Pod Insights Therapy for Black Girls I Have Some Thoughts Minisode | Latto, Allyson Felix, & Hantavirus About this episode Welcome to Episode 1 of our new minisode series, "I Have Some Thoughts." These short episodes are designed to contextualize the pop culture moments we're currently paying attention to through a mental health lens. Pop culture isn't just fun to chat about, it can reveal important information about how we relate, cope, and understand ourselves. Join us each Friday to hear Dr. Joy share her thoughts about the happenings of the week.
This week, we're chatting about Latto's retirement announcement, Allyson Felix's return to racing, and the Hantavirus outbreak.
Resources Mentioned
Dr. Titanji https://www.threads.com/@titanjibk
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Transcript 0:10 Speaker 00 I am very excited to be back for what we are now calling, I think, I Have Some Thoughts. So when we've done like little mini episodes before, when I wanted to just talk about a particular thing, I've called it I Have Some Thoughts. And so I think we're gonna stay with that name unless like we come up with something better. But we have experimented with this being a part of our typical Wednesday episodes. And now we are gonna try spinning it off into its own kind of little mini-sodes. So now you will be getting a Therapy for Black Girls episode on Wednesdays and Fridays. Very exciting. So definitely let us know how you are thinking about this, what topic you want us to discuss, because we are paying attention. So you can send that to us at therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox and let
0:52 Speaker 00 us know your feedback about this new I Have Some Thoughts mini-sode.
0:59 Speaker 00 More from our conversation after the break.
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1:06 Speaker 00 A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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2:10 Speaker 03 Every small business owner has that one moment that could have broken them, but remarkably, it didn't. Hi, I'm Kathleen Griffith, co-host of The Unshakeables, along with Stevie Barron, CEO of Chase for Business. We have more incredible stories of overcoming the impossible still to come in season three. Listen to The Unshakeables wherever you get your podcasts and learn more at chase.com/podcast. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase & Company.
2:50 Speaker 00 So, Bria, what do we have on the roster for today?
2:54 Speaker 04 Yes, a lot of super exciting stuff. So, first things first, let's talk about Lotto's retirement album. So, if you missed it, over the weekend, rapper Lotto sparked a lot of conversation after she announced that her next upcoming album, Big Mama, is actually going to be her retirement album. Now, this has started a lot of conversation amongst fans because she hasn't been in the game that long, as you might maybe assume. However, a lot of people are assuming she's going to be stepping back from music to focus on her new motherhood journey. So, this kind of sparks a bigger conversation of why maybe women feel pressure to frame
3:36 Speaker 04 motherhood and career as opposing choices. So, from your perspective, why do you think women often feel this pressure to eventually choose between professional success and family life? And why is it so hard for them to coexist?
3:50 Speaker 00 Hmm, so this is a very interesting question, and I don't know that they always have to be in opposition, but what I will say is that, especially as a first-time mom, because I think this is her first child, right?
4:05 Speaker 04 Yes, yep.
4:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. Okay. So as a first time mom, I think you don't know what you don't know. And so like just from my own personal experience, when I had my first son, I definitely fully planned on like having him being all for the requisite six to eight weeks or however long I got from maternity leave. Cause at that time I was in a full time job. And so I expected to be on maternity leave and then go back and just do both at the same time. And then I don't know at what point in that postpartum journey, maybe two weeks, maybe a month into it, I realized I actually did not want to go back to work.
4:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:40 Speaker 00 But at least not in the same way. And so I think, again, I fully planned to kind of do both, but I think for some women, something changes after the little one gets here. You know, again, speaking for myself, the idea of, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have my baby with, you know, a babysitter or in nursery school. Like I think that there's just a lot happening hormonally and kind of just a lot going on. Again, especially for your first child. And so I think some women go into it with a plan, maybe to return back to work at the same pace. And then you realize afterwards that you don't want to. But I also think that sometimes priorities just shift in that you decide, you know what, this is something that I want to devote myself to fully right now.
5:22 Speaker 00 And then if I decide that I want career to come back on board at some point, then I can make that decision then. But I don't think it has to be in opposition. And I don't think any choice is right or wrong, right? It is really just about what works for you and what works for your family. So what is some of the commentary? Are people saying like, oh, she shouldn't have to choose or?
5:42 Speaker 04 I think it's a mix. So I think it's the general conversation of once kids start to enter the picture, people, women, a lot of women choose to step back from their careers. A lot of the conversation is also surrounding the fact that she's been putting out music for a while. So I won't say that she's brand new to the game, but at the same time she is still pretty young. And people are wondering like, the announcement of a retirement album felt a little jarring. Cause it was just, she's, I think, put out three official studio albums and she's been putting out mixtapes before that. But I think a lot- A lot of people, myself included, are fans of Lotto and know how good she is at what she does. And it's like, oh, like you're almost there kind of thing. So, yeah.
6:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, it could be a temporary kind of thing, you know, and she decides maybe when the baby's a little older that she wants to come back. But I do think, again, I don't know if this was something planned or if the baby is here yet, but I do think, like I said, for me, I had every intention of going back to work. Full time and then my baby got here and I was like, absolutely not. I actually don't want to to do that. And so I think a lot just changes in the postpartum aspect and, you know, people just kind of shift priorities.
6:52 Speaker 04 For sure. And I think in that same vein, how would you recommend for women who are maybe faced with this decision? How would you recommend being able to delineate between I need this temporary rest or I just need to like take some time versus maybe wanting to abandon or just divert their path completely?
7:12 Speaker 00 Hmm. Yeah, I think in the kind of short run, you don't always know, right? Especially kind of immediately after baby gets here, it does feel like a day to day kind of thing. So I think you won't always know, like if this is something that is a temporary break versus something that is more long term. Like I think for me, I did leave my job, but then I think once they got a little older, then I felt like, okay, I'm feeling a little more rested now. I'm feeling like I have more energy now. And so then it did become, well, therapy for black girls, it took off also in the postpartum period. And so then I felt, okay, I'm ready to kind of go back to something full time at the same time as I'm raising the kids.
7:52 Speaker 00 And so I think you really just have to give yourself sometimes, like feel it out and not feel pressured to make any decision one way or the other. I'm also aware that this is, comes with an incredible amount of privilege, right? Like that I had the opportunity to step back, that not everyone will necessarily have that choice. But if you find yourself with the ability to make that choice and you don't absolutely have to go back to work, I think it's okay to kind of make, take some time to think about what is going to be my next step. And even if you decide, you know what, I'm going straight back to my career, that you can give yourself permission to change your mind at any time, one way or the other, right? Like it doesn't have to be, I make a decision and now I gotta stick with it. It's also okay for you to change your mind at any given point when you feel like, you know what? Something else might really work better for me and my family right now.
8:37 Speaker 04 No, for sure. I love that. I love that. So for our next topic, we have Alison Felix returning to the sport of track and field. So after announcing her retirement from track back in 2022, Alison Felix announced that she is returning to the sport to pursue a spot at the 2028 Olympic Games. Now, a lot of us, myself included, are very excited for Alison's return. However, there has been a conversation brewing online questioning whether at 40 years old, she's too old to be competing. I think this sparked a much broader conversation about age and how age may impact confidence and ambition and things of that
9:19 Speaker 04 nature. And is aging really a thing? Like, is it really a barrier to pursuing what it is that you're dreaming for and hoping for? But what narratives do you see that women, especially, receive about aging when it comes to aging out of certain dreams or certain identities?
9:37 Speaker 00 Hmm. I think that the nuance for this conversation is that if you were doing something like going back to school or something, I think it's never too late to pursue those kinds of dreams. I think because this is a physical, like a sport, then that may be a more important part of the conversation. But I trust that Alison has continued to take really good care of her body. I'm sure she has an excellent team. And I think this is one of those things where if she didn't try it, I think she would always have these regrets about what if, should I have tried that in 2028 if I felt like I physically could, right? And so I'm also really excited to see that she's going for it. And, you know, I think that it also opens up possibilities for other people to think about, like, what
10:22 Speaker 00 kind of limiting beliefs do I have about myself that I might also need to push myself past because Alison is going for this thing, right? Whether she is successful in making the team or not, I think it is a really cool idea that she is going for it. And I think, you know, usually as you are, get older, like, there's an increase in confidence, right? So you said aging sometimes like, oh, can I still do this? But I think usually as you get older, you get more confident. And so I'm sure that she is stepping into this with a different kind of confidence and know how, given her previous experience with competing and being on Olympic teams. So I'm really excited to see that she is going for it and really cheering for her.
11:03 Speaker 04 Yeah, especially with the 2028 Olympics being in the US. It's like this is
11:07 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like, why not? Why not try, right? Like, what else? You know, like, she knows what it takes to kind of be there. Like, and I think the pressure that sometimes exists with this, that could exist with this for her could be, am I as fast as I used to be? You know, like, what if I can't cut it kind of thing? I'm sure she's having those kinds of conversations. But again, you don't know unless you try. And I think that that is well worth it to actually just give it a try.
11:36 Speaker 04 For sure, for sure. And in that same vein, like, why? We talked a little bit about aging and that increasing your confidence in some cases, but sometimes you might feel that I'm too old to be doing this. For people who may come across those different emotions and feelings, why does it feel so emotionally vulnerable to start over or return to a past passion after walking away from it for so long?
12:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think the vulnerability to get back into a thing is really, really significant, right? Because again, I think it comes with a lot of questions of can I still do this? Am I still good enough? What if I fail, right? And like, nobody wants to sign up to not do well at something necessarily, right? Like, most of us kind of want to be primed for success. And so I think it just makes us feel really vulnerable to kind of put ourselves in a position where we may not be successful, especially if we've had a track record of being really successful before, right? And so what does this now mean for like my legacy, my story, if I'm not as good now as I was then? But again, I think the bigger story is always being brave enough to put yourself out there
12:44 Speaker 00 and to trust that your legacy will stand regardless of what may happen in the future. Um, I just think it's a really powerful lesson in never being too late for going after the things that feel important to you.
12:55 Speaker 04 No, absolutely. I totally agree. I'm very excited to see her return. I know she's gonna, I'm calling it in, she's gonna make it to the Olympics, so I would love to see that.
13:05 Speaker 00 More from our conversation after the break. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help like the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out.
13:50 Speaker 00 Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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16:06 Speaker 04 And then for our last topic, if you didn't hear, over the last few days, there's been news of a deadly outbreak of Hantavirus that has been circulating. So it started on a cruise ship and while at the time we're recording this, it's been reported that risk to the public is very low. I think there was one US resident on the ship and he's been transported back to the US, but he is fully in quarantine and being monitored and all that type of stuff. It still feels very, very familiar to what we saw back in 2020 when coronavirus outbreak started. So I think this kind of just feels like deja vu all over again. It really just started a lot of conversations of what do we do when the world just never
16:50 Speaker 04 feels like it's really going to stabilize? And so I'm interested from your perspective, like, how do you think the 2020 pandemic changed people's nervous systems and sense of safety long-term? So I feel like a lot of people are immediately kind of reverting back to like, we've seen this before, kind of thing.
17:07 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't know that we have ever recovered, honestly. Post 2020 and all of what happened with the COVID pandemic. And you know, usually when there is like an emergency situation, there is like the situation, the alarms go off, your body responds, your mind responds, and then there is like an all-clear to let you know that you can reset and go back to, you know, normal resting, right? Like so your blood pressure resumes, your heart rate decreases, like all of your functions get back online. And what I feel like has happened since 2020 is that we Never really got back to like resting police.
17:45 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:45 Speaker 00 Right. It feels like there was all of these kind of starts and stops with the pandemic in terms of like information coming out. And then the political landscape was a mess. And I mean, it was just so much going on. And I think it became really difficult to figure out like, how do I keep myself safe? And I also think that wasn't helped by the destruction of public safety and public health information, right? Like, you know, the CDC and like the government NIH and all of those like places we would look to for like solid information and like credible public health information, all of a sudden became questionable because of the politics, right? And so I think that that has also made it so we don't really know like where to actually get credible health information.
18:30 Speaker 00 You know, I've also been reading that all the people who had been employed by the CDC, who would have been responsible for the US's response to something like this have been fired, right? And so I think that that doesn't help us to think about, okay, is this something that I should be worried about? Or is this something that only impacts me if I was on the cruise ship? Like, I feel like all of that is still up in the air, which also always feels very concerning. And so I think that does not help us to kind of have our nervous system rested because we don't actually know if this is a credible threat or not.
19:06 Speaker 04 For sure. Yeah. And I think that like, thinking back to the 2020 pandemic, that's really how it started too. Where it was like, this is, obviously, a lot of people lost their lives from COVID, but we didn't really know how to like decipher some of that information. And then things were coming out in piecemeal. It's like, you can't go outside. Never mind, you can't. You have to wear a mask. Never mind, you don't, like that kind of thing. So I think like, for the next question, like, how can people maintain emotional grounding during these periods of? Collective fear where it feels like you don't really know what's going on, but at the same time, life kind of has to keep moving.
19:43 Speaker 00 Yeah. So one of the things, and y'all have definitely heard me talk about this before, is being mindful of how much you're engaging with the news, both traditional news and social media, because we know that like the algorithm is primed to make you afraid, right? You know, we know that sometimes bad actors will step in and realize like, oh, I can monetize people's fear about this thing and not actually be having accurate information. And so do be careful of where you're getting your news related to this virus from. Is it a credible source? And even if it is a credible source, do you need to be checking it every hour, right? Because that often will just heighten our sense of anxiety and doesn't, it will
20:26 Speaker 00 sometimes keep you kind of stuck in terms of a plan. And so you're spending a lot of time just reading information and consuming information as opposed to, okay, here's my plan for should something happen? Here's where I can get credible information from. As always, like Black women are my North Star. And so even during the COVID pandemic, I was kind of looking at like this panel of Black women epidemiologists and public health people as the people I could go to for credible information. And so Dr. Tatanji, who is actually somebody who joined us on the podcast, it might've been a podcast episode, but it might've been a Facebook Live. Very early on in the pandemic, she was somebody who I spoke with about, okay, is this a concern? We should have a conversation around the
21:11 Speaker 00 vaccine, right? When of course, people had questions about the vaccine. So Dr. Tatanji is a board certified infectious disease and internal medicine physician. So she has an MD in that, and she also has a PhD in virology. So she has been very active on threads and we will include her information in the show notes. So she is somebody who I am looking to for my information around should I be concerned about this? Like what's going on? And I trust that information coming from her. And you know, she is somebody who does not proclaim to have all the answers, but like this is her. Lane. And so I trust that she has information is also sharing really good resources. And so I think, again, finding those sources and those practitioners who this is their thing,
21:57 Speaker 00 following them, but also not following them too closely so that you're getting minute to minute updates unless the situation changes and we need to be there, I think can go a really long way in helping you to be grounded. Also continuing to make sure you have physical activity, make sure that you are connecting with your support system, like all of the things we talked about in COVID. And again, this is not raised to the level of the COVID concern, but I understand of course, why people are anxious and are we getting to that place? All of the things that you know that you needed to do to kind of keep yourself grounded, I think could also be helpful in this situation.
22:32 Speaker 04 No, I totally agree. I feel like there was a lot that we could learn, at least from the 2020 pandemic and just how we managed it then versus even like internally how it is that we go against these types of announcements moving forward.
22:45 Speaker 00 Exactly. Thank you for those questions and those topics, Ria. I always appreciate hearing what's on people's minds right now. As I stated, if there are topics that you want us to talk about, things that you are seeing in the news that you want to hear my thoughts on, if I have any, we would love to hear that. You can send that to us again at therapyforblackgirls.com/realbox.
23:10 Speaker 00 A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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24:46 Speaker 01 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous Session 463: A Love Letter from Tiffany Cross Next Session 464: All About Colon Health Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated