Bey & Bess (Episode 54)

In this episode, my guest Erica Bess, a Trauma Therapist, and I, a MindShift Coach, share an exciting announcement: we're joining forces to launch a new initiative together! We also discuss the experiences that have motivated us to embark on this journey. Tune in for some inspiration!

To learn more about Bey & Bess or to follow us, please click on the links below.

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Transcript

Welcome to Mindshift Power podcast, a show for teenagers and the adults who work with them, where we have raw and honest conversations. I'm your host, Fatima Bey, the mind shifter. And welcome everyone. Today we have with us Erica Bess. You've heard her before.

She's a trauma coach, in the capital region of New York, and we are making a special announcement today. We're gonna introduce something we are starting together in September of twenty twenty four. It's called Bay and Bess. Tune in because this may inspire you. I'm Fatima Bae.

And I'm Erica Bess. And together We are Bae and Bess. So what is Bae and Bess? Well, it's talk and dance therapy. So my background is being a trauma therapist, and what we're gonna do with Bay and Bess is have a bunch of girls come together and talk about their traumas and learn, ways to inspire and get rid of those traumas and finally find the passion that's deep down inside underneath all those traumas and bring them out.

Then we're gonna take all of that emotional energy because after you get done having a talk session and you've you've you've dug deep and you've talked about some really serious things, there's a lot of emotional energy there. And a lot of times, we're just sent home with it. What's different with Bay Invest is we're gonna take that emotional energy, and we're gonna do something with it. So that's where the dance therapy comes in. We're not just gonna dance like Zumba.

Oh, this is fun. Mhmm. We're going to dance our cares away. We're going to dance anger away. We're going to dance strength within us.

We're going to add strength through the dance to actions and words that we do. I'm not gonna give you more details than that because you'd have to come to see. Yeah. But but that's the goal. That's the idea behind it.

And and, that's so that's our goal. That's that's what we're doing. So you you know that Erica is a trauma therapist. She's, she's been on here before. She's talked, you've heard her talk before.

What I have not talked about a lot on this podcast is actually myself. So I I have guests on and you hear my opinions all the time, but I don't really talk about my own coaching. So I am a mind shift coach. This podcast is called mind shift because I believe in that shifting your mind is where it all begins. Giving you tools and tips is not very helpful if you don't first shift your mind to put them in the right place to use them in the first place.

So that's my belief. So as a mind shift coach, I help people to shift their thinking for their own success. So the areas of focus that I have as a mind shift coach is how to find your own purpose. And then once you find your exact purpose, I don't mean, I don't mean a politically correct, everybody has a purpose. Yay.

I hope you fit into this box kind of stuff. Mhmm. I mean, your exact purpose. Like, you were specifically meant to work with children. You were specifically meant to find the cure for this, whatever it is.

So I help people find their exact purpose, their individual purpose. Once you discover your individual purpose, I truly believe that you should be making money off of your calling, whatever that is. Your gifts are all there because of your calling. So you should be making money off of it instead of working a job. Nobody should just be working a job.

Jobs are for people who don't know who they are. Careers are for the people that do. Just think about that. Go back and repeat that. Yeah.

So go back and replay that. So I I I focus on that. My other focus is obviously teenagers. And then my fourth focus, and in the future, you will it will become my biggest focus, is balance. I do a lot of teaching on balance.

I help people to find balance in the areas of life that they need balance. I'll give you a little clue. If you have an area of your life that's not working, a % of the time, something is out of balance. What that is and why? You have to find out.

Yeah. Exactly. That's gonna be different for all of us. It's not one size fits all. But so as a mind shift coach, that's what I do.

I do group sessions. I do individual coaching. I go to schools, especially high schools. I love, love, love, love, love going to high schools. And I do workshops.

I do speaking engagements, all of that. And, so that's what I do outside of the podcast, and I thoroughly enjoy it. So the other thing you need to know about me is I'm a huge, huge, huge salsa dancer. Anybody who knows me knows that me and salsa are one. Salsa if salsa was a man, he'd be my boyfriend.

So that's how lion. That's how much we are in love. So I love dancing period, but salsa in particular is my form of music. And, no, not all the dancing that we do at Bay and Best is gonna be salsa. But my point is is that I I am already a dancer.

Of course, salsa will be incorporated in it because anything I do, it's required by law that it has to include salsa. But, it will include some of that, but it'll be all different kind of dance forms and different kind of music because it's not gonna be the same all the time because that's boring. But I also am a dancer. So she's Erica is gonna do she is the in charge of the talk therapy and I'm her assistant there. I'm in charge of the dance therapy and she's my assistant there.

So together, you have a therapist and a coach. Working together. Yes. And and the truth is, people, you really honestly, you need both in your life. You need to figure out how you got messed up in the first place or how you got to where you're thinking.

And then you need someone to take you from there to the future and, like, kick you in the butt when you need it and encourage you and all of that good stuff. That was beautifully explained. Well, thank you. So, so, you know, together, I think we are, as a team, are eight we're we're able to to help people in ways that one one position alone can't help because the truth is everything on earth requires some sort of teamwork, requires some sort of coupling. So in our case, it's it's a therapist and a coach And we're extremely both of us are extremely passionate about the particular groups that we're gonna focus on.

So the groups of of of people that we're focusing on are, first of all, biologically born females. And in today's society, we have to make sure we say that to to make sure we're clear. Mhmm. The the girls and females that we're focused on are number one, teenage girls. So this is for teenage girls who are stressed and want to build confidence.

Now, one of the biggest things, and it's very huge for both of us, is not just for you to heal from trauma, but to build confidence. Because healing is a journey. It might take a minute, but you shouldn't just stay there and say, oh, I'm not I'm not, having I'm not having panic attacks anymore, so I'm good. No. You are not.

Right. You're not whole yet. So we don't want you to just be healed. We want you to be whole. So that's where we wanna take you beyond just the going through therapy over and over again and not changing, we ain't about that.

Right. So we want we want people to actually grow. So teenage girls who are stressed and and need to build confidence. The reason I mentioned the stress part is that nowadays for you adults listening who don't understand, our teenagers are going our teenage girls, especially, are far more stressed than we ever were. They live in a different society.

They deal with a lot of crap we never had to deal with Absolutely. Growing up. And I recognize that, and I understand them. So I love teenagers, and most of y'all know that already if you're listening to me. I love teenagers, but specifically, I know I'm called to teenage girls.

I used to run a dorm at Job Corps that was full of teenage girls, and I held a group like this there, not because they required it, but because it was needed and I wanted to. And a lot of breakthroughs happened. Those girls are still in some of those girls are still in contact with me today many, many years later. So teenage girls who are stressed and need to build confidence. And, Erica, you tell the next group.

Women abuse survivor, is the name of this group, and it's gonna encompass sexual abuse, domestic violence, and trafficked women. So why are you so passionate about this particular group? I'm passionate about this particular group because I am actually a survivor of domestic violence and, sexual abuse. And I went through my own journey of, prostitution. I wouldn't say I was necessarily trafficked, but I was in the world of prostitution.

So it's passionate to me because of that. And for me, I've never been sexually abused nor nor have been trafficked. But domestic violence is a passion of mine as well because I too have been a victim of domestic violence, but not in the same way. I was the child of someone who was abused. Mhmm.

And that is a different kind of trauma. Most people don't think about it that way. Still abuse for that you're experiencing. Absolutely. Yep.

And, and the third group is for Spanish speaking women. Yes. So for Spanish speaking women, we're looking to build their confidence. We're looking for that particular group, we're gonna be helping women who don't speak English because they need just as much help as we do. But If not even more.

Yeah. And and and if they're not speaking Spanish, well, they're not speaking English. They came from another culture. And that is a major factor. That is a major factor.

Both of us both of us are very sensitive to that. We both happen to be speak Spanish, so that's why we added that because we can do it. Right. So those are the three groups that we're focusing on. Now some of you are wondering well, you might not be wondering.

You probably can hear a passionate know. Why are we doing this? Because it's freaking needed. That's as simple as that. Duh.

It is so so needed in this country, but especially in the counties where we are, where we're going to be holding it. So it's very much needed. And what's different with Bay Invest, we are not under any government system. We are not politically correct. We're just freaking correct and effective.

Okay. And that's what we care about for real. So we're not trying to do anything crazy or anything that anybody would see is, you know, a way out there. We're not trying to do that either. But we're not under some of the restrictions that many of your quote unquote systems are under, which makes us far more effective because we don't have to hold back.

And trust me, we won't. And you've heard us talk enough especially for team. Well, she ain't lying. I am pretty blunt, but that's exactly why people come to me and that's exactly why teenagers listen to me. I don't, I don't I don't dictate, and I don't sugar cool shit and tell you it's chocolate.

Yeah. If it's shit, it's shit, and I'll just tell you that. Yeah. And then we can figure out how to clean it up. Exactly.

Exactly. You know? And and I I'm very much about that, but I am I have since I was a child, I always like to say since I was a children, I wanted to help children since I was a children I have always been very very passionate about helping young women, especially. And my biggest thing is helping them to gain their self esteem because I understand how detrimental it is when you don't believe in yourself and you see yourself as less than Absolutely. In whatever capacity.

And it affects every single part of your life, affects your relationship, affects your career, affects your schooling, it affects you not going after things you shouldn't, that you should because you don't think you're worth it or you don't think you can because you think you're stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. These are thoughts that many, many young women in America and Canada have about themselves on a regular basis. And that hurts me to my core because it is so not true right. There are some crappy people out there, but most of the people that think they are crappy are not. That's what I've learned the ones who are crappy.

They need to start thinking that way right. But but most of y'all out there that think that you're not worth it. You are wrong. You are absolutely wrong. You are worth it.

And I wanna be able to to affect women, young women in in a really personal way. So I will also add for Erica and I, this is literally our ultimate dreams put into one basket. So true. What in our heart of hearts, what we're doing with Bay and Best, that's what we really wanna do. Yeah.

That's what I really wanna do. I started becoming an advocate for anti human trafficking because I really wanna help young women who don't value themselves and and and get into that one way or another in the first place. Absolutely. And because that's 90% of time where it comes from. And and I understand that.

And I wanna help people to see their own value. And why? Because I I too had to go through my own journey and struggle to see my own value. And I still have my moments. Mhmm.

But thank God they're only moments now. They're not a way of a consistent way of thinking. Right. Exactly. And now some of you guys might ask, why are you telling us about this?

Because some of you need to be doing exactly what we're doing, but your own version of it. We are not we are not one of these people. It's like we're great. Look at us. Everybody come look at us worship us blah blah blah, which most people do.

Oh my God. It's pretty aren't it great. Oh my God. Look at me. Look at me.

Look at me. Look at me right. We're not about that and and the people who are out there doing what we're doing are similar to what we're doing are not our competition. They are they are our fellow people who are helping. We want more people to do what we're doing.

Exactly. We want to see more groups start up. We we want that. And for people to do it in different ways, because we are not all the same. And therefore, because we're not all the same, we don't all respond the same to the same ways.

So there might be some a Sarah and a Joe who start something like we're doing. And you know it's for different group of people and and they approach it in a different way right well, good for Sarah and Joe. They're helping people, but they're still not the team and Erica. That's true Just wanna say. They're not gonna be paying this.

No. No. But really what we we are so so passionate about this, and we're so excited to be announcing this. And it's been, works. It's been in the works for, like, the past nine months to a year.

Yeah. And we're launching it in September finally because we nine months, I think. We, you know, wanted to make sure we took our time to put everything together, and we're organized. Erica will tell you I'm extremely professional, extremely organized. So Yes.

And she's very good with the tech side too. So I am very you know, I wanna make sure that every all our ducks are in a row the best they can be anyway. Right. Before we start, there's always gonna be more ducks after you organize your row. But see, this is what we do off the air and why we it's hard for us to get work done.

So because she's always got these side comments that make me laugh. So, I I want you I want you all to listen to our passion, Listen to what we're doing. Listen to the idea behind what we're doing and find a way to do your own version of something that you care about. You might need to join. You might not want to just start your own thing like we're doing.

You might wanna join someone who's already doing what you're passionate about, but but do something. There's something that you care about. I I'm passionate about youth and and women. You know? I help young men, but I'm not passionate about men the same way I'm passionate about women.

That's just true. Yeah. That's because that's my calling. Right. It's not because there's anything wrong with men or I don't like them.

That's my calling, so I'm specific to it. Right. And you too should be specific to your calling. Maybe you are called to transgendered and gay people. Go there.

You are called to animals. You're called to politics. Whatever. Whatever. Go there and take your focus, and don't apologize for not being all inclusive.

We're not all inclusive. We're very, very focused on certain people. Very specific. Very specific, and that's that. Yep.

In a nondiscriminatory way. Right. Because it's it's group setting. And so having the same kind of people in this in the group, it does matter when it comes to that. But whatever your focus is for you, please go and do it.

Go and do it to it. If you don't know how, find out how. Don't just sit there and say, I don't know how. Well, guess what sitting there and say, I don't know how does. Mhmm.

You gotta ask somebody. You can you can find out. You can honestly, there's nothing you can't find out on YouTube. Yeah, YouTube and Google come on right right, but but ask somebody ask a professional. Ask somebody you know, II have this idea and I don't know what to do with it.

You know you get a coach. I mean that's hello call Fatima Bay. I am good at that. I'm very good at that I'm pinpointing, and I'm unafraid to be very specific with you once I once I know. Once she finds out what your gift is, she's gonna shift your mind into you realizing what it is, and she's gonna make you do what you need to do because you're called to do it and she's gonna find out what it is.

So all you have to do is have a couple conversations with her. She already knows what to do. And and I for those of you listening, I would advise you to listen to episode two of this podcast because it is evidence of that a 17 year old a local 17 year old girl who's now going to college is okay. So she, she a local 17 year old girl, which I actually have done that with her, still in contact with her. I'm still coaching her through college and everything.

And I I just I'm very passionate about making sure that people are doing their calling. One of the reasons why misery is so high in America, because so many of us are working freaking jobs instead of a career. When you work a career, and you've all heard this before, it's not you don't work a day in your life. You have a moments where you wanna, like, drop kick somebody in the forehead or throw your computer out the window. You get frustrated or go downtown and beat up the mayor, whatever it is.

Whatever it is. We all feel like that at times. Mhmm. But and that's normal. So don't don't feel bad if you feel that way sometimes.

It's really normal. But if you're feeling like that every day, then something is wrong. And sometimes what's wrong is you're out of place, like a fish out of water. Right. A fish is beautiful in water.

It's meant to breathe the aqua. You know? It's meant it has fins. It has gills and all all of that stuff Right. For the water.

But if you take that fish and you put him on the table, well, he's not gonna be comfortable because he's not in the right place. He's not Can't be He's not what he he's not in the place that he was built To be in. Exactly. And so I that's one passion of mine as a coach. But for Bay and Best, I just want you guys to know that we're starting this, and I want to inspire other people to live out their dreams.

This has been a long time coming, and I recognize now that I have been skirting around this my entire life, doing everything around it except doing this, and this is what I'm built to do. And I recognize I really am a coach because I used to think, well, I should be a therapist. Now I'm a coach. Definitely a coach and she's definitely a therapist and that's a beautiful thing, though we're not a balance. Yeah.

We're we're not the same look at our logo by the way isn't that cute. It's party but the logo represents Bay and best you know the two the two b's back to back because we have each other's back, number one, but you need both sides Right. To to create the whole. You need coaching and you need that. And you need therapy.

If you think you don't need therapy, that's why you need therapy. Because trust me, you do. Everybody's got some kind of trauma or something to work through. You might not need as much therapy as the rest of us. Right.

And not everybody needs that much. Well, it depends on your situation. Sometimes therapy is just there to keep you balanced. You don't have to be crazy cuckoo with something wrong with you to need therapy sometimes therapy sometimes it's good to talk to the therapist just to bounce ideas off and keep your mentally balanced. Yes to process things.

Yes. To make you realize, see things that you don't see. Right. If for nothing else, see a therapist for that. Right.

And a coach will help you to reach your goals, but ain't no coach in our world gonna work if you won't. Right. So if you're not willing, don't bother me. Leave me alone. Don't waste my time.

Don't waste any coaches' time. Now some of them will take your money anyway, but nobody can help you until you're willing to be helped. Right. Just keep that in mind. And when it comes to Bay Invest, that's our attitude there, too.

We don't want people to come who are just looking for something to do and looking for somebody else to powder their booty and feel sorry for them. Not here. Go away. Did she just say powder your booty? Yep.

That's not we're here for. We are here to hug you and love you. We will cry with you because I know I will yes we but we're here to love you and hug and and hug you and we probably will and and encourage you and help to build you up. But what we will, but only if you are willing to do to put the work in We'll do our half, but you have to do the other half. Absolutely.

And once you do your other half, you will see how you've grown and how you're beginning to flourish and how the mind shift has gotten you to open up your your vision about yourself and what you wanna do as a person or individual or as a as a group with somebody else. Whatever it is, it's gonna take that trauma, flush it out the water, and then get you to focus on your passions through the mind shift coaching. And then when the dance piece comes in, forget about it. You're gonna be unstoppable. For real.

Because we're gonna there's a I'm not gonna say on the air what it is, but there's a whole lot of perks, that we specifically designed, that are gonna come with, a Bay and Best membership. So and we're not calling they're not patients because they're not freaking projects. Right. So our our I can't stand that. I really can't.

It it angers me, actually. Our our the people who are who are going to be joining Bay and Bess, they are not projects. They're people. They are members of Bay and Bess. Right.

They are not projects that we get to talk at, talk about, and just write notes about and say, what do you think all the time without maybe more than just that? Right? Yeah. That's right. So our our people are members, and we really we really see you that way, and and we want them to feel that way.

So, Erica, is there is there anything else? I know I've done a lot of talking because I'm so passionate. I just gave it up. Is there anything else that you wanna add? I just wanna add that we are so excited to launch in this September 2024 and that we are waiting for you girls.

And if you guys are ready, we are too. So just come on down and let's make it happen. Now the thing that you need to know, this is, local at the moment. It's for Schenectady, Montgomery, and Fulton Counties Of New York and Upstate New York. So we're starting off here.

Yep. We will get bigger. We know we're gonna get bigger. Bigger and better and branch out. Yeah.

But we're gonna start off here first. We're not foolish and try to do everything at once because that is foolish. Yeah. A lesson I had to personally learn in my life, but, we're gonna start off with that. Baby steps and then grow it up.

And then we'll and then we'll grow it up. And, and another one of our goals that I didn't mention here is we want to build a sisterhood. Absolutely. It's important that all of our members feel supported. We do not want worshipers.

We don't want people bowing down to us. We don't want people being codependent on us. That is unhealthy for them, and we don't need the ego boost. I already know I'm great. Me too.

But no. But really, we're not we're not about making them, cling to us or having to talk to us all the time. We want them to be independent. They need to be independent because then you're healthy, then you're healthy. And, also, having other young women realize that there are women who can be supportive and not just catty and jealous.

Absolutely. And, you know, not because some women have that mentality that, you know, other women are just bitches Right. Because that's what they've experienced. Right. And while some of the times that is true, there's so many other women out there who actually are supportive.

You know? Who are real sisters. Yeah. Yeah. And and we want you guys to know that.

We want you to experience that. So we have other details specifically set up to foster that. So you're not just gonna come in and get a little session for an hour and leave, and that's it. Oh, no. We have a whole system set up.

Oh, yeah. You're gonna get a lot more than that, but you gotta come to see. Yep. So in our our website and the smart link is in the, is in the podcast description. So go look at the website now.

By the way, self plug, I built a whole website myself. And I didn't help. See, I don't like you no more. No. That's that's my part.

I actually like doing stuff like that. So I did build it, all the colors, all the flowers, everything you say. I even built the flowers. Yes. I think I think I suggested some ideas.

I don't know. It might be in there somewhere. But, but, yeah, I take a look at the website so you can see, you know, more details of what we're about. We also because this is coming out of our pockets, this is coming out of our own personal funds, and we really can't afford it, but we're doing it anyway because where there's a will, there's a way. Absolutely.

We are taking donations. There's a donation donation page on our website if you, you know, should Like, you wanna help out the call. Help out. We'd love it. We're not asking anybody to give anything in return.

We're not, you know, we're not doing tit for tat. If you wanna give, give. If you don't, don't. I mean, it's really that simple. And if you do, we appreciate it.

Show up. Because it it will all of the money will actually go to everything we're doing. Yeah. For the girls. Yes.

And the things that we're gonna do with them in the future too. Mhmm. So, with all that being said, Yay. Yay. We did it.

Oh, this is what it's like when we get together. So you know Y'all gonna have fun. So yes, no questions. We'll have breakthroughs, and then we'll have fun. Absolutely.

We can do a little bit of both because I can be extremely intense and deep and serious, and then the biggest goofball right afterwards. Yeah. Like within the same second. Yeah, maybe you didn't see a minute, but yeah and and and in this setting that's actually helpful because sometimes you need the comic relief and then sometimes sometimes you yeah, you just need both. So thank you all for listening.

Thank you guys and I hope you're excited with us. Please follow us on social media on the smart link and comment all over everything everything because when you come and it raises up any post to, it it it changes with the algorithm. It just raise up the post visibility. Absolutely. So comment on everything.

Send us messages of encouragement. We'd absolutely love it. We wanna hear what you have to say as well. We do like opinions. So please just you know message us find us on social media and comment to everything and comment and give if you want to if you know any girls that you feel like would be perfect for us, you can send us some information about them as a referral as well or give them the link so that they can look at our website as well, and then they can reach out to us.

But if you know anybody who wants to do it, send them in the direction to us. Yes. There will there will be applications. There are applications on the website. They can fill out an application to become a member right off right then and there.

We will have a waiting list. We already know that. We already have people. We haven't even we already have people waiting to to sign up. So we will have a waiting list.

So I strongly urge you, to have a sense of urgency with it, and don't wait, because there will be a waiting list, and then you might have to wait months before you can get in. Gotta be quicker than that. Yeah. We we have to keep it we have to keep it small in order to be effective for all the girls and for them to feel, you know Absolutely. A sense of privacy to a certain degree.

So, also, I feel the need to mention this. Wasn't gonna mention this, but I will. Mhmm. On the website, the locations are there, but the times and dates are not. Please understand that we are dealing directly with some domestic violence victims.

We will not put the times and dates on the website because we're gonna protect them. I don't wanna have to kill somebody because they showed up at the show. Right. Oops. Did I say that out loud?

Oops. I don't wanna have to put somebody in the hospital because they showed up at at I don't want I just don't want and I don't want them, you know, any of our girls to feel any kind of fear. So unsafe at all. Yeah. Yes.

So Your safety is our priority. Exactly. So for that reason, we will only members will get the exact times and dates. The locations are there, so you know what buildings we're gonna be in, but you don't know when. So, just so you know that that's intentional.

And, yeah, thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Mindshift Power podcast. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter. If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit FatimaBay.com/podcast.

Remember, there's power in shifting your thinking. Tune in for next week.