Bookwild - Racial Trauma and Culturally Responsive Care: Ashley McGirt-Adair's The Cost of Healing in Silence

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

In this episode, MacKenzie Green and I talk with Ashley McGirt-Adair about her new book, The Cost of Healing in Silence, and the deep, often overlooked impact of racial trauma within healthcare systems. Ashley shares how her personal experiences, her grandmother’s legacy, and over a decade of work as a trauma therapist shaped her approach to culturally responsive care.  Listen to hear about: The concept of racial trauma as real trauma, and why naming it explicitly matters in both therapy and broader cultural conversations. How systemic bias in healthcare shows up in real, life-threatening ways (misread medical devices, dismissal of symptoms, lack of advocacy). The burden of self-advocacy in medical spaces, especially for Black patients and families navigating emergencies or chronic illness. Ashley’s idea of moving from “hope” to “commitment,” and how small, individual actions create meaningful systemic change. The idea of “homecoming to self” through culture, ancestry, music, food, and joy as a necessary counterbalance to generational trauma.   And grab a copy of The Cost of Healing in Silence here! Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

This week, McKinsey Green and I got to talk with Ashley McGirt Adair, who is a therapist and the author of The Cost of Healing in Silence. Here's a very short description of it. The Cost of Healing in Silence offers techniques for culturally responsive care that demonstrates how mental health care can be improved by offering therapy that is reflective of and sensitive to a range of identities. McGirt Adair helps readers uncover the impacts of racial trauma and navigate the scars it leaves us. behind, offering culturally attuned techniques for healing and restoration that honor identity and community. I learned quite a lot just reading this book, and I love the way she focuses on healing in community and not feeling like a failure when you're up against a system that is against you as an individual. And then at the end of each chapter, she also has these like reflection prompts and then recommendations for therapists to integrate it into their practice.

So I think if you've ever been in therapy, if you have dealt with racial trauma, if you are a therapist, I think all of those people will still be very interested in this book. That being said, let's hear from Ashley. Do you have burning questions from the get-go, McKinsey? I don't have any burning questions.

I think my first just even thought that I, you know, I think this book is, so timely and so important, not just for, obviously for black folks, but I think for people that are also trying to unpack ultimately kind of, and Kate and I've talked about in other episodes, like ultimately the original sin, right? Because I think, and we talk about this a lot, like reading experience exposure is the way to empathy and empathy is the way to understanding. So I guess even just off the bat, like what made you want to tackle this topic? Well, I've been doing this work for quite some time.

I've been a trauma therapist for over a decade, and the majority of my work is really looking at the impact that racism has on our mental health. I'm a social justice advocate. I was raised by my grandmother, so I'm very much a product of just the civil rights movement, any type of injustice. I was taught that, you know, if you can open a door, you open it for, somebody else. If you can speak, you speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. And as I got into this field, which was something that I didn't necessarily want to do, I actually wanted to be a

lawyer, but doing part to my own experiences with grief and loss that later turned into major depression, I was living in a predominantly white neighborhood. And the woman who I ended up seeing a white counselor, she didn't understand the role of grandmother in black families and a lot of the things that I was experiencing. So I found myself educating her at a very, very young age. And so ultimately, I went from studying law to studying psychology and social work to heal myself. And I'm like, there's got to be other black kids, other people in general experiencing these things. And we shouldn't have to have our session become like an educational tutorial. But really, you know, I wrote this for people who haven't felt seen in care. And throughout my work,

work within the health care system, I've worked in literally every setting. I've worked in psychiatric hospitals, general hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, prisons. But within all of these settings, I saw people of color being treated very poorly as well as other historically excluded communities. And so I wanted to write about it. Did you always know you were going to come at it with the trauma lens, because I think that's the part that stuck out to me the most. Like, you could have wrapped it in any other kind of DSM-5 kind of therapy speak word, but it just feels so intentional and so powerful to acknowledge that it's trauma. Like, did you always know going into this? Like, you were going to approach it with that trauma lens, or did that kind of

reveal itself to you as you were building out kind of the book? I did. But there were parts of the book that I didn't know that I was going to write. So I always wanted to tell it through the lens of my grandmother's life who died way too early as a result of systemic oppression, racism, the way in which she was treated, with the lack of care that she received, the lack of support, the lack of resources that were available to her and others like her. But what I didn't expect to write, so when I first shared on social media that I was writing about racial trauma, I kid you not. My DMs were flooded. People who I did not know started messaging me some of the most egregious stories that they've experienced within this health care system. Some people actually sent me their medical records. I was like, yo, y'all. This is social media. This is not a safe space. And, you know, I am a credible person, but some people on social media say they're therapists or their license and they're actually not. So I was just like, I wasn't prepared for the amount of information that I was receiving and the stories.

And at that point, my outline was already put together. I had already started writing. And I remember emailing my publisher, like, hey, I'm getting an influx of messages from people in the community sharing so many stories with me. I would love to be able to share their stories. And she was like, wait, hold on. What's going on here? Are we going a different direction?

What's happening? It's going to become like an anthology that's not really. what we talked about, what's happening. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm going to try to creatively put all of these stories together. And I'm a product. I don't know if you call it mind maps, brain mats. I'm those people draw the circle and all the different things. So I started compiling all the stories that came to me through direct messages on social media and grouping them. A lot of them, they were the same story, but a different story. One in particular really stood out to me. And that was of Janelle and I dedicated an entire chapter to her, but there were so many people and I just compiled

all of their stories in one way because if I'm talking about this, then I'm also talking about their story. But that was something I didn't expect to write. I didn't expect people to reach out to me wanting to share their stories. And I didn't ask for that. I simply just shared, I'm writing a book. And initially I did a survey and I asked people as a contest. I'm like, what do you think I'm writing about? People are like, mental health. One person, Dr. Marlene and Francois, she guessed it, knowing enough about me. And she's like, it's probably about racial trauma. And I'm like, yeah, ding, ding, ding. That's when the message started flooding once I disclosed what I was actually writing about. Wow. That was awesome. Yeah, I mean, I just,

side tangent for myself, it's like, I just think it's so powerful and so helpful that you took that experience with your grandmother and it inspired something like this because I'm going through a health journey right now with my dad. And when I tell you, and you know this, it's like when I tell you the amount of people that try to gaslight you about, you know, racism in medical racism, it is staggering. Like truly when, you know, I had a woman tell me in my DMs when I was talking about what's happening. She was like, that's impossible. We are taught to do no harm. We're in, you know, no medical professional would ever, you know, provide.

And you're just like, I wish I could be you. I wish I could experience this level of blissful ignorance or assumption that the system has my back. Like, I, wow, I'm so jealous of that immediate trust in belief that like every doctor, every nurse is here to like have your back, make sure you get the best care when it's like in reality, you know, and what you said, it's like, I'm dealing with an older black man who when he's having medical emergencies is nonverbal. And so that is immediately read as, you know, some crazy old man that needs to be put out. So I think it's just so it's just such a for me coming from the family I come from. It's such a beautiful love letter to your grandmother and a beautiful

way to keep her legacy going through such a difficult thing. that that moment gave us this book. Thank you so much. And yeah, it sucks that we have to come in, you know, with the full force. And if you don't have a full force, so for me, that looks like bringing in my mom, who's a registered nurse, my friends who are in the medical field, having to have advocates in a way that others do not. And me, having worked in the system, I've always had to advocate for others who looked like me.

And, I mean, I just think about 2020. we just got band-aids that were brown. We never had that match the color of our skin. And I travel a lot. I remember when I was 18 and I first went to Thailand, I think I just scratched myself all the mosquitoes and was bleeding, grabbed a band-aid, and they had different shades. And I was just like, wow, I had never seen this before in my life.

And so, you know, it was something that was already available in Thailand to the Thai people, a multitude of shades. I remember buying all kinds of boxes because I'm like, I've never had band-a-matched my skin. Yeah. And then fast forward, 2020, when we start talking about black lives and anti-blackness, then band-aids put out, you know, darker-st- Or even to your point, I immediately think of 2020.

The main thing to figure out how people are doing with COVID is pulse occipitors to see where your oxygen level is. And it took that black kid in medical school to be like, they're not made for melanated skin. Yeah. Like you're going to get an improper reading. And so, yeah, it's just so crazy that it... Right from that during the pandemic, right before we got married, because of that was getting false readings.

And I remember when he ended up going to the hospital and they were like, one more day, you would have been brain dead. And he developed a blood clot. And, you know, we went from wedding planning to end of life planning. And also, he's still here today. But it was a very traumatic experience. And I remember those poxometer readings and the false. readings that he got and he kept thinking he was okay he was calling the nurse every day and then finally his back was just hurting so bad he's like you know what i'm going to just go ahead and go in no matter what

even though the phone nurses that you're calling are saying you know it's okay blah blah blah these are things that we're seeing with COVID patients and unfortunately you know thank god he did go in but they were like one more day not coming in would have been brain dead Oh my gosh That's insane Yeah he lost like 70 pounds I had a custom suit made for him For our wedding I had to buy

I remember the guy was like I'm gonna have to completely He's like I don't think it's possible to reconstruct it So I'm like still wedding planning on one hand And also are we going to get out the hospital What's happening Is literally like we're measuring him in the hospital bed Just how many inches he had lost

And to your point of the trauma part, it's like people don't realize that that's trauma. Like the experience you just said is the same experience my mother has gone through so many times with my dad and his health. And the way people are like, well, why do you sleep at the hospital with him? It's like it's all just trauma responses. You're trying to manage all of it. And yeah, I just think, I think this is going to be powerful because to even how you set it up. Like, this will be helpful for those therapists who are not black who want to be more informed about like. Like you said, you don't want to play catch up in a session.

You don't want to play teacher. So, yeah. When you're paying the person to help you, you should not be having to teach them. That's like, oh, it's terrible. And I went to some of the best universities in the world. And there's one multicultural course that teaches you the myth of cultural competency. You cannot fully be competent in anyone's race or culture. You have to constantly be doing the work.

I'm constantly learning what it means to be a black woman every day. And I remember they have like one assignment where you go and expose yourself to a community that's different than your own. You write your neatly formatted APA paper and that's it. You're done. After you infiltrated these communities, wrote about them, never went back to actually be of service to them or really learn from them. And, you know, you deal with a brief discomfort for 30, 45 minutes and then write your

paper and they expect that to teach you cultural competency or whatever they call it. Oh, gosh. Crazy. Yeah, one class is not going to do it. Yeah. Many institutions now are getting rid of that one singular class in places like Florida and others around the country where they're removing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Oh, yeah.

I'm reading of ideas right now. And there is, there's, there's a lot of touching on that, like in talking about DEI and the way it's just people thinking like, so you're going to take stuff. I'm the white person in this podcast. You're going to take stuff from us. Like, that's not fair. But the way that he's talking about it is very helpful. So it's even helping me a little bit. But I actually remember because McKenzie, the way I technically met her was from hearing her on another podcast.

And I remember we weren't like friends when. your dad went into the hospital. And I remember hearing you say, like, I do have to be there because I have to advocate for him. And I had known, and I'm in Indiana, I had known that like the fatality with black women in pregnant or in childbirth is so bad. I didn't realize until you started talking about that, that it's just, it can be so bad across the board.

Yeah. And that, yeah, I feel like what you. cover really well, Ashley, too, is also talking about how, like, Tuskegee enforced sterilization. Like, it's because it's always been there. It's just not talked about all the time. My own aunt, she was not able to have children. I talk about her in the book as well. She sterilized at a very young age going in for just a routine checkup. And this is in the West Coast in Washington State, you know, where we often times think we're so far removed from the ills of the South and the racism that occurs there.

And she's never been able to have biological children of her own, which has really deeply impacted her that that was stolen from her. And this was a man. I remember my mom who's much younger than her was telling her like this provider is racist. He has a history of harming black women. And she still went, unfortunately. And he gave her a hysterectomy. And she was never able to have children. that's terrible and I guess yeah it's like

and I guess what I find really I don't want to use an I word I used to work in film and it's funny because my my ex boss in the department I worked in the research department

and it's funny because she used to always say that like when you're talking about black products or black content that white folks need to see never use an eye word so I almost said like it's really important that these stories get out and I'm like, nope, nope, nope, not important, not impactful, none of that. I think it's really

powerful that you have continued to step forward when these things have happened that I think, and I guess maybe this is a bit of a question and an observation is I find it very interesting that people who are not us, myself and Ashley, are being confronted with a level of systemic oppression that is making them very hopeless. And I think it's really powerful. to watch someone like yourself who has these stories, has these case studies that are proof for every reason to be hopeless, to not believe. I mean, like, I literally look at you and you could have very easily been like, I have watched the system be down my family. I'm going to go become a lawyer. I'm going to work for some of the most repugnant people. I'm going to defend the worst of the worst. I'm going to make a butt, you know, so much money I don't know what to do with. And then I will use that money to get away from these people. I may be speaking from experience of people I know who have done such a thing. And I guess what almost both like, whether it's for somebody that's listening, who is not black, I guess the first kind of bit I'm really curious about too is like, how have you been able to not lose hope with the evidence and things that you've seen and still be able to put one foot in front of the other to want to make a better space, a better environment for other black folks?

Yeah. And I have, I have lost hope. And that was part of my depression and my grief. And powering through that came through joy, came through that I'm still here. And there's a reason that I'm still here so that I can push forward and so that I could allow others to help experience the wellness, which is essentially our birthright that has been stolen from us through colonization. And I think about the life that my grandmother lived during a time. when she was not supposed to do any of the things that she was doing. She traveled the world. She was an educator. Unfortunately, you know, through a number of results that led to her death, but I think about the way that she lived. And it was important for me to live my life and find joy.

And I love comedy shows and to laugh and to experience the fullness of this thing called life. But through my childhood, that was not the case. It was a very, very dark time. And I think about my childhood that was robbed of so much joy because I was hopeless. And I've seen many wins. I've also seen many losses. And it is those wins that push me forward. And once I learned my power and what I could do as an individual to make change,

I think many of us become hopeless because we don't think we can do anything. We see people like Martin Luther King, the Malcolm X's, the I, the Ida B Wells as extraordinary individuals. And I don't want to take from their greatness, but they were not extraordinary. They were regular everyday people who decided that they wanted to make a commitment to change. So right now I pushed people to move from hope.

Obama ran an entire campaign on hope. And when we think about hope, it's external. We hope somebody else will do something that will make things better for us. I shared how I fly all the time. I'm on a plane almost every week. And I hope the weather will be okay. I hope the pilot will navigate and get me to my destination safely.

I don't know anything about aviation. So I'm putting all of my hope into an external thing that will get me to where I need to go. But I want us to move from hope to commitment because we can all commit to doing one thing. I write. I show up. I protest. I advocate for policies. And you don't have to do all of the things that I'm doing because I know I do a lot.

But there's just one thing that you could commit to doing and seeing yourself as part of the process. That gives me true joy and a reason for being. And I love to speak that into people because so many of us become hopeless because we don't see what we can do. And we're thinking about it from the extent of like me being on a plane, you know, or nothing I could do. I can't fly a plane. I just hope it's going to be okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I love hearing because I am very, I think it's something I said to my partner, who is white, who was having a moment of hopelessness in this political climate. And he almost in a way was like a little irritated that he was like, why are you not more like annoyed and hopeless like the rest of us? And I said, I don't know what to tell you, bud. Like I come from a bloodline of women who have been through far worse than me. And I was like, I inherited a level of resilience that even if I wanted to quit and be hopeless, I don't know how to do hopelessness the way that, like, maybe you are familiar with.

I was like, I know how to be sad. I know how to sit here, maybe watch Friday a couple times, maybe get high to deal with it. I was like, but tomorrow I will still wake up and go and, and, and carry forward. I was like, because I don't know how to do anything else. I've never seen another example. I've never seen what it's like to just lay down and just take whatever is given to you. So I think that's really, it's just so powerful to hear, yeah, here you talk about like, yeah, I've been hopeless. But like, this is how you move through it.

And I hope other people kind of take that. Before I ask like another annoying question, I want to make sure Kate, if you have any stuff you want to ask. Oh, no. Keep going. Keep going. Well, you said a really cool thing in there where you were talked about earlier about how you had to, even yourself had to learn what it means to be a black woman. I am also at my big age dealing with that. Like, what does that look like for you? Because like immediately I go to like I love the black girls who are like black girl luxury, whimsical black girl.

But I'm just curious for you. Like what has your journey kind of back to self been? Yeah. So it's been an, I like to call it like a homecoming. And I've had many homecomings back to self, relearning myself, unlearning parts of myself. And, you know, just processing through this thing called life, language, the way that I talk, the way that I communicate, learning new skills, learning new things about my people, my culture, connecting back to my ancestral lineage, my family.

I was just recently in North Carolina for a conference, and my great uncle, he since passed away, but he was my last living great uncle at the time. And he would always go down to North Carolina. And I knew that we had family there in a town called Wade. And I kept asking my family. I was like, I need to know who was Uncle Pete going to. visit. So I'm in North Carolina. I reach out to my cousins. I'm like, I need y'all to figure this out, like right now. And so they dig through some phone books and they connect me with some family

that's in North Carolina. Unfortunately, it was my last day, the day that I was actually leaving, but I was able to connect with my great-grandmother's siblings and her side of the family. Most of who I'm connected to is my great-grandfather's side and his lineage. And I've always had so many questions just about my great grandmother's side and how she showed up. I have a picture, I don't know, I have a picture of her. She had a lot of kids and she just did not look very happy. And I've heard so many stories about her and the type of person that she was and finally being able to connect to that family and hearing about some of the things that we experienced. And so that was another way that I came home to myself and just finally being able to learn about that side,

which was such a mystery. And my grandmother, who was her daughter, moved all the way to the West Coast. And I always just wondered, why did she move so far to get away from this side of her family worse? I was always trying to get back and connect to them because we were kind of on the West Coast in isolation with just my grandmother's children. So those cousins and that offspring. everybody else was, you know, North Carolina, East Coast. But it was pretty much a mystery. So I was able to come home to myself just through discovering parts of my family, their story, things that they experience, learning the roots of the alcoholism that runs rampant in my family, some of the addictions. But also, you know, some of our strengths.

Many people in my family were educators. My great-grandfather was the first black sheriff. in his small town in North Carolina. So learning about some of their accolades, but also their struggles and how it still shows up in many ways today and how we also are working to break some of those cycles of harm that have occurred throughout my family. And I think that's just how it shows up, getting in touch, you know, back with like Africa and visiting Africa in different places there and different places, like I said, on the

East Coast or down south where my family migrated. through from the transatlantic slave trade and what that looks looks like. Getting back to the foods, the food that my grandmother loved, I'm a very picky eater. I'm not a foodie, but my husband very much is so just, but exposing myself to things that I would never eat. We did dining in the dark because I'm very much, if I see it, I don't want to eat it. But I'm like, if I'm blind, then that works because when I did the dining in the dark, I was like, okay, this is actually good, but if I saw it, I would have never ate it.

Yeah. It's funny hearing you say the thing about the food, too, because also, weirdly, that has been a gateway for me as well. Like, I don't know if you run across it. There was a creator on TikTok, and she was saying, like, it was basically kind of like, because there's a lot of conversation now happening in this whole, like, world of healthy food where you have a lot of, like, Asian RDs, registered dietitians coming forward to me and like, listen, white rice is healthy.

like and it is crazy if anybody's telling you that like your ancestral food is not healthy same thing where I'm like coming across latina women who are like hey salsa is a vegetable and so this this black woman I came across was like hey soul food is like low country cooking is just as important and relevant to your health it was like and she's literally showing she's like you could be eating all the fiber you need with the black eyed peas and the green like she was like it's all I did see that I saw that yeah and she was like it's here and similarly with my partner like we've instituted soul hoot sundays because it is this thing where like to your point it's like these small things that keep you rooted and grounded in where you come from like in these room these little weird reminders that you're like oh right this reminds me of

my grandmother or like even today i like turned on gospel music to clean and i was like this is a tradition I want to remind myself of. That is like, it's Sunday. We're going to enjoy some old school gospel. And I'm like, regardless of the church service, like, this isn't even about the church of it all. It's about like just the somatic process of like clearing my space and listening to music that not just my grandmother love, but her mother. And, you know, Haleon Jackson is sung to Yolanda Adams. And so it's really cool hearing you talk about that.

like I guess also what else is a part of your kind of practice to return to self? Like are there those kind of like silly goofy things in there too? Yeah, music. You just named it. I actually opened my book up with a chapter called Spanish Harlem and just reconnecting. I thought that was a perfect beginning, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that.

And just music has been so integral in my healing, in my life, and in that of my ancestors. And I think about our oppression. And you asked me earlier, you know, how about about hopelessness and how I maintain my joy. And I think about others. And I think about, you know, even like during times of voter suppression, just recently, the long lines that we saw in places like St. Louis and across the country. And they were playing music and they were dancing. And it's like, you will, you know, you can't take my joy. Yes, this is messed up. I have to. to stand in this very long line just to place the vote, but I'm going to dance. I'm going to have a good time.

I'm going to experience joy. And I think about the way in which our people played music or, you know, sang hymns and danced on the plantations and through any type of pain and hardship, music was there. And so that was a big part for me. Travel. I love to travel. I love to laugh. Most of my friends, they're either comedians or lawyers.

I don't know how it happened that way. But I go to a lot of comedy shows. I watch a lot of like stand up. I even talk about Jamie Fox in my book as well as Cat Williams and some of his things that he showcased when it comes to just like laughing and laughing through our pain and getting to the deeper parts. Because I do see how comedians also are dealing with so much trauma and they process it through their laughter.

But those are some of my odd pieces of homecoming painting. I'm not that good at it, but I still do it and love a good paint and sip or just, you know, sitting down coloring and relaxing, being with my family. And of course, riding. It's also funny hearing you talk about those, like, that somatic thing because in 2020, that's when I was still living in New York. in Harlem. And it's so funny, even as you're talking about the music, it's like when people would be like, how do you feel, do you feel safe?

And I was like, I've, honestly, I had the perfect, you know, complication of places where I was in 2020. I was working at BET. I was living in Harlem. Like, I couldn't have been in a more perfect spot to have been- my dream.

It was truly the dream because truly hearing you talk about it, I'm like, people were like, oh, do you feel safe at the protest? And I was like, babes, I have never felt safer than in 2020. in COVID lockdown in the middle of BLM protest. And I was like, because to be very frank, like, the white people are scared to come up here.

So I'm just outside with a bunch of black folks just playing music. And then every soft new, you play somebody on the corner who a protest starts building around them with demonstration. People are listening. And I was like, and then other than that, we go sit in the park and hang out in Central Park and relax and enjoy ourselves. And like, you know, to your thing.

And the other part, I'm just curious of like your therapist side of things. Like, I guess as you're seeing other people maybe on social media returning to themselves, like, how are you feeling about some of those trends of like the rich black girl thing or the whimsical black girl or black women who are making their entire personality? Like, I deal with my trauma by building Lego. Like, are you seeing stuff that you're like, wow, okay, every way to deal with the trauma is the right way? Or is there like a trend that you're kind of seeing and you're like, uh, uh-oh, don't love that.

Like maybe we don't make hypergamy the goal of our entire. lives or whatever. Yeah. No, I'm here for it all. There is one particular where I'm kind of on the fence about it and that was black women sitting out and I get it rest. I'm also, I'm a fighter. And I understand how people are tired and I'm not going to sit it out. I'm still going to advocate as long as there is breath in my body and I can do these things. And I respect those decisions, but I also wonder if everybody sits out, what is that going to do for us? And it's like, okay, let the white people handle it, let everybody else handle it. But not everybody has handled things in the ways in which a black woman will handle things. So I wasn't too big on that

trend, like get somebody else to do it. But as a person who does get exhausted, who does get tired, and I understand the importance of rest. I'm a researcher. And I'm a researcher. And And one of the things that I researched that will always be ingrained in me that I see so vividly is I came across a New York Times article, which had showed the bodies of enslaved people that were exhumed. And the very first thing I noticed was that the muscle had literally detached itself from the bone. And when I saw that, I often wonder if that's where the saying, work yourself to the bone came from, because these people had literally worked themselves to the bone. and the muscle was so detached from the bone. And here we are today, free people in quotation marks, and we're still working ourselves to the bone.

So I was a little bit on the fence about that with just get somebody else to do it. I'm not doing anything. But that's also not who I am as a person. I'm going to do it. I may complain about it and I don't like to do it, but I'm going to show up. Going back to 2020 in the protest, I was in Seattle. and I marched for Trayvon and so bad I ended up like getting like bruises and stuff. I had the wrong shoes. I was in fans. Oh no.

It was last minute and so my marching miles in some vans. So ridiculous. So I didn't do the George Floyd protest. I'm like I did that. Let everybody knows do it. So I understand the sitting out. Also, you know, with COVID and everything, I was just like, get somebody else to do it. So I'm in that person and I'm not so removed that I don't understand it. But it seemed like a mass movement of we were just going to sit out and let everybody else handle the world that's burning around us. And I'm going to try to get a water hose and do what I can. We're probably not water hose.

I've always I've always joked that that trend felt like really tired shift workers, if that makes sense. like black women were just like, I'm tired. I quit. And then it was like, myself included, the next day. Because I had even, I was like, it's not my job to educate people anymore. Like, I'm just going to. And then truly like a month later, I was like, y'all need to learn about this for your voting because of the nature of- Pay me. I pay me and I'll educate you. I'm not going to do it for free unless maybe I have time. But it is a job and it is a labor. And a lot of organizations love to call on black people to talk about race and social justice, and they don't pay us, but they'll pay the white men top dollar.

And I find it important, especially if we're going to have conversations about historically excluded communities because we've had a history of providing free labor that we are paid for our time. And so when everybody was sitting there out, I was like, I'll do it. Just here are my fees. Here are my fees. Well, it's so funny also hearing you say that because I immediately you made me think about there was a very prominent kind of women's leadership group that put together a very beautiful panel of black women to talk about race in the workplace and all this stuff. And I was one of those panelists. And then fast forward two years later, we're out of lockdown. You know, BLM isn't isn't in vogue anymore. And I was like, hey, I would love to participate at this non-black event you have to talk

about non-black things in the space of marketing. And they were like, oh, I'm so sorry. And I was like, wait, it was fine to have me, like you said, for the free all black ladies panel that you did virtually, but wait, you don't want the same person. You're no much for that. We didn't. It's so fascinating. It's just so crazy. Yeah, it's nuts.

And I'm saying, it's like if you don't do it, who's going to do it? So it's like, how do you choose to be like, no, I'm not going to do it unless you pay me. They're like, oh, I won't pay you. And you're like, oh, then so no one's, nothing's going to do it. Yeah. Yeah, you're just like rock in a hard place. It is. And it's and I think what is even again, like to the point of your book and things I really appreciate, it's like what you're ultimately laying out to people too is I think another conversation I'm seeing on social, which is, hey, if we epigenetically hold this trauma, don't you want to unpack this with us? Because if we hold the trauma, you hold the violence and the anger. Yeah.

And it's kind of like, so this is a necessary symbiatic unpacking of some shit here for both of us kind of thing. I really love rest of a menican's work. He has a great book. My grandmother's hands. And I love that he writes it from the lens of like white body, black body, yellow body, police body. And he gives somatic exercises for each person, depending upon how you identify to heal through these things. because while these issues happen to black and brown bodies, white bodies still hold these things. And then when you put on that police uniform, he broke that down.

And I think a lot about like the Stanford Milgram prison experiment and how these volunteers who were pretend officers then began to beat and abuse the people who were pretend incarcerated and what that uniform or even just a sense of power does on our psyche and how many people will then begin to it. abuse people or even just looking at like the study of evil and Philip Lombardo you know he looked at like not Nazi soldiers and how so many of them could comply and do these heinous things and just group think and and the psychology behind it and that's when I start to get become like a science nerd and I'm so fascinated with how people do these things even cults like I love to research cult same you're you're speaking my language I love a cold yes I love a good cold I have almost every book on Colts and just, you know, how would you know your brainwashed? You want it.

Your friends and family would have to tell you. It's so funny hearing because even hearing you say that, so Kate and I talk a lot about kind of the curiosity that we have and how we get led down that path. And it's so funny hearing you because I'm even seeing the connective tissue for myself and my own fascination with Colts because like yourself, I love a cult. I love unpacking how does one get in the cult? I am the person. I'm not sure if you watch the Manosphere Dock,

but it's like I can watch those things and be like, from an anthropological standpoint and be like, wow, okay. And to your thing of like black bodies, white bodies, police bodies, it's like I also will watch them now through the lens of like, oh, if this was like one of the gentlemen in the Manusphere Dock is a young, you know, British dude. biracial black British dude and watching him be so repugnant when you're like, this is not language that would be afforded to you, like, once the kind of like hierarchy

of racism enters this cult. Like you will never be able to buy to the next level out of that assumption of like, you know, that will never make you like officially clean in the eyes of people in the red pill cult. So it's just, it's very interesting hearing you, even bring that tie in because I'm like that's got my wheels turning about my own kind of obsession and fascination with cults. I'm going to have to look that one up. I haven't heard of Manasphere. It is, it's on Netflix

and maybe how well available. Yeah, brace yourself. It took me two days to get through it and I watched the Paul Brother reality show. But this one I had to genuinely be like I need to pause. Yeah. I'm a comeback when I am mentally ready for this kind of tompullery.

Mind blowing what they feel very comfortable saying. Yeah. Very comfortable. It's so weird. Yeah. You talked a little bit about going back to the continent. I'm curious, like, have you gone, me personally, I'm dying to go to Ghana and stand at the archway of, like, the port where they would take enslaved people?

I was just curious, like, where have you been on the continent? I haven't been there, but I really want to go to the door of no return. I've been to Tanzania. I just went to Zanzibar, what, maybe two years ago. Oh, wow. All over South Africa, that was actually my first exposure to the continent. And I remember making it was very much Europe. And I was a little disappointed when I got there.

And it's very much still segregated. And the black folks, you know, they're in these shanty towns. I went to Cape Town. Where did I go? Soweto. And I went with my cousin who at the time was working for the State Department. And so there was a lot of restrictions on what she could do. And then I essentially was kind of by myself. But there was a lot of devastation at that time. The college students were protesting. And I remember I was doing like a hop on, hop off tour or something like that. And they were just throwing like tires. And, in the middle of the road to people from being able to transport. But it was heavily, like, European. I did not see a lot of black folks in the area that I was in. But of course, where, well, not of course, but where my cousin was staying from the State Department,

they had her in this very isolated, like, uppity course. But even when I ventured out, and I remember speaking to the people, and they spoke very poorly. about their conditions. And you know, you just think things may be a little bit different in a predominantly black area, but it's really not predominantly black. It's heavily European,

which has just kind of been taken over in the way in which the people who get the land. And just recently, maybe a couple years ago, I remember seeing like South African farmers were taking their land back from white farmers or something like that. Yeah. But I remember when I was there who had the good land and who was in a shanty town with not the best infrastructure of their homes.

And Cape Town is just so absolutely beautiful. But who's living there and who gets experienced the beauty of Cape Town. Zanzibar was completely different. It was predominantly black. That's where I feel like I got the African experience. and in the gorgeous, turquoise blue waters, I love sea turtles. I just got to swim with turtles

and walk with these gigantic Galapagos tortoises that were just so massive, some of them almost as tall as me. And I really love that. I write about my connection to sea turtles in the book. And I feel like so much of my life has been very similar to that of a sea turtle because only one in one thousand survives the trek from land to sea.

So I really, really love that and just being able to be around sea turtles when I was there. I love that. Immediately hearing you even say the sea turtle thing, it makes me think about in my own kind of coming back to myself has been learning more about African mythology and tradition. So I don't know if you've read it or have you seen it the Conjuring of America. I haven't read it yet, but I'm connected to the author and I... Yeah. Well, to your kind of your story about sea turtles, I grew up a swimmer and yes, I had very

churchy, old school, southern black grandparents, but my grandmother had indigenous heritage and taught me about Oshun and these kind of indigenous goddesses of the water as a way to explain to me why it felt so natural to me to be a swimmer and be in the water. that stuff. And so it's also very exciting for me as like a reader and somebody coming back to myself to even through your work that you're acknowledging these other ways of kind of identifying and seeing yourself outside of just kind of what we've been taught oftentimes, which is like the churchy way of doing it. And so I thought that was really beautiful. I actually didn't learn about that until I went to Cuba. So I didn't learn about the Yoruba religious spiritual practices that came out of Africa when I was. I actually didn't learn about the Yoruba religious spiritual practices that came out of Africa when I was. I was. I was. I actually didn't learn about the Yorber religious spiritual practices. I was. I was. I was. I was was in Africa, but I remember going to Cuba and doing like an, it was like an Afro religious tour and you got to meet a Babelau and just learn about Oshun, Ogun. And now like when I'm out in the world, I'm like, oh, okay, I see it. They're in the yellow. They're white or, you know, I can sit together. But it was fascinating that I actually didn't learn about those things in Africa or

it didn't come up just in the parts of the world that I was in. What did come up, which is so beautiful is the Messiah tribe, which I often talk about a lot in Africa, which is one of the most revered tribes. And I love how they greet one another. They greet you with Cassarian and Jera, which is how are the children. And you respond based on how the children are. And you are only as good as the youth are within your community. And I think about the youth today in America, and they are not doing that well. And so just the way they affirm one another, even if you don't have children, you know, you're talking about the children around you. And then if something is going bad, they affirm it in a positive.

So like, you know, maybe my daughter broke her arm, but she still has her right arm. Things like that. I just love how they respond and they greet one another. And that's the Messiah people. Yeah, that's really beautiful. And similar to yourself, like I had the dad who was the president of the African Development Foundation, and that was not my introduction was through him, weirdly. but I and I love what you're saying because he used to say the same thing about South Africa.

He was like, yeah, it's, it's lovely. And hilariously enough, his response to what you're saying, what South Africa has become now is he was, he would say when Obama got elected, he was like, oh, brace yourself. Because what South Africa will become post Mandela is going to feel very similar to aparthe. And my mom and I would be like, what are you talking about? You're being so, you mean such a bummer. was like, I don't know how to explain this to you two. Like, this is post-reconstruction. We slip through the cracks. We get to the top. And then everybody realizes it's happening and gets really angry and takes a huge pendulum of swing the other way. And he's even in conversations

between myself, him and my brother, we've said the same thing about Europe now, is that people are like, that people are always like, oh, Europe is so idealistic with its universal health care and all this stuff and these social services. And my brother, who has his PhD in African-American and studies goes, yeah, but now that brown people are getting those social services and that subsidized housing and all that wonderful universal health care, notice how conservatism is on the rise and people don't want it to be shared resources for everyone if they have to share it with brown people. And I was like, oh, you are so right. And so I think again, like back to the whole kind of thesis of the book is like, it is really powerful to learn.

in history. It's funny when we're talking about this, and I think this is helpful for folks. Like, I've been reading Ryan Holiday. I'm very much a cliche of myself. His book about wisdom, and I thought he had just such a beautiful quote that it was like, history, history you must understand is not about the past. It's a lens for understanding the present. That's why we fight over what gets taught. It's a way of predicting even determining the future. And when I think about a book like yours, I think it's just as essential for people to read as a time. Anahisi Coates about great replacement because to not, like you said, to not educate yourself on all of the history, you are missing out on what it is that will help you illuminate both

the present and where we're headed. Because I love that point about the Moss Eye Warriors of like, how are the children? And it's like, imagine in this country of all places if we greeted each other based on how are the kids in your state and town doing. People would be mortified if they lived in Florida and had to answer that and had to be like, they're okay. Were they so ignorant that they would say they were fine? Exactly. And it's like, could you imagine post-Sandy Hook?

But, you know, there's- I feel it's okay. Or could you imagine post-Sandy Hook, us having to greet each other as how are the children doing? not just this is the price to pay for Second Amendment rights. Yeah. It's like if we had to actually grapple with the trauma caused to these children and not even just Sandy Hook, if we had to say, if you talk to somebody from Maryland, because I'm from D.C., if you talked to somebody from Baltimore, Maryland and they had to answer the question, how are the children doing? Sincerely, I really do think even what you're saying, it's like having that information would really make you pause for a second and be like, Oh. The children are not well.

The children are not well. Which is like another part that I think is the big problem of having like 80 year old, it's mostly white dudes, but any 80 year old guys being the bulk of government, they're about done with their life. And then the people who are going to have to live with the consequences don't have any power right now. Yeah. And, you know, another book wreck, because what are we not if we're not on a book pot talking about this? It's like that was the same thing that has been Ryan Holiday talked.

about in his book about justice is that he was like it makes no sense to me that we become more conservative as we get older we should have more exposure to the world and actually want to see more for people and and that's why even like I said that's why I'm like for me a book like this a book like tony heesey Coates's book hell even a book like the conjuring of america all of that I think it's so important I just use an iword that was stupid powerful I think it's it's very powerful. I'm listening at this point, I think they care. Exactly. Is that I think you're going to be... Exactly.

I think these are the essential reads because I think we want and I love Mickey Taylor's hood feminism and I think we want a singular, like you said, anthology that knocks all that out, answers all your

questions and now you can go out in the world. And I think your book actually left me with more curiosity threads that I wanted to follow. which is how for me I know a book is good, is that if my marginalia is more questions than answers, then I'm like, all the books she referenced are on my TV.

Exactly. I'm like the books you referenced, like the stories you would tell. Like I said, to open it with like Spanish Harlem, I'm like, oh, let me dig in with my cousin who does live in Spanish Harlem

to be like, hey, does this resonate for you? It's like I think I really just, I'm a fan of the book from the space of, it got my brain to light, up as opposed to commiserating with a peer through literature, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Because that can happen a lot where you just read. Yeah. You read it and you're like, huh, things are hard. This bums me out. You know, and we did a whole- People with a light too. Like it's very hard, difficult things, but also I wanted to let them know how we could get to the light on the other side. Yeah.

There's another book. Kate and I have done on this pod and literally the author says in the book I have no solutions for you. Like at the top of the book she's like we're just going to dig into a lot of really rough history and I suggest you read this

with other people so you guys can maybe come up with an action plan and I was like oh thank you I guess and so to your point it's like I love that you're like okay I've shown you all this but also here is a light yeah I'm a supposed to be a therapist so I'm like

What is the solution to it? Yeah. And that is so obvious in the way you approached it. And I think it's so beautiful because I think you're, yeah, you're kind of saying like, hey, there's a lot of dark scariness between like where you are and this light I'm showing you. But just run as fast as you can between the darkness. I promise nothing will get you from here to there. And now that you're in this spotlight, you can keep finding the lights further ahead of you.

And I think that's so, so dope. And I wrote about the child welfare system, which I worked in and I left. I did not want to be a part of that system. And it was because of how harsh it was to black children. And so as I'm writing this and I'm talking about one of the children that I worked with, at the same time, I'm part of this pilot project with the Department of Health or the Department of Children and Family Services and how we can kind of be like a tribal. system for black families because you don't have something like ICWA. So I love that that happened

as I was writing the books so then I could share. But then at the same time, it lost funding. And so it's like, okay, well, the positive can be, let's fund things like this because it did have a positive outcome. So we just need to put our dollars where we say the outcomes are that we want to see. Yeah. I'm curious. Like, are there things that didn't get into the book that now afterwards, you're like, maybe that'll be the second book or maybe that'll be like the next topic I explore in like a substack?

Like are there any, like are there things swirling for you right now? I mean, well, like I said, I got countless DMs of stories that came to me and some of them just around like dentistry. So I didn't really focus on that aspect, but

there were so many people that shared with me, instances of racial trauma when it came to their oral health. And even an actual dentist, I believe he's an author or writing a book. I think he's a professor. He sent me a message. We're connected.

And I was asking him, I was like, well, what do you see? And he started talking about gum health and just the way in which black gums look different than other gums. And so it was just very fascinating. But I didn't get to talk about those stories. And that would have just taken me down another path and research and stuff that I didn't have much knowledge about, but there were several people who sent me their stories of what had happened to them while going to the dentist as a black person. And even there was a Latin

person who had messaged me telling me some stories about their oral health and how they were mistreated. So I would say those are some things. I don't know if I'll go down that path. I'm not too involved in dentistry or oral health, but I mean, it's still impactful by racial trauma. I will also say some things. I talked a little bit about my organization, the Therapy Fund Foundation. And as I founded a nonprofit, I'm learning much about how the revolution will not be funded, which is also a really great book since we're naming books. And just how you have to chuck and jive for dollars within this nonprofit industrial complex in a way that I was completely oblivious to. I had worked for nonprofits before, but I didn't really know much about what it took

to actually start one. And I started one five years ago during the pandemic based on community response, community need. And that's something that I wish I could have explored more about. I remember when my editor reached out to me and she had asked if I would be willing to write a book. and when we first met on Zoom, she's like, what would you want to write about? I was like, well, I would love to write about nonprofits. And we started talking and I was sharing her my experiences with the nonprofit industrial complex.

And she's like, do you want to talk about this for the next 10, 15 years? I was like, no, probably not. And so I was like, but I do talk about racial trauma all the time. And so while it's not something I see myself wanting to talk about extensively, it's a story that needs to be told. And when she asked me that, I was just like, because I'm feeling away. Also, I'm still,

I'm, you know, I'm five years in to building a nonprofit, but maybe also being black in leadership and some of the ways in which people try us, but they would never try our white counterparts. And some of those experiences that I've had, even from my own community. I remember when I was the director of social services,

I had a beautiful office. And everybody, even black, people would go up to my white administrator and assume he was the director and he was out front. I'm like, here I am in my office, degrees up behind me. And they would just automatically assume because it's so deeply seared within our consciousness. Yeah. We see as the director. Yeah. And then they would have to care. Like, what school did you go to? My degree is right behind me. Well, it's even funny hearing you say that because, and I won't dare to speak for the listener, but I've like had this similar experience.

I'm on a not-for-profit board. I am the only black member on the board. And I'm aware I'm one of the younger members of the board. I promise you, we have a huge event every year. I promise you every year, at least one board member, one parent of the organization that we work for will mistake me for like a worker of the event or a family member of one of the young women. And I'm always like, oh, because I was walking out one time and I had the program and people wanted copies of the program.

And I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know where the other copies are. And the woman was like, okay, but you have one right there. And I was like, well, this is my copy of the program. You can't have my copy? And she was like, well, can you find someone? And I was like, I'm going. And what was crazy to me is I kept being like, she was just at this event.

They just asked the board members to stand up at this event. and waved to the crap. You saw me. You just spoke to another. But to your thing of that almost incredulousness of experiencing that, when I have expressed that to people, they will go, well, it's because you look so young. And I'm like, people used to try to say that to me. Right?

And it's like, as much as I know that comes from a place of like wanting to be helpful, it is actually, and I'm, and I'm sure you feel the same way. It's, it is just as, it's more harmful almost to me than just out and out being like, damn, that lady was hell of racist to you when it's met with, oh, sweetheart, don't, don't get upset. And you're like, which is gas. I'm allowed to be mad right now. I'd be just as mad. And I think about my grandmother married to a biracial man, dark skinned black woman, and having people walk up to her in the store and say, oh, my God, you're so good with these kids. When are you free?

And like when you tell people don't realize that like I always say that's the that's the water torture of racism. It's like and I think what your book also nails too is and we talked about it before we got on air is like people think it's this one battle after another cabal of angry men in a room when in reality it is sometimes these very small insidious acts. And to the story we started with with you talking about your grandmother, those small insidious acts lead to a bigger issue of. lack of medical care, you know, police violence, all this stuff. It's like those little drips when they don't get addressed are what lead to also these huge moments. And again, like, again, it always goes back to. I think it's really powerful that you're calling out both the little drips and the big stuff in the book as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. So one of my questions, kind of what you were just saying, I happened to be reading Ken at the same time that I was finishing up your book. And there are, there are so many good quotes, too, but you kind of discussed, like, especially like people wouldn't understand the role of your grandmother and like the way that black families kind of have always had to kind of adjust to help each other, really. And so Ken is about two motherless girls for different reasons, but there was a quote, well, there was one quote that I resonated with that said I was never

mothered I was only tended to. And then later it says, what if we had been so carelessly raised because her granny and my aunt were just too exhausted to doad on us. What if it turned out that it wasn't personal after all? And it reminded me so much of what you talked about and how even learning about the systems helped you re contextualize your relationship with your mom too. So can you kind of talk about that part. Yeah, so just the systems that helped bridge the gap that me and my mom had, just want to make sure understand things. Yeah, yeah, how you, like, once you understood the systems your mom had been up against and kind of like talking about the crack epidemic, which is still kind of dicey to call it that. Yeah. So for me, it, the awakening and recognizing the secret as

Dr. Joy DeGrew calls it was when I first read Dr. Joy Degro calls it was when I first read Dr. book Post-Thromatic Slave Syndrome. And I remember her talking about the slave mother who berated her child and called them all kind of names. They're worthless. They're shiftless. They're no good because she didn't want them sold off. And while it does not excuse the emotional abuse that I endured from my mother, I seen it from a different lens. And I was like, oh, this is why she's doing it. And while I revere my grandmother and she did, not do those things to me. I heard my grandmother did do those things to my mother and her children. And so it was passed down and her mother did it to her and her mother to protect from enslavement. And I shared earlier how I have this picture of my great grandmother. And she just looked really mean. And I heard she was mean to her children and very nasty and how that was passed down as a form of protection. But it became extremely harmful and emotionally abusive. And so, So seeing the lens in which my mother experienced these things and she did them to her offspring,

that kind of led me to an awakening to where I could kind of bridge that gap with my mom. And also, I had to be okay with the addiction that my mom had and where she was at. So for a long time, my mom blacked out that period of her life. She didn't want to acknowledge it. If you bring it up, oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't a good mom. And I had to make peace with that and knowing that in order for me to have a relationship with my mom, I can't expect to keep bringing. And who wants their negative past being brought up overnight?

So I just understood that about my mom. And when I finally accepted it, honestly, at my wedding, which my mom has never done this, she gave a beautiful speech. She read up on one of my grandmother's favorite prayers and shared how my grandmother raised me and how I am the person that I am today doing part to the impact of my grandma. And my mom never would acknowledge that, that she didn't have a part in raising me. She would come at my graduations. Like she was there and she was part of it.

And I think when I stopped wanting it at my wedding, it was so beautiful. And I was like, wow, she actually acknowledged it for the first time that she was not part of my child wearing. Because at three months old, she gave me over. So my grandmother, which now I see as an act of love. And another thing that bridged the gap between me and my mom's relationship was my friend. When we both were 22, my mom had me at 22 years old, I saw my mom through the lens of my friend. We were out clubbing, we were partying, we were having a good time. My friend was a registered nurse just like my mom.

At the time, my friend had three children. And so I was like, I see how you still. want to experience your youth and your friends, even though you have children. And through, through that friend and how she navigated life, I was like, wow, you're like my mom. She was 22, raising me and my sister. And then four years later, she would have my baby brother, who's mixed, half white. And so what that means to raise. And back then there were interracial relationships in our neighborhood. So I just think about all the things my mom navigating and my friend, her children were black and Mexican and mixed with a whole bunch of things.

So I just was able to see that. And she had three. My mom had two at that time. And I was like, I see it now. I see she still wanted to have fun, still wanted to hang out with her friends. She was only 22 years old navigating these big systems, navigating a biracial child, and watching my friend just show up. I was like, and I remember calling my mom.

mom like, I get it now. I see you through Janine, who's my friend. And they were so much alike and very much involved in the health care system. Like I said, they're both registered nurses. Their personalities are very similar. My mom is fun. Everybody loves her. Her name is love. And she's a fun person, not always a great mom, but she is funny and very much like my friend. You just have a good time with her. And I see her youthful spirit. And I'm like, okay, I get it. You still want to hang out. You still go to the clubs and do all of the things that a young person wants to do.

You just so happen to have children. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was fascinating because it's like all the, even the kind of like racial stuff you're up against now even. It gave you context for your life, but also then like looking back and kind of understanding why your mom acted the way she did too. And my brother, I see my brother. My brother, unfortunately, is he's addicted to drugs. I wrote my dedication to him.

I pray for him every day. His name's Elijah. So he's named after a prophet. And he was a twin. His twin did not survive. And growing up, when people did not see interracial children, they were so confused by him. And the makeup of our family, especially if I was out with his dad, it was like I was the adopted black child.

and here's this white savior who just took me in. Yeah, of course. But just the way the world received my brother, and he unfortunately could never be black and could never be white during that time. And I see how that impacted his own mental health and his struggles. And even us, we were very much a black household. And we're trying to box him into his blackness. and I see my role in it, our entire family's role,

and it just brought a sadness to it. And I'm like, I see my brother through a different lens now that I'm older. And I'm looking back at our childhood and how people talked about his hair and it's just so curly and fine. And what is he? Is he Samoan? We don't know. And they would always ask me to explain. I'm like, he's a human being.

I don't know. Why don't you ask him? What do you think he is? And they're like, they would always ask him? it was like a guessing game to figure out what my brother was. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's not a fun way to grow up, I'm sure.

Yeah. Well, as of today that it's airing, people can go buy this book and learn all the things from it. Is there, so you have a foundation. Do you have a website that people can go to to learn more about that? Where are all the places you want to be found that we can send? folks too. Yeah. Yes. So you can go to my website. It's just my name, Ashleymogert.com. I am on most social media platforms at Therapy with Ash. You can find the Therapy Fund Foundation at Therapy Fund Foundation on almost every social media platform or our website is Therapyfundfoundfoundation.org. And if you go directly

to my website, you'll have access to the Therapy Fund Foundation as well. Awesome. I'll put all of those links in the show notes. But thank you so much for talking about it with us and for writing it so that we can hopefully have some better health care overall. Yes, that is my hope.