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Labor Nurse Adds Unnecessary Pain

Columnist Stacy Graham-Hunt after giving birth to her second son Elijah When I was in labor at Yale New Haven Hospital's Saint Raphael Campus, my labor nurse wanted me to validate the size of her butt. I'm sharing this story because it's #BlackMaternalHealthWeek. White nurses + doctors, please don't do this. It's not funny or cute. We're trying to make to make it out of the delivery room alive. Instead, pay attention to the pain we're reporting. Read the full…

My First Heartbreak (Rerun)

Me and my great-grandfather James Jenkins, aka "Gramps" back in circa 1982 This was the first story that I shared on Facebook back in 2016. I almost deleted it, but then a reader encouraged me not to. Since I've published this story two of my great aunts, Gramps's daughters, have died from Alzheimers - Aunt Rose and Aunt Ernie. One or two of the other aunts have signs of the disease. Read the original story here.

Processing Pain Turns Seven

The year was 2016. My boyfriend had just broken up with me, and I was trying to figure out how I was in this place again. I had just gotten divorced two years prior. I was shocked, heartbroken, and deflated. I turned to writing in my journal. With no plan in mind, I wrote about whatever bothered me that day. I noticed that the things that triggered me most were betrayal and abandonment - a continuous pattern of feeling like…

Licensed Therapist to Join Tonight’s Journaling Session about Texas School Shooting

Ronella Ellis Ronella Ellis, a fellow mom and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), will be joining our space tonight (Friday, May 27th at 7PM, EST.) to support us as we journal about Tuesday's school shooting in Texas. She is a native of Connecticut and a fellow graduate of Hopkins School, where we met. She's a very proud graduate of Spelman College and Nova Southeastern University. She is a multidisciplinary practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience She believes that…

Texas School Shooting: Journaling Space for Moms

Hi everyone, I’m really having a hard time wrapping my head around the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, so tomorrow from 7-8:15pm, I’m hosting a virtual journaling space on Zoom for us moms to be together and write, talk and share. I’ve created this healing space, admittedly for myself, in hopes that some of you other moms will join me in taking a moment to begin to sort out all of the intense feelings inside of us, as an…

Home remedies for COVID-19

I watched a bunch of Queen Afua videos over the last week after watching her interviewing Lauren London about healing from grief. In this video, she talks with Angela Rya about transitioning to a holistic lifestyle, and she even tells you what to do if you've contacted Coronavirus. I really enjoyed their conversation.

Grieving the death of a life partner

Holistic health expert Queen Afua (top) talks with actress Lauren London (bottom) about healing from grief. I was really touched by this video that I recently came across with actress Lauren London talking about how she's been dealing with the death of her late partner, Nipsey Hussle, a Los Angeles-based rapper who died two years ago. The video was filmed about 9 months ago, but the wisdom that she shares with Queen Afua is timeless and can be useful to…

Why I Chose Toxic Men

I chose toxic men because I too was toxic. The Insider's article, "Why intelligent and high-performing women fall for toxic partners," got me thinking about my own relationships. I think I may have stayed in toxic relationships too long because I was also toxic. After breaking up with my first love in college, I fell for the next guy simply because he made me forget about the first. I would hate for someone to tell me that they love me…

Not content to live with tokenism

Tokenism is being the one black student in a classroom full of white students. It’s being the only Hispanic employee in a predominantly white organization, and it’s when that historically white school or organization says it’s diverse because of that one black or Hispanic student or employee. For me, it’s meant being one of two black students in my class at my Connecticut private elementary school, St. Thomas’s Day School. It’s meant being the only black person in most of…

First Taste of Racism Arrived in 6th Grade

I’ll never forget the first time I experienced blatant racism. It was from a parent at West Woods School. This is the same Hamden school that recently made international news after one of its teachers cast a 10-year-old black student as a slave in a play about colonialism. After living in New Haven and attending private school for three years, my family moved to Hamden, and I was enrolled in West Woods as a fifth-grader. I was also 10 years…