21 | "Coming Back to You" | Love Who You Are

In this episode, Khalila sits down with Coach Tammy Nicole — a licensed clinician with 22 years in the mental health field who now coaches high‑capacity women navigating people‑pleasing, emotional labor, overfunctioning, and identity loss. Tammy shares how many women lose themselves by living out the identities others choose for them, and why reclaiming your voice begins with learning to love, validate, and trust yourself.

Together, they talk about the cost of doing everything for everyone else, how childhood messages shape adult behavior, and why “who you are shows up everywhere” — in your work, relationships, parenting, and leadership. Tammy breaks down the difference between therapy and coaching, the power of boundaries, and why keeping your word to yourself is the foundation of self‑trust.

This conversation is full of analogies, wisdom, and practical guidance for anyone ready to stop overfunctioning and start coming back home to themselves.

Connect with Coach Tammy Nicole

Instagram: @iamtammynicole 

Loving Me Before I Love You Podcast

Connect with Khalila

Instagram:  @wherewerisepod

Email: WhereWeRisePod@gmail.com

Transcript

Khalila McCoy 0:01

Hey, I'm Khalila McCoy, and this is the show where reflection leads to transformation. This is where we rise. Hey there. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you're doing well. Summer is in full swing here in Ohio, and it is hot, hot, hot, and very humid this week. The kind of heat where you just start melting the moment you step outside. But I will honestly take this over the cold winter day, so I'm not complaining too much. I spent a lot of time inside in the air condition, and I got to hang out with my friend at our pool. So I'm surviving. While I was staying cool indoors, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with coach Tammy Nicole. She's a life coach who supports high capacity women in so many areas of their lives. When we met, we talked about her work helping women regain their identity. And I share that I'm someone who has and sometimes still does, fall into the category of people pleaser. That opened the door to a powerful conversation about the importance of self-love. I really liked and enjoyed her analogies, and she has so much wisdom. And she gave me a lot to reflect on, which you know reflecting is like my favorite pastime. So let's listen in. Hi, TiM. Welcome to the show. How are you today? I am well. How are you? I am doing wonderful. Thank you so much for taking your time to be on the show today. You and I have already been talking. I've been learning stuff from you before we hit record. So that's been exciting. Um, I invited you to be on the show today because I saw a post that you put out and you said that your role was to, and I'm gonna read it, support high capacity women navigating self-disconnection, emotional labor, overfunctioning and identity loss. That is a lot of stuff. And I know my listeners and women like everywhere can connect and relate to that. And one of the topics you said you talk about is overfunctioning and identity loss, why doing everything can cost you yourself. So that really stood out to me. So I would love to hear what you have to say about that and how you support women in all of that we just read about. But before we dive into the conversation, can you go ahead and share for the listeners a little bit about yourself and how you became coach Tammy Nicole? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_06 2:33

Um, so a little bit about me is this I've been in the mental health field for the last 22 years. Um, I am a therapist, trained clinician, licensed, all the kitten caboodles. And I transitioned into the coaching side when I start to discover me. So even as a therapist, we have therapists, right? And so, well, you should. So if you listen and you're a therapist and you don't get to get one. Okay. So um we have therapists, and I had started to have clients that were the the the what I call the foundation or the continual line that I always saw with the connectivity of these clients was they were big, big, big people pleasers. And when you're a people pleaser and you're doing so much for everybody else, you were not identifying you. You were simply, you know, walking out the identity of other people. So you can have so many acclamations, so many achievements, so many things that you've done, but you did those things in the name of other people. Your name be may be attached to the reward or award, however, it was somebody else that said you should do it. It was somebody else that encouraged it. It was somebody else that was like, well, you're good at this. You should go after that. Be it your parent, a friend, a mentor. You know, a lot of times people identify our assets of what we're good at, and they fuel us based upon their perspective. We feed into it, we love their validation, we move forward, we do what they want, we become miserable in the end because it's not really what we wanted to do. It was something that somebody else said they saw, we adopted their thoughts, we made it our own, and we just did it. And so then your identity of who you are is lost in the sauce. You have become the thing that other people wanted. So when it came to myself, I had gone through a divorce and all these different things, and I was just like, you know what? When I went through that divorce, I was finding me. I was like 35 years old, and I was like, you know what? This for me is not it. And I started looking deeper and deeper into myself. I started with the daddy issues thing. So my journey started from more of a daddy perspective, not having the desired relationship, the grief of that. Not that he wasn't totally present, but just we all have a vision of what that relationship is supposed to look like. And when it doesn't show up that way, you have to grieve it. So many of us are not doing that, that section either. So I was just reclaiming me in a whole. If you look at it all, all of it boils back down to coming back to you, learning to love you, accepting you, forgiving you, creating boundaries that protect you in a way that's like not just putting up a wall, but creating a standard.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

I like that.

SPEAKER_06 6:02

And so that's kind of like where it all started. And technically it continues. You know, healing is a journey, it's not a destination. And so many of us need to understand that you will always be evolving. Your triggers will always be tested. It's up to you to decide how you respond to them.

Khalila McCoy 6:21

Mm-hmm. So, why did you decide to switch from being a therapist to the coaching role?

SPEAKER_06 6:28

So, and y'all can, you know, beat me up later. But the reality is even people are beating up Cheyenne Bryant for this very thing. But you do have a little bit more freedom. Now, I don't do the, I'm not a fan of saying, oh, I'm not licensed because I am, but I'm also not providing therapy and coaching. I'm providing exactly that. I am teaching you how to do X, Y, and Z, exposing your patterns, exposing the things that you do from a behavioral perspective, but we're not processing. We're not digging deep into your how you feel about that. Those things require protection and they require skill, I mean, beyond intellect and all those things. And though I have all of those things, which honestly is a benefit of why women work with me, because they do know that if I see something that says, uh uh that's a mental health flag, we need to do something different before we do this, you know, tangible technique skill building experience. So the why I went that way honestly was because it had a little bit more freedom. I could tell you, girl, stop it, without feeling like that was so inappropriate. Let me care about your feelings behind this because I could be, you know, hurting other things and creating other openings and wounds over here by talking to you in a way that maybe somebody in your family talked to you that I don't know that because I didn't dig deep to find out if we got a verbal abusive wound sitting in the corner of your pockets of your heart. Had I done it from a therapeutic standpoint, I would have found that out. And then I would have known, oh no, no, don't tell her shut up. Don't tell her, you know what I mean? Like, so that's that's the why I went the coaching route, because not that I don't have to care about your feelings, but for lack of better words, I don't have to care about your feelings.

Khalila McCoy 8:35

Okay, I do want to ask you, I know this is not our topic, but as a therapist, I know you're not supposed to tell people like how to think and what to do and stuff like that. How hard is that sometimes when you see somebody who is just like letting their life kind of just go down the toilet? Like, it is definitely a difficult thing.

SPEAKER_06 8:52

It is definitely a difficult thing if you're being completely transparent and honest as a clinician, right? But that's why some clinicians have veered into their own little lane and they just try to make sure they walk an ethical line, but they do kind of like low-key step into that coaching side. But I don't want to do coaching in therapy. So I won't. So it is, it is difficult to sit and watch somebody literally squirm into a space of like, girl, you know this ain't what you're supposed to be doing. But you can't tell them what to do. You have to give, you have therapy. I always try to tell people, clients and all, therapy is like, I'm gonna hold your hand and take you to the pond. And we will sit at this pond until you decide to put your head in the water and drink it, even though you're th dying of thirst.

Khalila McCoy 9:48

Okay. That's a good analogy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:51

Life coaching is I'm taking you to this palm and I'm gonna just throw you in there because guess what? I can. And you and you paid me to do so.

Khalila McCoy 10:01

Yes. And I'll be there to make sure you don't drown, right?

SPEAKER_06 10:04

But yeah, I'll I'll throw you a raft if you if you're drowning. But we're sinking or swimming instantly. I'm not waiting on you to make a decision on if you're ready to do so. Because in coaching, it's just it's it's let's go. This is what we're doing. This is you, you already done paid me to tell you the truth, and I'm gonna tell you the truth that I see. In therapy, I can't technically tell you the truth I see. I will tie things together to make you see the truth and have the aha moment and decide, oh. So the connection between how I talk to my son is directly connected to how my dad talked to my brother and I experienced it. And I thought that was the way, you know, a boy should be spoken to. Yeah. Lot of difference. Yes.

Khalila McCoy 10:57

Okay, I see. I like that. Thank you for explaining that that way. And like you said at the beginning, sometimes you need that coach and that therapist as well. So that's fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:09

Yeah. So I don't think that life coaching should ever replace therapy. Ever. Don't think it at all. However, if you want lightning speed results of your life changing, you need both.

Khalila McCoy 11:23

Mm-hmm. Now, when you started to make your change, because you said that you around like 35, you're like, this is not right for me. Like, life isn't going the way I want it to. Did you find a coach? Or since you had that training and stuff, you kind of knew how to walk yourself through.

SPEAKER_06 11:39

So I did a lot of it myself, but then I also did it with friends, right? Friends that are in the industry with me, you know, like, girl, I'm thinking this. You know, let's test it. Let's see if it works. You know, a lot of stuff you test on yourself, it works. And it's like, oh, we can all do this, you know, type of a thing. Um, it's more about my journey itself was more about me stopping just people pleasing as a whole. Like I don't really care what you think, how you feel, what you want, and not from a selfish perspective, but from a perspective of if I am so concerned about you, I'll never be concerned about me.

Khalila McCoy 12:26

Right. Yeah. So let's talk about that. Cause I'm a people pleaser as well. And it's hard to get to that point where, like you said, because it does feel like, oh, I don't care about you, or I'm being self-centered, or I'm being lazy. So how would you coach somebody through that? Or what do I need to do to think through and break through that?

SPEAKER_06 12:48

So if you're asking, because I want to clarify what the question is. Okay. Right. If you're asking in general, how do I stop people pleasing? Like flat out, how do I stop caring about what other people really want from me? Is provide it to yourself. That's in simple terms.

Khalila McCoy 13:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 13:07

You have to provide the thing that you're seeking subconsciously from them in the process of people pleasing to you. So we people please because we need the validation. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:22

You're seeking validation from others when you should be seeking it from yourself. If you validated you, you wouldn't need their validation.

Khalila McCoy 13:32

So it's thinking about what is that underlying reason of why you need to do that. And what do I need to do to fulfill that?

SPEAKER_06 13:41

Yes. Absolutely. So I mean, you can go as simple as, I don't know, let's say you have a project that's coming up and you feel like you need to run this project by everybody to see their thoughts. Why? Why why do I need them to say that this is a good idea?

Khalila McCoy 13:58

Because you're nervous that it's not gonna be out, that's not gonna turn out right. And not so well.

SPEAKER_06 14:02

What difference does it make if it does or doesn't? Because how many times have you sought somebody else's validation and it still didn't turn out right?

Khalila McCoy 14:11

True.

SPEAKER_06 14:12

Is it their fault that it's not right? No.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

No.

SPEAKER_06 14:15

You never turn around and blame them for saying, oh my God, you guys told me this was a good idea. Look at it. It's flat on its face. You don't do that. Right. You accept it and move on. Let's figure out something else. Let's get, you know, so why can't you just simply do that?

Khalila McCoy 14:31

It's probably like a lack of trust in yourself. Good job. Oh no.

SPEAKER_06 14:39

Good job. Absolutely. How do you build that? You build that by keeping your word to you.

Khalila McCoy 14:49

Hmm. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_06 14:52

So so many of us, you don't keep your word to yourself. I bet you they're a pleather of things that you said you were gonna do that you haven't done.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Mm-hmm. True.

SPEAKER_06 15:01

Your body knows that. But if somebody else told you to do it, you'll do it. Your body knows that.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 15:11

And you trained your body to say, this is when I feel safe to do it. It's when either certain people or people in general have said yes to whatever your request is. You don't trust you by you. You only trust you with their assistance.

Khalila McCoy 15:32

Now I know in your uh the description that I read, you said that you work with a lot of high functioning, high-powered women. Is that a trait that is typical?

SPEAKER_06 15:44

Yes and no. What am I saying? Yes, it's is very typical in high achieving, overachieving, high value women. It also exists in individuals that don't make six figures plus and don't sit in somebody's C-suite. It just exists in general, right? But you do see it in the high achieving women because how did they get there? How did they get there?

Khalila McCoy 16:13

Following those others.

SPEAKER_06 16:15

Most of us get there because of other people, right? Not a lot of us get there simply because it's where we really want it to go. And so we used those around us to make places, and then it's really like we get to the spot and it's like, I'm here now, what? I'm still miserable, I'm still lost in the sauce. Yes, my bank account is nice. Yes, my family is like healthy and fun or whatever, but I'm missing something. And you're missing the piece of you that you never tapped into because you were so busy saying yes to everybody else.

Khalila McCoy 16:55

Mm-hmm. Do you find that when the women figure that out and figure out what they need, is it usually like a whole career type shift or something? Or oh, it is. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 17:07

Most of the time. Most of the time. I have one lady who was working high up in like Mattel, you know. I mean that's the Barbie company. You don't know what that is. She went from doing that to doing relaxation, meditation, sound baths.

Khalila McCoy 17:26

Oh, wow. So very different.

SPEAKER_06 17:32

Yeah. So I think a lot of times people when you don't really know who you are, when you figure that part out, the rest becomes easy.

Khalila McCoy 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:48

Wholeheartedly.

Khalila McCoy 17:49

I was gonna ask you, because that's a big shift, but it's probably because you found who you are and you find that happiness, it's okay to let go of that part, whatever that thing is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:00

Yeah, that part. And guess what? Her finances eventually came back to what it was when she was over there. Really? Okay. I'm a very big believer. I'm a I'm a Jesus believer, FYI. And so the Bible says your gift will make room for you.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 18:17

We have been like chasing the funds. We chase the room instead of chasing our gift. So we get the room, you don't know what to do with it. You're miserable.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:30

Had you chased the gift to allow it to make room for you, everything that you were chasing on the other side would have already been there waiting on you. So we're doing it in opposite direction, but it's a it's a learned behavior. It's learned. As a kid, just think about it. You grow up, you go outside to meet your first little friend, right? And you hear things like, be nice to Susan, ask Susan if she wants this first. Ask Susan if she wants to get on the slide first. Ask Susan if she wants to go down the uh monkey bars first. Like everything is ask so-and-so before you do anything.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Yeah.

Khalila McCoy 19:20

I have a little fighting. I do teach them to, you know, see what they need, make sure there's enough for everybody for you taking it.

SPEAKER_06 19:31

What do you need? Your needs do matter. Right? There's a thing about being polite. It's another thing to just be super self, like, like, I don't matter. Like, you know, hey, what what do you, what do you, what do you? And never what do I? Jesus said, love your neighbors as you love yourself, which means you had to just start with you first. But we're teaching everybody to start with the neighbor. The neighbor is not the blueprint you are.

Khalila McCoy 20:03

I recently heard someone kind of talking about that, but that um analogy of when you're on the airplane, right? Yeah, but they put your yes. What's your mask on first, before your kids?

SPEAKER_06 20:15

Hello. Mamas before your kid.

Khalila McCoy 20:18

And that's so hard to think of, right? Like I'm not sure. I can't do that.

SPEAKER_06 20:23

It's not.

unknown 20:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

It's hard because we're choosing it to be hard.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:28

That's a good point. No, it's not. Like, I'll tell my kids in a minute.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 20:35

No, no, no. I come first. You come second.

Khalila McCoy 20:39

How do you balance that as far as like you talked about not feeling selfish or being selfish, right? Because you don't want to take it too far. Where is that middle ground of nothing?

SPEAKER_06 20:50

Well, it's the boundaries that you create. Okay. It's the boundaries that you create. It's not that I don't love you. It's that honestly I love you so much that I love myself first. Right. It's it's your mindset behind it. It's not, you know, if your mindset and your negative self-talk tells you, well, that's selfish. You shouldn't be doing that. That's that's super mean. And it's like, but if I don't do it, right? What do they have left if I'm not available?

Khalila McCoy 21:18

Right. That's true. Because you're so depleted that when they truly need you, you're not able to do anything to support them and probably hurting them more, right? That part. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 21:32

That part. You should fill your cup to its capacity that the things that other people pour into you is overflow.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 21:42

You should not be halfway full waiting on other people to fill you up, and your cup never gets full. You will never have overflow because it's not other people's job to fill you up.

Khalila McCoy 21:56

I think we do look to other people. You said earlier about the validation. But in a lot of other ways, when we're feeling defeated, we go and look for somebody to make us feel.

SPEAKER_06 22:07

What we typically do is this. This is what we do. I have this idea of who I am in reference to how I want other people to see me. Not just who I am, period. It's I have this vision of who I am in reference to how I want other people to see me. So what's incorporated in that is what you do for other people. So we perform love, we don't be love. And see, God is love, which means that you should be it versus perform it.

Khalila McCoy 22:41

Right.

SPEAKER_06 22:43

And so because we're stuck in that, I need to be what I want you to think of me type mindset, you're doing so much for the other person. If I give them this, they'll they'll see that I'm a great person and they'll do X, Y, and Z for me. If I show up for them this time, they'll see that I'm a great person and they'll show up for me. And then when they never show up, you're sitting in the bed wondering, how am I showing up for everybody else? And no one is showing up for me because you haven't showed up for yourself.

Khalila McCoy 23:15

Wow. I'm taking a lot of notes right now. Well, like I told you I at the beginning, I'm a people pleaser and I'm also a school teacher, right? And there's so much of that. And I actually had a panel not too long ago with a couple other teachers and we talked about that people pleasing and always, you know, giving of ourselves and giving to the students and things like that. So it's kind of like, oh, a lot of your lot of stuff you're saying is hitting very personal.

SPEAKER_06 23:45

My sister's a school teacher, and uh I teach her how not to do those things. It's been very beneficial for her because she feels freer.

Khalila McCoy 23:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 23:57

She feels freer and she teaches her students certain things. So I always, even when I deal with, you know, moms that have little kids and they're like, you know, feeling like their kids are dependent upon them. Yes, your child depends on you, but are you dependable if you're not available? You know? So it always leads back to taking care of you first. And then you say, Well, they needy. They always need X, Y, and Z. But if you give into it, what are you teaching them? Right. You always have to ask yourself, what does this behavior teach the child that will later affect them in their adult life, in their teenage life? Like, how is what how is me being a open and available to them 24-7? What is it teaching them? Because everybody's not going to be available to them 24-7. And you are the first model of people. You're the first model of community. You're the first model of how they interact with others. So what are you teaching them? When kids go off to daycare and they have the issue of not sharing, that comes from the parenting of giving them everything. It doesn't matter that they're the only kid in the house. You still say no. They need to hear no at home. So that when they hear it in the street, it's not startling. It's not a whoa, where is that coming from? Like no one's ever supposed to say no to me mentality because mommy has said no to me at home.

Khalila McCoy 25:35

Mm-hmm. Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_06 25:38

So you also learn to teach boundaries. So you give yourself, you know, even when it comes to little babies, like put it, put a timer on. When this timer goes off, this is when mommy's available.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 25:50

And you use those minutes wisely. You know, take moments, sit by yourself, drink you some coffee, some tea, get a journal, write in it. The other issue is that people pleasers don't know how to sit with themselves. If you sit with yourself a long time, it's like, oh my God, the silence is deafening. Okay. But but you matter. Your thoughts matter. Organize them. See where they're coming from. Like, why do I think like this? Like, what where did this come from? You know, take one thought at a time and ask yourself, it came from somewhere. Nothing is just dropped out the sky. Okay. There's an answer for it somewhere. Period. You gotta do the digging. You have to, and that's where the when people say do the work, that's the work. It's locating and finding and trying to get a a sense, a grip on how did I get here?

SPEAKER_05 27:00

Right.

SPEAKER_06 27:03

Because you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you came from.

Khalila McCoy 27:09

When you're working with women on this, do you usually start with that personal side of things or because how does that necessarily relate to like work and business?

SPEAKER_06 27:19

Oh, because that's who they are, right? Like who you are shows up everywhere you go. It doesn't matter if you want, it's almost like my mom used to say when I was little, you don't want your slip showing everywhere. You know what I mean? So you're yes, I told my age, then I told my dead.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

You don't know, you don't know.

SPEAKER_06 27:49

Absolutely. So, you know, who you are goes everywhere with you. We just work really hard to try to hide it from certain people in certain spaces.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 28:01

So it's it's it's your core and it's gonna show up at work even if nobody sees it. You see it.

Khalila McCoy 28:10

How do you make that transition, especially thinking at work? If you've been doing this for a long time, this is how people see you as who you are when you start setting those boundaries, right? There's gonna be probably pushback, people who are upset. How do you encourage people to keep moving forward in that? Because I'm sure that's heartbreaking as well.

SPEAKER_06 28:29

Absolutely. I always say those that want you to stay your old version of you never really loved you personally. They loved the access, the convenience, and your lack of boundaries. So are they for you?

SPEAKER_03 28:45

No.

SPEAKER_06 28:46

Or are they for themselves? The question is not, what do I do because of them? The question is, who am I for? Am I for me or am I for them? Because if a person truly loves you, they would appreciate, applaud, and encourage the growth and change that you're having for you.

Khalila McCoy 29:06

That is that is so true, but it's like just so much to think about and consider. But it's something I have been working on, I will be honest, and saying that for me, it kind of happened. So I have a five-year-old, and once I had my son, right, like I couldn't be there for everybody. I just, I didn't have the energy and the things like that. And when he was first born, he wasn't very healthy. So I did not take care of myself for a very long time and took care of others. But then you get to this point, like you've talked about with your clients, that it's just like you feel kind of ug and just like weighed down and just know that you're not like I don't feel like I didn't feel like me. I didn't feel the way I was supposed to. It was definitely like getting up every day and putting on a show. And and you know, then you come home even more exhausted than you were before. So trying to find that. And obviously, with your coaching, there's a lot of people who are going through this, and I see all the time online like women talking to other women about making space for yourself. And I feel like I see it more than ever. Do you feel like there's been a shift in society? Why are we seeing so much of this? Okay.

SPEAKER_06 30:20

So the self-love era has shown up. The healing era has shown up because people are what? Tired. Right? Let's look at it as a circle of friends, right? If you guys are always running on a hundred, as a friend group, when someone's down, the other person picks up. Like you guys have an ebb and flow of energy all the time. Every last one of you are never like on the same high frequency all the time. Every time there's somebody that's always gonna be like, hmm. Right? When all of y'all are hum, we got a problem. Right. We can do fine if if majority of us is up and one or two of us is down. Everybody's down, we have a huge problem. And that's what has happened. Everybody is down, everybody's trying to figure out what is going on. And that's because we've ran on high energy with no level of repl, like nobody's replenishing anybody anywhere. And now we're stuck in a spot of like, what do I do?

SPEAKER_04 31:36

Right.

SPEAKER_06 31:37

And so the self-love era has come into play. You look at the different celebrities around you that have said, oh man, I started spending time with myself. Oh, that's what the that was the answer. The answer was suspend. It seems so simple. It is so simple, but we we have taken, we never pulled it into the equation.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:01

You know, like I teach my kids, you matter first, bump your friends. You matter first, to the point that they will even pull a boundary on me. And all I can do is accept it and respect it because we are people. It doesn't matter that I'm their mom. They're not disrespectful when they say it, but they have to implement it, right? Like they cannot be like, oh, I only got boundaries for everybody but my mother, because she's my mother. No, we're human, period. Right? I'm your mother in reference to your relationship status, but I'm still another person. This what will never happen between me and my kids by the grace of God, because of my aha moments of understanding that they're not just do people, that they're not just, you know, kids that have to be told what to do all the time, that they're human and they're gonna be adults one day, and they need to know how to have emotional regulation, emotional maturity, and how to express their emotions in a healthy way. Because I've had that revelation and I don't treat them in a certain way, they will always have the respect and ability to come to me in a in a space of like, that's my mama. We're not, I'm not creating mother wounds for them.

Khalila McCoy 33:25

Right.

SPEAKER_06 33:25

They're not gonna become, you know, I'm emotionally available, teaching them emotional maturity and expression. So they won't have emotional disconnect. They have to talk in emotional language. They understand what they feel and not, you know what I mean? Like, right, but we don't teach that when they're young because we weren't taught, and then we become adults, and it's like, oh, this is why? Yeah, you don't have the capacity.

Khalila McCoy 33:54

Right.

SPEAKER_06 33:55

Your cup is sh is small. You have to enlarge your capacity, enlarge your territory in that space, but we don't know how because we were never taught that it existed.

Khalila McCoy 34:11

Do you ever have people like you just talked from a mother standpoint? Do you ever work with clients or someone who's maybe in leadership who's trying to help the people that they're working with see that and get to that place as well?

SPEAKER_06 34:25

So, in reference to them like learning how to lead appropriately, again, it goes back to them. Everything falls back on the individual. How do you show up? Because how you show up for you is how you show up for other people. And when you are not showing up for you and you're performing for other people, you are giving them what you think they need versus what you know they need based upon what you give yourself, right? Because if they're following you, if they're under your tutelage, then they need what you have.

Khalila McCoy 34:59

So you're probably somehow sending a message that you didn't intend to send or didn't realize you were sending.

SPEAKER_06 35:06

Correct.

Khalila McCoy 35:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 35:07

Right. So if if I if you follow, if I follow you, right, and I'm like, Kalia, I'm following you and I'm doing everything that you do, but Kalia doesn't have anything to give me, but Kalia's giving me performance based upon what she thinks I need, you're not giving me what you technically require. So how successful am I going to be?

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:33

I'm only gonna be successful to the capacity of your knowledge, not the capacity of your being.

Khalila McCoy 35:41

I like that. The capacity of your knowledge, not the capacity of your being.

unknown 35:45

Yeah.

Khalila McCoy 35:51

So we have women all over, like you said. I know you focus on a a certain group of women, but like you said, everywhere they're kind of falling into that identity loss that you mentioned earlier. And a lot of people are kind of waking up and seeing that they need to make these changes and these shifts and things like that. How do you see, like even maybe going back to that friend group or you know, a group of people at work? What is how do you see it ending up when the majority of the people are in this space of they found their identity, they're functioning well, they are, you know, we talked about people pleasers, but there's all different types of, you know, identities that you work with, I'm sure. What is that outcome? How does that look?

SPEAKER_06 36:40

Honestly, it looks different, right? Because when you have your aha of who you are, you'll also discover that you have trauma bonding with people that you don't belong in connection with, right? So you then learn what alignment is. You learn how connection works, and that your success is based upon the connection to the right person, which means that you would be aligned perfectly to succeed, blossom, and grow. Right. So many of us are tied to the wrong people. So it's going to look different and it's going to look like this was a good ride. I appreciated that. You know, unfortunately, our lives just don't align, and I have to step away and move forward. Does it mean that you have to break up every relationship in your life? No, but some of y'all might. I'm just gonna keep it a buck. Some of y'all just might because you tied to a person based upon the common grounds of what you went through. You're then tied to them based on the common grounds of who you are and where you're going. And that's what you need to be tied to. You can't be, it's like if I tie myself to the past to a tree of deceit, doubtfulness, disruption, how far am I going?

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Right.

SPEAKER_06 38:07

As far as that rope is, period. Right? If I want the success, the harmony, the alignment, I have to cut that rope. And I have to go find the other tree. Now, if I get to that other tree and you are there, hallelujah. But if I get to the other tree and you're not, it's still a hallelujah. Because gratitude is everything, you know. I always say be grateful for every area, space, experience in your life. It doesn't matter how bad it was or how great it was. All of it is, it was. And that was created you. It gave you everything that you have. It puts you in the position you're in, and you should be grateful for it.

Khalila McCoy 39:04

Yeah, taking the time to reflect and think back about how you can either change from that situation or grow from it is always something that I always like to tell people and I try to do myself. I I always say like I'm a pretty reflective person, but like I I think that's a big part of moving forward and growing and not staying stagnant in your life. Because, like you said, you go through different seasons and different jobs and you know, family situations and stuff. So you can't always stay at that tree, as your analogy was. You have to move forward and you have to build some tools to take along with you.

SPEAKER_06 39:43

Absolutely. Don't use a bungee cord, you know what I mean? Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

I like that.

SPEAKER_06 39:50

Yeah. So many of us are tied to bungee cords. We think we're going somewhere until it bounces us back.

Khalila McCoy 39:58

Right.

unknown 39:59

Right.

Khalila McCoy 40:00

And then surprised, right? Surprised when we end up back there where we were.

SPEAKER_06 40:04

Because we're not really changing things. I was having a conversation today, and I'm a big component, like relationships and all of that stuff really matter to me. Right. And so not to be off topic, but for revel look at me, can't talk, to make it make sense, we are who we attract.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 40:25

Right? Not what we desire to be. Like, I don't attract people based upon my desired person. I attract people based upon who I am.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

Right.

SPEAKER_06 40:34

And so, you know, they were like, well, does that really make sense? So if I'm a person and I'm if I'm saying to you, every relationship I get into, my man cheats on me. That means I'm a cheater? And I said, Yeah, technically, yes, it does. And it's like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:53

I say, Yeah, it does. I said, I'll show you, I'll I'll show you better than I can tell you. You know, she's like, really? Okay. I said, every man you ever had cheated on you. I'm gonna ask you about you. Are you a big flirter? Do you find yourself flirting with men just naturally without real effort? They you you see them, you like them, you think they're a beautiful man, a beautiful piece of being, and you like, hey, hey, hey, with your eyes. You know, she sitting, she thought, she's like, maybe. You do that smile, you give that wink, you make yourself look available, and you got a whole man at home.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

Because you're simply attracted to them, that's cheater behavior, right? I said, if I got your phone from you, will I find inappropriate text messages to any other man other than your boyfriend? The look was like, maybe, you know, like, and I said, that's cheater behavior. So you have equated not moving forward with a physical intimacy with someone other than your person, it's only the only way to cheat. Like that's your mentality behind it. But I didn't engage with someone in that way. I said it doesn't mean that you're not cheating, and so you attract it because you are it. It doesn't give them the permission to do so.

Khalila McCoy 42:33

Right.

SPEAKER_06 42:33

I don't want you to ever think that I'm saying that. However, I'm saying if you don't correct that inner thing within you, you're gonna keep attracting it.

Khalila McCoy 42:41

Right.

SPEAKER_06 42:42

And stop being surprised that it exists. That's what I'm saying. Right? They're responsible for their own behaviors and decisions, but you have an open door to it because you see it, you're experiencing it, and you're not correcting it. Relationships are mirrors, they are a reflection of you. So the very thing you can't stand in that person, it exists in you. So instead of being mad all the time about them and what they're doing, sit one day and say, How does this show up in me? I need to fix it because if I don't, it's gonna keep showing up in them because they are a reflector for me.

Khalila McCoy 43:26

Yeah. That's interesting. I like that idea of especially thinking of spouses or something like that, like a relationship that you're, you know, staying in and you're like reflecting back on yourself. So it's not that anger at them and you're working on your own growth. So it puts something, it puts it back into your control as well. Correct. Yeah. Ooh, you're a good girl. I like this. Everybody call Coach Tammy Nicole. She's got us. So much wisdom.

SPEAKER_06 44:02

But that's what it is. Like ultimately. So when you talk about what is it that I do, I really bring people back to who they are, right? Let's reclaim our own identity. Stop putting your identity in things that you do and put it in who you are. Are you kind? Are you considerate? Are you thoughtful? Like who are you? Not what do you do? You know, you are a mother. That's what you do. You know what I mean? It's not, you know, it's a part of like your job description.

Khalila McCoy 44:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06 44:38

But who are you?

Khalila McCoy 44:41

I hear people talk about how, you know, they feel like they don't really like who they are and things like that. Is that more of that outside worldview of who they think they're supposed to be? Or do you ever find somebody who really truly does the work and says, I don't like who I am?

SPEAKER_06 45:00

Yeah, you can find people that don't like who they are at the core, right? Um, and most of that gets attached to parental things a lot of times. It's like, but that came from them. You know, this piece of me that I don't like came from a parent. And you can't choose your parents. So they just don't like themselves in that way. And honestly, you have to accept it, right? There are a lot of things about you that you're not gonna like. It doesn't mean that it's all of you. And perception and perspective is everything. So if you change the perspective, change the narrative, so let's focus on the things you do like, let's amplify those things, let's make those things the bigger piece of you. The part that you don't like doesn't have to show up.

Khalila McCoy 45:58

Can you give an example of what that might look like?

SPEAKER_06 46:03

Um let's say, and I want to, you know, a good example, but let's just say like the part of you that you don't like, maybe you don't like that you're stubborn. Like maybe it's like, I don't like that I'm stubborn. I don't like that I cannot let certain things just be.

unknown 46:28

Right.

SPEAKER_06 46:28

You know, I have I I I I put my fork into the ground and I just can't pull it out. And but I get that from my dad or what have you. Some people would look at that as a behavior thing, but it's not really a behavior thing. It's a character thing. Like you're a stubborn person. Like you either learn how to navigate around it, or you just be stubborn and accept it, right? Like you just like, oh, that was that stubborn side. Sorry, you know, I could have, you know, I could have let that go. And that's a good example because I'm a stubborn person, right? Like I'm stubborn. If I feel like something is just this way, it's just this way, right? And then it's like, okay, let's think about this. Other people are involved. You may not can do your stubbornness today, right? It's like, oh, okay, girl, that was my stubbornness. I let that let that go. But but that's because I've embraced it, right? I know that it exists. But if I'm a woman that don't want to embrace it because it is just so detrimental to me, it's a dagger, it's a reminder of something I don't want to ever like remember, then it's like, okay, what am I gonna do with it? You have to decide where it goes. I've decided, I've accepted it. It's cool to be around here. I know I have to change it when necessary, right? And not change it like, ooh, it goes in the trash, but change it where I'm like, oh, that was a that was a stubborn moment. Yeah, I may not. That don't work today. Okay, cool. Let me see what I'm gonna do about it. You know what I mean? But if I just don't want to ever acknowledge it, then I'm gonna create a different characteristic for me.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 48:20

You know, be it now, you know what? I don't necessarily wanna be agreeable, but I want to be in a space where I can negotiate what I want to agree on. Right. So I'm no longer in a stubborn space. I'm in a space of we always gotta have an agreement.

Khalila McCoy 48:40

Mm-hmm. So then you're finding sometimes you have to leave where you are to get to a place that kind of welcomes your characteristics.

SPEAKER_06 48:51

Facts.

Khalila McCoy 48:51

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:53

Yeah. So you create something different, but it's like, you know what? Because this stubborn thing is a thing, how do I get over it? I'm gonna create an agreeable space where I must create an agreement. What are the steps of my agreement? What must be included for me to be able to agree?

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:15

Do I have to be considered? Am I included? Are my thoughts included? Or what I need in, you know what I mean? Like, or is this just about that other person? Like, what are the things that must be included in this agreement for it to be something I will agree to?

Khalila McCoy 49:29

Right. So if someone's working with you as a coach, like obviously you did that initial work, but it's not like, okay, well, thank you. We're all done. Like you, it's steps to continue to set those boundaries to grow and things like that. Is it like would they meet with you? How do you usually do it? It's like a weekly meeting and you guys kind of talk about the program itself runs six weeks, right?

SPEAKER_06 49:54

So there's a six weeks program to get into a space of just, oh, this is who I am. Like, so you get that baseline, you get the transformation of a baseline of me. Oh, okay. You may want to say, I need to work on this little piece over here first. And then you upgrade yourself into a different program and say, I want to do this program over here now because I didn't got my baseline. I'm gonna focus over here. They will also, so there's memberships and things like that that they can kind of like filter into after the initial um program. Then they have the community group where they're talking to other people that are technically going through the same thing. They can, you know, type their stuff in. I had created um a self-love dating journal for people. And then they can join the Facebook group for people who also have the journal. And basically it's a it's called Me, Myself in Love.

SPEAKER_03 51:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 51:03

Right. In the book, I outline how a traditional dating experience with someone else goes and how a dating experience with yourself goes, right? They're side by side, so you can see the differences or lack thereof. And you literally go on dates with yourself, but it's a journal that you start from a spectrum of digging into the roots. Where did you learn what love was? Where did you start to feel, you know, love? Who loved you first? What was that experience like? Like you journal that out, and then you take yourself on a date. The dates are not just financially expensive or anything like that. You can do a date at home, but you have to be intentional about this date. And every date is exploratory. It's exploring your playful side, it explores your romantic side, it explores the creative side, it explores different areas of people, right? That we have, that we may not have never, man, I don't do grass for real. But I'm I have to take a walk, you know, like you know, little stuff that you like, I didn't even know I liked that. Oh, I like to color. I didn't, I didn't realize I liked that. Or, you know, painting. I would have never thought to do color-coded painting for relaxation, but this works. You know, I would have never thought to go to the movies by myself, or I would have never sat down at a dinner table alone, or you know, all the different vast majority of things that you can do on a date to discover you is what you do within the book. And writing it down and becoming more aware. Self-awareness is the foundation of knowing you, period. Right. Right. How do you show up in rooms? What is your capacity like? Um, knowing your energy, right? Those are the things you have to like, that's the foundation. Self-forgiveness follows right after that because when you realize that you've been doing X, Y, and Z for so long, uh the biggest thing that'll keep you stuck and continuing to do the wrong thing is I've been doing it for so long. I'm so comfortable.

Khalila McCoy 53:28

I'm so I'm that creature of habit.

SPEAKER_06 53:31

Yeah. But it's like when you get to do you, the most freeing thing you'll ever do is do you. Because the other stuff falls in place. You say, Oh, it's not enough time in a day. 24 hours is not enough. It is. God does all things well and efficient. And if you thought 24 hours was enough, it's enough.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Right.

SPEAKER_06 53:58

You're mismanaging it. You're mismanaging it because you mismanage you.

Khalila McCoy 54:06

Right. That's true. I mean, every time I don't get things done, I do look back and like, well, I shouldn't have, you know, done X, Y, and Z, and I could have accomplished things and, you know, call it procrastination, whatever you want to. It's still that choice that you made that affects the rest of that day.

unknown 54:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 54:26

All of it is decisions. Um, I teach my clients the easiest thing to fix certain things is to get up and start with you every day. That is the easiest thing to do. If you start with you, start with your journal and be intentional. What is this day supposed to bring me?

Khalila McCoy 54:43

Now you said start with your journal. I was gonna ask you, I know in your dating one you said there was a journal. Do you encourage journaling just in general? Okay.

SPEAKER_06 54:53

You can't even join my program without journaling. That is an automatic agreement.

Khalila McCoy 54:58

Yeah. What is it about journaling?

SPEAKER_06 55:01

It is, man. It's the one tool, I say, if you never have another tool available to you, it's the one tool you need. Journaling gives you permission to be free. Journaling gives you permission to see you. Journaling gives you permission to see growth. Journaling gives you permission to not care about any and everybody else. Because I can say what I want to say, do what I want. If you wanted to cuss the world out in that journal book, baby, cuss them out. Okay. It's almost like, you know, little side. I'm a little, I love ratchet TV on my spare time. It's just kind of funny, fun. So it immediately makes me say, who's gonna check me, boo?

SPEAKER_02 55:52

Right?

SPEAKER_06 55:53

When I'm writing in this journal. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

I love it.

SPEAKER_06 55:59

Because no, it is that is your space for you, right? When you get to a space in your life where you say, I accept me, top to bottom, which means I include and includes my thoughts, my dreams, my aspirations, my past, whatever, I don't really care what you know. So I don't care if you find this book. I said it. That's how I felt in that moment. Whatever date and time is on there, that's it. That's what it was, sure was. And no apologies. And no apologies.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 56:39

I don't care if you was mad at the kids. And you say, you know what, that really meant they they really pissed me off when he did X, Y, and Z. There's no apologies.

Khalila McCoy 56:47

Yeah, that's how you felt in that moment. And processed it there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 56:54

That's it. So when journaling, it's a must because it gives you the ability to go and say, oh dang, I've grown. I don't even talk like that anymore. Or I'm able to see this differently. Because the reality is this everybody is in their own little world. We're just interacting and intersecting our worlds with people. So when you are providing your own perspective to someone else based upon your interaction, you don't also know what their perspective is in that moment.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

Right.

SPEAKER_06 57:35

So the goal is for you to grow into a space that says, I can accept them in their space as I also accept me in mine. And instead of hearing with my trigger, because that's what we do, we hear with our triggers. Yes. They may not have anticipated half of the stuff that you said happened.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

Right.

SPEAKER_06 58:01

Because they don't know your triggers.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

You do.

SPEAKER_06 58:05

But sometimes you don't know them because you haven't taken the time to sit down with yourself and identify them. You just know you get mad. That's all you know. I get mad. And I always ask the question when you get mad, what about it made you mad? And then when you like, let's just say someone cut you off. We're driving, they cut you off, and you get upset. And it's like, what about that made me mad? You say, they cut me off. Then I say to you, Did they? And you say yes. Because I was driving and they just got in front of me. So was it that they got in front of you and you wanted to be first? Let's dig deeper into what it is. Right. What what if they're rushing to the birth of their child? You just home to work. We never consider everybody else involved. It's just us in that moment, right? Right. But it's something more to them cutting you off than just them cutting you off. If you probably dig back in the day, it's like I could never be first in line.

Khalila McCoy 59:34

I had a moment like that before when I was driving, somebody cut me off. And I did. I I ended up stopping to think about it. And it was just like I felt like they felt like they got something over on me because they, you know, because it was like that quick, swift get over. And then, you know, that made me so mad. And that was like, you got over on me in that moment. Like, but I had to stop and think, like, why did I even think that?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:00

There you go.

Khalila McCoy 1:00:01

Not typically my personality, but in that moment, I really thought that. And I don't I don't remember what I came to, but I distinctly remember thinking that, like, oh, you think you you won? You think you got this? And I was like, what is happening right now? So clearly I needed to dig deeper and find out what was in my life where I felt like either someone was getting over on me or winning, right? But yeah, it was a it was such a weird, like I said, to this day I remember it because I was like, what is this? Is a weird feeling right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:33

Little things. It's the little things that are the big aha's. Because if you start writing those things down, you'll see trends and patterns. And it's like we have to change the pattern. And a lot of our nervous systems are wired to certain things, and you're like, why do I keep doing this? Because you told yourself you were safer there.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:59

So when you start to make the change, you have to tell yourself it's safe over here.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:09

Yeah. So the stuckness is not always because you don't want to move. The stuckness is because it your body doesn't feel safe enough to move. And this is why people tell you about manifestation and things like that. Like things happen. Your body doesn't know the difference between fake and you know, real.

Khalila McCoy 1:01:29

You tell it that recently had a um guest on and he was talking about internal resistance, and he talked about the importance of that self-talk and you know, having something that you say to yourself repeatedly, and it will help change your actions. Yes. Yeah. Do you do that with your clients as well?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:53

Absolutely. See, you have to claim things that are not yet as though they already are. That's what the mantra is about. The mantra is about basically confessing yourself into the space that you desire. You have to believe it to actually move into it, right? And a lot of us don't believe things, but if you keep saying it, you know, as a man thinketh, so is he, right? Was down in the well, comes out the bucket. What's deep seated in your heart is what you talk about. Right. That's why I always say if you want to know what a man thinks or how he feels or what he believes or where his heart is, to have a conversation. Right. People also say, you want to know what he loves, check his bank account. That's where he spends his money, right? Right. So all of it is tied to us and how we think and how we feel and what we believe. And so you have to talk to you. The very first and the most important relationship you can ever have is with yourself. None of us really have relationships with ourselves, we just have relationships with other people. And then we wonder, why are they treating me like that? And I always say, because you're treating you like that. You can't say no to somebody because you haven't told yourself no. And it's like, tell myself no about what? Okay, you're mad that they're not supporting you. You don't support you. Why nobody has shown up to myself? Did you show up? No. So everything starts with you. It's like then I always the number one question I always gave, but once I'm doing all those things, I said the fact that you even starting that question like that already tells me you're not really doing it from a place of genuineness, right? You're performing for yourself. Stop performing for yourself.

Khalila McCoy 1:03:59

Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:02

Mm-hmm. That part.

Khalila McCoy 1:04:06

Gosh. Now you have a podcast too, I just learned. Loving my loving me before I love you. Is this the kind of conversations that you have on the podcast? I will be tuning in.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:22

Please. So my podcast honestly is a Jesus thing. It really comes up to understanding how self-love matriculates through every area of your life. You know, as you heard me say today, like how you, it's how you do you. It just filters through every area of your life. And so we'll do literally conversations on any and everything. I've done it on careers, I've done it on relationships, I've done it on parenting, I've done it on like everything you can think of. Your freedom, you know, your emotions, like everything. It all results back to you loving you. Unintentional, general conversation, just like this, it comes up every time.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:13

Every time. The subject is not self-love every time. However, self-love shows up every time. Did an episode, I recorded an episode. Well, what's today? Yeah, I recorded episode like Wednesday. The subject was about generational wounds. And self-love came up in that conversation like nobody's business. Uninvited, knock on the door, like, hey, here I am. Here I am. Every time. Every time. It never fails. Um, the name of the show, Loving Me Before I Love You. You, God set that on my spirit because He says, Love your neighbor as you love yourself, right? But we say I love you all day.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

I love you, I love you, bye. I love you.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:14

Bye. We never say I love me. We never really talk to us. And there's no way I can love you before I love myself because I am the blueprint, right? Like, so I have to love me first in order for the I love you to be real.

unknown 1:06:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:33

So I always say, love yourself so much that the love from others is a bonus.

Khalila McCoy 1:06:38

Ooh. Yeah, that's good. Let me write that down real fast.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:49

That's where the whole overflow thing comes from. When I say you got to pour into yourself so much until your cup is full, that when other people pour into you, it overflows, right? Yeah. You have to look at the faucet and say, I'm gonna give myself everything that I can. When somebody else comes along and they join in to do life with me as a friend, as a spouse, my kids, everything that they ever give me overflows, right? And it gets that is what's given to the other people.

Khalila McCoy 1:07:25

Right. So you're not starved, just accepting anything and everything, right? Because you are just hoping.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:35

Because you don't want to contaminate the water that you're pouring either.

Khalila McCoy 1:07:38

Yeah. I like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:41

Yeah.

Khalila McCoy 1:07:42

Gosh, you're so how do you have so much wisdom?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:46

Girl, it's a Jesus thing, baby. Yeah. It is not a me thing. I take no credit. He can he can have it. Okay.

unknown 1:07:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:56

When I was, everyone asked, like, oh, when did you get into this field? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you know what? When I was a teenager, my friends would come to me for all of the little advice. They're going through it with their mama names, they going through it with the boyfriend. They go, you know, girl, what should I do? What should I say? I would tell them, I didn't have a boyfriend first, you know? But it was working.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:22

But I wanted to be a pediatrician. My godfather was a pediatrician, had a plan. I worked in the medical office since I was five, like doing little things, pulling charts, you know, taking the sign-in sheet. I see myself right now, taking the sign-in sheet, going into the the chart room and pulling the chart because this patient is here and putting it in the box for the nurse to get it and take them to the back. And like I started doing that because I was taking over the practice. Like that's what I was told. Like, this was the plan my entire life.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:58

One day this building would be yours my entire life. I enjoyed medicine. I enjoyed like blood didn't scare me. You know, it was the kids, and it was like this is what I wanted to do. And then I got to college and I took a psychology course. And I said, Oh, but this is what I've been doing in high school. Like this is this is me, right? Like this is where the gift lies. Because it was natural. I didn't even have the education behind it and was doing it without question.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:36

It became the easiest thing ever. So I switched from a bio pre-med to a psych pre-med major. So I was like, oh, okay, I'll still be a doctor. I'm just gonna go do it, you know. Let's work on the line. And then I learned that psychiatrists don't really sit and spend a lot of time with their patients. The talking part was few and far between, meaning they would talk to you that very first visit, really get the in-depth of what's going on before they write you a script if you needed one, or the script could be therapy or it can be actual medicine, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:18

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:18

I didn't want to do that. I wanted to have the conversation. I wanted to talk, I wanted to dig deeper. So I didn't go the medical route. Stuck with the therapy, stuck with get in like, you know, and all of that stuff. And that's just kind of how I landed. That's why I say your gift will make room for you. You don't have to go.

Khalila McCoy 1:10:38

And I like how your story is along with, you know, you practicing what you preached, because you could have been like, oh, well, my whole life, people have been told me I was gonna be a pedian. That's what I wanted to do. I am good at it. I can handle this. Yeah, I'll just keep doing that. But you listen to yourself and your needs and you chose what was ultimately gonna make you happy. And I think that's important too. Sometimes we are on a path and we are enjoying it. It's great, but then we find that pivot and it's it's scary, right? To think like I've already put all my eggs in this basket. Now you want me to put them in a new one. Like, as a person, I'm not a big risk taker.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:18

It can be but life is a risk.

Khalila McCoy 1:11:21

Yeah. And that just that fear of change, right? That can be hard to do. So I like that you're that you are actually modeling that, that, you know, it doesn't have to, you don't have to stay in that kind of stuck position.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:36

Yeah. It's funny that you say that. So my um mental health agency is called a journey for change because every journey requires change.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:45

There is no way around it. Change will always happen. It's inevitable. We don't like the change to actually happen. The change is going to require things that are that are not too comfortable, you know. And being uncomfortable, I always tell people the growth happens in the conflict. The best relationships are the ones that know how to handle conflict. You are supposed to grow closer to someone in the conflict.

Khalila McCoy 1:12:16

Okay, so you just mentioned a mental health, what did you call it? The journey of change. Okay, so you have a mental health agency. I do. And then you have your podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:29

Mm-hmm. And then I have a couple of things.

Khalila McCoy 1:12:31

And then you have your coaching. Anything else you know have? What else? What else we got?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:42

That's it. And then the author, like the books and stuff. Yeah, that's it. Okay, tell us about your books. Oh man. So I have my initial book was called I Married My Father, Understanding How DNA plays a part in choosing the right mate. That book again happened when I was going through a divorce and understanding that I had married the wrong person based upon what I just kind of wanted. Like I made sure he didn't have nothing my daddy had. Me and my daddy didn't have the best of relationships. So you do that. I don't want him. I'm gonna go find total opposite. And then you realize that technically you do need pieces of your dad. And it's you need the pieces that he departed in you from a DNA perspective. So when you learn to get to know you, you'll say, Oh, I do have, yep, I got that from my daddy. Okay, but I need a man that has that, right? I always say, like, you know, arranged marriages tend to last longer than the ones you chose because we have bad pickers. But when you're in right relationship with your dad, if you're doing things from a biblical standpoint, he's choosing his replacement. So he's looking for himself and another young man that he feels he can trust with the rest of your life. I brought you to this point, he needs to take you the rest of the way. And so when we're doing the picking, if we pick based upon us, like based upon our the knowledge of who we are, then we pick accordingly. But if we don't know who we are, and we're technically picking on the knowledge of other people, the people pleasing, the the social media desires, the that look good, let me get that.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:31

Versus who are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:34

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:34

Right. I do an analogy in the book. I said, if if I like African lilies as a flower, and I meet a guy, and we pass by a garden of flowers, and I say, Can you go get me the I mean an African lily? And he's like, Oh, sure. And he goes into that field and he doesn't even have a clue what an African lily looks like. He's bringing me back probably a regular lily, or worse than that, he's gonna bring me a hydrangea. I don't know, you know, but he's bringing me back something he thought was beautiful, but it's not what I asked for. You know, it's a misalignment because he doesn't know, he doesn't have it in him. It's not a part of him. It's not so how can he help me when I'm in a space where I can't do it for myself? It has to be something that's in him that's it that plugs in and says, boom, here's your extra juice of energy.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

Right?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:37

You think about where plugs and sockets, and if I'm supposed to have a plug that has three prongs, and I keep choosing a plug that only has two, just because it gives me energy doesn't mean I'm fully powered.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:53

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:55

I need the third leg. And so so many of us are doing that thing. We're doing the picking based upon what looks good, what you know, and it's not necessarily what we need. We're not aligned. So that's where that first book comes from. And then that was because I was doing all my daddy issue stuff, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:17

So the next book I created um is called The Daddy and Me. It's more of a novel giving you like a real life story, love story of how, you know, really identifying, finding that person that just because you don't have that great relationship with your dad doesn't mean that you don't need the man that have his characteristics.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:37

You know, and so it shows the young lady kind of going through life. Her friends are married or they're getting married, and she's been dating this guy for a long time, but she doesn't really want to marry him because he reminds her of her daddy. And her and her daddy have a bad relationship. And then she learned that the reason her and her dad have this bad relationship is because of her mama. Not just because of, you know, something he did per se, you know. And so then they fixed that relationship, which gave her permission to marry the man. And she she realizes that, yeah, I needed him. You know, my life changed, my my business is, you know, doing better. Like everything is connected to people. So I have that one. I have the journal called Lovin' Me Before I Love You. It's it was my very first journal guided journal of like trying to understand yourself and love, pouring love into yourself. I have the um my next little baby is called The Self-Love Blueprint for Moms. It's a guide to breaking the cycle for generational trauma. I love that book.

Khalila McCoy 1:17:51

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:52

Oh my god.

Khalila McCoy 1:17:53

Okay. Why do you love that one so much?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:56

Um, because it puts you back in perspective of you, and then it teaches you how to teach your kids how to be there now instead of waiting until they're an adult to get there. Okay. Yeah. So it does a it's it's it's like a workbook read book all in one. Like you will be writing in it. You will, you know, it's it's not just a read.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:23

Very.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:24

Very much so. And then I have the dear daddy healing the wounds you left behind. That book basically talks about the different types of dads that kind of exist and the wounds that they may have created in me and why I can't, you know, move forward. But I gotta heal them. I gotta do the thing, I have to do the work. And then my last book was The Me, Myself, in Love.

Khalila McCoy 1:18:53

Okay. And then your next book is there's no books in the making. Okay. Not in the moment. Check back in about six months or six weeks. I don't know. Yes, it's the fun things.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:12

It's the fun things.

Khalila McCoy 1:19:14

I'm so excited for you and for the people that you're helping. And like I said, I really will check out your podcast. I've really enjoyed our conversation and just your personality. So I can't wait to hear what you're saying with other guests and learn more of your wisdom as well. Before we end our conversation, though, I have to ask you for one last final piece of wisdom. I always ask everybody, now that we've heard from you, what do you want our listeners to take away that will help them rise in their own life?

SPEAKER_06 1:19:46

Self-love is the blueprint. You have to start with you. All I can say is if God created the platform to say love your neighbor as you love yourself, who am I to change it? So you have to start with you. Bottom line. And if you don't know who you are, start there. Journal, write it down, figure it out. Try the things you've never tried. Go back to the things you used to love and see if you still love them. A lot of us have moved away from the things that we used to enjoy for this circumstances of life, but get back to it.

Khalila McCoy 1:20:32

Yeah. Well, again, thank you, Tammy. It was so nice meeting you and talking to you. And I I have girl, I have a page full of notes here. I feel like I should be paying you for your coaching right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:48

But I'm wholeheartedly. I really do.

Khalila McCoy 1:20:51

I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you said I will be keeping in touch and I can't wait to see. I know you said there's no books coming out, but we'll see what else you are getting into soon.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:06

Yeah. Honestly, if you say, What is it, the next thing I really want to work on? I really want to work on a retreat for moms. I want to do a retreat for moms for them to reset. Um and and actually reclaim their identity outside of their motherhood.

Khalila McCoy 1:21:24

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That'll be huge. Okay. Well, let me know. So I will sign up. Yep. Yeah. Do you have like a goal of when that will happen?

SPEAKER_06 1:21:42

My goal, honestly, was to do it like a Mother's Day experience around there. The struggle with it is that it's typically graduation. It's typically, you know, all those other celebratory things, but I want to do it either early spring or mid-summer.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:05

Because I'm in, you know, I'm understanding of their moms. So the most important spaces of when they need to be around their kids typically is at the end of a school year.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:19

You know, but I want them to rejuvenate, to refresh before the next school year.

Khalila McCoy 1:22:26

The school year starts. That's a really good idea, yeah. So that's keep an eye out for the mom's retreat.

unknown 1:22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:35

That's the goal.

Khalila McCoy 1:22:39

Today we're reflecting. Something Tiami said that really stayed with me was who you are shows up everywhere. Whether it's people pleasing, overfunctioning, or lack of boundaries, those patterns follow us into our careers, our relationships, our parenting, and our leadership. Healing the root transforms every area of life. So take a moment to reflect on where you are right now. Are you in a healing stage? Are you maintaining the growth and self-love you've already cultivated? Or are you realizing there's a part of you that still needs attention, compassion, and clarity? I want to leave you with one reflection question that I think everyone can relate to. The question is, how do I respond when I'm depleted? And what does that say about how I care for myself? We talked so much today about self-love and living from a place of abundance, but the truth is we all get low. What matters is what we do in those moments. Maybe you can rejoice because you have a plan that supports you. Maybe you're noticing your plan isn't working anymore. Or maybe you've never given yourself permission to even think about this. Wherever you are, consider your answer and act accordingly. Make sure you are coming back to you. All right, y'all, that is our time for today. Thank you so much for being here with me. I appreciate you more than you know. And as you move through the rest of your day, I hope you take a moment to listen a little louder to yourself, to the people you love, and to the things that connect us in ways we sometimes forget to notice. I'll meet you back here next time. See you bye.