 everyone is your girl Sharon Thomas your bro and today sister power is our mission is that women everywhere were learned to live as sisters to respect each other's differences to heal each other's wounds to promote each other's progress and to benefit from each other's knowledge. We have such a fabulous show for you ladies here black girl magic for wellness mind body and soul and I challenge each human being to stop what you're doing right now stop what you're doing bringing your friends because the black magic is going to give you some tips that are going to keep you motivated keep you encouraged and keep you inspired so sit back grab a cup of tea relax and I'm going to introduce you to our guest Ty Hawkins welcome thank you Mahalo and our everlasting always guest Sequoia Car Brown welcome to sister power aloha hey beautiful people hey this is so good you know we have so much going on we have you know people who don't want to wear their masks we were talking about that earlier people want to get vaccinations we've got the carries are acting up I need to talk to you Ty because you're a licensed acupuncturist you're an herbalist and your massage therapist tell us about your business all of the above yes we actually just moved locations we are an open space acupuncture and herbal apothecary we just just starting to like unfold our new apothecary we've always had a customized herbal tincture pharmacy as since the pandemic began essentially when we closed right at the beginning of the pandemic we knew that our community still really needed our support and we knew people were also not really comfortable coming out so we started making herbs and we started delivering herbs to people and that was really the start of our apothecary as like a our new business inside of our already built up acupuncture clinic which has been actually really booming since the pandemic started and it's been a refreshing thing to see because I've seen so many people actively taking responsibility for their own health and their own wellness and realizing that stress and all of this external factors really do affect our internal wellness and our actual pain that we carry in our bodies um so that's been really amazing to see and support through community work um and acupuncture and herbs and we love all of it what is the name of your uh company is yes so my business is ola nani acu oasis and ola nani in hawaiian means beautiful life and really for us a beautiful life is about having balance and being happy from the inside out and that beautiful life will serve the entire community by kind of uplifting everyone around you so that's what we're all about yeah shine that light we need the light now whatever it takes to get us to reset we need to revive and we need to just get some type of release it sequoia that's where you come in I I love the name of your company strange fruit express tell us about that well that manifested out of first the love for uh Billie holiday she's one of my favorite artists but just what the song meant and even that it was written by a jewish man makes it even more profound and uh I felt that my ancestors were speaking to me I was a history major at my university and uh I was receiving a lot of pushback when I would include the african-american experience so uh I felt like those strange fruit that were lost and not killed destroyed that information that knowledge that they had needed to come forward so uh those shoulders we stand upon I'm being that voice for past future and present voices by using the arts I bring in american history of our unsung heroes I've used that with fine art and dance to tell our stories and sometimes I just do art just for art the sake of art art sake rather yeah yeah yeah you know we have different forms uh reviving ourselves we can do yoga we can meditate um we can even dance and might you know some people meditate I'm a praying girl I'm going to pray pray pray that's just me so Ty tell us you know because of this COVID I wanted to ask you about that you know because now you do massage therapy and how has this affected your business this COVID-19 pandemic affected your business this is hands on absolutely so in terms of massage I don't do that much massage I do mostly acupuncture and herbs um but we used to have a clinic that was kind of what they call community style acupuncture which is just one big open room there's seats kind of close to each other and you know it's really a community kind of feeling um but when COVID hit we really had to shift gears because people didn't feel safe being in a room with a bunch of other people um and it wasn't relaxing for them anymore so we um we basically kind of geared back a little bit so we're still seeing a few patients at a time but we have little pods around them so everybody's curtained off and in their own kind of section so they feel safe and secure um really just people being compliant with how we know at least the things that we definitely know stop the spread of the disease like wearing a mask you know wearing a mask spreading things out a bit social distancing um we got some extra you know air filters and just the protocols of cleaning it's it's not rocket science it's just having the right protocols and being able to fall back on them when things do go right like if there is exposure issues which is just part of how we're going to have to move through the next you know who knows six to 12 months um but like I said I was I was a little concerned at the beginning and definitely we started this herb the herb side of our business as an offset like we might need this to kind of carry the business for a while um but what we found is actually we're busier than ever and I honestly in what I've seen is it's people's awareness of their own kind of internal um mental or emotional stress manifesting in their body so like just to give an example like I will be working on you know somebody's shoulder injury and we work on their shoulder injury it's you know they sleep wrong they come in to get their neck fixed and they they walk away they never talk about this being the result of you know some kind of mental emotional stress or trauma it's just physical pain right those same people that never talked about pain and emotions being connected were coming in and telling me I am so stressed out and I feel it right here you know instead of I slept funny and I feel it here like they had the awareness and the consciousness of mine to say that actually that is connected like the body and the mind connection has been really I feel like bubbled up to the surface and in some ways it's really uncomfortable but I do think it is a really powerful step for people to actually take their wellness into their own hands you know absolutely Sequoia what is your definition of wellness well just to kind of pick up on Ty's concept that somatic element of wellness right in being and I take that approach with my work with strange food express in the fitness classes that I created so wellness to me in self-care is a form of self-defense particularly for us I think that we carry along with the regular everyday stress of just the stresses of living our lives we also as a culture as the people across the African diaspora have a kind of a epigenetic memory that kind of can muster up some really negative harsh feelings that do manifest in the mind body and spirit and certain types of ailments and such so my work is all about reconnecting to the ancestors and our ways of knowing up against the the way that we've been indoctrinated to try to heal you know it's it's a mainstream way that does not work for us was not even designed for us so why even go there so I'm all about our wellness our self-care our state of being is connected to remembering where we came from and who we are and making that mind body spirit connection soul connection somatically yeah and you know there's fun ways to do it I know that you ladies and tie you have an African dance class on Saturday that awesome it is outdoors and you can just shake it off and that is so important to release itself and so um tell us a little bit about the dance type of how it affects us mentally and physically and spiritually so I was first first speak just from my personal experience um and dance to me absolutely is movement medicine it's really it's probably the first thing on my self-care list of things to do when I'm like really feeling funky it's because I haven't danced in too long so for me it really is very about very much about somatic a somatic release at the same time it is fully grounding and really about connecting for me especially so with African dance there's always this connection between the dancer and the drummer the dance and the drum are never separated this is a togetherness it's not like you can have the dance department and the the percussion department separately they exist together um and that's it's the beauty of that that foundation that starts with connectivity because then you can feel it that connectivity between the dancers between the drummers and you really have a communion of source and everyone is there in it and in their presence which really is like to me it's like going to church sometimes and that's that's how it feels because I when I'm in the dance I'm fully connected and present in this moment whatever is happening around me or even if I'm having a terrible week if I can have a moment of dance I have respite from whatever it is because I feel in flow and like in Chinese medicine everything is about flow essentially wellness is being in balance and being in flow without any blockage or obstruction and to me when I'm dancing I can actually move through obstructions that otherwise feel really stuck in and stagnant um and so the beauty of the dance in the community is that connectivity but there's also this really awesome space just to be an individual and and let it all out however your body lets it all out and all of our bodies are different and that's another aspect of um African dance that I truly truly love there's a diversity in the oneness and there's peace there's peace there yeah and you know with your help Sequoia every Saturday we meet in in a beautiful garden and you have this Orisha fit class that happens every Saturday from 11 to 12 30 tell us about that well Orisha fit is all about similarly this mind body spirit connection and so it's like a physical affirmation uh that connects us to our ancestors I we don't exactly invoke these spirits of the Orishas but we take in uh elements of African dance fitness meditation and we use those qualities of say Oshun I would ask my queens fellow queens you know how are you feeling are you not feeling beautiful are you feeling bad about yourself self-esteem well let's let's talk about Oshun beauty fertility wealth right all of those things let's wear yellow and gold and this just like be uh free affirming of ourselves our confidence it's not ego-based it's not arrogance it's about coming together as Ty said as a community right and embracing your true authentic self that black girl magic that we have in there and just uh just kind of pushing away the mainstream ways of uh being annoying and coming into our own so uh it's a gradual little method that I developed over the years um it's I have right now it's for 40 years and over for us mature you know and um it's just all about being we uh reconnecting with yourself and mind body and spirit and remembering our ancestors for example you know yoga is very popular and that's great but in a sense it's kind of been gentrified in a way that I think the true intention of it is being lost and we as our people we don't really have anything like that in the society where you can just rattle off uh our ancestors our spirits in ways that affirm us so this is just my way of going against the mainstream culture and fighting something for us and by us oh I love that you know also when we're doing something for ourselves it also feels good when we're both of you ladies do this every week is when you give something back to your community I know that sisters in part Hawaii the nurses here at queen's hospital are so overworked because of the pandemic so my friends and I um put together a post um bag that post uh what is that post ship personal spa back for the nurses to help them to pamper their their feet pamper their face pamper themselves um you know relax in the bath with the bubble baths we give they were so appreciative this is why I know that um I worked with sister part Hawaii worked with kai edify was the black nurses organization here along with dr um joanne lasoya Williams lasoya and dr elcido so it's not about what we had is about telling taking what we have and doing as much as we can with it and I want to come to you tie what do you need what do we need to know about the effectiveness of traditional chinese medicine and well usually my first response is like if something's been around and used by the most populace one of the most populace countries in the world there's probably something to it um but really it's it's about tapping into your natural healing capabilities which we all have and I think it's really important for everybody to remember that you know and just be reminded of that that our bodies are amazing they're made to work through almost anything and if you just give them a little bit just a little bit of love usually they like our bodies will do amazing things but we live in a world that doesn't um honor or value rest and actual stillness I just saw an ad this was it was interesting it was like a rihanna ad it was some new luggage thing and it said hashtag never still and I was like that's terrible that is a terrible terrible idea you need stillness we all need stillness but it's it's so foreign to our culture that the slowing down and the stillness feels like you're doing something wrong mm-hmm so I like to tell people just reel it back in on your personal judgments of what you need to accomplish all the time and actually think about accomplishing some rest and some stillness sometimes because balance really is the key to life at least in my perspective so if you're going going going going you better put something on put some time on the side for you to not be going at least you know 60 40 so that you can live a long and happy life and your body can be on board with you and not be giving you all kinds of negative negative signals that you don't listen to and then one day all of a sudden it gives you the biggest negative signal and you can't do anything but lay down right so I always advise people just to like try to rest a little more just a little more because I know that you're you're not like all of us are not resting enough I it's just a guarantee yeah you know uh Sequoia you and I had this conversation we always feel that we have to be oh how everything's fine well you're not you're not okay and it's okay not to be okay so you know Sequoia how and why did you develop your concept around self-care as a business plane well I'd always had it like I'd state it earlier as a history major I received so much pushback from my professors who you know didn't take the time to include the African-American experience in their work and I saw that some of my fellow African-Americans were dropping or feeling a certain way about themselves in a negative way and I said you know this is detrimental to our holistically to us you know experiences being in academia for one and I realized that I love the the blood sweat and tears the work that our ancestors did but they worked so hard they were so busy with getting us our equality and justice on the books but along the way we forgot how to take care of ourselves and like dealing with all of that negative energy that we internalize right and manifest in so many different ways in our community of self-hate or destructive behaviors and or even just thinking that it's normalizing the way we are treated so my ancestor told me strange food express girl and nobody got it I've been in this oh 25 years and they're like nobody but what is that nobody wants like trust me we're gonna need it and now more than ever we need to have people like myself concepts business plans where self-care is part of the package so I created my business plan I changed my major I was double majoring and I went into interdisciplinary studies where I fused American history dance and fine art and the concept of holistic somatic kind of healing and I was guided through doctor professor Catherine Waddell Takara I love her so much she helped me to navigate through academia and helped me to learn the ways of the oppressor to protect myself and from that I that was my business plan with my major and I just launched it and again no one got it but gradually over the years it's coming around and it's used as an educational tool for educators I do public speaking I do these classes and workshops every now and then but mostly a lot of first stage production and collaborative projects that have taken me all around the world and I'm really grateful and thankful to my ancestors and all of my mentors that helped me along the way yeah that's this is what it takes it takes a village yeah hi what I have a commonly used plant in herbal medicine oh my goodness there's so many oh my god I know echinacea you know echinacea oh another big one that um that's that they've done a lot of research with uh with covid um honeysuckle oh tell us about it honeysuckle is in chinese medicine it's in a category called clear heat or resolve toxicity but it's often used for upper respiratory issues sore throat stuffy nose it's one of those it basically kicks kicks the pathogen out before it can get deeper into the system and that's just one really basic one that's kind of like a food grade level of herb and those are actually the most premium kinds of herbs the best kind of herb you can take is one that you can eat on the daily basis that you're actually getting in regularly so um red dates are also in um chinese herbs goji berries wheat I mean you name it and it's probably an herb in chinese medicine but echinacea is also a good one that's you know generally for immune support so there's a lot of immune support herbs that we um started ordering and making for people to have kind of um just feel like they have a good baseline of an immune shield if you will so astragalus is also really well known um one that's good for kind of just overall boosting the immune system it can up regulate it or down regulate it so if somebody's having like allergies and they have a hyperactive immune system it can actually chill it out or if you're getting sick often and your your immune system is not working ideally astragalus can up regulate it so a lot of herbs don't necessarily have they do one thing it's not like a pharmaceutical they kind of work with the body and they can have different effects and often they're modulatory effects so they don't just up or down it's like it gets in the body sees assesses what the body needs and it goes kind of in the direction that the body needs it to go in well yeah i i aloe vera is also so sequoia how may one find your company and tell us if you have any upcoming events well you can find me at my website strange fruit express dot com and that's strange fruit the express is x p r e s s dot com and i'm also on linkedin i don't do social media i think is detrimental to our spirit i also i practice buto so i'm trying you know that's about work it's the of your ego and toning that down so i think social media could be a destructive element in that i highly suggest if people try to wean themselves away from social media i know there's a study uh there's zuckerberg and all those guys at the instagram they very well know that um is that is wreaking havoc on the um the confidence of our girls uh so and there's a lot of anti-blackness going on through social media so and black fishing and all those type of things so be careful with that stuff walk away read a book meditate sleep enjoy that be still as tai said and let things come into you at your body speak to you and your mind and a beautiful well-balanced spirit will follow yes yeah that that's so important that we need to love ourselves first yeah it's all about self love and and and in closing i want you ladies to um you know talk to our audience do you think self-care should can or may look different for black women tai hmm that is a really good question i mean i feel like self-care looks different on everybody just like dance looks different on everybody and and and most of us like for me just being horizontal is self-care but like for some people being horizontal drives them crazy so it to me again it's like so personal and it's so individual and whatever nourishes you whatever it is that feeds you do it more that's all you know that's kind of my impotent that's that's my advice to everybody yeah what do you think uh i like that to rest is important and i and bubble baths you know rose petals is good yeah so what what is your what are your thoughts sequoia oh similarly uh like like i said you know i feel self-care is a personal journey i think it's a form of self-defense for us in a positive way um you know we have to protect ourselves we are the only ones that can help and save ourselves the system was not made and designed for us it was made and designed to keep us down i'm just doing exactly what it was designed for we are working in striving to progress and make it better um but at the same time don't forget you don't forget you have to take care of you because if you don't take care of you and love yourself you can't get out there and do anything else right so let's remember who we are and our ancestors um speak those words live those words love yourself be out there you know i love you guys beautiful people let's keep it going and moving and ujama all of that you know yeah you know so release people to close this out release any problems that got you you know here in the first place and replace outdated ideals with renewed perspective and what really works revive your health tie Hawkins and sequoia car brown thank you so much for your wisdom we appreciate that i'm your host Sharon thomas yarbro aloha