HEALING INSPIRED

Walking out My Journey - About Me

My mother was born at a time where you were required to submit to the demands of your
employer. Opinions not valued, civil rights movement resulting in terror in the streets and
a complicated childhood that often amazed me. What she lacked in the workforce, she
made up for in her personal life which was a beautiful tribe. The matriarchal structure was
not focused on making money but rather building family, eating healthy and demonstrating
love. Our bloodline was never where our family ended.

We were actually living in the “Blue Zone” and didn’t know it. Beautiful home cooked
meals basically clean eating before it was a thing. Often vegetarianism, before it was a
thing and definitely breaking bread with others which was a ritual from our past.

I have been blessed to have an amazing career in education and leadership but at the
expense of who I am, compromising for the will of the white leaders that I have
encountered. My adult career started in education. This career that would last about 15
years blinded me to the experience of racism in a different way. Through the impact and
experiences of my students. The classroom felt like a sanctuary to block the world of
whiteness and embrace a journey of learning and collaboration with my students on topics
that would empower them to take leaps that were never guaranteed to have grounding.
What I missed as a young educator was the terror of the education system that was
intentionally limiting the resources and promise for students of color. Many of them are
still my friends on FB and I have to say that I really made an impact in their lives which has
been demonstrated through conversations and as I watch them take charge of the world
and that’s not an understatement. Maybe one day, they will let me post that impact. But
that’s not the point.

Here’s the point, early in my career after 8 years of teaching, I was asked to move into
leadership, the place where I felt like I could finally make a difference in the inequities in
the system at least at my school but I was prepared for the fact that I would be one of very
few leaders that were black. And that experience is what has led me here.

Over the last 10 years, I have been a C-Suite employee, don’t be proud of me because I
definitely didn’t have the rights or the confidence of my white peers in these same roles.
From the random topics I didn’t understand nor was I interested in to the subtle, man you
are “smart”, whatever that would mean because it didn’t bring me voice. My need to
perform actually resulted in a very oppressive relationship despite my experience and

1
innovation. That didn’t change even when moving over as a Chief Officer in a black led
agency and that was because we still depended on white folks to sustain our finances
through grants and funders. Believe me, it definitely didn’t look the same as when I
transitioned to a white male agency, money was flowing with no evidence of impact.

Navigating C-Suite leadership has been an unmapped journey. Work was always first
because I was taught that I had to burn the midnight oil to contend with ½ their effort and
so I worked and worked and worked. In addition, I spend most of my down time daily on
the road. Not only did I cover the entire region of Northern California but I traveled weekly
about 32 hours, yes 32 hours out of the 37.5 I was supposed to be leading. So you can
imagine that turned into 50-60 hours’ weeks. In addition, because it is rare that one that
looks like me can afford to live in neighborhoods close to my work that are worthy of
occupants, I found financial solace in moving to more suburban areas as the Bay Area was
gentrifying. So in addition to work travel, I have commuted for at least 2 hours a day to up
to 4-5 depending on traffic and where I happen to be in the Northern region I led.

During this time, my father was ill, my mother had already passed away and there was no
space for me to care for him and sustain the lifestyle I built so he came to live with me but
that is a story for another time. My parents both died from diseases that result from stress,
high blood pressure and cholesterol a generational illness. Did I mention that I also
became obese and had trouble maintaining a healthy weight? And the doctors were still
comparing my body type to a body index chart that was not designed for me. My test
results revealed high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, ulcers
and chronic constipation from all of the medications. What I realized is that the pressure
of work, race and gender was pushing me into my grave and that I didn’t have the courage
to demand something different.

I decided to go on a deep health journey and re-assess my health without consideration of

my work. What happened next was beautiful. After a year of transformative practices,
mind set changes and re-igniting my spiritual life, letting go of religion, I was completely
free of diabetes and IBS. But I still hadn’t addressed the race and gender issue, I just
realized through this healing journey of my value and it catapulted me to a place in my
career that I didn’t think I could achieve in a world that was limited the seat at the table for
black women. These limited seats were being given to “women of color” which never
meant black. But at least some one was winning that didn’t represent white males. The
ironic thing was that the more I move through the ranks, the more I noticed white and
Latin women using their tears to combat my honesty and my strength. They would just cry
as soon as I called them on their stuff and sometimes out of sheer defeat in a war for our
voices to be heard. In my last 10 years, I have experienced more racism and
macroaggressions that the totality of my life experiences. There is never really a

2
“complete” space of anti-racist, anti-oppressive spaces for us and so I learned to build a
shield of my mind and body without giving up my career advancement goals.

This website is a representation of my journey but with practical and proven strategies that
allow black women to define balance and power as a road to mental, physical and spiritual
health. I never had a roadmap to guide me into the world I would experience and
oftentimes my haters were also those who looked like me because there is not enough
space at the top for black women leaders, and our trauma forced us to pull down those in
leadership to make room for growth. Through our journey together we will embrace
leadership strategies, understanding how to navigate a world that is designed for our
failure and how to ensure our soul is clear to move forward to create spaces for ourselves
and for those women that follow.

Discrimination, oppression, sexual harassment/abuse, inability to bring our full selves to

the table, tokenism, and other systems of oppression are the ties that bind us and it is my
belief that this journey we will take will ignite in you the strength to move forward in the
maze that has been created as our life. I didn’t have a roadmap but I am putting everything
into this journey that I have learned, researched and experienced. I know that it will
change your life because it changed mine, the only difference is I want it to be your
preparation rather than your reaction to the effects of what is now termed “Racial Based
Trauma Syndrome.

A few years ago, I moved into the DEI space as a CDO and after all the years of navigating
injustice and tokenism, I experienced the purview of the entire agency of diverse leaders
being oppressed and discriminated against. Seeing it at this magnitude was soul shattering
and so I decided to move into a space as a Chief People Officer hoping that this would
change the employee experience for the people of color that were being marginalized and
abused. This was also in the throes of the 2020 racial attacks that the world was
experiencing and the blatant racism that was allowed to penetrate the white house, and
other positions of power. So just when I thought that my body was finally restored, the
impact of what I endured began to negatively impact my mind and soul. I became a force
to be reckoned with and realized that the power I had was intimidating but respected so I
became strengthening my core (spirit) to endure that fight that I was planning to take on.
Over the past 7 years, I have been a cornerstone for women of color, and also a safe landing
space for conversations, encouragement and leadership strategies. I have developed
training and conferences that have resulted in women leaders saying “I lost faith in this
agency until I encountered you”, “I don’t think I could have survived this journey without
your guidance and training. It is now time for me to pass the torch to younger generations
who are demanding their value at the cost of money and I respect that. As a Chief People
Officer, my role is to lead the human resources department which I realize now was a

3
divine destination. It was like I was watching a reel of racial tension, oppression and
inequities. My role as a C-Suite leader limited my ability to see what was happening for my
folks and I realized that I was standing in the light of a status-quo environment designed to
keep black folks in places of submission and fear. With a lot of blood, sweat and tears, we
were finally able to publicly embrace an organization ready to combat white supremacy
and create opportunities for black leaders to elevate to positions of power and decision
making. The point here is that the real power comes from remaining who you are no
matter how high you fly rather than who they want you to be. That is the purpose of this
journey with you. I will provide a roadmap, great conversation and training to you. So
now, I have come full circle, still navigating a C-Suite role, owning my own business but also
re-igniting with purpose a life with my children and grandchildren. As a teen mom, I have
also had to double indemnify because the odds were definitely not working in my favor. I
have some stuff to share and it’s the raw, unadulterated truth of black women in leadership
and the need to sustain our health. By not paying attention, we are contributing to another
system that is set up to oppress us.

Put on your seatbelt, grab your self-esteem, beauty and spirit and let’s ride. This website is
intended to educate and inform while sharing our stories of victorious living. We have to
expand our desire for leadership into spaces that can change cultural landscapes not
designed for us. We are essential to the fabric of American culture and it takes a
connection between the 5 generations of black women currently navigating the workforce.
Put on your seatbelt, grab your self-esteem, beauty and spirit and let’s ride.