Peace, and welcome to the Taylor Healing Collective Podcast.
This is a space where we discuss everything sacred medicine, motherhood, healing practices
across the globe, and transformation above all.
It is my hope you take each story shared here and find empowerment in your own life, for
it is here that we educate the mind to liberate the soul.
I'm your host Taylor.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Season 3 of the Taylor Healing Collective Podcast.
We're making some changes this season as these episodes are going to be available on
video and on the podcast, so if you don't have time to watch the video, make sure you
check it out on your favorite streaming platform.
So we had a ride the first two seasons, and there are so many changes going on in my life
right now, and I know the lives of so many others.
And you know, it's that period of growth that we have.
It's constantly changing, finding out more about yourself and maturing.
So I had an episode originally recorded, but over the past couple days I decided to wait
until you're ready to present yourself in the manner that you feel comfortable in, and
where you can express yourself best.
Luckily the babies are sleeping right now, so I have a little bit of time by myself.
So today's episode is going to be about my saddened return, maturing spiritually and
everything that I've learned over this time, especially as a parent.
I want to say that first and foremost as a parent, also though as a woman, as a human
being on this planet.
There are so many lessons that I've learned, and honestly none of it strays too far from
what I've always known, but when you're learning something, this is why repetition is so important.
We have to keep doing things and learning the same lessons over and over and over again
until we get it right.
So it's been really tough, but really easy at the same time because the things that I
talk about and that I'm teaching, they're really nothing that I don't know, and now
I get the opportunity to present myself in a different way and see myself in a different
light.
I don't think I was ever comfortable seeing myself as a spiritual teacher, but now that
I understand that's what my role is, I don't have to keep chasing other things and saying,
oh, maybe I'll try this or maybe I'll try that.
But being here in this human experience, I believe you should try everything at least
once to see if it's for you to have the joy of putting your hands in something new and
saying, okay, I like how this feels or I don't like how this feels.
So I have a lot of things I want to talk about, but I did take some notes today so we can
kind of talk about what maturing through parenting and through a spiritual journey looks like.
So at the beginning of my journey, everything was so new and fresh because I had just stepped
outside of my parents' home and figuring out that there was a whole world outside of the
little small sheltered one that I lived in and things have really changed even more for
the past three years becoming a parent.
So I just wrapped up my Saturn return and if you don't know what a Saturn return is,
the easiest way I can put it is it's this period between ages around 27 and 30, I believe,
where you start to come to terms with the life lessons that you're supposed to learn.
You mature and realize where you should have boundaries, where you should start growing,
where you need to stop doing things.
And I have so much I want to share.
So last year, and I talked about this on Instagram a little bit, but I'll elaborate,
I was reached out or someone reached out to me about a spiritual teacher that they had
and I'm always curious what new teachers have to say.
I love new information.
So I go on to listen to some of these teacher's lectures and they're really good.
He has tons of free content and information.
And the more I listen, the more I get intrigued into everything he's talking about.
And pretty soon after watching way too many videos, I found myself kind of falling in
the same spiritual trap that I did at the very beginning of my journey.
And I call it a trap because it's like a trap door.
You want to see what's behind it.
You're curious about the unknown.
But sometimes if you go too far, it's like Alice down the rabbit hole.
You never stop.
And sometimes you have to come out and experience the real world again in order to apply the
lessons that you've learned and also to do things for yourself.
And I'm very grateful and I learned a lot from that particular content creator and teacher.
But I realized in all the time I spent consuming his content, I was not working on myself and
my own things.
And I've always been a very spiritually and mentally aware person.
So I realized that it didn't matter how much of this person's content that I consumed,
that nothing would change unless I changed.
And being here and talking on YouTube or on the podcast is my way of growing.
You know, it's stepping out of my comfort zone.
I use to say, oh, I could never be a teacher.
I don't have enough information when honestly, that's a complete lie.
I've spent over 10 years studying all different kinds of spiritual texts, different practices,
different backgrounds, and kind of found out that they're all pretty much the same.
I mean, they all tell different stories.
It's like playing a game of telephone or passing around the story at a campfire.
You know, everybody has their own version.
But it's time for me to tell my version now.
And you know, somewhere down the line, I know it'll help somebody else.
So being a black woman, I think is a part of my spiritual journey here.
And I don't think that that's talked about in this way very often, at least not from
what I've seen, because I grew up somewhere where my cultural identity was not really
celebrated or praised.
And it kind of faded into the background of who I was.
But as I've gotten older, I've also learned that where I was at the time helps me be more
open to all different kinds of experiences.
I don't like to put myself in one small box of, you're a black woman, this is your experience,
and this is it.
I like to say that this is the body that I was born into to do a certain kind of work.
And in doing this work, you're going to help awaken other people to see that they are more
than just their cultural identity.
They are more than the color of their skin.
They're more than their experiences.
And I believe in learning things like that throughout time.
I have not only become more intelligent, but more emotionally in tune with myself.
I realize why I do certain things, my reactions.
I've realized things about my diet.
I've realized things about my relationship and the older I get and the more mature I
get with those things.
I don't play the blame game anymore.
I don't say, well, hey, it's mom and dad's fault or, hey, you know, this relationship
hurt me.
These were all conscious decisions that I made, but without that maturity, the decision
went one way when it could have gone another.
And I can't get mad at myself for that.
I can't hate myself for that.
It's life.
It's how we learn.
You have to stumble several times in order to get back up again.
And I'm okay with falling.
I always have been.
I'm not going to say that when I fell, and I'm speaking hypothetically, but when I fell,
it wasn't that it didn't hurt.
It was that I learned, okay, next time go over the next stone or this time take an alternate
route.
So becoming a parent, I think is another thing that has like opened my eyes.
And obviously I'm very new at parenting.
My children are about to be three years old and one year old.
And just watching them alone, I realized that they're my teacher, not the other way around.
We are here to show them certain basic needs in life, but I learn from them every single
day.
I learned about things that I wasn't necessarily aware of when I was a child.
I'm learning how to be kinder.
I'm learning to have a lot of patience.
I'm learning to tap into my own needs the same way that I'm learning to tap into my
child's needs.
And it's been a wonderful experience so far.
I won't lie that it's very rough learning someone else's emotions and navigating it.
For example, my daughter, she does not hesitate letting me know when she needs something.
My son was a lot different than that.
When he was a baby, I could leave him by himself for some time and he would be fine, but she
lets me know when she needs me.
And I think a lot of this is reflective of the relationship I had with my mom.
My children live in a two-parent home with both of their parents from birth.
I didn't have the same thing.
My mom and my biological father separated at a very early age and then my mom was remarried.
And I had a lot of struggles and issues feeling connected to her as our relationship grew
and as she went on to have other children.
Now with my children, I am a stay-at-home mom like mine, but sometimes I get a little
annoyed when she needs me all the time.
But I realized this is kind of healing that part of the relationship where I felt very
separate from my mom.
My daughter must feel really connected to me to be able to call on me like this all the
time even as a little baby because her needs have been met since the very beginning.
I was able to have a natural birth with her.
So we have been connected at the hips and she came out of my body.
We have not been separated for more than maybe a few seconds.
And my son, I had a C-section with him and we were separated for some time.
So I believe the way that both of their neurological path was developed are very different.
And that's something I'm learning to be okay with but also navigating my relationship with
them in very different ways.
Watching my children grow has been very healing because I don't have a relationship with my
biological father at all.
I don't have a relationship with my stepfather and sometimes when I see my children with
their father and we're all together in the home.
At first I thought it was envy that I felt because they got to be with their father but
honestly like it brings tears to my eyes because I get to see what it looks like now in my
own home for my family to be together.
And that doesn't make us perfect.
That doesn't mean that we are without flaws or without mistakes.
But that little part of me that always craved to have my family together, I get to do now.
Also working through relationships and I'm going to have my husband on an episode.
It's been like a fight back and forth for me to get him to sit down and be on camera
and talk with me about these things.
But working through a relationship even through the hard parts, like when all you want to
do is walk away is another lesson I think that I've learned throughout this time.
Things that I normally wouldn't have put up with as a teenager.
Now I'm saying, okay, well, my husband is human just like I am.
He has feelings just like I do.
I might find them annoying at times or he might find me annoying at times.
But choosing each other every day and then consciously working on ourselves and then
coming together in a relationship is how we continue to grow as a couple.
I'm not willing to just walk away from things as easily anymore because now we've built
this structure and this foundation and it's like working on a house together.
One person walks away that leaves one person with all the weight of building brick by brick,
layer by layer.
And yes, it can be done, but I think it makes the journey a lot harder.
And that doesn't mean that everyone has to have a two parent home with mom and dad.
It could be mom and mom.
It could be dad and dad.
It doesn't matter.
It's just coming together to build a structure.
I think it's always about partnership.
And I know not everybody has that in their lives, but I believe if we spend a lot of
time analyzing the pain that we have and then finding healthy ways to talk through them,
to work through them, to speak consciously with our partners about how we're feeling
about things, healing can start to begin and we don't have to repeat the same patterns
that created our lives.
So let's move on to other things that I've learned.
Actually I will say that I had a lot of experiences that family members did not have.
And a lot of it was based on privilege, the places where I grew up.
I could have gone to a school that was lower income in a predominantly African-American
neighborhood.
When I was really young, my stepdad took us out and moved us to a predominantly white
neighborhood.
And sometimes I believe that that took away from a certain experience I could have had,
but then it also added a lot to my experience as well.
As I got older, I saw that there were things that people around me did not do that I could
do and that the only barrier between me and those things was the idea that that's not
what people who look like me do.
So getting older, there were things that I tried in that school.
They took us on ski trips.
They took us camping.
I think in the sixth grade, I jumped off a cliff for the first time.
And I can't tell you I don't know anybody in my family who has jumped off a cliff.
I've also jumped out of a plane, but that's another story.
And trying these things, I've never been afraid to go after the things that I want.
And the inspiration came from learning like there are no limitations except for the ones
that you put on yourself.
So in education and parenting, there's a lot of decisions that I know that are coming
up for me that there are going to be a lot of decisions that I have that are going to
be based on things that have happened to me and decisions that I want to make.
So let me give you an example.
Right now, my son is about a year away from pre-K. And me and my husband are also running
our very own business.
None of us have been or neither of us has been in the workforce since about 2020 when
we decided to both go into business for ourselves, which has been very rocky, but it has been
well worth the journey.
And one thing I notice with the neighborhood that we live in now, it's very similar to
the one I grew up in.
And I don't see many people who look like me.
And a lot of that is based on economic background.
A lot of it is based on things that they had in their home growing up that created the decisions
that they made as children and eventually teenagers and then adults.
So I'm looking at the decision.
We live in a place right now where there are some of the lowest test scores when it comes
to education.
Now I've been on social media, so I know there are many ways to educate your child and each
path has a different route.
Now because part of my journey is learning commitment and dedication.
And that is something that I've struggled with for a long time.
I'm kind of plagued with the decision and my husband of where are we going to send our
kid to school?
I think for a long time I thought that I would be the mom who would home school and
want to travel the world.
I thought there was only one way to do this and that meant moving off grid and I don't
know, just living a certain kind of lifestyle.
And now that I'm older and I've matured a lot, I see that long term I don't necessarily
want those things anymore and that's okay.
So the decisions come up.
Do I send my child to public or private school?
Do I send him to a Montessori school?
Any decision I make is going to set up the rest of his life.
And I have to not only pay attention to the things that I want, but I have to pay attention
to his needs.
And then in addition to those needs, I have to pay attention to our business.
And then paying attention to our business, that means I have to be able to show up.
And showing up is the hardest part, especially when we are full of memories and ways that
we've been for so long.
It's like you grow up in an environment and then you step out of that environment and
you don't know how to function in it anymore because you've lived life a completely different
way.
And for me, I stepped away from the whole formal education thing for a long time and
I was very fight the man, we don't need this.
And now as I get older and especially having a platform where I am advocating for education
on plant medicine, I realize that more work has to be done than just talking about it.
You can't just be in the streets all of the time.
Sometimes it takes active cooperation and debating and advocating in order to make changes.
And I think we can get really comfortable and by we, I mean like people who are very
like anti the man.
Eventually you have to mature and see that there are other routes to take.
And anger is not the route to take sometimes.
You know fighting and saying what someone is not giving to you is not the route to take.
You have to go about this with a sense of maturity and kind of grow up beyond the ideas
that you had and find new ways to go about doing things.
So I say all that to say like going back to the whole education with my son thing.
I haven't made a decision yet.
Me and my husband have not made a final decision about what's going to happen with him.
But what I can say is I think it's really important as we mature that we start thinking
in the present rather than just the long term.
Being in the present means every day I'm paying attention to the things that interest my son.
I pay attention to the kind of time I'm spending with him.
You know I've gotten comfortable sometimes just throwing him in front of a screen and
I realize you're not challenging him.
So for me it would be very easy as a mom with two children who's running a household
is helping a business to just give my son a screen because it gives me some time to
myself.
But I also chose to be a mother.
I chose to take on one of the hardest jobs in the world and that means making time for
myself, making time for my children, figuring out what their interests are, figuring out
how to help make them independent.
You know especially like when the pandemic hit and I started seeing like a lot of milestones
I would automatically write them off as oh that's just like it's just a way for them
to group kids together.
And now that I'm a little more mature and had some time to think about it I've seen
that understanding what challenges your children may have even on a medical level can help
them so they don't have to go through the same things that we went through as children.
And making this decision now and choosing to actively help my child or do something
different or sit down and read a book with him.
I'll even so last night and this is just like kind of tying in with it.
I tried to tell my son a story like from fresh off the brain like not taking Disney and Moana
and you know not reading from my phone but I tried to actively use my imagination to
read a story with him and it was hard.
Like my creativity was shot.
Yes I was a little tired because the day was over but I was thinking like I really like
when I you know long time ago when I would see movies of parents reading with their
children at night.
I don't really hear about that anymore I don't see that but this is also social media which
is like the new TV so you see what you want to see or what shows up in your feed or your
algorithm.
And I decided OK your creativity is something that you need to work on because in being
able to sit and be present with your child being able to make up a story to tell him
that's not only helping you become a little bit more creative and spend time with him
but it's also showing him creativity as well.
You know kids when you don't put them in front of a screening you just let them like use whatever
around the house as long as it's safe they have so much fun like sometimes I feel guilty
when I see him just playing with toys alone and I'm saying well no you're actually giving
him independent play.
You're allowing him to figure things out for himself and sometimes it does involve climbing
on furniture.
Sometimes it does involve him being all over the place and being a little loud and running
back and forth but I'm happy that I get to see him not drown his mind in screen time
all the time and don't get me wrong I think there are plenty of great educational programs
for example we love Miss Rachel we love Tabtime but as a parent I think that it is OK sometimes
not all the time but sometimes to be the one who teaches your kids who brings that into
their field.
Now I also am someone who enjoys running a business it's difficult and it's hard I
enjoy a challenge outside of one role which is being a mother.
I enjoy helping my husband figure out new ways to get clients for us to expand and watching
this growth over time has been like one of the most beautiful parts of evolution and
growing.
I got caught up in like conspiracy world for some time like well the government's doing
this and you know maybe they're doing that and putting this in our food and they're doing
that and then when you step outside of like things that people are saying on your phone
and kind of step back into reality you see OK this isn't really going on in the way that
they say it is and even if it is it doesn't really affect me.
This about spiritual maturity I believe is about stepping into what is relevant to your
life applying it learning from it and growing from it not getting caught up in what everyone
says all the time because there's going to be chatter all over the planet.
Everybody is always going to want you to hop into their concern and what's important to
them and what they should do and you have to decide what's right for you and that's
pretty much the overall lesson I learned all over this time.
You know I was raised in a go to school get a job work to live and die and thankfully
because I was raised in a more diverse area where I got to see different ways of life
and people live I realized that there are details in between these things you know where you
go to school it shapes who you are sometimes actually all of the time if you're homeschooled
if you go to a certain school like Montessori if you go to private school it shapes who you
grow into the location the economic background the money it takes it all shapes your career
things that you may choose later on in life learning challenges that you have or based
off of things that happen in the home things that are going on inside of you genetically
and I used to write a lot of that off saying that was just something that people were doing
to oppress us and it's actually something that could free us because when we know more
about ourselves we can help other people we can help our children we can help our families
not repeat the same things and in learning new things we evolve getting a job isn't just
about working a nine to five you know learning entrepreneurship it challenge you challenges
you to critically think and that's something that a lot of people cannot do anymore and
then I'm coming in terms with it challenges you to think outside of the systems that are
built for you and even in becoming entrepreneur you can create representation and I understand
becoming entrepreneurs not for everybody but humans are so amazing and they don't even
know it they don't know how amazing and how much information we can truly hold in our
minds like nothing is impossible and to think that the man or whoever is limiting to think
that that anyone can hold us back from the dreams and desires that we have because of
the color of our skin or because of our cultural background is limiting and I think that a time
needs to come now because my generation is coming in as the new like 30 40 50 year olds
that we need to teach everybody now that we are the only ones who limit ourselves you
know exploring outside of what our culture knows allows us to find new interest things
that we might be good at that we never would have guessed before you know it opens up a
new career path it opens up new interest with those interests we can also learn to enjoy
different things in life more and I've read a couple of articles before that show that
people who go out and like hike regularly who go out in the nature who try things that
they've never done before who travel they enjoy their lives more because they enjoy
their lives more that extends their lives and I think that a lot of people in my culture
specifically have been taught that death is coming for them much sooner rather than how
to live how to create a legacy how to continue life and show others how to live we think
that we're just here to work live and die and that's not the case like I can tell you
from experience that I have really lived before children I went out to see the world you know
I met people from all different cultures and backgrounds I've seen all different kinds
of spiritual practices I've jumped out of a plane I've gone camping I've gone hiking
I've done all of these things and for me it makes me feel more alive than ever to know
that those things are out there and those are things that I can share with my children
to know that I can have a will you know I might not have you know the assets and all
these things now but that I can have things that I passed down to my children and it's
not limited to whether you know nepotism is going on in my family or if my father gave
me something that I can give to my children that I can make these decisions and I can
create these but doing the inner work is going to be the biggest part first because I can't
show up in the outside world if I don't show up here first so you know the Saturn return
it's a rough one because it'll make you reevaluate everything that you've learned along your
path it will make you look in the mirror and say okay these are the lessons this is life
the sun is not going to come crashing through the sky tomorrow and if it does so what focus
on the now don't focus on things that have been happening yet don't hold on so tightly
to the past and if you do there are plenty of methods in the world to help you get through
this pay attention to your health because your health is part of how you live and if we don't
pay attention to those things and write them off is unimportant well we're shortening our
lives right there we're stripping ourselves of the opportunity to fix things that we have
already deemed irreparable you know we can change these things we can extend our life
and I'm not talking about live forever and ever and ever but we can show our children
different I know sometimes we think we're just like passing the baton like I saw a joke
on tiktok where you know a parent was passing down the belt to the next kid as soon as they
were acting up it's like no we have to learn from that it was a funny tiktok don't get
me wrong but we need to learn we learn from the past and I had a discussion with my mom
not too long ago where I kind of think she felt like I was picking at her parenting styles
but I told her no I'm not you worked with what you had you did not know these things
at the time I get the joy of getting to learn from you I get to see what you were lacking
in or what you did not have and I can choose to do things different so you walked this
path so I could walk it too and whether we're learning from parents who are around or aren't
around I think that's like one of the most important lessons that we can take away no
matter if your parents hurt you or not no matter whether you grew up and I'm broken
home or if you were abused no matter what happened you went through those things so
that you could learn and even if you have kids or not you get to take those lessons
and you get to choose what to do with them you could very well hold on to them for the
rest of your life or you could choose to release them and forge a new path you know our brains
are extremely complex there are still things about the human brain that people don't know
and because of that that means there is a whole area unexplored think about your life
the same way you know there are areas and corners of this earth and of this experience
called life that you haven't even dared to explore yet so get excited because there's
so much life ahead of you rather than spending time complaining about what someone isn't
giving you go out there and create it I didn't say it was going to be easy I didn't say that
you know life was just one big party all the time life is balance it's a balance of work
and play it's a balance of dark and light it's a balance of love and envy you know but once
you learn that and really like ingrain that in your system that it's not just one thing
there's seasons for everything then it becomes a little bit easier and this path that we walk
you start to learn where the where the potholes are you know where the rocks are what rivers
we need to go around in order to be better and do better so I hope that you all have
enjoyed the first episode of the third season I only expect the show to grow from here I
will not limit myself in saying it's not going to be good because I still may have so many
followers it's growing just like I am it's growing just like my children are like my
relationship is and it will not stop it will go through its highs it will go through its
lows but that is why we're here to live out this human experience to understand okay this
is it I came here to live I came here to feel my body and this human experience I came here
to release these emotions I came here to learn that we help each other evolve step by step
layer by layer brick by brick we are here to help each other grow on this path because
one day we will be the ancestors we will be the people that we go to for guidance and
answers and we're going to teach them the same thing that they teach in Disney movies
everything that you're looking for it lives within you there's nowhere else you need
to search for you could go out into the world and you know try to find fulfillment through
all these other things but whatever you're looking for lives within you so I hope you
all enjoy the show I have plenty of links below on information I have affirmation tracks
the whole nine so check it out be sure to subscribe to the channel if you're watching
on YouTube or follow the show on whatever streaming platform you're listening to for
the podcast and until next time let lovely the way peace.
I detach from the old I have a crown of success I am sure of what is coming and let the universe
do the rest I don't know how I don't know when but I manifest what I want again and
again I don't know how I don't know when but I manifest what I want again and again I don't
Time is a dimension that we enter when we choose to align with self that's divine.
It first exists inside of our minds.
I don't know how, I don't know when, but I manifest what I want again and again.
I visualize my desires, I create with intention, a new dimension where reality is in my hands.
I don't know how, I don't know when, but I manifest what I want again and again.
DING