Anxiety, Race, and Healing Community with Nikia Phoenix

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On this first episode of The Refined Collective Podcast, I welcome Nikia Phoenix to leave the pressure to be perfect at the door and have a meaningful dialogue with me, and all of you. She’s talking with me from sunny Los Angeles where the birds are chirping loud enough for us to hear. I first met Nikia through Instagram, and over the years I’ve had the good fortune of working with her. Now, it’s your chance to feel her good energy wash over you. Her love for others radiates from everything she does, including Black Girl Beautiful.

What is Black Girl Beautiful?

It’s a platform Nikia created that serves as “a love letter to women of African descent.” Her mission with Black Girl Beautiful is a reflection of her own struggles and insecurities. She opens up about these insecurities and how she continues to work through them.

She gets real about the pressure black women feel to always stand tall and never have a vulnerable moment. “In our own private moments we are very much down on ourselves.” Black Girl Beautiful is a space where she encourages vulnerability.

When was the last time you told yourself you’re beautiful?

The Black Girl Beautiful website has a 2-minute-long video that will give you goose bumps. A woman named Misako stands in front of the camera and Nikia asks her about the first time she realized she was beautiful. When Nikia turns the camera screen around so Misako can see herself, she breaks down in tears before she is able to say the words “black girl, you are beautiful.”
I had the chance to ask Nikia when she first realized she was beautiful. She recalls looking back at a photograph taken when she was 7-years-old and really seeing herself in that moment for the first time years later. “There she was.”

How can we link arms together in this?

In this episode, I confront the reality that The Refined Woman lacked diversity until this past year.
Nikia and I discuss why this so often happens in life and how we can stop it from happening.
What the world needs is for everyone to show up for and support one another.
Nikia shares how you can show up for her and how we can show up for one another. So take note, friends. It’s time to lift each other up.

“When you start making it up to the top, who do you want to look around and see with you?”

Tune in to hear her answers to what my three episode-ending questions. I am so honored to have shared this episode with Nikia Phoenix and hope you have enjoyed listening.

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