need to live. Hearts. The month of February is American Heartment.
And when the American Heart Association encourages us to go
Red for women, the hope is that by wearing red,
(01:13):
it will help to bring awareness to the fact that
cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is a leading cause, the leading
cause of death for women, number one, ahead of all
other illnesses and injuries that's concerning. That's an issue that's
something we need to pay attention to because there's a
(01:33):
tremendous amount we can do for ourselves to increase our
heart health and reduce our chance of leaving our loved
ones behind premature ly. I mean, we gotta do what
we gotta do to stay as healthy as we can.
Write with us today on this podcast is a Force
to be Reckoned with Katrina McGee, Executive vice president of
(01:57):
the American Heart Association. She has been working to educate
folks about women's health issues for a few decades. Now
she knows what she's talking about. We're going to get
to the heart of the matter right after I give
my new podcast sponsor, Laura Geller Cosmetics a little love.
They create makeup for women over forty. I've had fun
(02:19):
discovering them any beautiful lipstick shades, Their balance and brightened
powder foundation is designed to help glide over and blur
find lines. It never cracks or cakes. Find all of
their products at Laura Geller dot com. At Laura Geller
dot com l A U r A Geller dot com.
(02:41):
They offer free shipping on foundation returns so you can
find the right color for your skin type. Save off
when you use promo code Laura at check out, Hello,
my friend, how are you? How are you? I'm so
excited to get to talk to you today. I got
to meet you years ago. I think we were in
(03:05):
Dallas or Fort Worth. It would be in Dallas and
you as my business partner. Craig says, Remember she is
a force to be reckoned with. That was his description,
and I laughed. I said, oh, I remember her. She's
like energy plus energy. You're like the energizer bunny. Absolutely,
(03:27):
I would you know what I believe in Burton with
gratitude and ending with grace. So I'm I'm just trying
to keep it positive all day long. Though I was, well,
if you start with gratitude and you end with grace,
how can you go wrong? I learned years ago a
little trick, well not a trick, but a little wisdom
or a little truth that few people share or teach,
(03:49):
and maybe they don't know it because I didn't know it.
And that is that every time I've encountered a major issue,
a major problem, something that I it was a major heartache,
every time, without fail, God used that to push me
to a much better understanding of grace, of mercy, of
(04:12):
goodness and I stopped looking at problems as problems and started,
you know, kind of reframing them as Okay, God, this
is an opportunity. This is like back to college. This
is the college of hard knocks. What are you trying
to teach me? That is the truth? So it absolutely is.
I believe that with all my heart. I asked out
(04:33):
a long time ago to help me love people like
God loves people. And I don't think I knew what
I was asking at the time, because what does he do.
He doesn't just like supernaturally cover us with that grace
and love so that oh we're so happy and and
and patient. No, he gives us those life lessons exactly, exactly.
(05:00):
Oh my goodness, that is so true. This is you know,
this is my second time working at American Heart Association,
and I told my team the first time I worked there,
I wanted to change the world, like I felt like
I could make a difference around the world, and this
was so awesome. And now I just want to love people.
(05:21):
You know, I want to make a difference to the
person in front of me, because I have discovered when
I focused on that, it totally just the atmosphere. If
you really want to transform community, you really want to
transform lives, you have to start with the people that
got places in your path and just love them, just
love them the life. And so that is that is
(05:41):
my passion. Now. It's not about trying to change the world.
It's it's one heart at a time for me. And
I'm I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful, um to be
in that position. And um yeah, even in the midst
of all of our chaos, I just feel like they're
such opportunity be and story And well, I wrote a
(06:04):
book by that title a couple of years ago, just
talking about that very thing that in order to change
the world for good, I can't see any way to
do it on a large scale except by doing it
on a small scale, by starting with the people in
your house, and then expanding to the people in your family,
and then the people in your circle and the people
(06:25):
in your community. And if we can do that, if
we can be kind and loving and generous and patient,
we can change the world for good. Yeah. I believe
that too. So I'm going to send you some copies
of my book that you can share with whoever you're
inspired to share them with. But today Katrina McGee. I
(06:47):
want to introduce you to my audience who have not
had the pleasure of meeting you, because you are such
a beautiful woman. God has graced you with external beauty
and internal beauty. But the thing that I love most
is that you have spent your entire career helping women
to love themselves and take better care of themselves. And
(07:10):
that's not a message we hear often enough. It is
absolutely true. I believe when women band together and passionate purpose,
there nothing we can't do. And it has been my
life's pleasure to teach women, equip women, empower them to
take care of themselves, of their health, to live their
(07:32):
lives with grace for themselves and for each other. And
so I am honored to meet your audience. And it's
been some time with you today. So we're going to
talk about a lot of things. First off, first and foremost,
February is American Heart Month and you are with the
American Heart Association. And I read a fact before I
interviewed you that blew me away. And this is something
(07:55):
that my podcast director, my my executive producer shared with
me that one out of three women will die of
heart diseases. That could that possibly be correct? Yeah, heart
disease is the number one killer of women. But the
challenges most of them don't know it. I mean, it's
really crazy because we think it's all these other things
(08:18):
and yet it's heart disease. And so part of what
we're doing this February in particular is founding the alarm
to younger women, to more diverse women. Um that heart
disease is the number one killer and we kind of
lived dear, We've got to get into driver's be of
our own health. How can that possibly be? When I
think of heart attack, If you say the word heart
(08:40):
attack or heart disease and I closed my eyes, I
see uh an elderly or middle aged man sitting in
front of a TV set with a beer in his hand,
you know, having a heart attack. That's what in my
mind heart disease is. And when I'm reading these statistics
and the number of young women, the number of women
(09:01):
my age and younger that are leaving us premature lee
because of heart disease, how can that speak a trita? Well,
part of it is that we just don't know and
we think it's something else. Sometimes the symptoms for women
manifest differently, so we're misdiagnosed or we missed accused ourselves.
Many of us have uncontrolled hypertension, and they call it
(09:24):
the silent killers, so you don't know you have it,
and things just get progressively worse. And then there, of course,
you know the things that we can control, like our
diet and exercise, which have been so hard lately in
the middle of the pandemic. We prioritize everything else for
and our health is the thing that gets pushed to
(09:45):
the thigh for I'm raising my hand and giving you
an amen, because that's me. That's me. I have high
blood pressure. I know I need to walk every day.
If I walk two or three miles a day, my
health is good, my heart is strong, blood pressure is
under control that with my medication. If I don't, and
because I'm home schooling the kids now and they're out
(10:07):
of school in the pandemic and work, I can't even
tell you the last time I had a chance to walk. Yeah,
it's crazy. I mean, women wear a lot of hats
and so this is definitely not a judgment. This is
not a you should be doing better type moment for me,
because I believe in embracing grace and so that you
know the things that we prioritize, they're important, that's for sure.
(10:31):
They are still things we have to do. And yet
we have to find moments, moments that we can take
the kids out and go for a walk together, or
take thirty minute time out. You know. I tell people
scheduled joy breaks in your day. The other thing that
exercise does for you, oh my goodness, it releases those
positive Endortman. Then you just you would be so amazed
(10:55):
how much a walk outside or just a little bit
of exercise will change your mental faith for the better. Amen.
That's so so true for me. I have to give
myself a time out sometimes because I'm getting fussy with
the kids, and then I just have to go out
and stand outside and breathe deep. So let's I don't
(11:16):
like statistics because I think a lot of people tune
out or get lost with statistics. But this is important
stuff to share. Uh. The number one killer of women
is cardiovascular disease, claiming the lives of one in three.
One woman dies every seventy five seconds in the world
(11:37):
from cardiovascular disease. Yeah, it's crazy, right, and yet you
don't really hear about it. And that's why our Go
Red for Women movement is so important because it is
you know, women having a conversation just like you and
I think, girl, are you taking care of yourself? When's
the last time you check your blood pressure? Let's go
out and walk together. Let's take the kids and just
(11:59):
go out for a walk. You know, it is woman
to woman standing with each other and for each other,
challenging us to take better care of ourselves. I mean,
we we have to do it, because if we don't
remind each other be each other's accountability partner, you know,
encourage each other to to see the doctor, to take
(12:19):
our blood pressure metagin, to do all the things we
know to do, we could so easily set it to
the side. Here's another fact that blew me away. And
because of my eight daughters, six of them are black women,
Black girls that are growing into black women. And I
read a statistic more than half fifty seven of women
(12:42):
of color and close to of Hispanic women have some
form of cardiovascular disease. Yeah, that's that's right, not only
to have some form of cardiovafter disease, but to have
lower outcomes from it. But you know the good news
about that is there are things we can do, and
(13:04):
so you know, I go back to sharing the words,
telling each other, you know, we have to take care
of ourselves, ensuring that you know, as as African Americans
and Latin active women, that we participate in critical trials,
that we speak up, that we get involved in our
own health care, because it is possible to survive. You know,
(13:27):
most strokes are preventable, and people don't know that. So
when people when you think about it, there is so
much that we can do to be healthier, that we
can do to take care of ourselves. And I really
like to focus there because the statistics can be overwhelming, right, like,
oh my god, I'm gonna get it anyway. But the
truth is there's a lot that you can be to
(13:48):
reduce your risk. So obviously walking, um, being healthy, making
healthy eating choices, uh, saying no to the extra Cuba
butter that I put in the mash but potatoes, Oh man,
I made, Katrina, I made the best sour cream mashed
potatoes last night. But I know they're they're not hard healthy.
(14:11):
I know that. You know what the funny thing is,
I tend to look at our diet and say, you know,
overall balanced diet. You know, everything in moderation, and so
if you are eating lots of leafy green vegetables, lean meat,
if you're not having the sour cream masctates every night,
you're probably okay. I think that we have to approach
(14:33):
our nutrition from a balanced perspective. And it's one of
the things that I love about American Heart Association is
they don't generally operate an extreme You know, um, there
is the balance to everything in life, and so part
of it is making sure that you see your health
care provider regularly, your doctor and nurse practitioner or whomever
(14:55):
takes care of your health with you, and that you
be a partner in that, like you ask questions about
how to take best care of yourself, that you challenge
things that you don't agree with and not just take
things for granted. That you take the medication um that
is prescribed, and do all you can make sure that
(15:15):
you're following an overall healthy lifestyle. You know, moderation in
our food, diet and exercise. And I don't mean exercise
like ready to fall out every day. You don't have
to go to a jam like you said, a great
walk of thirty minute walk every day will be wondrous
for your health. Okay, So what would you say if
you if you lived here closer in my area and
(15:37):
we were being safe, you know, taking all the precautions. Uh.
Should we get together once a day, once a week.
How can we assisters, friends, encourage one another, help one
another to stay healthy and build those stronger bonds of
heart love the emotional kind. What what would we do,
(15:57):
like paint a picture for me? What you would suggest
for women who are listening right now and men, because
you know we all we all need to have healthy hearts.
Just give me some simple tips you said, green leafy vegetables.
My husband and I have been making salads every night
for dinner since COVID hit because we thought, wow, we
(16:20):
really need to have a strong immune system, so let's
get more green leafy vegetables into ourselves and the kids.
So that's one change that we've made. We have a
green leafy vegetable with every meal now. But what are
some other little simple things we can do to help ourselves?
And so let me just say, you gotta have some
fun with it, right because we've been in the house
(16:42):
for a while now, or you know, we've kind of
gotten in a rut. So my girlfriends and I at
the part of this year decided to be like this
little recupe slap thing. So every week we have a
group text and we're posting in their new recupe. Because
I don't know about you, but I got tired of
everything that I could cook, so I needed to inspiration
and um, the latest thing I've had, I noticed is
(17:03):
so corny. But I made the best kale style of
the praisings and little raisins, and then I roasted the
ponds and oh my god, it was so good. And
I had this brilled case and kicking on top of it.
It was so yummy. It was so yummy. Um. But
it's about eating different things and finding things that appeal
(17:24):
to your palette, because it's not just one thing. You know,
I love Brussels sprouts. Some people hate Brussels sprouts. So
you won't know unless you try some things that you
haven't tried before. So that's the first thing I get
out of the food rut and try something. News. Do
you have a website or something where you can post
those recipes from your girl friends for all of us
(17:45):
to enjoy. Do you know what I don't have a website,
I can post those recipes, but I can give you
hundreds of recipes from the American Heart Association. There was
a great one I tried that had spaghetti splash in
it with some spaghetti us on top of it, so
instead of the noodles, you put the spaghetti sauce in there,
and it was really super yummy. So we'll have to
(18:06):
send you some links to some of those great recipes
so we can try something different. Well, we love we
We raised spaghetti squash at our farm, so we love
doing that. That's when we've been doing for years, is
using the spaghetti squash instead of noodles. But I'm just
thinking for my listeners, if they go to the American
Heart Association website, will they find a plethora of fabulous
(18:27):
recipes that they can start incorporating. Absolutely. If you go
to heart dot org, there's a healthy Living cab and
it will have recipes there for you. Uh. There is
a wonderful meditation on there called Calm Abiding when you're
feeling anxious or overwhelmed. I'm learning how to do this
(18:47):
little five to seven minute meditations is a beautiful thing. Um.
There's also some quick, simple exercise videos on what our
YouTube and our website, so really anything you need, I'm
a like overall healthy lifestyle perfectives can be found our
healthy for Good Things. Okay again, that address is heart
(19:08):
dot org. Heart dot org and that's so easy, especially
since the month of February is all about the heart,
so heart dot org and then Healthy Living and Live
Fierce are places people can go just for some some
tips to get started, because that's the hardest part. I
mean for me, once I get started, it's like a
(19:30):
ball rolling down the hill. Once the ball gets rolling,
I'm pretty good about follow through. It's the getting started. Yeah,
it's the getting started, and part of it is just
sticking with it. That's why I love that I have,
you know, girlfriends who are walking with me during the
path during the month of January, just to try different
(19:51):
things and get out of my comfort zone, and you know,
just to even introduce myself to new foods that I
don't normally eat. I mean, I know, you have a
firing growth fresh vegetables, but some people don't, you know,
I'm always surprised when I talk to people who don't
really try a variety of vegetables because there's so much
yummy stuff out there. I would have insured to state,
(20:14):
there's probably something for everyone. We picked even though it's winter.
We picked Swiss shard. I still have Swiss shard that
grows in the garden. I picked some the other day
and cooked it up for the kids and put a
little vinegar balsamic vinegar on it, and they loved it.
So introducing more vegetables, more green leafy vegetables in their
(20:36):
diet has definitely been a good thing. And again I
did that when COVID hit because I thought the best
thing we can do is be proactive, and so I
just started looking up the things that we need to
build our immune system, and it always came back to green,
leafy vegetables. Yeah. Yeah, you know, nature gives death virtually
everything we need for healthy living. And we've come so
(21:00):
far away from eating fresh fruit and vegetables on a
regular basis, and most of us have a lot of
processed food in our diet. But I find that the
more that you eat from the earth, the more you
shop on the outer rim of the supermarket in general,
the healthier you are. And so if you practice when
(21:20):
you go to the store, go a ring around the
grocery store first, shot the outer aisle of the grocery
store where all the fresh fruit and vegetables are, the
fresh meats are, the fresh Jesus are. If you can
shop the majority of the time there, you're probably eating
pretty healthy. Yeah, don't even go down those aisles with
the processed food. Don't even go down because if you
(21:41):
go down, you're gonna be tempted. A bag of chips
is gonna jump off the shelf into your cart, and
before you even get home, it'll be half gone. So
don't even go down those aisles. So true, at least
us in my house. I mean, a bag of chips
might last a day, day and a half, and I
can have little kids that live here. See that's a
(22:03):
problem with having little kids, as you always have an excuse, Oh,
I'm getting this for the kids. No you're not. No, No,
When you see me going through the line and I
have one of those little little debbies in the cart,
or I got one of those little Bama pies, the pecampie,
don't let me lie through my teeth and tell you
these are for the kids. Uh huh. So we're gonna
(22:28):
try and live in healthier lifestyles. We're gonna wear red
on the fifth of February to get everybody talking about
this and thinking about this and how can we reach
the minorities, the population that is underserved and has no
clue how important this is. How can we help our
(22:49):
sisters to live longer, live healthier, and be more blessed.
What can I do? I mean, as a mom, I
know what I'm gonna do, and I know a conversation
I'm going to have with all my girls, But what
else can I do? Well? I think one of the
things we all can do is to help spread the
words were read on February fifth, but then actively talk
about it and share the information that the Heart Association
(23:12):
puts out, you know, communities around the country. The American
Heart Association has um partnership with faith based organizations, with
organizations that serve African American and Hispanic community, and we
need volunteers all the time. So if this is your
passion point to help spread the word and under resource communities,
(23:34):
definitely reach out to your local American Heart Association and
find out how you can get engaged. If you're active
on social media where read post about it, continue to
share it with your friends that elevate the word and
then finally, you know, reach out to your circle personally.
I really feel like reaching out to the women in
(23:55):
your life that you love, reaching out to the women
you work with, those you care about, and saying, hey,
have you you know done? Have you seen your doctor
this year? Are you trying to eat healthy? Can we
do something together? I want to help women survive and
thrive during this time and be sure that we are
safe from cardiovascular disease. You know, I find that the
(24:17):
personal touch and really genuinely caring about those people around
you and opening the conversation helps you be able to
spread the word. I have a young woman who is
not one of my adult children. I mean I did
not adopt her. She has a family, but she is
a daughter of my heart, a beautiful African American woman
(24:37):
who went to see her doctor and her doctor said,
you know, you need to lose a few pounds because
your numbers are going up. And she came over and
I had made something, you know that that was not
very hard healthy, and she said, Mama, I can't. I
really want to take better care of myself and I
want to stop the problem before it starts. And I'm
(24:58):
so proud of her because she did it like, she
followed her doctor's orders and she started changing her diet
and she lost the weight. And she not only looks fabulous,
but I can tell she feels so much better. Um,
and she's like, get those mashed potatoes away from get
thee behind me, Satan with those mashed potatoes. I love it.
(25:21):
I love to hear those success stories. You know. I
think during COVID a lot of us are feeling challenge.
I bet if everybody was honest and we talked about
how much weight we've put on during COVID, we we've
probably gained enough for a football team. You know what
I'm saying. And I'm raising my hand over here too. Right, Definitely,
(25:44):
we all have. It has been a struggle to stay
active and to eat right. You want comfort food, you
feel like comfort food when the world around you is
in chaos. And again, you know, I I try to
handle that all with grace, which means that, you know,
if I feel myself game, whether I feel myself pluggish,
I used that as a reminder to get up and
get moving. I used that as an incentive to say, Okay, tomorrow,
(26:09):
I'm going to eat a salad and I'm lean chicken. Yeah,
I ate Mexican food last night and it was yummy,
And you know, I just can't beat myself up about it.
But I think, you know, it is that continuous pursuit
of good health that we're most after because you know,
none of us are going to be perfect all the time.
(26:30):
But Delilah, I believe if we if we keep good
health pop of mind, it will always bring us back
to those behaviors that we know are in our best interests.
And you know what, what your daughter did would make
a courageous choice to live fear to do with what
was in her own best interests. And it was not
easy because she's got you know, three kids at home
(26:51):
and her husband and she loves to bless them with food.
Our love language is sharing food. So it was very
courageous and very fierce for her to say, no, I
am going to take care of me. Yeah, yeah, I
love that. And when we see people doing that, I mean,
how wonderful it is that she has you to encourage
her and stand alongside her. That's what we have to
(27:12):
do for each other as sisters, right, It's just when
somebody is trying to affirm that effort, and um, I
be't what go red for women is all about to
keep for us all encouraged, to keep us all um
on the path in pursuit of good health. Uh, and
to share ideas and tips and what's working for each other.
(27:33):
So tell me about your loving on me academy. Yes, yes, yes,
So I started loving on me because I was really
passionate about helping women love themselves and each other more.
I had just come out of this um anxiety filled,
overwhelming um burnout really and I said, you know, I
(27:54):
gotta find a way to do what I love, but
to do it differently and paint a picture for us,
like what was going on in your life? What were
you doing, what choices were you making, or what was
your circumstances, Because there's there's two things in life that
we have to deal with. One of circumstances that are
visited upon us that we have no say over. We
have no say over the family were born into, our
(28:17):
ethnicity or height, are any of that. And then the
second thing is is things that are visited upon us
like circumstances of of betrayal or divorce or jobs that
are abusive. So what was going on in your world
that was leading you to this stressed out situation. I
(28:37):
was working at what I thought was my dream job
and we had a huge blow up with another nonprofit
while I was working at through the g Common, and
I started to get in this cycle of every day
trying to control everything and everybody. You know how we
see something and we feel like, no, don't do that, no, no,
(28:59):
say this that You're trying to control everybody, trying to
manage situations that are often out of your control, where
you've developed codependent relationships and where you want things to
just go along as you perceived they should be. And
I finally hit a wall where I thought the lot
of I was having a heart attack and the struck
(29:19):
at the same time, my face was getting numb, my
chest was tight, and I instead of going to the
doctor right away, I doubled up on my blood pressure
medicine because I thought, Okay, I'm in a stressful situation.
I know what this is. I'm just gonna take care
of it. And finally my son said, listen, I need
you to go to the doctor because I only have
(29:39):
one mom and I need you to take care of you.
And I gotta tell you, I've met so many women
who have symptoms who were their body their spirit is
telling them something wrong, that they're having a life interrupted moment,
but they won't stop and take care of themselves until
something catastrophic happens. And so, you know, my son said,
I don't want them to be to you. So I
(30:00):
went to the doctor. He said, you're not having a
heart attack. You're having an anxiety attack. And you're having
it all day, every day, and when you feel lightheaded,
it's because your body is not getting enough there. And
I didn't I wasn't even sure anxiety attacks were real
until I had them myself. And he said, you have
two choices. I can either put you on medication or
(30:22):
you can be courageous enough to change your circumstances like
this is not healthy for you. And so I took
some time off. In a way, I was suffering from exhaustion,
I was having the anxiety attacks, and it really was
a life interrupted moment. I just believe, you know, God
can use your life interrupted moments and take you from
what you know best to get to know him better,
(30:45):
like to really focus on what the spirit is saying
to you. And that's what happened to me. And I
started telling my story of what happened. I realized there
were so many other women around me who did not
understand how to love themselves enough to make the hard choices,
and so I ended up writing this book to take
people on that journey with me from being a hot
(31:07):
mess suffering from anxiety attacks to unconditional self worth. And um.
It was along that journey that I've met a lot
of women from around the world actually who had experienced
the same thing. And it became this movement, this loving
on Me movement, UM. And I realized, I can help
you learn to love yourself more, um, but you really
(31:29):
needed help, honestly on how to manage your advice in
your career too. So I set up a Loving on
the Academy, first to help people get in the driver's
seat of their life and to set priorities, and second
to learn to do what you love, to find a
career in what you love, or be curateous enough if
(31:50):
you're not doing that, to do something different. And that
that became my work for many, many years. And you know,
I really still do some element of that even though
I'm at American Heart now, because I have always been
in love with helping women take charge of their health
and their life and to do the things that they
are most called to do. So do you have teachers
(32:11):
at this Loving On You Academy? I mean, do you
have classes at the academy? What does it look like?
I do. I have online classes. I have three classes
that are out there currently. I'm working on another class
because you know, COVID has been a master class for
us on many things, and so I want to set
(32:33):
up a couple of more classes for that. And I
put it online because I found that so many people
did not have access to what they needed, and so
I wanted to give it to the broadest audience possible. UM.
So I set up online courses and occasionally a couple
of times the year, I also do group coaching because
(32:55):
I believe in women helping women. Uh, And that's you know,
that's that's my passion. I love putting women in charge
of their lives. I just believe it is so liberating
to be who you were created to be and who
not who you thought you had to be because somebody
else that priorities for you, or you're trying to live
(33:15):
up or down to somebody else's expectation. Amen. So if
somebody wants to take a class that the Loving on
you are Loving on Me Academy. How do they do that,
Contrina out? Where do they go? They go to Loving
on Me academy dot com and they will find all
of the classes there. You know what, I bet probably
(33:38):
of my collars every single night are women that would
benefit from that because they call me because they're stressed out.
They call me because they're trying to control their adult
children's addictions, or their partners philanderings, or they're trying to
control the finances of their household and it's out of
(33:59):
control right now out and they just they call me
because their heartbroken, because they're exhausted, because their life is
a hot mess. I have been there, and I can
so relate, you know. I talk about that in Loving
on Me, my first book, because it's so easy to
slip in a codependent relationship where we are trying to
(34:22):
control another person or live that other person's life for them,
And the truth of it is, you know, we think
that we are helping people, we think that that's the
right thing to do, but you are not called to
live anyone else's life but your own, and in truth,
those people don't love you. For that. They actually resent
(34:42):
for that. And so it is healthy and liberating when
you learn to break codependent relationship. But it is not easy.
It is not easy. And the minute you you try
to set those boundaries, I will tell you, the minute
you try to set those boundaries, the minute you start
saying no, no, no, that doesn't work for me, Nope,
(35:02):
can't do the Nope, not paying that, Nope, you're not
taking my car. Sorry, they get really mean because they
don't want they don't They don't want you to stop
being codependent. They don't want you to take care of you.
They want you to fix them. Right. Yes, that is
so very true, and yet it is completely unhealthy for
(35:26):
you and them for things to stay the way they are.
This is why I believe so much in sisterhood. This
is why I believe in women helping women and understand
the need to have a good group of girlfriends and
connections who can speak truth to you and love because
often we can't see this in ourselves. And this is
(35:48):
whether this is our health. Are like our physical health,
our mental health, our spiritual health. You know, we are
doing things that we would tell our friends. Don't do that. Now,
Oh my goodness, girl, you don't have to live it
that way. Of Course, you don't have to pay his
rent every month. Of Course you should take time for you.
But it sometimes takes somebody outside of your circumstances to
(36:11):
say those things to you. Because people see us based
on how we're living, how we're showing up the good
things that we are doing. We are constantly judging ourselves
on what we perceive we should do or it could
have done or didn't do, and and it often takes
that outside perspective. Today it really is okay, it. This
(36:33):
is a good thing that you are not doing that anymore.
It is a good thing that you're taking time for yourself.
Thank you, Katrina. Thank you for spending some time with
us today. Thank you for being passionate about women's health
and women's hearts and women's sisterhood. And any time you
want to share a healthy recipe call me. Okay, I
(36:56):
absolutely will do that. Now. I'm gonna see you when
you're red on February right, oh yeah, oh yeah. And
you know what, Red is one of my favorite colors.
I decorate with it. My house has got red accents,
and I am gonna wear red. But more importantly, I'm
really going to make it a point to talk to
my daughters, my friends, especially women of color, about the
(37:19):
importance of paying really good attention to their heart. Thank you,
thank you. It's so important and I so appreciate you.
Let me spend some time with you today. I loved it,
all right, I'll talk to you soon, Okay. Take here.
You know, for more than forty years, for more than
four decades, I have tried to be a comfort to
(37:41):
those suffering from a wounded heart. I've tried to encourage
people to live from their heart, to love from their heart.
I was a champion. I've been a champion. I've tried
to be for the healing heart, a celebrant of the
happy heart. I try to pass on all the great
advice I can a lot from my own personal experiences.
(38:04):
I've been around the block three times maybefore, and I
like to share stories other people's stories. Katrina McGhee does
the same. The only difference is that my work, my
show is about the emotional heart, the joy, the love,
(38:25):
the tears in our heart. Katrina's work is about the
physical heart, our cardiovascular health. Each of us, me and
Katrina wants you to live your best life. Live your
life to the fullest, with joy, with purpose, with intent.
Please take her advice. Do I dare say it to heart,
Live fearce, prioritize your health, live purposefully, live passionately. I
(38:49):
encourage you every single day to love someone. That's my motto,
my slogan in life. And perhaps I don't say it enough,
but the very first person that that applies to is you.
You can't love others if you're not taking care of yourself.
So take care of yourself, take care of your heart
so that you will have the strength and the energy
to take care of everyone else that you love. Valentine's
(39:13):
Day just around the corner. You know where to tune
in for the greatest love songs, the greatest love stories
of all time. I share those with you every night
this year. When you're making your plans for the loves
in your life, your sweetheart, your partner, your children, include yourself.
The month of February is a great time to kick
(39:33):
start some healthier habits. Where read on February five to
help bring awareness to women's heart health and visit where
Red day dot org to learn more and to donate
to go Red and Ladies. If you're looking for tips
and inspirations to take the next big steps in life,
in your careers and managing your health, you should visit
(39:55):
Loving on me academy dot com Loving on me academy
dot com, where you will find amazing, empowering tips and information.
Join me next time I Love Someone With Delilah, We're
going to have a fabulous podcast season, a fabulous year,
and I am excited looking forward to sharing it with you.
(40:17):
My friend m
Host
Delilah
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