We had our second Spill The Tea…and it was fantastic. We had the pleasure of meeting some amazing women and were given the opportunity to explore, ‘What Does Self Care Mean To You?’

Our goal is to always have an ‘expert’ in the space to guide the conversation. There is always a topic, and though we delve into said topic, we go where we are led.

Today we were led by nursing student Samantha Frazier, of New Jersey. She opened up the tea discussing the correlation between Black Women’s health and self care. Her main focus was heart disease and how when we neglect ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically we contribute to the deterioration of our heart.

What we’ve been taught, or not, is that there is a constant misconception of what ‘self care’ is. As women, and it was evident in this space when we approached the topic immediately most of the women in the room drew parallels to them taking care of family and ensuring everyone was ‘ok’ to mean they were taking care of self.

The basis of this self-care, self-knowledge, self-realization, self-talk and self-recognition is to respect it. To know that it is a factor for our survival. We’ll continue to have the conversations and invite others to do the same.

While we laughed, listened shed a few tears, we embraced the notion that it’s more than ok to not be ok all the time.