Yemoja Speaks

What does vulnerability mean, and are you willing to be vulnerable to strengthen your connections? Vulnerability means that you are willing to be yourself by disclosing difficult things about you knowing that there is a possibility you could be hurt. Are you willing to be open and hurt or does being open come with fear and shame for you?  Research says people who are vulnerable live happier b...

Having great friendships, where we can truly be vulnerable and open is a blessing. We share great laugher and ideas. Although it is great to have wonderful friendships, sometimes boundaries get overlooked and lines gets blurred. We take this healthy friendship and want to deepen the relationship to being romantic. Growing up I didn’t see many healthy relationships, rather being platonic or romanti...

I had to understand how I had healthy relationships in my past but could not see them because I could not recognize my struggles. I allowed my efforts to get in the way of how I showed up in relationships. My need for control hindered how I interacted with friends, which created complicated relationships from my side. I received an email from a fantastic friend explaining our relationship; however...

This sneak peak episode gives you insight to my poetry that helps me transmute my negative experiences into beautiful words that shed light on all of us.

This episode we talk about how parents are controlling our lives. We discuss the signs of a controlling parent, what type of controlling tactics that are used and how it impacts the live of the children to grow up with a controlling parent.  Things to think about: Who do you think is controlling in your life? How does their controlling behavior make you feel?  What can you do to minimize the contr...

This week’s episode we discussed how goal setting is important. Usually people set their intentions when the new year begin but we all know that goals get accomplished all year. Don’t wait until the new year to become a better version of yourself or to see goals, set immediately. We know that sometime trying to accomplish a goal when we aren’t mentally strong enough to get out bed but making small...

In this episode we discuss how relationships impact how we think about ourselves and overall our goals in life. Many of us want better for ourselves yet something, someone prevents us from accomplishing it. We listen to the discouraging words, hangout with friends too much, or spend too much time thinking about what other people are doing. We hinder our success by staying involved in relationships...

We set goals for the year but when we accomplish them we don’t celebrate, however on the opposite end we are hard on ourselves when we don’t reach them. We must review our goals and how close we have come to achieving them so that we can reevaluate the plan. This is a causal conversation about me reviewing my goals from 2021. Follow up on social media Yemoja Speaks Instagram Yemoja Speaks Facebook

The new year is approaching soon. Are you ready to be renewed, or will you work from an old version yourself?  S.M.A.R.T goals are a way to help us be develop realistic goals that have dates and ways to measure how close you are to reaching them. Personally, I make goals for different areas of my life; financial, health, mental, business, personal development, family, etc.  You must understand wha...

Foster youth age out at 18, after graduating high school or maybe 21, yet many of them don't have a transitional plan. Adulting is hard for anyone, but it could be more difficult to transition if you aren't taught how to shop, budget, maintain employment, fill out college applications, or even have a supportive team.  From different mentors to my high school guidance counselor, I had an excellent...

Depression is a topic that has been getting a lot of attention lately. More people realize that mental health is important because it has the positional of turning our lives into an emotional roller coaster. This up and down emotional adventure can be caused by trauma inflicted by our family, friends or situations that we have been through. Join the conversation with Alexis Smith, founder of Talk...

I struggled with mild depression without knowing it until my mentor mentioned not being okay. I have been in therapy most of my life being in foster care so I setup an appointment to understand why I was feeling sad. In this podcast I break down the symptoms and give advice for treatment. It is okay not to be okay all the time but we must take ownership of our emotions. Yemoja Speaks is a program...

It may look like we have everything held together nicely because we have busy lives, but sometimes we stay productive to hide the real issues. Sometimes we don’t want to face the problems but the reality is that we hide parts of ourselves so that we can accomplish things within our lives. Mental health is important but also many of us don’t know how to deal with our own mental health let alone ano...

I grew up not being taught how to properly handle my emotions. This caused me to suppress how I felt and push through situations to be successful. I realized that not knowing how to express how I felt. I still struggle with expressing myself but I am learning how important it is and how to ask for help when it comes to my mental health. Follow up on social media Yemoja Speaks Instagram Yemoja Spea...

This episode explains how foster youth are taken away from their families and put into a stranger home. This process of placement is unstable which makes youth highly anxious and scared. Usually, youth has no information about their new foster parent, not even their name or identity.  I was a 10 year girl not knowing the name of the stranger who  would become my guardian. I was fortunate to have m...

Forgiveness is about our healing process rather than letting the other person off the hook. We often believe that forgiving a person means forgetting their past behavior or excuse it; however, that is not true. Forgiving others means we are letting go of the pain that was caused. We are permitting ourselves to live our lives without the guilt or pain of old situations.  I learned that I needed to...

Do you look at your current success as not being good enough because it not your ideal version of your success? We look at the success of others and believe that they have arrived while we are still in route. This cause us to feel defeated but I’m here to tell you that your ideal road of success is without faults while your reality bring lessons to learn and grow from. Your journey is unique so ta...

Welcome to Yemoja Speaks Podcast, I am your your host Shalonda. This podcast is about the truth behind foster care. We share the stories both good and bad about the foster care system to help spread the word to the world about our challenges and how some of us overcome them. This episode is about how we, as foster youth can understand our worth. I explain how it took time to know my worth and abil...

We are discussing the toxic family relationships that we have and why we go back to toxic family after being taken away from them. We make decisions to go back to family members who were the cause of us being in foster care because we want to know where we came from and our identity but what happens when it isn’t what we thought? If you enjoy this podcast, please support us by sharing with youth i...

This podcast is about understanding and denouncing fault for being placed into foster care. I was not placed in foster care because of what I did but as a result of what my parents and family have done or haven't done. Once we understand that being in foster care is not our fault we must then look at how we react it our situation. We have complete control over how we choose to behave as a result....

Being in foster care has taught me that relationships matter. I discuss my experience with creating relationships with people helped me create opportunities for myself. As youth in foster care we are trying to figure out life without a manual but when we use the people who were sent in our lives to better us, we become who we were supposed to be.  I thank all the people who encouraged me, my mento...

Hi my name is Shalonda and I am a Social Media Strategist. I have been working with a nonprofit organization for a couple years now and thought that I really need to share my foster care story. This podcast is to share my experience and things that I did to make a smooth transition out of foster care. I want to create a community that share their success stories to strengthen the youth. We will di...