How The Strongest Relationships Are Led By Those Bold Enough To Be Selfish with Naketa Thigpen

Hey there, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm Dr. Zoe, your host, and today's topic is how the strongest relationships are led by those intentionally bold enough to be selfish, or really those bold enough to be intentionally selfish. My guest is Nikita Thigpen. She is a highly sought-after transformative empowerment speaker and CEO of ThigPro Balance and Relationship Management Institute. This brilliant beauty has revolutionized how to heal traumas while balancing work, life, and love. She is a licensed psychotherapist, but now really focuses on coaching. And I'm excited to have her here today. We're going to talk about really kind of the thing that I talk about a lot, which is working on yourself to heal your relationships. And one of them is learning how to be— I don't even like to say intentionally selfish, but that's what we're going to say. But it's really about self-care and recognizing how self-care connects to healthy relationships. Listen in. Welcome, Nikita. I am so thrilled to have you here today. I'm excited for our conversation about being intentionally

Well, I've been looking forward to this for a month of Sundays, so I'm glad we were able to carve out this time today.

Thank you. So can you just share with my audience and myself a little bit about your journey, how you got to this place of being able to have this conversation?

Dr. Zoe, how much time you got?

We got some time.

Right? Uh, so it's a, a long windy road, but personally, as a, a tight— as a, a smaller kid, I had to be selfish for myself to literally save my own life. Um, by the time I was 15 and my father was in and out of prison on a roller coaster of his own with drug abuse and addiction, and my mother was doing the same, I was very parentified raising one of my other 4 siblings that my mother had. And she was unfortunately very addicted to not just the substances, substance abuse that she had, but she was a madam. So she, you know, ran an organization of sorts, very low budget, very low key. And once her addiction started to supersede her need to make money, she tried to sell me multiple times.

Oh man.

And so I had to be selfish and save my life. I left the conditions that we were in, which meant being 15 years old, I had to leave my 3-year-old brother at the time because I wasn't able to take him where I was going. And that was really, really hard for me. That stayed with me for many, many moons. I was able to take custody of him by the time he was 13, and I'm still a young woman. I'm newly married. I have kids at this age. I'm in grad school. But it was still a challenge, and that guilt of being selfish in the traditional sense of the word stayed with me throughout those years. So as I became a clinician, as a trauma specialist, psychotherapist, sex therapist, all those many titles and hats that I wear,

Mm-hmm.

I started to really look at What was the benefit of me saving my life? Like, obviously I'm here. I'm thankful that I'm here. I'm able to be a gift to my family and to other people who come into my ecosystem. But you don't feel that at the time, right? Right. You feel bad that you weren't able to bring someone into the fold and save them from their own torture and detriment in that way. But I was 15 years old, like 3 jobs and in school, cross-country track, cheerleading, all the things. I wasn't legally going to be able to take care of a kid, right? Um, especially not at my grandmother's house, which is where I basically went back, which was the home that created a whole nother vortex of abuse when I was younger that I left to go with my mother and then came back to because those were the lesser of two evils, if you will.

Right. Yes.

Um, and so as an adult, you know, now on my own healing journey in my early 20s— at that time I got married at 22. We're going on 24 legal years and 30 together, so we've been together for a long time.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Um, but in those earlier years, as a good hot mess, to say the least, you know, with all of my trauma and all of my junk and going to therapy, I realized that I had to look at things a little bit different. So I shifted my perspective on what that moment, my first real honest moment of being intentionally selfish for myself, What gift it was going forward. I would have never been able to come to a space where I could pass any legal test to take custody of another child if I would have stayed in that house and would have succumbed to all of the things that were going on from the morning to the evening, right? So I had to look at the fact that I wasn't in jail or underneath a jail, the fact that I wasn't, um, how do I say this kindly, um, a different type of entrepreneur,

right? Like, didn't repeat patterns.

Absolutely. I could have went down a different path.

Yeah.

Um, so when I started to look at that and really embracing, not just personally for me, what did that do for me as a, a human, a woman, a, a wife, a mother, a minister, like all the other layers that always start to, you know, stack up. I started looking at how other people were served by that and how they could take ownership of carving out that space to really hear. Because that's what I did for myself when I left the noisiness of all that chaos, I could hear what I wanted. And I wanted a different life. I wanted to make sure that I didn't repeat the patterns of my mother and my father and my grandparents and multiple generations back, right?

Right.

And being able to create that spaciousness for myself, as selfish as it was, it saved me and it rippled out into my— I have grandbabies now, right? Like,

it's beautiful.

It continues to ripple. And I'm so grateful because God knows I could be a very different species right now. So

absolutely,

that's where it really started for me.

Nikita, all I can say is wow. Wow. I am so, you know, I'm so, so incredibly curious about the mind of a person who can come from that to where you are. And I'm also just incredibly— impressed is not a word. I'm trying to think of a better word, and I can't come up with it. Inspired, impressed, Something like those 2 words combined. Because like you said, you could have turned out so very different. What was modeled to you was something so very different. And I believe strongly that wisdom comes in a couple of ways. One is through lived experience. And the other is if you're intelligent enough to glean it from somebody else's experience, then you can develop wisdom that way as well. Yeah. You know, not a lot of people have been through as extreme a situation as yours. And somehow yet you figured out how selfishness, if we want to use that word, it's really self-preserving, right? But how that could benefit you. Yet you still had that codependency emotionally, right? Which caused the guilt. But yet you did it. And the shame. And, you know, I'm also coming up with this term of shame dependency. I've been, I've been researching shame so much as I'm writing my book and complex shame and how that develops. And so you kind of emotionally had this sense of shame dependency or codependency, yet you were behaviorally able to do something different. And so when I think of wisdom, I'm thinking, how can women who maybe haven't been in that situation still have some codependency and shame issues and aren't able to not care for themselves. What qualities do you think you had, if you can even figure it out from here, going back, what allowed you to behaviorally do something different?

Yeah, that's— I mean, first, congratulations on going down the beautiful rabbit hole of complex shame because it is necessary. And there's not enough of us doing that level of work. So thank you. for that and the book to come in all the ways that it'll serve. For me, there's— it is a hard question. Like, it's the way that you paused when you answered it, asked it, because it is a difficult question. I try not to use the word just, J-U-S-T. Right. Because when we do that, we minimize our actual struggle and our triumph on the other side of it. When I think of myself as a little person. I was very rebellious, um, and borderline reckless as a kid, and I grew into being rebellious without the recklessness, right?

I see that as just an internal fortitude and strength because you have to have that to be able to say no, right?

You do, you do. And, and it's, it's a hard thing to own because it's not Celebrated when you're a little person, right?

Especially in childhood. No, we want you to conform and do it.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're parents, and when our kids rebel, there's a part of us— because we're at a different level in our mindset and awareness of the strength of rebellion when it's used well— there's a part of us that's like, yeah, that's right, you better do that, I'm training you well. And there's another part of us that's like, who are you talking to, right? Like, you know, where is that coming from? And trying to be careful to help to modulate the fire versus turning it out was not something that anyone was doing for me or with me. And I had to do it for myself. So I would anchor that to my inner resilience for sure and my ability to see that there was this invisible line that I just couldn't go over.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it was one thing to advocate for myself and say, no, I'm not going to do that. I don't want that. That doesn't feel good. That doesn't feel kind. That's not for me. And there's another for going across that line and almost harming myself because I'm saying no to someone who's actually trying to pull me out of danger.

Yes.

Because I'm on, on the track of an empowered no, right? Like, without looking at the line. And that was challenging. I had 12 mother angels, and I include my biological mother in that because without her, I would not be here.

Right.

With all of her faults and all of the fails. I needed to be through her womb. That, that was my purpose and my trajectory here on this, in this dimension. And I had people like who was now my mother-in-law, but at the time was a woman who was a parent advisor at a girls group that I was going through. I would just eventually marry her son, right? But, you know, those women who would come along in the neighbor who would just see me sinking emotionally deep and say, come over here and get a hot dog, girl, right? Like, just that small little thing. Nothing that people would qualify as big saviorship. But that moment mattered to me, to know that there was someone who saw me.

Yes.

Who heard my silence and was just like, I can't do anything. I don't want to know all the details. I'm— I don't have capacity for that. I see the crazy walking in and out of that house.

Yes.

But what I can do is offer you friendship professionally, or, you know, appropriately, should I say, as an adult to a kid. And Dr. Anita Gordon-Bell, who I still love to this day, who was one of my first mentors, who hired me and gave me an entryway into a job that wasn't just cashiering and cleaning up hair at the local barbershop and babysitting and doing it. And she was like, no, you're going to use your problem-solving skills and come in here and do some filing and answer some phone calls and, and segmenting these services and all the different things. And just those small little things really did help to nurture the characteristics that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I was always a quick problem solver. Mm-hmm. Uh, I was always a healer. I was always a seer. I was always someone who heard other layers of things that I couldn't quite necessarily put my finger on. You could talk to me and say you were having a beautiful day, but I could hear your spirit saying, I'm very sad.

Yes.

I, I don't feel connected, and I don't feel like I belong. And those were things that were happening to me at 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years old. Like, I remember all of those things. Um, and the characteristics that stand with me the most, I think, was really that I was rebellious and that I was not willing to settle for something that just didn't feel right. Now, that doesn't mean I didn't make a lot of not so great choices.

Of course.

God knows I kept trying to fix my mother and my father through all of my relationships. Every girlfriend that would come along, I'm like, oh, how can I teach them how to be a friend, right? Like, how can I show them that you don't have to be angry or competitive or putting people down to feel good. Because those were things that my mother would do. She wouldn't say I looked beautiful or I was kindhearted or spirited. I'd ask a curious question because I was a very curious child. And she would say, why are you being fresh? Right? You know, or things like that.

Yes. I'm like,

I'm just asking about what's happening in the commercial. Like, I'm not— what? But I knew that it was wrong, even though I wouldn't tell her she was wrong. So when I would attract these people that were mirroring my need to fix my mother and fix my abandonment issue and fix my feeling of, of not being worthy of being kept and kept well and kept safe, when I would see those things happening, it was very hard because I'm rebellious. So it was the other side of the rebellion, that near recklessness that would make me hold on to relationships that were past their expiration. Mm-hmm.

Yes.

When I should have let go and should have released. And yes, there were some, you know, lovers along the way before my husband came along as well, but it was mostly showing up in my friendships. And I saw that through this almost disconnected dotted line that I know was connected, but I didn't want to see the connection. So I would hide from it from a space of, I'll just give more. And so I was a people pleaser. I was perfectionistic. I was a giver that gave until I was emotionally broke. And although people pleasing had its purpose and perfectionism served me as an academic, right, and, you know, through school and all the things, and being a giver got me pats on the back emotionally, those things past their prime were also not serving to me. Right. So a lot of the work that I had to do when I really became intentional about being consistent with my selfishness for the purpose of filling up so I could pour out goodness and not resentment. That's when the game changed for me. And I was well into my 30s. I would love to say it was younger, but it wasn't.

It often doesn't happen younger. It often happens in 30s and 40s because some wisdom— combination of wisdom and then also getting fed up— has to happen, right? Where you finally hit your own kind of emotional rock bottom. But what you have described to me is exactly what I talk about in shame dependency, is that we tend to, number one, pick people who we're repeating those patterns because we're trying to heal them. So of course you picked friends, women that were like your mother, because you desperately wanted to prove to yourself and fix that hurt. Right. And we tend to sabotage. We do things. We're hurt. We have this trauma. We're hurt. And then we take it and we hurt ourselves with it. Right. And you also describe something else. And I wrote an article about women specifically who allow things in relationships. And a lot of times when we talk about abuse or being in very dysfunctional relationships, we think of weak women. Right. But there is a large— I won't even say subset. There is a large population of women who are very, very strong. And what happens is there's that rebellion and determination. Like, I'm gonna fix this, I'm gonna make this work. It's not about being weak, it's about not being able to give up, right?

Yes.

Right. And desperately wanting to fix yourself. And so you describe that, and I'm sure there are women out there who, who are feeling like, that's me, I see myself in that. And then also, I love that you said rebellion because I love that word. I have a history with that word, and it used to cause a lot of shame for me because I was called rebellious. And now I own it, right? I own it in a different way because, like you said, there's the strength here and the rebellion that, that is able to say, no, I'm not going to. And so I'm thinking, as we talk to women right now about learning how to show up in relationships in a way that is self-caring, I think the word That feels to me very empowering is rebellious, is being— is figuring out how to harness that inner rebellion that says no.

Yeah.

That says I'm important and I matter. I need to figure out what that looks like.

Yeah. I think that's honestly anchored to our boundaries and our boundaries being expansive and not restrictive. Because sometimes people hear boundaries and— Talk about that.

What does that mean, expansive, not—

Expansive. So I would say a way to look at an expansive boundary would be, how does this boundary allow me to live fully into the want of what I really want? Like, for me, balance is a formula because I'm a nerd for life, and no apologies about it. So everything is kind of formulas and mnemonics. Balance is the truth of what you want over the boundaries you create to achieve that truth as your reality. So your boundary has to be expansive enough to hold space for what you're going after at the end of the day. If you only have boundaries that keep you from living and being because you're trying to hide or to protect yourself from others taking advantage of you, if everything is about protection, protection, protection, and nothing is about living into, breathing into— Yeah. you start to zip yourself in a, a Ziploc bubble of sorts, right? Or a cellophane bubble, whatever you want to picture it. And you suffocate because of it. And I think when you've been hurt, when you've been betrayed, when you've had layers of complex trauma— for those that are listening, those traumas that stack and stack, and there's one after another from your younger years that you had no control to the adult relationships that now you blame yourself for attracting people into, to the unfortunate house fire that might have happened that just fell out of the sky. And you became this person who says things, and we all have to be mindful, me included, of how we say things. There's always something happening. Oh, yeah. Like, we say things like that, right? And, and part of it is coming from the truth of our experience of there were so many layers of these, not just problems, but actual traumatic events that were happening in our ecosystem with our friends and our family. And we started to attract people who would say things like, yeah, I'm broke, I'm poor, I can never have, I, I never have enough. You know, we start to lean into that and we feel comforted by that language, which also restricts us from being able to expand into that abundant mindset. Of— and I'm not talking— I am a very woo-woo person, but I'm not even speaking woo-woo. I'm speaking to the reality of what you focus on, you find more of.

Absolutely.

You know what I mean? And when we focus on that language, when we have that girlfriend that we call that's like, child, this one got on my nerve and that one get on my nerve, you lean into, yeah, because the last time I talked to this one, that one got on my nerve too, versus that, that other girlfriend that you could have called. That is more empowering and more edifying to you and more nurturing. And sometimes we have both people we can call, but we choose to call the one that is so much more comfortable. And that's that restrictive boundary, because we don't feel like we need to protect ourselves from someone that gets us.

Yes.

We don't feel that. We do feel like we need to protect ourselves from someone who seems like they're on such a different, higher level. And I'm rolling my eyes on purpose for those of you who are listening and not seeing us. When we start to put people on a pedestal and diminish what they had to go through to get through, get to where they are, because it looks so easy now. And I always think back to— it's an old, old meme of ballerina toes. And you know, when you think of a ballerina, you immediately see swirling and gliding and— Yes, yes. Right? The beauty. But have you ever looked at their feet?

Yeah.

Have you seen what they had to go through?

Yeah.

Like broken toes and sores and blisters. And, and that's just the toes. That is not anything else that's going up into the body, let alone the mind. But we just diminish the work that they have to put in to become a ballerina because it just looks so easy. But they worked hard to make it look that way.

Right.

And they didn't make it look easy for you. They did it for themselves. And we often will see those people and say, oh, I can't exercise next to her because that body is going to make me— why not? You might borrow a skill or a tactic or just being empowered to try a new move that you would never do because that energy is as contagious as the one that's like, child, he get on my nerve, right? It's just as contagious. But sometimes we are so hardwired. And I know you know, Dr. Zoe.

I do.

We can be so hardwired that we don't even want to hear that there's another option, even if it's right in front of our face.

Right. To such an extent that we demonize a word called toxic— what is it? Toxic positivity.

Come on.

Right? I personally do not believe in toxic positivity.

Mm-hmm.

The reality is that, yes, we need to feel all of our feelings. But when we stay there, that's toxic. When we stay there— and it may feel like, well, you're not validating me, or I need to stay in this comfortable place. So if you're trying to make me think better, if you're trying to make me feel like maybe I could have something better, then we're going to call that toxic. And I'm saying, no, actually, the thing that you're doing, staying in that place of comfort, is the toxic place. And there was something else that you were saying. Oh, you were talking about staying in that place of comfort and feeling almost like that's health. And sometimes when I'm working with women, they misconstrue the idea of boundaries as cutting someone off, right? Exactly. Like, I'm going to cut you off and now I have healthy boundaries. When the reality is that no, the healthy boundaries are you being able to be in a place for most relationships of caring for yourself and standing up to somebody and still being in the relationship, right?

Absolutely.

That is what a healthy boundary is. A healthy boundary isn't cutting somebody off who's making you feel uncomfortable, because then you never learn to actually care for yourself within the context of relationships.

And create that conflict intimacy, which is extremely important. I fully agree with what you said. Now, yes, we're not talking about the extreme of someone harming you, And needing to separate, right, from that relationship and that person. But assuming that you have that, I'm just keeping it platonic to the friend that's constantly criticizing, saying, fix this, why you wear this color, what— I don't like that lipstick on you, that, you know, all, all the things. And feeling like, well, I just don't need to be friends with her anymore because that's not my person. When maybe you never had an opportunity to truly show her this is what friendships are bred on. Us being able to have conflict intimately, not waiting to have the argument in front of a bunch of people so you feel empowered to say what you want. Right. Because that's not helpful or healing or healthy for anyone. And also not to troll and finger thumb your way on Twitter. You know, we've seen some of those things as of the day of this recording. Some celebrity's man is, you know, Twitter thumbing his thoughts of this woman who he could talk to, right?

Exactly.

Right, all the things. And sometimes people do that for their ego. Um, they're wanting other people to get on the bandwagon so they can feel even more self-righteous in their thought form about that. But assuming that you say, I really see value in this person, This person actually has a heart of gold, because we'll hear that they do all these negative things, but they have a heart of gold and they'll give you the shirt off their back. So you'll say these things, but then feel like you have to restrict yourself with a boundary by cutting off the relationship. Be strong enough to be vulnerable with that person and say, you know what, I would love to take you for coffee, just me and you. Mm-hmm. We haven't hung out in person in a while. If possible, or let's just get on a conversation on a call, just me and you, whatever that looks like. You know, I really do value A, B, and C about you. Because coming from a strength-based perspective is always a better way to set up the conversation, as you and I both know.

Mm-hmm.

And when you do that, they're more open. Their chest is literally opening for you to hear more of what you're saying. And then say, I often feel that when you give me constructive criticism around my eye color or my dress or the scarves I wear or my hair or whatever, whatever the case is, I often feel that you're, you're judging me and it makes me feel like you don't appreciate my difference and my style. And bringing it back to yourself.

Right.

So you've highlighted that they're doing something But you're also not pointing the finger and saying, it's you, you, you.

Right.

It's, this is how I feel as a friend. And I know that you don't mean that. I know that you— it's not your intention to make me feel a certain way. But I want you to know that this is how I've been feeling with this. And I would really like us to have a different way of sharing constructive criticism, you know, or whatever verbiage that is more appropriate language for the context of your relationship. And when people can do that, and then the other person still continues over and over and over again, that's when we have to consider, okay, am I trying to make this person valuable in my life? Or is this person actually fixing some other need for me to fix something from a previous relationship, right? Like, is this my mother showing up? Right. Is this my older sibling showing up? Is that that bully from 4th grade? showing up? Like, what's, what's happening here? I think when we can do that, we make, we make those boundaries that would have been restrictive expansive, because we actually, we took the bold step. Mm-hmm. We took that step to have that crucial conversation, to acknowledge our feelings without dismissing someone else and without making them feel like I'm just bringing you here to tell you all about yourself before I cut you off. Because that's not serving either. And sometimes we do that because we don't feel comfortable standing in that boldness for that crucial conversation version.

That is so beautiful, so healthy, and that will allow you to grow internally, right? You're standing up for yourself, you are caring for yourself and also the other person, and you're attempting to care for the relationship. And I would even go a step further If they don't, right, respect those requests and boundaries that you put in place even before a cutoff, I think what's always important is for us to evaluate where do these people belong in our lives. So maybe they were closer to an inner circle, right? But now we need to move them to an outer circle because we are accepting actually what they can contribute and where. And maybe they need to move from a friend to an acquaintance, right?

Completely.

So that we are interacting with them in a way that is both healthy for us and respectful to the relationship. And sometimes we don't have to cut off. And that, I think, is wisdom and maturity.

Oh, yes. You make me want to get up out of this seat and do a dance. I like— we're, we're so aligned with that. I do an activity with our people. It's really called the HEIR activity, which is like the healthiest state in your relationships, for H-E-I-R. But my clients lovingly have called it the parking lot because by the time they're done, they put everybody in the parking lot.

I love it.

Instead of at the kitchen table, right? Like that inner, inner circle, right, of where you are. And I agree, often— I know I have definitely done this— I have given people inner room or inner kitchen access that honestly didn't need to go past the front gate that approaches the parking lot.

Exactly.

But it was that people-pleasing version of me. It was that I wanna, you know, not like I Not like I consciously said, I want to save you, I want to teach you, I want to show you. But subconsciously, those were absolutely the, the thought that was there and the things that I wanted to do. And when you do that with people, you've made them feel like they are now your new BFF, and they can ask you about money in your bank account, what's happening in your bedroom. They're—

You've given them access.

You have made them feel comfortable, right, with that access. And then when they cross this invisible line that they didn't know existed, you feel betrayed. But this is what you've shown them. I actually just had this conversation with a client of mine who's beautiful and wonderful and spirited. And she meets these humans and immediately makes them feel so loved and so welcomed that they want to dominate her time. And she's like, I am a multimillionaire with multiple businesses. I, I got 15 minutes for you. I really do not have this time. But when she first meets them, she gives them hours. So now their expectation is hours.

Of course.

Oh, well, why aren't you answering my call? Why can't I just pop up? Like, why can't— but they met her on vacation, or they met her at a conference where their time is different. Exactly. And it really is, you know, being honest with yourself when you meet people and you love on people. is be clear about who you are from the beginning. You know, I'm one of those people that when I come to a conference, I try to clear my schedule and make myself available so I can meet new people. And in parentheses, when I get home, I got about 15 minutes, right? Like, just being honest with people from jump can be helpful.

Nikita, you are speaking to me because I struggle with that as well. I definitely do. And the more I get out there and the more I speak and the more I connect with people, because I love people, I love them. I'm, I'm always curious about them. And I do have that experience of people mistakenly thinking that they're now my best friend. And as much as maybe I'd like to, I really— there's not enough time in a 24-hour day to have those multiple deep relationships. So you just spoke to me. Thank you, because I needed to hear that, because I need to make sure that I am making myself clear as I am engaging with people who I just love, but can't, you know, have those deep relationships with. Yeah.

Yeah, I call it dating. I tell people all the time, like,

I

already know from talking to you, I'm like, oh girl, I want to date you so bad. Like, we have so much in common, we're going to date, right? And like normal actual romantic dating, hopefully we take it slow. We allow each other to tell on ourselves, right? Which is really important. And, and not just the negative things, but tell those little Nuances and idiosyncrasies about like, oh, okay, I see she has a lot of blue. Okay, when I think of a gift, I'll make sure I get her something blue. Like, just allowing the, the spirit of the relationship to grow instead of people feeling like, I met you and now we're in the bedroom.

Amen. Yes, amen. And sometimes there is that need, you know, on some people's part for that connection. And so we do form these superficial connections that we want them to be deep. But they they aren't necessarily. And as you're talking about dating and and friendships, and not you know and really caring for yourself when we talk about not giving too much too early, a lot of times women some women don't know how to do that, and they struggle with how can I develop friendships? How can I connect? And what I always say is you give a little little information, right? And then somebody else will naturally reciprocate with little information. If we're looking at a healthy relationship over time, you guys slow. Slowly get deeper. If they're like throwing up and telling you all of their deepest stuff, that's usually a sign that maybe that's not going to be such a healthy relationship. It has to be reciprocity, and little by little you grow deeper and continue to connect. Yeah. Wow. Good stuff.

That's an excellent, excellent piece of advice. Honestly, that micro step of how to make sure that you are creating a healthy relationship from the beginning. setting the agenda of healthy expectation versus showing them something different than you're saying. I love that.

Yes, Nikita, this has been such a wonderful conversation, and we are so aligned. We are, we are completely aligned in so many ways. Um, as I just think about the woman out there listening and feeling like, I see myself here where I really struggle with those boundaries, I struggle with Even that word selfishness sounds so horrible to me in a relationship. And so I do want to change that to self-care. But can you just speak one last word of encouragement to her of like, what does she do next if she recognizes this is me? I'm, you know, people pleasing, caretaking, feeling guilty, not wanting to be selfish. What is my first little step that I can do?

That's a really great question. Honestly, I think it comes down to you being honest with yourself about your power and your ability to redefine and start fresh. So if you can redefine a word— like, I literally redefined intentionally selfish as a personal intimate gift to create your joy your way. That's your spaciousness. And so when I use it, I always use it as a space of empowering, even though I know some people still hear it from the context of the patriarchal lexicon where it came from.

Mm-hmm.

I'm like, yeah, well, Somebody wrote that word in the dictionary so I can redefine it, right? Like, yes, you know, just being able to be okay with that and knowing you can redefine your life too. You can redefine how you look at all these other people and all these relationships, including my current ones, my current mate, my current parenting style, my current sibling and child style. For those of us who are at an age when you're caregiving to your parents and all of those things, I can still, with all of those years of people knowing me to be a certain way, because, you know, that's, that's just Nikita, right? Right. And, you know, we hear those statements, that's just Zoe, that's just who she is. That's fine. They can know you that way as of March 1st, 2024, or whenever you're hearing this episode. And March 1st, 2024, 1 minute later, you can decide, I want to be a new person.

I

want to redefine what my life looks like by creating my balance. What's my truth? What do I really want? Everyone knew me to be a shoe designer or a psychologist or a clinician or whatever, and I decided that I want to play with glass and, and blow glass into pipes and make beautiful wine cups or something, right? Like, what does that look like? You know what I mean?

Yes.

It sounds like very, like, healing. But what does that look like for you? And yes, there's a bunch of microsteps to change your career, but to change who you are literally happens in an instant. It's the imprinting after that instant, that decision that I am different. I can be braver. I can be bolder. Those imprints that come after that are based on your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions.

Yes.

Love in action is where I sit. So if you love on yourself first, if you're kind to yourself first, if you can look in the mirror, human that's listening to this, and say, I forgive you. I forgive you for every single moment of hurt that you caused deliberately, for every single moment that was unintentional. For every time you criticize your accomplishments or minimize what you had to go through to get to where you are right now, I forgive you. I forgive you for the negative language. I forgive you for placating other people, for pretending you didn't know something you did just so someone else would feel better.

Yes.

Like, I forgive you for that, and you are worthy of having every single thing That you deserve on this planet. Start there with self-awareness that something needs to change, and then taking that next step to imprint a different change, like to rewire yourself. Of course, you can accelerate it by getting guidance from a Dr. Zoe or a Nikita Wrenn-Thigpen or someone else in your ecosystem. That the only shortcut is really people who have been there that can give you some wisdom. And some tools to do it. But right now, from your living room, from your Peloton, wherever you are listening to this, the first step is deciding that you can redefine who you are.

Wow. Wow. Amen. And thank you. That is such a beautiful, beautiful word. Nikita, thank you so much for coming on today. Can you tell our listeners how they can find you, how they can connect with you?

Absolutely. Well, clearly you guys like podcasts because you're listening to Dr. Zoe's podcast right now. I also have one called Balance Boldly for ambitious women in business and a few brave men. So hop on over to wherever you are on your platform and listen, or go to our website at thigpro.com, which is T-H-I-G-P-R-O.com, for any and everything that we're up to in the world.

Awesome. That will be in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Nikita. Have a wonderful day. You too.

Thanks.