Author: Jazmyne Courtnii Byrd

Every woman can admit that there is nothing like a great facial that leaves your skin feeling fresh and smooth. The experience alone helps to relieve the aches and stress of life and takes you to a place of total relaxation. Midwest native Cameran Battley, owner of The Honee Beauty, lives her life serving others by providing a wellness experience like no other. She prides herself on following her passion and leaving the rest behind. With the beauty industry being a massive industry filled with talent from all around the world, Battley is leaving her mark by making her clients feel special and being attentive to their needs during her service.  In an exclusive interview, Battley tells her story of inspiration that has brought her joy and success.

Jazmyne Courtnii Byrd: So, tell me how you got started in business?

Cameran Battley: I used to work in the film and production industry. I attended Columbia College in Chicago for film and video. I specialized in working on commercials and I just got burned out from working in this part of the industry. So, I began to question myself about what I am I am passionate about and what my purpose is. I discovered that I would love to become a beautician. I decided to step out on faith and I research institutions and I chose Douglas J Aveda in Chicago to pursue my passion.  

JCB: What drew you to the beauty industry?

CB: I have Always been a girly girl growing up. I always had my hair and nails done. The whole beauty industry just interested me. But when it came to skin care, I fell in love. I was always into the art of facials and skin care. So, when I transitioned from production and got back into the beauty and Wellness, I kind of reignited that love I had for it as a little girl. You know, being out, getting cute, just any reason to love myself and help others to take care of their skin and look their best. I found out how transformative and impactful it can be to the lives of our clients. You know, you can do a service on someone and really change their whole entire mood and their whole body.

JCB: How important for how important is it for you to make your client feel?

CB: I need my clients to feel like they’re the only person that matters in that moment when they’re receiving a service. It’s very important to me to make my clients feel like they are the only person in the service because I find that when people come to me, they want to escape from life’s issues and stress. I want them to relax and let go of whatever it is they’ve gone through. I’ve had clients who are entrepreneurs who are stressed with the day-to-day things that are going on, and they just want a relaxing experience. So, I find that people need these services, and I want them to feel like this service is an oasis. Taking care of I want them to get the whole experience because I want them to walk in my door one way and at least much better.

JCB: How important is the beauty industry to the black community?

CB: The beauty industry is very important to the black community. Our community is built upon entrepreneurs in this industry who have become millionaires and prolific figures. We changed the game and we create the trends that the world follows. Our history is rich in the area of beauty, creating solutions to help the culture look and feel out best. The beauty industry is very important for us because this is how we’re able to express ourselves and feel good about ourselves. As someone who is responsible for helping us feel our best, my priority is providing a great experience and service that will keep my clients coming back and new clients in rotation. I value being someone who people can come to just lay back and let me help them escape. I feel like wellness is so overlooked and that’s the one thing that people need the most.

By: Jazmyne Courtnii Byrd

      In the black community, mental health is an area in constant conversation from mainstream audiences to community leaders. Even with all the talks, there is still a stigma in our community and a strong requirement that these talks be brought to the forefront. Mental Health conversations ignited during the onset of the pandemic with the rise of suicide and burnout. Every news station on a weekly basis was reporting suicides left and right. Many mental health experts were on their post with their clients daily to help combat these concerns client by client. It’s time to highlight the experts holding power in this space that aims to help as many people as possible fight the many effects of mental health concerns. When it comes to the journey of motherhood, women across the world can agree that the new changes in mind, body, and soul can be overwhelming to deal with.

                Dr. Taylor J. Bryant, of Harrisburg, PA, who specialized in postpartum depression began her own journey of impact in 2013. The co-founder of Empress Evolve a mental health collective of experts who strive to change the lives of people who are dealing with all mental health issues, has been impacting the community in the field and through social media. One of her goals is to reach women everywhere and let them know that the stigmas don’t have to be your reality. Dr. Bryant is a true voice in this space and in this exclusive interview, you will learn how she is changing the face of survival in the mental health world.

Jazmyne Byrd: How did you get started in the mental health field?

Dr. Taylor. J Bryant: I remember growing up, I would always, as a teenager, I’m talking like 13, 14, 15, 16 watch Law and Order SVU, Criminal Minds, and CSI Miami, with my mom. That’s when I noticed I had a real interest in crime. What really solidified things for me was after I graduated with my bachelor’s in psychology. Back in 2013, I started working at a local school for autism and behavior problems here in Central Pennsylvania. My first case was with a young girl who was nine years old at the time, and had severe trauma due to home life issues.  And I was the only one who could get through to her and reach her. I knew then that I had the ability to change lives. I just wanted to impact people in a way that the community has never impacted them before.

JB: What do you feel is your mission within the mental health space?

TB: Currently I have my own business. It’s called Empress Evolve and we serve the community in a way where trauma is at the core of what we do. Specifically, I look at maternal mental health like postpartum, depression, postpartum, psychosis, anxiety, and all of that. My mission is to help people see that you are not alone when you experience trauma or when you’re going through mental health struggles, it can be a lonely place and you can honestly feel in your heart that nobody understands you. You don’t have to suffer alone. And I just need every person who comes my way and watches my content and chooses me to be their coach or their therapist to know that they can heal, and they can live a different life. So that’s my mission in space.

JB: How important is it for black women to be advocates in this space?

TB: There is a push currently for men’s mental health. And then on top of that black men because black men have the highest suicide rate because not only are you a man, you have to stay strong, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and don’t show emotion, that’s a lot of pressure. You can’t say I’m struggling with my mental health because you got a family to take care of, you got kids to take care of or you just don’t want to be presented to the community as if you’re weak. But then we have the black woman who is supposed to be a superwoman. Like no matter what we do, whether we show up strong and powerful, whether we need a break from the kids, no one understands that its ok to just take a break. It’s just like black women are not human and I feel like oftentimes especially when it comes to mental health, we’re not allowed to not be OK. So that’s why. And I’m sorry, let me, let me back up a little bit black women experience arguably the most trauma out of anybody else on this planet. So that’s why I think it is so important for there to be a space for black women to be advocates for mental health because just like I mentioned with men and postpartum depression, you can’t do this alone, you really can’t, you really can’t. And superwoman syndrome is real for black women. You can’t do it all. You need to, you need to rest, you need to heal, you need to reset, and the community needs to see black women as human.

JB: What do you want people to know about your business and what you’re doing in the community?

TB:  I want people to know that so many moms or so many women or even men because we offer different types of coaching that target trauma at the core, we’re different. And I know everybody says we’re different. But I’ve had so many moms with postpartum depression come to me saying I followed you for over a year in your mommy gang group and I finally pulled the trigger like I went back and forth. Should I do it? Should I not? I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want people to think. I’m crazy. I have kids. I don’t want people to take my kids away because I’m getting therapy, which is a myth. But a lot of people believe that. And they’ve told me that they went to other therapists before who invalidated them and said things like, oh, yeah, this is difficult, but you’ll get over it. So, every mom goes through that just find a hobby, um, just go to a movie night with your friends. You’ll be fine and it’s the gaslighting for me. It’s the minimizing for me. I don’t do that. I don’t do that. What I do is something called holding like whether I’m doing postpartum recovery sessions with clients’ trauma sessions or anxiety. I have a couple of college students I see who deal with procrastination and anxiety, which at the core is for a lot of them, trauma. But anyway, I just need that. I hold them, I let them have this space to share with me what their experiences are and what they’re going through and they would never hear from me. But for me, it’s not about the money. It’s honestly about giving people a space to genuinely open up about what they’re going through and not be judged to figure out that path forward. That’s what we train our team to do and to be, that’s what sets us apart from all of these other mental health agencies out there.

Dr. Bryant saw the problem and became the solution to help the community overcome the trauma of life. You find out more about her practice at https://www.empressevolve.com/.

The conversation surrounding mental health in the black community has become more open. More people are learning that in order to heal, you have to speak up and use the resources around you. One of those resources is forgiveness. Mental health issues are often stigmatized within the Black community, leading to feelings of shame, isolation, and reluctance to seek help. In most black households, therapy is a word not often used outside of the word church. Open conversations can help challenge these negative stereotypes and encourage individuals to seek support without fear of judgment. For Shenelle Jackson, her journey started with dreams of wanting to be behind the chair as a cosmetologist and quickly changed by the suggestion of one person. That change shifted the purpose of her life and led her on a journey of helping people become the best version of who they are. Even through her own childhood traumas, Jackson finds great comfort in her position.

Being a therapist places people in the seat of entering into the lives of others to be a guide and help them to navigate life’s struggles. Jackson has taken her seat and in an exclusive interview, takes you on a ride to how she became an expert in healing others.

Jazmyne Courtnii Byrd: How did you get into the mental health industry?  What led you down that path?

Shenelle Jackson: Well, I always wanted to be a hairstylist. But I also realized that I also had the gift of talking to people and helping them work through their problems and challenges of life. Before I went off to college, my mom was just like, you should consider social work? So, when I got to college, I decided to take her advice and go into social work. As I began to dive into the major, I began to like to understand the different layers of social work and how it positively affects people. Most people think it’s just child and family services, but social work is a whole world and therapy is a major part of it. Understanding mental health and how to help people get through is the core.

JB: When you’re going through careers like this, you often experience like your own situations and you have to learn how to navigate and, almost be a therapist to yourself.  How has that been for you on your own journey?

SJ: It has been hard, because nobody tells you when you’re in college that there’s going be a chance that you’re going meet yourself. This means that you’re going meet different stages of your major, you’re going to meet some clients that resemble some of the things that you went through. My first job was actually dealing with victim services in a facility is located in Washington DC. And I really had to gain an understanding of what the struggles were that my own mom had, through this particular woman and my work with her. The stage when I was in an orphanage, the stage when I had entered the foster care system as a child and then being removed to go back to my mom. There are some people who had to go through the worst things that I could ever even imagine and being able to work through them and then also work through myself and really understand where I am and how I am in regards to my past. Acknowledging that I need to get some help too because some of these things that I’m feeling is not healthy, it’s not healthy for me to be holding this on.

JB: Did you give yourself any level of grace?

SJ: Oh Yeah. All through it. I had to tell myself about those things that I went through and be honest with myself. Sometimes the child in you comes back into the picture, that child that she once was that hurt that went through that stuff. They come back to that picture and sometimes I had to talk to myself, I had to talk to her and be like, yeah, what we went through was messed up. This is not our mother though. This is not our mother, and we have to forgive our mother. And you know that forgiveness came later on when an honest conversation with my mother. I could only have that conversation with her and really be understanding to things that I didn’t know before and being able to heal from that and give my give myself consistent grace.

JB: How often does the word forgiveness come up?

SJ: it comes up a lot, in fact for my clients it’s almost like I’m taking a knife and stabbing them with it when I talk about it. It’s something that in our community is not talked about much. There are a lot of things that adults have to forgive their parents for, experiences that they went through, and things that they did not understand. As a therapist, you can’t be afraid to go into deep spaces and talk about things that bring healing to your client. Forgiveness is a two-way street, you have to know what forgiveness is, what it feels like, and how it feels to go about that, you must understand that sometimes forgiveness can be given even though the door, even though hurt is still there as you work and you cope through the challenges that you’re facing. So yeah, forgiveness is something that comes up a whole lot.

By: Jazmyne Courtnii Byrd

Having experts in the community who specialize in helping people navigate through life’s ups and downs is essential. With so many things happening in the world, it is imperative that people have someone who is educated and licensed to counsel them through their turbulent times. For Destiny Thomas, this journey started with prayer and hearing the voice of God as she experienced her own journey through troubled times. As the community learns to navigate through understanding mental health and how to process many people are ignoring childhood trauma that turns into unhealed adult trauma.

In an exclusive interview with the Virginia native, Thomas discusses how she became a Prayerpist and how Prayerpy is healing her clients.

Jazmyne- How did you get started on this journey?

Destiny Thomas- What got me started with honestly being obedient to God. I worked in corporate America for 10 years, working in the insurance industry and using a journaling process that he revealed to me during infertility in October of 2017. I got instructions to leave my job and no. The only instructions I got from there was to start writing my first book about my infertility journey and trusting God and to go live on Facebook and pray for people and from just those two steps of obedience. That led to me becoming the Prayerpist and working with high-achieving women on their mental health journey and their inner healing journey by hearing the voice of God.

 JB- Let’s walk through this journey and how the process got started. How does that process go for you to be able to transition? Were you hesitant?

DT- I listened this time. So, I had gone through my journey of infertility for 3 1/2 years. I got pregnant with my first son back in 2014, and before having him, I heard God tell me to go. After having him I went back to work part-time because he was transitioning me out. So, I was super excited about that. I get back to work and there’s this position that I wanted for years, and the hiring manager came from my desk and offered me it and I was like, this has to be God. Even though he’s telling me to go part-time, it’s the opposite of what he says. And I’m like, this has to be God, God, take that job. And it was hell. And so, this time around, I knew I could not do that again. So, this time I moved immediately. But it was because I learned from a previous mistake that when he says what he says, you want to follow it as quickly as you possibly can. It can lead you down a very, very dark road mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

JB- You go by a very interesting name and that’s a “Prayerpist”, did God instill in you that gave you that type of title?

DT- It doesn’t teach you how to pray, but it does help you learn the voice of God in a strategic, intentional type of way. I feel like we’re taught not to ask questions and not to question God. But God is an intentional creator I started the process of going to him during infertility, I was just getting to a place where I was like, I’ve lost everything. My marriage is failing, my weight is terrible because of the hormones.  I just was angry. And so, I decided to throw all of those things I was taught away about God and just be naked with God. I wanted to just be honest in my truth. And I’ve noticed in journaling those feelings that. All of a sudden, I heard God say to write GS and then I kept on writing. And a week and a half, maybe two weeks passed, and I heard it again and I would go back and read all of the GSE’s. And I realized God was speaking that to me, that he was talking to me in those moments, that he was comforting me and loving on me. And I am naturally a green personality, analytical and acquisitive. God began to take me down his journey which is now known as Prayerpy to heal me in a different capacity. To be able to identify the root of the problem. And that is when it can then be uprooted from the root, and he can re-fertilize it and resolve it so you can be fruitful. But now you’re using that thing because you’ve been able to walk out of it and bless other people with it. And so that’s what prayerapy is, it allows people to identify the root of what you are going through. God likes the healer from the bottom up. We like to heal from the top down because that feels better, right? We like to talk to God about that most recent relationship or that most recent loss of our job, when God’s like, no, I want to take you back to that little girl whose mother never allowed her to speak up for herself because that’s why you ended up where you ended up.

Destiny has chosen to take her healing journey to a different level by helping her clients understand the power of prayer and therapy together. She is instrumental in ushering in a different connection between two powerful healing mechanisms to help people become the very best versions of themselves. Incorporating prayer and therapy together can you navigate through the hardships of life in a whole different manner.

To follow Destiny and her practice https://www.realizingdestiny.com/contact-destiny-the-prayerpist-thomas

    Over the past few years, black fashion designers have been emerging more and more. fashion weeks in many places throughout the country, the Caribbean, and overseas have been created to give black creatives their very own space to showcase their work to the world. These black creatives are very unapologetic about their style and purpose. Many are on a mission to create a brand of black excellence and appropriately represent fashion through the eyes of the black lens,

“Black excellence to me is paying homage to the past and knowing that the future is filled with promise. When I get into a creative space I think about what the culture needs and what I want to see the culture represent through fashion and apparel. My fashion represents textures and colors. It understands that our women have shapes and curves. My fashion is not in a box.”

Soulseed was planted over a decade ago, and since then has been rooted within the black community to uplift culture, community standards, and cultural dopeness. Akim Wilson the creator and designer has made her mark in Florida and beyond seeking to spread the positive message of black excellence worldwide, she says,

“You know when I created this brand, I understood that I would have a responsibility to black culture to produce items that would be reflective of the excellence of our ancestors. that’s a huge responsibility that I don’t take lightly. I’m strong in the belief that black culture has been misrepresented in multiple different spaces. So, through clothing, through fashion apparel I want people to not only see but feel the spirit of the ancestors when they wear my pieces and also when they see my pieces on a runway.”

From harem pants to bandeau tops to affirmation tees to luggage, Soulseed has created a collection of pieces for all ages and sizes.

 “I want babies to be able to wear words of affirmation across their chest from the moment they are born until they are able to fully grasp the concept into their adolescence and teen years. It’s important that the things that we read and see are uplifting because then it creates a lifestyle. So, in a sense, my brand is more of a fashion lifestyle brand that helps build character and affirms are people.”

To learn more about SoulsSeed please visit the website and social media links

Website: www.soulseedapparel.com

IG: @soulseedapparel

Fb: @soulseedapparel

Twitter: @soulseedapparel

Tiktok: @ soulseedapparel