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(00:13):
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Doc Park, Mike mic It's gladto be all right, and hey,
hey to all of my BTG crewout there as well. Today we have
(01:53):
a very special guest that is comingon. I'm actually quite excited to have
her on here because she has acertain thing she talked about about falling in
love with self. When I gother whole media thing that came over to
me, I said, I toldBrian, I have to have her on
(02:13):
truly. So this is what Iwant to do. We're gonna take a
quick break and then we're gonna comeback and then we're gonna bring this beautiful
young lady on to onto the stagebecause I believe it's something definitely that you
guys need to hear. All Right, it's your gurty got it? Banks
here on acidam Bridgin Podcast, willbe right back. Washington wells into two
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(02:37):
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then I live the good. SoI can be paid to be my
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what does it take to be thegreatest? It's as simple as a free
fifteen minute consultation be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Season of Self Love
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(04:54):
for these incredible guests and more onlyon Ask Naomi Bridging the Gap let's bridge
the gap together. All right,Well, welcome back to Sugurty Goddess Nummy
Banks here on Accidentry Rich in theGap podcast again. Welcome, welcome everyone
to my BTG crew dot com.Mike, Mike, we have a beautiful
young lady that is coming to thestage. She is not only a yoga
(05:15):
instructor in a lifestyle grouproup, butshe is an entrepreneur or author and she
owns a company called her Body Sportsand Bodywear. And so I'm going to
bring to the States miss Shahadah kareemLo. I am beautiful. How are
you? I'm good? How areyou? I am well? I am
(05:36):
truly well. I was doing alittle research on you when Brian sent over
your your information to me, andI said, Brian, I have to
have her own. I have tohave her on cause, first of all,
you speak the same language that Ispeak. So when I went to
your website and the first thing thatI saw was fall in love with yourself.
Yeah, fall in love with yourself. So let me ask you this,
(06:04):
what is your what is your selflove language? My self love language
is solitude, solitude. I likethat solitude solitude, So do this for
me. Tell because I know Ididn't give you your justice of introducing you.
(06:25):
So if you can tell everybody whatit is that you do and just
who are you? Who is ShahadaKareem. I am a yoga instructor,
but I'm also a wellness advocate andI believe in self care from both sides,
so inside out and outside in.So I own a skincare company,
(06:46):
how Biby Body, and I owna nutrition and fitness company, habib Body
Sport. Both of those things encompassa three hundred and sixty degree program to
help you get to know yourself andto help you fall in love with yourself.
I love that. So how didyou come to create that? Create
(07:10):
that whole? You know? Threehundred and sixty degrees? I love that.
That's one thing. I looked atit and I want to ask you
go because I can. I canreally jump here, so I really want
to jump in. But how didyou you know to creating that? They
say that necessity is the mother ofinvention? Right? So I started with
skin care in two thousand and three. I started with skincare because I had
(07:33):
cystic acne, hyperpigmentation, highly reactiveskin. My skin did not like anything,
it would work for two weeks andthen stop working. Almost everything I
used always started out, you know, it was great for like that that
week to ten days, and thenit would backfire. And I used everything
from and this is me dating myselffrom Sea Breeze. I don't know if
(07:55):
you remember Cree. I use everythingfrom Sea Breeze to Essay Lauters Night Repair.
When it first came out in thenineties, I was in college.
That's because I thought, if youspend more money, then it'll work better.
So my journey really started when myacne started, which was at about
(08:16):
ten years old, and I hadacne. I had severe acne until my
mid forties, really, and Ilearned how to stop attacking my skin.
I used to attack my skin.I learned how to be kind to it.
That took a very long time,a lot of trial and error.
I went from spending you know,ten dollars to five hundred dollars on sicily
(08:41):
and sublomage, you know, likeI went. I went there like maybe
I needed to spend that much moneyin order to make it work, and
nothing ever worked. So I gotreally interested in the way things are made.
I started really paying attention to ingredients, and I found out that more
expensive it is not always better right. And I also found out that the
(09:03):
best way to take care of myskin is from the outside in and from
the inside out. I also hadto change my diet because a lot of
my regular habits created a lot ofinflammation which would show up on my skin,
which I would then attack. Itwas a whole thing. So I
started How Baby Body, the skincarecompany, in two thousand and three.
I started as a professional yoga instructorin two thousand and nine, and then
(09:28):
I started How Baby Body Sport.Once I developed my own technique, once
I found out what kind of teacherI was, and once I got enough
education and enough training in nutrition andariveda, I started How Baby Body Sport
in twenty eighteen. Now those twocompanies reflect each other. So one is
(09:48):
inside out nutrition and fitness and oneis outside in skincare. So let me
ask you this. When I wasreading on your website, you had the
hubbobby and I hope I'm hi Babi, Hi Bibi, thank you bybe Hi
tech body technique. Describe is andwhat does it do for the body?
(10:09):
The hibiby body technique is both bothexcuse me, physical and esoteric. So
if you look at the description,it'll give you the physical description of what
I'm asking of you, which iscenter out movement. I'm asking you to
move from your spine and from thecore muscles that wrap around your spine to
(10:31):
your extremities, to your legs,to your feet, to your arms,
to your hands. So we startin the center of the body and we
move out. Everything is concentrated inthe center because if you have center body
control, what we commonly know iscore control, you can do amazing things
with your body. So we teachstrength, endurance, flexibility, and balance
(10:52):
at the same time, so allof those things happen in one compound movement.
Esotirically, we particularly addressed the threechuckers in the bottom half of your
body, wata which is at thebase of your coccyx, your sadistana,
which is in your hips, andyour manipura, which is right behind the
(11:13):
belly button. So is your ancestrythat your roots. Those are where you
develop your some scart, where youdevelop your patterns, your habits. They
typically come from scars from trauma.The way that we move through the world
as children and ultimately as adults,has a lot to do with the way
that we responded to whatever stimulus cametowards us in our formidable years. A
(11:35):
lot of times we have to unlockthat. So we deal with your roots.
We deal with your sensuality, notto be confused with your sexuality.
Sadistana is your sensuality non verbal communication, how you express yourself without speaking,
how you move your body. Ican watch a student the way that they
(11:56):
move in a public space because someof my class or public in a public
space, and I can tell alot about their some scar I can tell
a lot about their patterns because ofthe way that they're moving on their mat
if they're hesitant, if they're aggressive, if they're angry at themselves because they
don't nail it right away. Alot of that comes through in their nonverbal
(12:16):
communication. And the last thing weaddress is your maniporter, which is your
confidence, your creativity, and yourexpression of I am. We specifically,
we specifically focus on those three chakrasbecause those are the chokras that are typically
suppressed in our society and are particularlysuppressed in women. We do not discuss
(12:41):
our roots where we came from,because we don't want anyone to disapprove of
us. We have a very difficulttime expressing our sensuality because often we confuse
it with our sexuality, and weoften have a hard time with I am,
with standing up and being like Iam, without excuses, without apology.
(13:03):
We tend to have a hard timewith that because in our society we
are told to tamper that down.We have a lot of on a hot
cup, right, We got alot of heart. Women are always so
nurturing and empathetic, but the bottomhalf is often ignored. We're normally up
here, We're normally empathetic. Welove everybody here. Let me take care
of you, Let me feed you, let me clothe you, let me
(13:24):
look after you. If you getto look after ourselves, but please let
me look after you. Right.We speak a certain way so that we
will be approved of, and wecultivate community a certain way, right,
and all of that leads to ourfinal connection to the crown chakra. But
often this is on. We operatefrom here to here. We never operate
(13:45):
from here down. This is alwayssuppressed. So the Habibi body technique will
address that you know what I lovethat you said, so as you were
speaking. As you were speaking,my whole body is just shaking. It's
just like ship like and this isgood. That means your energy is transfer
you know, transforming energy to me. And it's feeling good because I've never
(14:07):
I've always talked about the chakra andI've always used, as you say,
part of my chakra. Honestly,I've never used the root out word downward.
Never. But as you were speaking, I was like, oh my
gosh, she's so right. Andeven when I talk about self love and
even with my podcast, the selfLove Seeson, that means, you know,
(14:28):
really to have an intimate relationship withyourself, finding out who you are
so you can be able to notonly teach other people on how to treat
you or love you, but whateveryou show an example so they can be
able to, you know, likea domino effect type of thing in that
(14:48):
source. Right, So when youspeak of the girl from the root chakra
down out, that's amazing, andI thank you for sharing that here.
A lot of people don't understand thatbecause one of my questions was going to
ask about the chakra and you alreadywent there with it. Because we've been
(15:09):
taught, you know, learn isthat this is where we go up with
right here, ever talk about wherewe came from. We're always starting here.
Everybody's always open your heart, choker, open your heart choker. Okay,
but I got three more that we'renot even talking about, we aren't
even addressing, and they tend tobe ignored. And then we don't understand
why we have so many issues here. We're either too open or too closed.
(15:31):
Right, We're either open and we'regiving everybody everything without giving ourselves anything,
or we're closed and we're bitter andwe don't know why. We don't
understand why this thing is on ahotel, why it's so imbalanced, Because
every chakra works on the other.They're all connected. You can't just use
half of them and throw out theother half. Doesn't work like that.
(15:54):
So when you find that people arein balance, it's a good idea to
start asking them questions about who theyare based on where they come from,
because that's really how we shape ourselves. We shape, especially as adults,
we shape ourselves. We say Iam this person because this is where I
come from, or this is whatI was taught, or this is what
I've experienced. So tell me moreabout what you've experienced. Tell me more
(16:18):
about your root, about your ancestry. That'll help with your expression, with
your confidence, and eventually with yourheart, which the heart choker is the
connection between the physical, which isdown here and the spiritual, which is
up here. So if this isn'tbalanced, so is this? Yeah?
So is this because you haven't balancedthe gate? And you haven't balanced the
(16:41):
gate because you have not addressed thephysical. Yeah. So let me ask
you this. For those out there, how can they find it? How
can they find the root? Youknow, it's a lot of people that
are lost. They don't know whattheir ancestry was. And I'm gonna be
I'm gonna say this. I remembergoing over to Italy. I remember going
over to Italy, and in Italyyou see just you know, you see
(17:06):
who they are. You see whothey are through the cobblestone ground, the
buildings, you see all of this. And I remember being there with a
friend of mine, and I rememberfeeling so upset. And why I felt
so upset, It's because at thatmoment I knew, I was like,
I don't know who I am.I can't you know. I come from
(17:26):
the South Side of Chicago, andit was like I don't see any buildings
that make me feel like, youknow, like home, like I was
in this is who I am?Yes, And I felt that there and
it was like like oh my goodness. And I really honestly believe that is
truly what had started me going onto my spiritual journey as well there and
(17:51):
wanted to connect to know who Iam and where I come from. And
it was luckily that my mom haddid an ancestral charge to find out,
you know, where we come from, you know, over there, Africa
and all of those other things.But before we didn't know that. I
remember asking my grandmother that you knowsuch and such. She only knew from
her parents and maybe her parents' parents, and that's it. In nothing else.
(18:12):
And if they didn't know any knowanything, you know, of course
they wasn't telling us because back thena lot of times there's a lot of
things happen. Everything gets swept upunder the rug and people have to be
because that's the only way you cankeep control over people. So the connection,
the African American connection is a veryunique one. Is a completely different
(18:33):
podcast, right, a whole anotherthing. But there's a reason that you
feel untethered there's a reason that youdon't understand why your feet are not on
the ground, why you can't lookat the thing and say, this is
this is me. I see thisbuilding in me, I see my ancestors
in this, in this thing,in this work. There's a reason for
(18:56):
that. You are by design untethered. You live in I can say some
America. As an African American,you are by design untethered, right,
And it takes a lot of workto tether yourself to your ancestry. Yeah,
it takes way more work than aperson who knows how far back they
go, right, because of oralhistory, because they can go to their
(19:21):
native country and say, oh,this is where I come from. These
are my people, and these aremy this is my grandmother and my great
great grandmother, and we don't havethat, so that it's going to take
more. When I work with AfricanAmerican clients is a completely different protocol because
to get to know yourself you gotto do different work. Yeah, So
(19:41):
let me so for you, whatwas it the moment when you said,
Okay, I truly need to breakit all the way down so I can
know who I am and where Icame from, so I can know that
once I get here, I'm allthe way balanced. You know where you
started from the group. What madeShahaa say, okay, I need to
start here. To be honest,I'm very fortunate. So I am half
(20:04):
people out in mess in Tuckett.And my grandmother is diligent about us knowing
where we come from, right.But to be clear, that is only
on my mother's side. On mymother's side, I know everything. I
know who my grandparents. I knowthe story of my great great great great
(20:26):
grandmother who married a man who cameto these shores looking for fortune and had
thirteen kids, and we keep goingfrom there. So so that is that
is my grandmother. That is mygreat grandmother on my mother's side saying this
is who you are, this iswho you are. Never forget who you
are. So I was very veryfortunate on my mother's side. On my
(20:49):
father's side, we had to dosome digging because my father is from Chicago,
Oh okay right, and all hispeople came up from New Orleans.
And that was work trying to goback south figure out who's what, where
they came from, who knew who, who married who, who had how
many kids, what the family lastname is on that side because it's completely
(21:11):
different than the one that they changedit to when they moved to Chicago,
because they were trying. My grandmotherand my grandfather on my father's side wanted
to start a whole new life,so they didn't take none of the South
with them. Oh wow. Soand that's why as a child I did
not have that thread that went allthe way back, because they were like,
(21:33):
nope, new name, new life, We're doing every different. So
that was some work. Yeah,that took work. That was a little
tougher. On my mother's side,it was super easy. It's still easy
to this day. Yesterday, asa matter of fact, this is this
is how easy it is and howmuch I leaned back. Yesterday, I
(21:53):
was talking to my husband about myuncle name and why I chose it and
why we had to have a namingceremony and that you choose your name,
it's a it's a really big deal. And he said, I'm just I'm
so surprised that you chose that namebecause the name represents water. And he's
like, you're not very formless.My husband is a very formless man.
We talk about formlessness a lot.And he said, I'm just really surprised
(22:18):
that you didn't choose something fiery,because you're so you have so much fire.
And I explained to him that oneof the reasons I liked the water
name is because I have learned overthe years to balance my fire, to
not add so much water that myfire turns to earth into mud, and
(22:41):
not to add so little that myfire burns the water off and it becomes
steam. But right in the middle, to just have the fireside of me
and the water side of me movein harmony. He was he would looked
at me. He was like,I can't believe he chose a water name.
So I but that comes on mymother's side. My mother's side very
(23:02):
deeply rooted. I understand a lotabout my history as an indigenous person because
of my family. They were like, this is who you are. Never
forget who you are. Don't letanybody take your identity. That was a
really big deal. As a kid, I thought they were harassing me.
As I got older, absolutely recognizedthe value. I'm like, thank you
Grandma hammering that home with us.Because I was the oldest child, so
(23:26):
I have to carry I have toset the example for all of my siblings.
So they were the hardest on meabout honoring your family, about honoring
your family name, about understanding whereyou come from. So that was very
easy for me. That's not whereI became untethered. I became untethered at
work. I did everything right right. I'm part of that last generation Generation
(23:51):
X who did everything right. Youwent to high school, graduate fro high
school, and went to college,graduate from high school, graduate from college,
got your advanced degree, went intoa career, and that career is
supposed to be to the rest ofyour life. And I allowed that career
to take my identity. I becamewhat I did. I was a journalist
(24:11):
for I'm still a journalists to thisday. It's been thirty years. But
I started my journalistic career in nineteenninety six and actually nineteen ninety five if
I count radio. So I allowedthat to become my life. And by
the time I realized that it wasn'tmy life, it was a very strange
(24:32):
thing. It was a strange thingthat happened between me and an executive producer
and she looked at me were Iforgot what we were disagreeing about. But
I was getting increasingly contentious at work. I was becoming less and less and
less tolerant. And what was happeningis I was practicing more and more and
more yoga. The more yoga Ipracticed, the more calm I became,
(24:52):
the more I wasn't interested in participatingin the frenzy of a newsroom. The
newsroom is very friend There's always somethinghappening. Somebody's yelling, somebody's cussing,
somebody's strong things. Your computer isbeeping NonStop because there's alarms happening, your
phone is ringing. It's just alot. And the more I pulled away
(25:14):
from that and sat with myself,the less I like being there. And
this poor woman, who I lovedearly to this day, I forgot what
we were arguing about. We wereabout the same age, right, so
we argued like peers, even thoughtechnically she was my boss. I didn't
treat like them. And I wascrying and she was crying because we were
also syncd up. We were highlyemotional. We're both in her office yelling
(25:37):
at each other. We're both crying, and she says, you don't even
want to be here, and itwas the first honest thing that hit me,
and I was like, she's right, I don't want to be here.
Why is that? Because I wasat the point where I was asking
myself questions. Instead of just recognizingsomething and realizing something, I started to
(25:59):
ask why, and I was like, I don't want to be here.
I don't know why. I don'twant to be here. This used to
be my entire life, this usedto be my entire identity, and now
it's not anymore, and I don'tunderstand what's happening. But that was the
first step to separating myself from whatI did. Because I was very much
(26:21):
involved in Hi, I'm shaa,I'm a journalist came out my face right.
What I was one hundred percent tiedup in who I was, to
the point where even in public,you know people who like they stand outside
the grocery stores and stuff and theyask you to sign petitions. I would
(26:42):
never sign a petition because I didnot believe that as a journalist I should
get involved. Excides that I shouldbe passionate about a thing and have an
opinion about a thing because it mightinfluence my ability to inform and educate.
(27:04):
Hmm. It was who I was. I never took part in the surveys.
I very and I still do tothis day because it's it's an old
habit. But I very secretly vote. Nobody ever knows who I'm voting for
or why I'm voting. I'm very, very very quiet about it. And
that's because over the decades, that'swhat we were taught to do. You
(27:26):
did not become the story. Youtold the story, but you never involved
yourself in the story. And thattranslated to my real life. So get
change dot org petitions. I wouldsee people outside, you know, asking
me, was I registered vote?Yes? I'm registered VRO. Do you
want to vote? Want to signthis petition? No? I do not.
(27:47):
I'm a journalist. I cannot beinvolved. I can observe and report,
but I can't be involved. Wow. So let me ask you this,
because you see so many different likeCNN and Fox and all those other
news and they've always been allegedly pushingtheir agenda. How do you feel how
(28:12):
the news or media is now asthey say that it's all influences, especially
when it comes to social media,you know, as they just band TikTok,
you know, being TikTok and otheryou know, other stuff on that
comes online. What is your thoughtson that? Because because you just said
about for you, this is somethingthat we were taught to not have.
(28:33):
Well, I don't want to saynot have an opinion, but not to
take size. But as a viewerwatching the news, I see that a
lot of these different things have influencesthat they try to push the agenda.
What are your thoughts on that younamed two cable companies m right, CNN,
Fox, MSNBC. Those are cablecompanies I left. I would I
(28:57):
have never worked for cable company.I worked for network. That's one of
the reasons why I left. Toput it very gently, and to be
extremely pc, that is one ofthe reasons I left. I had a
colleague one time have a meltdown.But she and I about the same age.
(29:18):
She remember, I said the newsroomwas very chaotic. She screamed in
the middle of the newsroom. Justdon't call it news. Call it anything,
call it entertainment, call it opinion. Just don't call it news because
that's not we don't do that anymore. Just don't call it news. So
that I can feel good about myselfagain, I came up with Walter Cronk
(29:40):
cronque, you know, with myparents. I came up with Peter Jennings
with Tom Brokrawl. I came upwith the McNeil Lair Hour again dating myself.
People are always surprised in my age, but I'm like, oh,
no, no, no, Iwatched real news. I watched people say
things without changing their expressions, withoutchanging the inflection in their voices, So
(30:03):
it's not to induce bias. Iwatched them give facts. That's why news
was boring. You think about peoplesaying, I don't want to watch the
news. News is boring. Newsis very entertaining. Now we got graphics,
we got colors, we got lightsand sounds, we got sarcasm.
They are clapping back at each other. You got the anchor from this network
(30:26):
clapping back. The anger from thatnetwork is completely entertaining. And part of
the reason is because the genre isdying, so they're trying to stay relevant
by any means necessary. That meansthey got a joint TikTok generation. They're
gonna join the TikTok generation. GenX was the last generation that the boomer
(30:48):
and the greatest generation that that trajectoryworked for, go to school, got
a good job. That ended withGeneration X, Millennials did not have the
opportunities that Generation X have. GenZ absolutely does not have the opportunities that
even millennials have. Right, Sothe application that we have about oh,
(31:14):
just do this this thing, right, we still because we're living to pull
yourself off by your bootstrap society.Just do this thing and it'll all work
out for you. And then whenit doesn't work out, we tell them,
what, this is your fault,Right, you didn't do it right.
You didn't choose the right major,you didn't go to the right college,
you didn't get the right job,and it's completely untrue. The world
has changed. Yeah, our wayof life is dying. Generation X iss
(31:37):
not our world anymore, and wehave we have to reconcile that. Right.
So one of the ways I reconciledit was by leaving a profession that
I used to be proud of thatI stopped being proud of because I didn't
understand what was happening. If Iam arguing with someone about a story that
does not belong in my show aboutwhether or not an actress has had plastic
(31:59):
surch because it is not news,then I know it's not for me to
go there's a true story. Iwas like, I'm not doing it.
Talk to news. I don't care. It's not going in the show.
Not doing it. Took it allthe way to the news director. I
walked in there very confidently. Iwas like, I don't care if I
get fired. I'm not doing this. This is a stupid story. Is
the idiotic story somebody got from adaily mail. I'm not doing this.
(32:22):
Put in somebody else's show. Makethat somebody else's problem. It can't be
in my show. Right, Sowhat's happening on a regular basis. It's
talking for you. You know,it's time for you to go. So
as you as you walking out nownow I'm just giving this scenario. So
as you walking out the door,how did you go from news anchor with
(32:43):
news reported, journalist, producer towho you are now? Like, what
was the transition? I started thatjourney. So I started that journey in
two thousand and nine. I didn'tactually walk away from network television until twenty
seventeen. Ooh, every long transition. This was not some super quick you
know, there's no such thing asan overnight thing. Right, even when
(33:05):
I was working a lot of scenesand people go, oh my god,
it happened overnight. No, itdidn't took twenty years. Right, you
just didn't see it. But right, you didn't see it. But this
has been happening all this time.Well, part of me being Generation X
and knowing better than a walk awayfrom job. But iout having something.
You know, I'm not gonna havemy mama call me and cuss me out
because I walked away from my paycheckand didn't have nothing to figure out what
(33:29):
I was doing. I just crossedover. I made a transition very slowly,
So eventually I worked less hours inthe newsroom, and I kept adjusting
my schedules so that I could spendthe time that I wouldn't be spending teaching
because like my students were asleep,and then I would leave. I would
(33:51):
literally leave the newsroom, run home, take a shower, put on my
other clothes, go teach my classes, and then I will come home and
pass out, get up the nextday, do it all over again.
Well, that of horse became unsustainable, so eventually I was like, Okay,
I really like teaching. I wantto learn more. One of the
things that really helped facilitate my decisionto leave was that I didn't have any
(34:12):
more education time. I couldn't justleave for six weeks, go somewhere and
sit and cave and learn about stuff. My boss will be like, absolutely
not. You have two weeks vacation, but you can't take six. So
that was the other thing. AndI remember asking, and I'm still friends
with her to this day. Iremember asking the head of the finance department,
(34:35):
how to do this? How doI do this? Right? I'm
an adult now I can't do this. I'm like, I'm not twenty,
Like I don't have twenty year oldtime. How do I do this?
And she says, what do youwant? And I said, I want
my time. I want the time, because she asked me, she said,
is it the money thing? AndI was like, no, I
want the time. This takes thetime. This takes time, or I
could be doing something else. Idon't want to come in here anymore and
(34:55):
give this thing my time. Andshe said, save a year's salary and
then come see me. And Idid not like that because that sounded like
a really long time and I wasreally trying to I was putting her for
some quick fix, so I didnot appreciate her telling me that. But
(35:15):
she was like, she said,listen, I have friends who are entrepreneur
entrepreneurs and the money runs out inthree months. She's like, I don't
care how much money you think yousaved, because you are less likely to
change your lifestyle when you quit,because you're on a steady paycheck lifestyle.
You see that paycheck coming every week. You need to save a year because
(35:37):
in three months you're gonna be questioningyour life choices. I quit in June.
In September, I started questioning mylife choices, and I had a
caller and I was like, Okay, you were right. Thank you for
telling me to save a year sothat I'm not homeless or going back to
(35:58):
beg my balls and my job.Because it was very confused when I quit.
He was like, what is wrongwith you? What are you gonna
do? I said, I'm ateacher. Oh game, make sop.
He's like what why? He wasconfused, and I was like, you
were the best balls I've ever had. The news director who the news director
at the time when I quit,was one of the best people I had
(36:21):
ever worked with, and so whenI went in there, I felt very
confident that I could leave with love. It was not a hostile conversation.
It was not a hostile transition.And although I begged them not to day
had a party for me. Itwas. It was. I was kind
of amazing. I couldn't even.I can't even. I have nothing bad
to say about that place. Ihave nothing bad to say about the people
(36:42):
here. I love them all stillto this day. I've been very lucky
in that respect. I gave thatnetwork seventeen years, and I remember every
single year. I remember how hardwe worked when it mattered, Remember being
in the newsroom for seventy two hoursafter nine to eleven. When it mattered.
(37:04):
We came together. I will neverforget those people. They will always
be my family. Oh wow.Yeah, So I don't have any hard
feelings about changing and moving into anotheraspect of my life, which is why
I say I've been very lucky inthat regard. It wasn't like, oh
my god, the bottom fell outand I say, you know, I
had to do something, I hadto do a new career. No,
this was something that I did becauseI chose to. This was a choice.
(37:28):
It wasn't an easy choice, andlike I said, it didn't happen
overnight. The argument that I hadwith the executive producer was in twenty fifteen.
I quit in twenty seventeen. Itwas still two years later because when
I came home. I came homeand I told my husband and I was
like, oh my god. Icalled into it Jessica and she said I
didn't even want to be here,and she's right, and he was like,
we have a mortgage, Like whatare you doing? What's getting ready?
(37:52):
Happened? Because you sound real andyou know, I'm just saying that,
like Bill's come do it every month. You sound like you're about to
say something that you might not.You might want to think about this right
quick. And I was like,no, no, no, I'm not
saying I want to quit. Andthe reason I remember that conversation is because
(38:13):
my husband's very clear. He doesn'tsay that much, but what he says,
he's very clear. And the reasonI remember the date is because he
went on record. He said,let it be known on record on this
day, July seventeenth, twenty fifteen. I am not telling you that you
have to stay at a job thatyou hate. I am telling you to
make a plan. And that's whyI made a plan. I mean,
(38:35):
He's like, oh no, no, no, You're not gonna accuse me
of trying to keep you at ajob that you hate. I'm the terrible
husband. I got your working.Nope, you're not gonna do that.
I am telling you to make aplan. And so I went to the
finance office and I was like,I need help. I got to make
a plan because I'm not staying here. And she's like, okay, save
a year. Come holler at me. After you save a year, and
then we'll make a plan. Andof course it took longer than the year
(39:00):
the same year, so years later, h well, you had a plan,
though, you you had a planand here now it helps a lot
to have a tribe, to havepeople at your back, being like I
got you because you're probably gonna fallon your butt. So when you fall,
we're gonna catch you, pick youup, dust you all, and
(39:20):
send you on your way. Yeah, so let's do this. Let's take
a quick break and we come back. Because you know what, I ain't
asked you none of the questions that'son this owner, not a one,
not a one. It is allgood, all right, my beautiful people.
Instagraty God is a nam revisiting theGap podcast. We will be back
(39:42):
all right, Hi, I'm doctorWilliam C. Washington, aka doctor will
your friendly neighborhood counselor. One ofthe biggest things that I want to tell
you about is that I'm a healthpsychologist, a lots of professional clinical counselor,
supervisor and NBMA as as a therapist, kennymin a sistant therapist, a
psychedelic integration prep specialist. I'm aresearcher, a mentor, a supervisor,
(40:07):
and also an artist. One ofthe biggest things about Washington's institute is that
I created this to modernize the waythat we look into the world. And
I hate to say it, butwe're finally getting rid of the old ways
of thinking. I want to bringin the Silver Age of psychology and to
do that, I've even created amodel called Restorative Enhancement modality that focuses on
(40:31):
motive and purpose to make healing andlifestyle. I want to offer this to
you. I'm going to offer thisto the world. It's anyone that's ready
to learn. So if you're ready, sign up today. Rekind to yourself
and He'll always Welcome to the Seasonof Self Love Podcast with Naomi Banks,
(40:54):
where every day is a chance toembrace self discovery and personal Join Naomi on
a transformative journey, streaming exclusively onSpotify and Breaker with daily episodes from Monday
through Friday. Podcast is your dailydose of inspiration, motivation, and self
love. Dive deep into engaging conversationsabout self care, mindfulness and personal development.
(41:20):
Nay only brings you expert insights,practical tips, end uplifting stories from
thought leaders in the field. Embarkon a journey of self discovery and unlock
the power of self love. Markyour calendars and tune in to the Season
of Self Love podcast, available everyweekday on Spotify and Speaker. Remember it's
time to prioritize yourself and embrace thebeautiful season of self love. Get inspired
(41:45):
and join Naomi Banks on the Seasonof Self Love podcast. All right,
well, welcome back as your goodygattis let me Banks your own X name
we GAT podcast and today we havethe beautiful Miss Shahada Kareem here hai he
hello. First of all, thankyou so much for sharing that first segment
(42:05):
was amazing. Thing. I waslike, I don't get to ask really
the questions on here, I'm justtalking. We just have a conversation.
But I truly love and I thankyou for it. You got any questions,
Before I get into my questions,I'll get your off. Just listen,
all right. So the one thingis that I love is that you
are a yoga instructor. For you, how did you so? Let me
(42:30):
let me make sure that I'm sayingthis right, hold on, give me
one second, okay. How haspracticing yoga influenced your personal journey and philosophy
on life? Yoga for me hastaught me how to mind my business because
(42:52):
I have a journalistic background. I'mnosy, right, I'm always in the
mix, always trying to find astory, always trying to find stuff,
and that can be a very stressfulway of living. So they taught me
out abound my business. When you'reon your met it's only you and you're
met. Everything else doesn't matter.So if you start learning what's happening and
(43:17):
you start listening to what's happening onthe inside of your body, you don't
have time to worry about everything andeveryone else. One of the most valuable
and I can say it's valuable nowlooking back. At the time, it
felt very traumatic. But I sheda lot of people during my initial practice
(43:38):
time because I couldn't understand why thesetwo parts of my life weren't coming together
while all of these humans that Iknew before I actually started to learn yogas,
before I started to take it beyondjust doing the poses and being the
physical starting to figure out why I'mbreaking down crying in the middle of my
(43:58):
practice. Right before that, Ididn't understand why I couldn't bring these two
things together. And something happened inone of my teacher trainings that I never
forgot, and it was a lessonand a signal to me that I needed
to make a choice. We aspart of our teacher training, we had
(44:22):
to invite people to come and takea class with us as a teacher and
that training. I remember that trainingwas very challenging for me because there was
a lot of unlearning. I wasolder. I was the oldest person,
one of the oldest people. Ithink there was one lady was older than
me. But I was one ofthe oldest people in the training, and
so I wasn't very open. RememberI came in as a journalist. I
(44:42):
came in to gather information. Idid not come in to open to anything,
right, I just came in tolearn. But I was a very
aggressive student, and as a result, I was a very aggressive teacher.
And so they asked you, Theysaid, you know, you get to
invite. Just tell us how manypeople you're gonna invite, so that we
know how many people going to bein class. We were in a big
room, but there were eighteen ofus teachers, and so if each one
(45:05):
of us bought two people, youknow, that was a big deal.
So they gave us about four weeksto do this. And I went out
and I asked all of these peoplewho I thought. I thought that they
would be proud of me because I'mlearning to do this new thing, right,
this is a thing that's different.It's not like the old me.
This is a new thing that I'mdoing, and I thought that they would
(45:25):
be proud of me. And Iinvited ten people. It was a really
big deal because of the space.So I had to go to my instrucchers
and say, hey, I actuallyconfirmed ten, Is that okay? Like?
And they're oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, right please.
So that day, our entire day, the day side of our training
was set up to get our classesin line and so your people would come
(45:47):
to your class, right, andwe had it was almost a twenty four
hour training because at that night wehad to come back, so we left,
took a nap eight and then wecame back for the actual session,
right and the feedback. What happenedin my class was that no one I
invited showed up, not one person. And I was frantically texting them up
(46:14):
to about two minutes before the startof the class. I'm in the bathroom
just panicking. Where are you?Are you on your way? Are you
trying to find parking? Remember there'sfree parking around the corner. I'm giving
all kinds of instructure instructions. Afew of them never responded. They just
turned their phones on to do notdisturb you know, it'll tell you,
like this person on a silence,do you want to notify them anyway?
Because I was texting them so much, they immediately turned their phones off.
(46:36):
And then the rest of them justdidn't respond. And then one person said,
oh, I overslept. My classwas at two pm. I overslept.
I'm not gonna make it. Iwas devastated. I was horrified,
and I still had to teach thatclass. It's still other people in that
class. I just had ten ofmy people that were supposed to come,
but it was still other people inthat class, and I had to go
(46:57):
in there and teach that class.And one of the things that I learned
as a teacher was not to bringmy crap in the room, right,
which I already had training with asa journalist. You don't bring yourself into
your story. So I was like, Okay, you can't take any of
your anguish, any of your disappointment, any of your sadness. You can't
take any of that into this classbecause these people do not know you,
(47:17):
they don't know anything about you,and they are going to listen to every
single thing that you say, Sobe responsible with your words. So let
me ask you this, because I'ma very energy type of person. So
knowing that you were in the bathroomin that motion and the anxiety and that
(47:37):
disbelief and everything like that for younow now I feel that you know,
Now, how do you release yourenergy to where it doesn't come off transform
onto someone else? You take yourselfout of the equation. Okay. It's
something that you learn as a teacher. You learn not to influence your students
(47:59):
with your book shit. You learnthat that is a skill. I try
to explain it to people when theythink they can just jump in and teach.
As a teacher, it is yourresponsibility to cultivate their energy, not
yours. You take yourself out ofthe conversation. And by that time,
this is like my third training.By that time, I'd learned how to
(48:20):
drop it. I took a deepbreath and I dropped it, and I
walked in there empty and I gavethem a great class. Now, what's
very interesting is that that same habitof dropping myself before I entered the room
was what kept me from being agreat teacher. I had had one of
(48:42):
my instructors years maybe two or threeyears after this, I had one of
my instructors come in and take aclass and I was super excited. Sucial
Views one of my favorite instructors,and I immediately harassed her afterwards, feedback
feet, back feet, that wouldyou think which? And she wouldn't say
anything. She said, please justgive me a minute, let me process
everything and I'll get back to you. Okay. Fine. A month went
(49:07):
by. I completely forgot about it. Apparently she did not. We had
to go to a party for anotheryoga teacher who was going to India to
continue her studies. We're at theparty, and she said, are you
ready for that feedback? Now?Now, please know that we're at the
party and I have all full makeup, I am dressed to the nines.
Do I want the feedback? Completelyforgot about the feedback. I was okay.
(49:30):
She took me over to the corner. The very first thing that she
said to me was why are yousuch a liar? Ooh ooh. That
was the first thing. I wasnot prepared for that to hit me.
I immediately started crying, makeup,just running down. I'm like what she
(49:54):
said. Your students give you everything. Watch them. They give you everything,
and you give them nothing. Thisneed the right words, but you
don't give them any of your energy. You don't share anything with them.
(50:15):
And they're looking at you like,please talk to me, help me share.
And you say all the right things, you do all the right adjustments,
you say all the right things outof your face, but you are
not a great teacher because you don'ttell the truth. You're a good teacher,
but you're not a great teacher.That was on a Saturday. I
(50:37):
had a class the following day ona Sunday. It was during the Oscar
soul white protests. What six blocksaway from my studio and I taught a
Black Lives Matter class to a roomfull of non black people. They came
(50:59):
out the room, everybody was crying. The manager was like, what did
you say. I said, Itold the truth, and she was like,
well, I don't I don't knowwhat that means. I said,
I told the truth. Megan toldme tell the truth. I told the
truth. This is how I feel. And I started teaching classes like that
(51:22):
from then on, and my classesstarted to fill up. I have a
student who's now a teacher, andshe would be like, I miss church
because I tall on Sunday. Imissed church. I miss church. Used
to come in and we used tocry. It wouldn't be a dry eye.
And from that moment on, Iunderstood the value of cultivating energy,
(51:46):
not holding it, not dropping it, also not smothering them with it,
for cultivating and exchange. And thiswas a few years in, right,
I thought, I know what Iwas doing. Thought I was, you
know, you can tell me nothing, which is why I was so proud
(52:06):
when my teacher came in there.I was like, yes, I'm impressed
her. I'm gonna teach the bestclass ever. And she was like,
that is not it. I don'tknow what you did, but that is
not it. And it hurt.But I learned and I'm like, you
just turned that around, like inless than twenty four hours. Was like
I got that note. Check.Oh. It was so funny because one
(52:30):
of the what I did was Itechnically didn't teach a Black Lives Matter class.
What I did was when the studentscame, I asked everybody about their
ethnic makeup and they were confused,but they were very, very proud to
tell me right. And I tooknotes on everybody, and I took notes
about who was in what part ofthe room, so that when I spoke
(52:52):
on their particular heritage, I wasmaking eye contacts. Okay, that's what
moved them. I was talking tothem about something that was important to them.
And then about forty minutes into theclass, I said to them,
when a people take to the streetin protests is because that is the last
(53:15):
way they know how to communicate.If you matter, so do they this
thing that you are proud of,your parents, your grandparents, your ancestry,
your thing, this thing that makesyou you right, this matters to
you, right, So does thateven if you can't feel it because you
(53:38):
can't particularly connect to it, itdoes not make a thing any less valid.
It does not make a thing anyless real. So if you are
struggling to understand why this is happening, look at yourself. First. That
was pretty much just a class severalfive minutes. The crime they can't buy.
(54:00):
Class manager was like, oh mygod, is anybody okay? Else?
Like, they're fine, They're exhausted, but they're fine. All right.
So let me ask you this question. For anybody that hasn't done yoga
or want to do yoga, howcan that go about going into yoga?
(54:22):
Something like that? I would say, So we have this thing right in
our country where we think that weshould spend more money on something to be
more effective. I would say,start with classes on YouTube, start free,
find out if it's something you actuallywant to do. You might think,
oh, I want to do yoga. I want to you know,
bend my body in a bunch ofdifferent places. I want to learn anything.
Go and do something for free.Don't give anybody any money yet until
(54:46):
you decide this is what you wantto do. Go to the yoga class
at your local gym. Right seeif this is what you want to do.
If this is not what you wantto do, now, you're not
at any money. You lost sometime, but you're not out of any
money, right, That's what thatwould always be my advice. Go do
something for free first. More expensivedoes not mean better. I'm a very
(55:09):
expensive teacher. I do not necessarilyneed you to come and pay me and
work with me, only for youto get in two weeks and realize this
is not something that you want todo, right. I'm not interested in
separating you from your money. Iam interested in you doing work. I'm
a very difficult person to train withbecause I don't pull punches. So if
(55:30):
you're someone who needs to be coddled, I'm not the teacher for you.
You know, if you want aparticipation in trophy, I'm not the teacher
for you. I won't do that. And I told you that all the
time. I will not drag youalong. I will fight next to you,
I will walk next to you.I will hold your hands side by
side, and we'll walk through thisfire together. But what we not gonna
do is cry about things that wecan deal with. You can cry,
(55:52):
you still gotta do it. Actuallytold that to a client this week.
She started crying. I was like, keep going, I use it,
use that energy. Do it anyway. Life is all right, Live it
anyway. That's kind. Was supposedto be peaceful, but you have to
(56:22):
find it, and finding it isnot necessarily a non violent act. Getting
here is a pain in the butt. You gotta reconcile some things with yourself.
Oh my god, I love it. Look see we now we are
past our time. I get toask, no, this has been an
(56:43):
amazing and you and I should havejust like I need two hours. Let
me tell you something, let metell you something beautiful. I knew we
were gonna have an amazing time,but I didn't know that it was going
to be this amazing. I really, I really, he did not.
And I would love to have youcome back whatever you want to do,
(57:05):
but what I want you to doright now, because we only talked a
little bit about your company and whatyou do if you can, you know,
just shout it out here and letthem know. I think I asked
like two questions from this were definitelyhaving a conversation over here right here.
(57:28):
You know. Actually, when Iposted up your the promo for you,
there was a young lady was like, oh my gosh, you changed my
life. Yes, she is likeoh, And I was like, okay,
all right, we got people overhere, hallelujah and over here.
So I knew right then that itwas going to be an amazing time.
And I thank you so much forjust sharing this space with me, with
(57:50):
us here on BTG, I reallydo. But I want you to tell
them everything what it is, allthat you do, your website and all
that, and we will definitely stayin contact and talk some more because this
has been When I tell you mybody is shaken, my body has been
shaken this whole time and it's beena great feeling. So I so go
(58:13):
ahead, it's yours. You cando it. So the nutrition and fitness
company is Habibbodysport dot com. Youcan even google Hotbibi sport because I own
both combinations of the word and it'llcome up. So Habibisport is nutrition and
fitness, and the Habibi Body techniqueis yoga, pilates, calisetics, and
ballet. That's the combo that weuse to get you where you need to
(58:37):
go. Habibi Body, Habibi Bathand Body is the skincare company and that
website is habibibody dot com. You'llfind both websites on each other. So
you'll find Habibi Body on Habibi Sportand you'll find how Bybi Sport on Habibi
Body. So if you you're notsure where to start, just everything's on
the homepage. Right, beautiful again, thank you so much. Yes,
(59:02):
this has been It's like we cansee here on it, but we can't
cause I gotta go. But thishas surely been amazing. Doctor, You
have no question. This is thefirst time that he quiet. It was
so much information. I mean,one thing that I did want to say,
probably about thirty years ago, Iworked for a company and they did
(59:24):
a yoga show. Was pitching thisshow to balance. The show was called
Balance. Were pitching it the Discovery, you know, and I think it's
probably about thirty five years ago.I'm dating myself now, about thirty five
years ago. And you know,it wasn't out there on all the things.
But from what I just felt fromyou is like they were just up
(59:45):
there doing poses, doing things.They didn't put no feeling, they ain't
put no energy, and they putthe doughty. What you just displayed to
me, what I just heard islike there was nothing behind it. You
know, it was four four women'son the show just doing pos doing that
they were working out. They wereexactly they were working out without that energy,
(01:00:06):
without that knowledge on there. Soyou know, it makes me look
at look at everything differently now,you know, and that's going back thirty
years ago. You know, well, you have a very we have a
very physical practice in this country ofyoga younger. A lot of people just
want to do young so it canbe flexible and skinny, that's a fact.
Yeah, but it's more than that. And if I asked you to
(01:00:27):
get in comfort yourself and you can'tfigure out why you just broke down a
crowd in the middle of my class, we need to have a conversation.
Yeah, I love that you saythree sixty. I love that you say
three sixty. That's yeah, Ilove that. I love that again.
Thank you again, thank you.I'm welcome so much. This has been
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Yesagain, my beautiful people. This is
(01:00:52):
miss Shahadah Kareem here and make sureyou guys follow her on her Instagram.
You got an X. Whatever youwant to ask. I am as just
too much simulus. I can't listen. I'm old on Instagram. It's under
(01:01:14):
my name Jonda Kareen. I'm verytransparent, but I cannot be on X
for one hundred and forty characters cuttingup with the rest of the folks.
All right, beautiful, thank youso much again, this has truly been
a pleasure and we will turn Thankyou so much for having me. Thank
you, thank you. I havea good one. All right, my
(01:01:36):
beautiful people instagrated got his Stami Bankshere or act Dame Revision the Gap podcast.
This has definitely been a beautiful show, and actually it is sending me
off because I got a great thingthat's happening this weekend with some of my
good girlfriends. We're doing a nicelittle tea party and I think it's going
to turn into like a sleepover,which is amazing that we're able to do
this. But just to have thisenergy just just transformed over to me was
(01:01:59):
amazing and I thank her for itcompletely. I thank you for all my
viewers here. There was a viewthroughout the whole thing live. Thank you
so much, because if it wasn'tfor you all, we probably wouldn't be
here. Just as happy as weall right, btt Coup thank you all.
I know we did not open thelines. I'm so sorry, but
you know how it is when weget to talking here and just having a
(01:02:20):
good time and just getting a lotof info. Yeah, but make sure
you guys check out her website.It's Habb's Sports or Habbi's Bodies. Like
you said, she has it allthere dot com. Check it out.
See if it's anything that you wantfrom Needy. When I say that this
is an amazing website, she gota lot of things going on there that
truly help you. I love thatshe say about three sixty. That's what
I love is full inside out,full around. That's all of it.
(01:02:45):
That's all of it, all ofit. But we will definitely be back
next next week. We got someamazing guests that's coming next next month.
Yes, we do have some amazingguests coming next month. I'm excited about
that as well as well as don'tforget to tune into the season and self
love. We next month it's allabout using our words impeccably. That's gonna
(01:03:07):
be a good one. That's thegood month there for May. And just
have an amazing weekend and remember whatI always say, be good to one
another. In yourselves and always keepit sexy. Have a good one,
hey, inst and I hope youenjoyed that last as Naomi, and if
(01:03:30):
your d P A like, subscribeone as well as comments. Keep it
sexy, asks Naomi when we talkabout