Affirmation Music, Self-Intimacy & Mental Wellbeing w/ Toni Jones

EPISODE OVERVIEW: I interview affirmation musician, Toni Jones.  During our conversation, we discussed all things affirmation music, how burnout led to the creation of her first album, Affirmations for the Grown Ass Woman, the importance of cultivating self-intimacy and self-care practices for mental wellbeing.

In this episode we talk about:

• How burnout from her wellness business made her begin to question toxic work ethic
• How a month long solo trip to California, a few empty journals and solitude led her to write her first affirmation album, Affirmations for the Grown Ass Woman
• Redefining success for yourself
• What it means to “Woman in Silence”
• Self-intimacy as learning and accepting the duality of yourself -- the good and the not so pretty parts
• How the way we speak to ourselves, as well as the beliefs we hold, impact us
• The importance of therapy and community
• Voice record journaling, private altars, being in nature and much more as wellness tools

ABOUT THE GUEST: Toni Jones is a well-being leader, mental health advocate for women and youth, and affirmation musician. Toni has found creative ways to promote the message of conscious well being and mental health, and hopes to inspire women to become more conscious about their well-being in a culture that glorifies workaholism.  One way that she promotes this message is through her affirmation albums: Affirmations for The Grown Ass Woman, Affirmations and Chill, and, I see Me Mantras. Toni believes that the new era of women's leadership is evolving with the core requirement of being consciously committed to well-being inside and out, starting with the way you talk to yourself!

How you can connect with Toni Jones:

• Website: https://solo.to/iamtonijones

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Dr. Masaru Emoto Water Consciousness
• Abraham Hicks

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Transcript

EP.15 | Affirmation Music, Self-Intimacy & Mental Wellbeing w/ Toni Jones

Intro: Hey Queen, I'm Faith Alaribe, the founder and host of the Sista Circle Podcast. Around here we have honest and real conversations about our health, mental health and wellness, topics that deeply impact our lives as women of color. And all with the mission to provide the information, tools and resources to fill up our wellness toolkits, make informed decisions and to allow us to thrive in every area of our lives. So, get ready to be enlightened informed and inspired. Go ahead and get comfortable queen consider this your official welcome to the Sista Circle.

Faith: In today's episode, I interviewed Toni Jones, a wellbeing leader, mental health advocate for women and youth and affirmation musician. Toni has found creative ways to promote the message of conscious wellbeing and mental health and hopes to inspire women to become more conscious about their wellbeing in a culture that glorifies workaholism. And one way that she promotes this message is through her affirmation albums. Toni believes that the new era of women's leadership is evolving with the core requirement of being consciously committed to wellbeing side and out and starting with the way that you talk to yourself. So, I've been rocking with Toni's music for a long while now, and I am in true fan girl heaven throughout this entire interview. But nevertheless, during our conversation, we discuss all things affirmation, music, how experiencing burnout led to the creation of her first album, "Affirmations for the grown ass woman" and the importance of cultivating self-intimacy as well as self-care practices for mental wellbeing. Oh, this episode is filled with all kinds of gems and wonderfulness, so let's go ahead and get into it.

Sista Circle Podcast community, I am so excited about today's guest, Toni Jones. Not only is she my homegirl in my head, she's also an affirmation musician, mental health advocate and life coach. Toni, welcome to The Sista circle, Queen.

Toni Jones: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Faith: I appreciate your being here, so let's just get right into it. I'll always start my interviews with setting an intention. So, what is your intention for the women who will encounter your episode on the podcast?

Toni Jones: My intention will have to be that they see themselves in what I share, that they won't see, oh, Toni Jones outside of me, like this is some - they'll see themselves. So be more of their experience with a deeper version of themselves, rather than this person who shows up in the world that's separate from them that's doing amazing things. That they will feel what I'm saying and they will see themselves with what I share. Yeah, that feels true. That's my intention.

Faith: That's awesome. Awesome. So, who is Toni Jones? Where are you from? What's your mission?

Toni Jones: Oh man. I'm still figuring out Toni Jones and who she is and the mission. Well, I would say I'm from Detroit, Michigan, and so I'm a Midwest girl. My academic background is in psychology and I'm a neuroscience nerd, and I launched my wellness business six years ago during the Boss Bitch era, if you will, excuse my language. So I was talking about self-care self-love and wellbeing when it wasn't in our timelines, when it was no social permission to do so, and so for years I felt very countercultural. And so when 2018 hit, I said I'm burning myself out with trying to get through to my sisters and the collective of women who were so high active, so ambitious, but burning themselves out for the win. And I'm like, what can I create God? What can I create that will Pierce that limiting belief on this toxic work ethic? And I was like, but I want to make some money at the same time.

You know, because I'm burning myself out with the little money I have with doing online coaching, one-on-ones, events, online programming. It was just like so much content was generated, so much education was generated, but I wasn't seeing any fruitful exchange. And so through meditation and prayer, God gave me affirmation music. And I was like, "Ooh, what is this?" And so I started Googling and I didn't find anybody who coined phrase or it wasn't even out. And so I was like, "Oh my goodness, I get to do this." And I knew this was, I had to do it. So in 2018, I went to California for a month and took all my journals, took all my just literature from different spiritual programs, retreats that I've been in and therapy - all my journals, and I wrote Affirmations for the Grown Ass Woman. I came back applied for a long and launched it during women's history month of 2019.

And so literally, my intention with creating that album was just to create something for my clients to practice wellness and healing on the go. It was never intended for me to be a full-time musician. I'm only been a full-time musician since October last year. So yeah, that's a little bit about me. My mission is to be happy. My purpose and mission is to be whole and then share whatever I create from that place and feel good about my life, you know, and how I live. I want to feel whole and complete, and that's my goal. Because majority of my life I've lived a life that was wrapped around identity was all about being valuable to the world, trying to change the world, trying to save the community, be with a man; it was all about these external ambitions. And so for me, it's like, now it's about me. And now I'm getting the evidence that this is how you actually impact the world is when you change your own world. And whatever you create and whatever you do from that place, it influences others, it inspires others and it can transform others. So, that's my intention for my life. That's my purpose is to just make Toni Jones the happiest woman on this planet.

Faith: That's beautiful, Sis. That's beautiful. What was it that influenced you that allowed you to turn to affirmations; even before you decided to put a beat to your affirmations? What was that inspiration?

Toni Jones: I honestly didn't have an inspiration. I don't think I had an inspiration. Like, I'll be trying to find like what was it? But I just remember I was in prayer and meditation in 2018 and I was in a lot of solitude, and I was like, I'm not happy working like this. I'm not happy with... I started to just get these downloads of thoughts about like, does what I'm doing make me happy? And is it creating the change that I want to see in the world? And I was very confused on how do I contribute. And so I just remember I was just in a state of questioning. So if anything, if I could say what inspired me to put affirmations to music, it's just really my own internal conversation; my own dialogue with myself, just my practice with being authentic in my communication with others and with myself.

And then the music thing is just some, you know, I grew up in the church. I went to world renowned gospel family the Winans church, so I've always music. My mama was a musician, a singer. I've always sung in the choir. I never knew how much I loved the music until I started creating it. It opened up a whole world inside of me that I was like - I mean, when I recorded Affirmations for the Grown Ass Woman, I was in the studio like, how do I know how to do this? Like, where is this coming from?

Faith: And it was bomb.

Toni Jones: Why does this feel so natural? Thank you so much. And so, I think it was just some... I feel like there was a secret or a secret with the divine that knew that everything was going to inspire me to do affirmation music, everything that I've gone through, everything, every "bad choice" good choice, because there was no intention. There was no like, oh, I got this idea so let me this. It wasn't none of that. It wasn't on my vision board. It was literally spirit gave me that idea. And I was like, oh, this is a dope idea, I'm going to do it. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I didn't know how to write songs, but I've been writing all my life, just my own thoughts.

Faith: That's dope. So I know that there is a lot of talk about self-care and self-love, but I think that a lot of the work I've experienced of you through your songs has been around, like it's given me like the theme of self-intimacy. And I'm just curious to know what does self-intimacy mean to Toni?

Toni Jones: Oh, your questions are amazing by the way. You going to make me cry. Self-intimacy, it's everything. It's everything. The best way I can put it is when you think about the goals and desire and the outcomes you want, what you'll feel from that, that you'll think about yourself from that, if you got all your desires, all the outcomes you want, it's about generating that emotion of that within yourself. For no other reason, not because you did this, not because you achieved that goal. It's about getting to know yourself within to feel that emotion of arrival to your desire, being fulfilled, winning that lottery, getting that opportunity, getting that interview, it's generating that emotion of wholeness and fulfillment and arrival of winning within yourself by actually learning and knowing who you are, spending time with yourself, seeing what's going on with you.

Self-intimacy is also learning the duality of yourself, your shadow side and your light side, and being able to welcome them both with open arms. When you make a crazy mistake, or if you make an amazing choice that brought you whatever, you treat them both equally the same because you love yourself. You know what I'm saying? It's like when you have a baby, you are intimate to care and to make sure you are safe. I mean, I said a lot, but self-intimacy is just getting into the nooks and crannies of who you are and generating. But that self-acceptance, that just unapologetic self-acceptance of yourself, just like how you look at children and knowing that the duality of who you are is a part of your nature. You don't shame one side and glorify the other side; you treat both versions of your reality the same. So yeah, it's spending time with yourself. I mean, think of about dating, courtship and romance and marriage and what you do with another person, how you go for your mother or you go in for your child. It's like, what does it look like for me to do that for myself?

Faith: Yes, Queen. So, when you were in... you talked a lot about the year of 2018 for you. And you said that you were questioning, you had all of these questions. How did you cultivate that sense of self-intimacy? Like, how did you get into the nooks and crannies of your being?

Toni Jones: Well, I will always say curiosity has been the point of entry for me, asking questions, seeking out answers, seeking out knowledge. Like the things that I've studied, the courses that I've taken, the retreats that I've been to, but as a black young woman in her twenties, like we don't do that stuff based on what I was surrounded by. I wasn't around women that did this type of stuff but I was curious, so that's number one. Number two, I would have to say that I wanted better, you know, I wanted it better. I was like, this can't be it for me. Even the things that I felt like was hard wired in me. I was like, I want better. I feel like I can change. And then learning about psychology and neuroplasticity and how neurons work, I was like, oh, we can change ourselves through the way that we think through repetition, just about how the body works completely shifted me. So, it gave me a path, I guess, to pursue like that intimacy.

Thirdly, I would have to say pain. My goodness! Pain, pain, pain. Brené Brown calls it the Traveling Professor, because you can't escape it. It's going to go with you everywhere you go. So if you don't deal with it and you don't learn from it, you don't sit down with it over a cup of tea and say, "Okay, pain, why you here? What you're trying to say to me now? Like, I'm ready to talk to you and feel you out." And not avoid you, not suppress you, not substitute you; you see what I'm saying?

Faith: Absolutely.

Toni Jones: So I would definitely say pain has been one of my greatest point of entries because, you know, I'm a Aries, I can be stubborn, and pain has put me down to my knees and say, "I got to get into me. I can't do how I was doing life before." And so, cultivating that intimacy or being committed to that self-intimacy, has definitely been through curiosity, seeking out knowledge, wanting better for myself and then ultimately, facing pain and feeling through it.

Faith: That's good. That's good. So you talked a little bit about how you like delved into like research, right? You took courses, you went to retreats; what type of courses and retreats were you attending?

Toni Jones: I took one by Nikita Patel, I believe that's her name - Indian woman. She did a program called Soul Level Love, I believe. This was years ago in 2016. In 2013, I studied Les brown. I started studying Abraham Hicks, 2013. 2012, I started following Shanel Cooper-Sykes, her work. I think that was when I first kind of learned about talking to yourself better, is through her work and Les brown and Abraham Hicks. And that's when I started getting to vision boarding. It led me to Byron Katie, the School For The Work. And that taught me about having a different relationship with pain through perspective, shifting and reframing and curiosity. I studied Osho before, so these are some of the things that I've delved into. I've gone on silent retreats where you're just silent. You don't speak, you just literally journal and witness what's going on in your mind, what's going on in your body, what do you feel impulsive about, what agitates or irritates you about being so silent and still. I've going on meditation retreats. Yeah. It's it's literally, oh, it's so life hacking. It's so life hacking how addicted we are to doing.

Faith: Oh my gosh, yes.

Toni Jones: The anxiety that's brought up with just being quiet, the anxiety that's coming up when you're just take yourself out of your routine of what you eat, what you do, who you talk to; it can hack your nerve system, but it brings you to a place of, I don't know, just calmness, tranquility, and harmony with yourself. And I'm not saying that that retreat or those courses or those experience made my harmony sustainable. It's a life practice. It's a life journey, but it definitely gave me toolbox and put things in my backpack when life happens, when crisis happens or when old timelines show up or temptation shows up, it gave me a nice toolbox to access.

Faith: Oh, I like that. We talk about toolkits and tools in the toolbox on the Sista Circle Podcast all the time.

Toni Jones: All the time.

Faith: All the time, so that is speaking a true word. How you think that the way that we speak and the way that we think of ourselves, that that impacts our mental health or our mental wellbeing?

Toni Jones: The first thing we have to understand -innerstand is how the body works. In order for us to understand how music impacts us, how our words impact us, our thoughts impact us and any external stimuli impacts us, we have to understand how our body works, how our brain works, how our DNA works, and who has the time to do that? But it's something as easy as just collecting a Pinterest board of information; learning how your gut works and how your brain works. That right there will let you... you will walk away with just learning some basic facts and you will walk away with the question of what the heck am I? I am not what I thought I was. I have to be something more that's beyond what I see. It's a scientific fact that we only see 1% of 99% of reality.

Our eyes can only capture 1% of reality. This is scientific fact fascinating. So there's a 99% of reality that we are not seeing through vibration and light and sound. So what we are seeing is just a small part of the reality that's here. So when you start to understand your body and then its relationship with existence, you'll understand that everything matters; from the fresh air that we breathe from the trees and how they contribute to our lungs, to the foods that we eat, the clothing that we wear, the products that we use. You'll go mad going down that rabbit hole, but it is just to really just get your feet wet with that knowledge of knowing that there's more here and that you are more. And so, you have to be mindful of what you say and think, because it will impact you.

I'll give you some nerdy information. Dr. Emoto, he did a water studies, and I always share this with people because it's something they can Google very easy. Dr. Emoto, and he did a water studies. He has an academy or Institute in Tokyo. And the water studies basically did an experiment on water. And he had a group of people that spoke positive things over the water, then he had another group, sample group, that spoke negative things over the water or negative music or positive music. They then crystallized that water, means freezing the water. And they looked at both samples of those water under the microscope. The water that was spoken positive things over like love, fully accepted I love myself, peace; it was crystallized in these beautiful patterns.

And the water that was spoken like I hate myself, I get on my nerves or hate or anything like that; it looked like a disease. Like, it just looked nasty bacteria. That's what the pattern looked like. And we are made up of like 80% water. So he proved that whatever that we speak on repetition intentionally over and over again, "I'm not good enough, look at my body. Oh, I'm not that cute girl." When we say these things over and over, we crystallize that into our body. You know what I'm saying? We crystallize that on a vibrational level and even on a physical level, you know what I'm saying? And so that's just a little bit of nerdy information, but it's tons of research and science out there that says that what you say, not only what you say, but what you feel about yourself, the intention behind what you say matters, you know?

Faith: Absolutely. Absolutely. What is an affirmation?

Toni Jones: Well, affirmation are words that make things firm. I mean, when you look at the word "affirm" it's to make things solid. So affirmation is something that you affirm over your life. You use your words, you use your - I like to call it your spiritual technology of feeling, thinking, and speaking. This is a technology that we can activate to manifest material things into this realm. Everything that exists is because... everything that we use, even this was thought once. It was in the dark realm of just imagination and thought, you know? And so we can use that technology to actually make something firm and materialize into our life. And so affirmations, they're words that can make something solid. You keep saying the same thing over and over again, you'll eventually believe it, especially if it activates an emotion. Like if you look at the word emotion, it means to move, it means movement means fluidity and flow. And so, if you bring some firm and some fluidity; it brings things into reality.

Faith: Talk to me about this woman in silence. What does that mean?

Toni Jones: Woman in silence speaks to my 2020, yeah, beginning of 2020. It was, I went completely silent on a lot of worlds that I lived in for years - social circles. It was about good 70 people that had access to me for years, I'm talking about immediate access.

Faith: That's a lot.

Toni Jones: That's a lot. Friends, mentees, mentors, just family. It was just like everybody had access to the very intimate personal parts of myself, and men that I love. And it took me to crash and burn in 2019 to get still and get quiet with myself. And so it was no longer about being active on social media to let my presence be known. It got to a point since that brushing my teeth and taking a shower and eating a decent meal was my purpose for the day. You know what I'm saying? And it was like, I was just no longer interested in the show. I wasn't interested. I was like, I got to figure out how I can live a happy life, because I'm not happy. I got rid of my home which I had to, because I didn't have an income like that anymore. It was just so much crashing down all at the same time. And I had to allow my family and friends to take care of me. My friends were paying my bills. This wasn't five, 10 years ago, this was 2019, 2020 - last year. I'm having a whole different year this year. But I'm just saying like right before your breakthrough, it's a breakdown. And the only thing that's breaking down are the parts of you that don't want to grow, the parts of you that are no longer true.

It is going to feel painful. You're going to feel the emotional reality of that. So womanning in silence was just taking the invitation of all that was happening and not believing the noise of it. I took the invitation to go within. It was so much noise going on, so much confusion and uncertainty going on; all I could do was get to my knees and go in and cry it out, feel it out, ask for help, get therapy. It was crawling and doing a little crawl every single day to get back to who I really am at the core. And part of that was realizing I was born to do affirmation music, and I was doing it in different ways for years. It's just crazy what's happening with this music because literally who I am in the music, that's who I've been with my family, my friends. I've grown into this, but it was never valued or appreciated or seen as like something that was special, so I never thought of it as that way. Once I started cultivating it within myself and I shared it with the world, I was like, "Whoa, this is valuable. I am powerful. I am special. I am a child of God. I am divine. I am not to be slept on."

It wasn't about self-confidence. It was like, "Oh I know this now. I see who I am." And so for me, woman in silence was taking that time, that quiet time to grieve who I used to be and not partake in the noisy show of saying, "Look, this is who I am. Look, this is what I'm doing." It was like, no, let me get quiet and hear what's really going on and sit down till I'm up. You know, sit down till I'm up - that's what it was.

Faith: That's a word right there. That's a word. So tell me this, how would you define success now?

Toni Jones: Inside out, which is completely countercultural because you're raised literally from, I believe you go into the matrix as soon as you go into a school. Like, you start to just get conditioned on who you supposed to be in the society and in the world. And so, you start to learn performance-based acceptance. If you perform well, if you produce well, you get a star by your name. Your family is excited about you getting A's. They're not excited about what you drew on your piece of paper, this doodle you did, but they excited about that A. You know what I'm saying? They're not excited about that flip you just did outside that you enjoy, but they get excited about that B+. So you start to learn like you are only valuable based on how you perform and how you produce.

And that goes into elementary, middle school, high school. So do you start learning that, oh, this is what I like, but it's not really what you like; you like the validation you get from it, so you start to identify your performance and your productivity as your identity. So, you start to feel successful because of the validation you get. And validation is very much, in the psychology world, it's considered to be a contribution to human happiness. Just how you ran up to your parents or your caregivers said, "Look what I did." That never goes away. We just fake like we don't need that validation and affirmation from our peers and loved ones, but that literally contributes to the happiness of being a human being, and so we need that. But when it's manipulated in a way where it's like, you can only get that through performance and productivity, you think that success is being identified as only what you do and who you are.

And so, now I've had to go through that initiation of unlearning that, and having my own matrix hacks through life and crisis and pain and trauma. And I had to find out - or rediscover, redefine what success was by inside out. Like, how do I cultivate peace? What is it like for me to be peace, no matter what, no matter what is happening; that's success to me. Because you might not be happy all the time, but whereas, how can I have a grounded state of peace and accept life for what it is, which is duality of shadow and light, pain and pleasure, day and night, hot and cold, so it's a part of life. So it's like, I might as well cultivate a neutral state of calmness. And as a black woman, I definitely deserve to give myself that in honor of my ancestors. I honor them by cultivating peace. So, every day it's like, how do I start off with adding to my peace, cultivating, nourishing that.

Faith: Dope, dope.

Toni Jones: I said a lot.

Faith: But no, you said a lot of wonderful things. So, I wonder for the women, because you talked about like the culture of the need to perform and adding things onto our play versus taking it off so that we can experience greater senses of peace, right. To the women who feel like they're at like a crossroad, where they feel that if something does not happen, then I am going to break. I've bend it too much. I'm at the point in which I'm about to break. What do you say to that woman?

Toni Jones: Break. Break.

Faith: Okay. Talk to me about that, Toni.

Toni Jones: You know, one of the things I say in my album is, I talk about how life and the world and people crack you open, and how the world needs more open women. But in order for you to be open, something has to break. And I can't say that's the universal factual truth, but based on my experience and a lot of thought leaders that I've studied; life can break you, but do you allow it to open or do you get sloppy and trying glue pieces together? Or do you just allow yourself to be cracked? Do you allow yourself to be fake closed when you're bleeding and you got wounds? Like, no, let that boy open, because you're open, you're really just blooming because breaking, you feel it inside. You feel it so intensely, so what you're supposed to do it is feel it, not react to it, but feel through that, because what happens is that breaking, that pain, the intense emotions and feelings of like, I can't handle all of this, what it ends up is cause you to surrender to that feeling, that vulnerability of not knowing how to do everything.

And then what happens is it cuts you deeper. The more you feel it, it cuts you deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. And the more you allow yourself to feel it when stuff happens, you have this open space. So when the joy comes in, you feel it in a deeper place. When the peace comes in, you feel it in a deeper place. Everything opens up because taking a walk in the park is not walking in the park. You start to feel sensations of gratitude. You start looking at the sky differently. When you eat, you eat differently. When you argue, it's not just a argument, it's an opportunity to learn because you've opened your consciousness. You've expanded. You allowed the pain, the break to open you up in this vastness of awareness so you can see the light more than just the pain. You know what I'm saying?

Faith: Yes, I know what you said. I'm over here nodding my head, like, yes.

Toni Jones: So it's like, if you are at that breaking point, allow yourself to break, and also trust that you have divine support to do that. Because I know so many women and I really am careful about saying this because so many people live different lives and there's some women who don't have support groups at all. And they got children depending on them, and they like, "Yo, I cannot break." Allow it to give yourself space to feel it. If you can't have a complete breakdown because people are depending on you; allow yourself to feel it like, hey, I'm going to give myself two hours a week to cry and to feel this, to journal it. I'm going to figure out who I can talk to, who are trusted allies. You know what I'm saying? So that's some practical ways to look at the breaking because I think women get so overwhelmed by the emotion of it, they think the breakdown is going to be a lot more dramatic and theatrical to where they're going to be paralyzed where they can't mother, they can't run their business, they can't work. And it's no, it's just allowing yourself space to feel what is going on.

Faith: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that that is incredibly important, incredibly important. So, how do you believe you, you talk a lot about taking the time and creating the space. But, how do you believe that we become more conscious of our mental wellbeing? Because I think that we normalize pain, we normalize, the struggle, we normalize burnout, but how can we become more conscious? So for the women listening, it's like, okay, I can carve out these two hours, but how do you become more conscious, like this needs to become a priority?

Toni Jones: Oh yeah. I would say two things; breathing, like breathwork, they call it breathwork and meditation. It is quintessential. It's such essential. And I always shy away from giving suggestions as though it's the recipe for everyone because we are all our own different worlds in realities and universes because we all have our own different individual experiences in life. But if you have a brain, if you have lungs, you need to learn breathwork and you need to learn what the meditation practice looks like for you. I don't care how much you believe. "Oh, it's not for me. I can't stay still long." No. Literally, meditation is for anyone who has a brain, and breathwork is for anybody who has lungs. Why am I saying that? Being the practices that helps you expand about your consciousness of mental health, because breathwork, it literally fuels everything else in your body.

It fuels your ability to think your ability to be flexible. Your body needs oxygen. If you have these shallow breaths, if you hold your jaw tight, or you're not conscious of your breath, you're not conscious of what's going on in your mind. Sometimes we need to just, (breath). We need to learn the wrong ways of breathing the right ways of breathing. I read something the other day, say you can last so many days without food and last so many days without water, but you can't last a minute without breathing, like you have to breathe. And so if we are taking these shallow breaths, guess what, oxygen is not going to certain places in our body, which creates all type of stagnant energy and blood flow, like all these type of things. And so meditation, it cultivates the witness in you.

You ever notice how you may be having crazy thoughts and you are like, "Oh my God, what are those thoughts? How did I think that?" That's your brain. But you are the witness who saw those thoughts. You are not those thoughts. Your brain is like a data machine. It's like a computer that's recycling all this information you've accumulated over the years of your life, and all this stimulation you downloaded. It's like when your ears, your eyes, your experiences are all like downloaded apps, and meditation helps you to come to a calm state to witness all of that and drop into a deeper awareness or expansive awareness of what's going on within you. You know, just how you saw that crazy thought; you can see what's those crazy feelings, those crazy memories, those obsessive thoughts about how you're not good enough, the things you tell yourself.

How you rapidly think when you get in a crowd that you're not comfortable with or new people, like that stuff, you take a deep breath and you just say, "I'm enough. I'm okay. And I am safe. I'm comfortable in my body." You can walk into rooms with a certain air about you. You know what I'm saying? And so, that's what I believe that are two major factors, breathwork and meditation, to help you become more mindful and conscious of your mental health, because it's everything. You have to expand your insight and awareness about what's going on inside and breathwork and meditation does that.

Faith: That's awesome. Awesome. So I think that that segues right into one of my final questions for you. So, are there any particular tools or resources that you would suggest for women who really want to expand in the areas of self-affirmation, you know, just becoming a higher versions of themselves, right? Is there anything that you would suggest? Of course I would suggest all of your albums, but anything else?

Toni Jones: Well, I'm going to suggest the space that I offer, but as far as tools that people can do like now, journally, record themselves. Like, okay, so say if you're going through a breakup, do a voice recording and say, "This is what I feel about what happened with Mike. This is what I would want to change. These are the emotions that I'm attached to." Just record yourself.

Faith: I like that. I like that a lot.

Toni Jones: Yeah, because you're getting it out. You're getting it out. And so like voice record journaling is great if you're not interested in writing, but any type of journaling and recording of what is going on inside, getting that out is so important because it's not just stagnant inside your body and inside your mind and inside your head. Because when you're just inside processing everything without letting it out or unpacking it with a thought partner, it just becomes stagnant energy. And it shows up as stress, tension, anxiety, you know, just stuff that you don't need when navigating life. You got bills to pay, you got laundry to do, you got grocery shopping, like, you should be lighter in life when you have a responsibility to living the modern, because it is a job just living in a modern life.

Faith: Yes it is.

Toni Jones: So, I would definitely say journaling, getting it out. I also would say therapy. Therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy.

Faith: One more time for the folks in the back.

Toni Jones: Therapy, therapy, therapy. We are not supposed to do this life alone. We are not supposed, we were never meant... no human being was ever supposed to do this alone. You know, people say that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to raise a woman, a man, a marriage, a family, a community, a business - it takes a village. That is what human beings are designed for, it's community and village. We are not supposed to do anything alone. There are parts where it requires that intimate accountability and responsibility to your life. Independence is a part of the journey, but that is not supposed to be a sustainable way of how you approach your life.

Toni Jones: It's like, "I'm independent. I can do it on my own. I don't need nobody." No, that's not it. That me, myself and I, that's a trap to being lonely, to being stuck and really stunt your growth, which I also think community and village is so important. Like, whatever relationships you have, whatever friendships you have; take them a little deeper, get to know these people. Date your friends. Date your friends. I don't care how long you've known them. Ask them how they're growing. What's lighting them up? What scares them the most about life? Share who you are and how you're growing with them. Date your children. You know what I'm saying? Like, cultivate community. Date your elders. So yeah, I think community and village is another practice to cultivating a higher experience of yourself, a more fulfilling part of life for yourself.

What's another practice. Oh, oh, oh, oh, this is a must. Having a alter. Having a altar in your home. Altar space, flowers, bring all the elements in this space - fire, water, earth, have a plant, have water, have a spray bottle and throw some type of oil in there and spray it over you in the morning before prayer or meditation or journaling. I even have like different pictures of like Queens that... I have like two pictures of Queens that I admire and just different attributes about them. And I just acknowledge that they're part of my ancestor are women that I admire.

Scriptures, quotes - what else do I have? Crystals, sage, candle. And this is a place where I go either to cry or do my daily devotion. Sometimes I lay butt naked on my yoga mat, right in front of like all candles. I have a little candle opera, and I like to put like all the candles. When I feel like romantically deprived or romantically bored, I get romantic with myself and I like the candles. I get butt naked. And I just cry. Listen, I'm telling you, I cannot believe how fulfilling this practice is. It's so simple, but it's just spending time with myself with my real emotions. Like, man, I miss being kissed. I miss being hung. I miss someone, you know, and I just be there with myself and I cry and I'm like, I'm going to still love what is. I know that everything is working together for my good. Whatever is in my present moment, I can just be with myself and accept what is and what isn't, and be at that altar and just lay it there and be ready to go to bed and not take that stuff to me to the next day. So I definitely think that having an alter space, yeah, it's a sacred space to honor your spirit.

We live in a very spiritually bankrupt society and we all have that inner knowing. No matter how quiet it is, we have that inner knowing and it whispers to us, "I am more, I am more" that's our spirit. So we are spiritual beings going through a human experience. And I'm sure a lot of us have heard that, but we don't have any literacy or blueprint or a secretary of state that shows us how to cultivate and nourish our spirit. We have religion and guru and things like that, but there's no really format or no how to book for human beings to navigate nourish in their spirit, and definitely think to cultivate or activate that higher self is, you know, meditation, breathing, journaling, being honest with your emotions, romanticizing your life through altar spaces and sacred spaces, you know?

It's a practice. I can go down the list of all things that you can do that I do. But ultimately, what's true for you? What's true for you? I swear every human being should spend more time in nature. God, if people knew what the science or research says about what the nature does for you, if they knew - it's literally like when your phone is about to go out, you need to plug it up, that's what nature is for us.

Faith: That's how it it is whenever I feel like I'm ungrounded, I want to be near water. So it's the beach, the lake something. Yeah, a body of water is so grounding for me.

Toni Jones: I'm telling you, out of everything that I say, and I'm sure the audience is going to say, "Oh, that's a gem, that's a gym," but I'm telling you take this away. This major takeaway, spend more time in nature. It's too much noise going on to deprive yourself with something that's supposed to nourish your mind, body, soul and spirit. Spend more time in nature you all.

Faith: That's good. That's good. So listen, Queen, I recently I think I saw - was it today or yesterday that you've got a retreat of sorts or something coming up.

Toni Jones: Yeah.

Faith: Can you tell us a little bit about it, but then also for the folks who are interested in connecting with you, your music, your different offerings, how can they do so?

Toni Jones: Yeah, so the sacred healing retreat is for people who need to revitalize, get realigned with their spirit, reconnect with themselves and their energy; people who just have this appetite for being balanced and being a harmonious state, and being around people who are like-hearted and like-minded about that. We are living in a time where separation is being branded as a way of to survive, and human beings don't survive that way. Human beings survive by being together. And so, this is a space where we come together, we revitalize ourselves through communing with each other meditation, playing, eating good food, converse, just good old fashion living room type experience.

Faith: That sounds dope.

Toni Jones: And so, me and my friend, Keisha, she's my womb health coach. She does a lot of the womb liberation work. And she travels with me because everywhere I serve, you know, I need to restore my womb energy wherever I go, and so she's been an ally for me. And so we were like, "Let's create space for people who want to reconnect and realign with themselves." So, that's what that retreat is about. That's next week. And then for people who want to find my music, they can find my music on all streaming platforms. I do encourage you all to follow me on YouTube, follow me on Spotify, follow me on apple music and stream my music on Tidal as well, because we do have... I'm going to tell you you're the first to hear it in your audience. My single releasing, my new single from my next album is releasing next week.

Faith: Yessss.

Toni Jones: Yes. It's called Free Me. It's all about freeing yourself like a child no matter what is going. I find it fascinating, no matter what is going on in the world, a kid is still concerned about getting a toy.

Faith: Yes.

Toni Jones: Still concerned about like, can I get this ice cream? Where's my food? Like, look what I drew today. And I think children are wisdom holders just as much as elders are. They teach you how to be present with life and not be focused on what is outside of your present moment. And so, Free Me is about freeing yourself like a child, being in liberation just like a child is, to be completely free enough to be present with your life and what you need and what you want in the present moment.

Faith: That's great. That is great.

Toni Jones: And so yeah, you can find all my music on all streaming platforms, and also, I'm on Instagram as @iamtonijones, and my link on my bio you have access to all the links to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple music and so on.

Faith: Well, awesome. I will be sure to have all of that in the show notes, and I want to end - so I have two last questions. So one is, what is your personal mantra or mantra?

Toni Jones: My personal mantra is I create a life I enjoy, I love, and I am proud of, and from this place I inspire other people to do the same.

Faith: That's good.

Toni Jones: That's my mantra. That's been my mantra since 2020.

Faith: Awesome. Awesome. So I do want to end with a little bit of quick fire. Okay, so here's how I was going to work. I'm going to just ask you some random questions and whatever comes top of mind, that's, you know, kind of what you go with. All right, tacos or pizza?

Toni Jones: Girl, tacos.

Faith: LA or New York in the fall?

Toni Jones: LA.

Faith: Therapy or prayer?

Toni Jones: Therapy.

Faith: Podcasts or books?

Toni Jones: Books.

Faith: Lavender or eucalyptus?

Toni Jones: Lavender.

Faith: Sage or Palo Santo?

Toni Jones: Palo Santo.

Faith: Massage or acupuncture?

Toni Jones: Massage.

Faith: Incense or candles?

Toni Jones: Candles.

Faith: All right. Well, that's it for the rapid fire. So listen, Queen, I'm so, so grateful for your taking the time out to talk to me. I think that the listeners will benefit tremendously from hearing your amazing words of wisdom, and then also just the sharing of your story and just your realness. And so, I think that that's what resonated most with me about your music, and I'm just so grateful to have found your work and to help spread the word about it as well.

Outro: So I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, be sure to follow or subscribe to the show to make sure that you never miss a new episode. And also be sure to share the episode or podcast with another queen who might benefit. And before I go, I need your help. Please be sure to leave me a five star rating and review wherever you consume your podcast, this way more women are able to find the show and access the information that we share here. Also, if it's on your heart to buy me a coffee, any support that you're willing to provide to help me sustain this podcast is greatly appreciated. In the meantime, you can always follow us on all social media platforms at the Sista Circle Podcast, as well as via the website, thesistacirclepodcast.com. With love, Faith.