Trey Anthony Talks Reinventing Self-Care For Black Women
Award-winning writer, motivational speaker, and relationship/life coach Trey Anthony stopped by the Her Agenda INSIDERS Power Hour Chat to discuss reinventing self-care for Black women and her new book, Black Girl In Love (With Herself).
Anthony’s success as the first Black woman in Canada to have a television series on a prime-time network is only a fraction of her work. Anthony believes her life’s purpose is to empower women to live their best damn lives! After our chat, we’re inclined to agree.
Check out a few excerpts from the conversation.
Trey Anthony on the increased interest in self-care:
I don’t think it’s a trend. I think now more than ever, due to the pandemic, women are seeing how vital self-care is. Especially women of color, because we have been left out of this conversation for so long and thus why so many of us are suffering from burnout, exhaustion and many health problems. So we now see how important it is for us to seek out self-care options.
On how being raised as a “strong Black woman” often conflicts with self-care:
As I mention in my book, Black Girl in Love (with herself) many of us feel tremendous “guilt” about seeking out self-care. We have seen our mothers, grandmothers, etc., not prioritize self-care and we then don’t necessarily have a framework to study so we have to be more intentional about seeking help because many of us suffer from the “strong” Black woman trope and find it hard to actually take time for ourselves.
On finding herself after a turbulent period:
When you have hit rock bottom you can do one of two things. You can blame everyone for your circumstances or you can either look deeply at your own life and ask, “How did I contribute to this damn mess?” I chose to dig deep and ask myself the painful and hard questions.
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Trey on infusing comedy in her work:
My background is I’m a former stand-up comedian. I’m also Jamaican and I come from a family who loves to laugh at ourselves and each other. Humor has allowed me to not take myself too seriously and has also helped me get out of some of my darkest moments… so it was important for me to infuse humor throughout the book because that is naturally who I am. I love to laugh and I love to make others see how absurd we can be when we take ourselves too seriously!
Trey on the ultimate takeaway of her book:
I want women to truly understand that we cannot give away the job to someone else to love us! We must love ourselves first. We must let others find us loving ourselves. We cannot wait for someone to “complete us.” We must show up WHOLE. And self-care and love is an everyday intention and action. We need to remind ourselves daily that we are worthy of love, tenderness, forgiveness and care.
To access the full chat and more exclusive Her Agenda content, become a HER AGENDA INSIDER. You can find Trey Anthony at www.treyanthony.com or on Instagram @blackgirlinlove.
