Lish Speaks: 0:19

Yeah, what's up, everybody, it's your girl.

Lish Speaks: 0:28

Lish Speaks and I am back with another episode of I'll Just Let Myself in the podcast, where we let ourselves into our God-given doors and we don't wait for anyone to give us a seat at the table. I'm excited today because we have a guest who I've known for several years. We were just talking about how long we've known each other, how many life changes have happened since we first met, known each other, how many life changes have happened since we first met. But I'm excited because this person, this being, this entity, is really a force to be reckoned with. I'm going to go ahead and start off and give you guys the intro. She is an author, a poet, a spoken word artist, a screenplay writer and film director, an actress, a Harlem girl and, probably most importantly, a mom. Ladies and gentlemen, we're here with none other than Kara J. Hey, y'all, hey, the crowd goes wild.

Kira J: 1:14

The crowd goes wild Did.

Lish Speaks: 1:15

I leave anything out.

Kira J: 1:16

A Leo.

Lish Speaks: 1:17

Period you know.

Kira J: 1:19

You know how Leos feel, like their personality is tied to their sign. You know my sister's a Leo. It's a part of my accomplishments. I'm a Leo, I respect it. I respect it. I respect it.

Lish Speaks: 1:29

And so I'm super excited to have you here. She's in Atlanta for a little bit, and I had to count, I'm like listen. Can we make it happen?

Kira J: 1:35

Oh, yes, you know, I got to pull up for you.

Lish Speaks: 1:39

Yes, I love it Lots of things. I've been following you on social media since we met, which was over 10 years ago. Yeah, it was.

Kira J: 1:47

Which is crazy, it was I know.

Lish Speaks: 1:49

Shout out to Lee. She had a poetry event and invited me to do because back then I was doing spoken word poetry as well. You'll always be a poet to me. I am a poet. I still write. I write for my husband, Period and I still have. I write for my husband Period and I send him voice notes of poetry. But I'm kind of scared to get on stage again.

Kira J: 2:07

We'll talk about all that. We'll talk about all that.

Lish Speaks: 2:09

But before we get into it, you already know we got the best segment in podcast and it's called what I'm Stepping In, where I talk about the sneakers that I'm stepping in for the day, and today I'm stepping in the OG Air Max 90 Infrareds. Now, this shoe came out again in 2020, but I'm actually wearing mine from 2015, and you'll see that when you look at them, because they are used. Y'all know I believe in wearing my shoes and so I love this shoe. It's an OG Air Max. It is comfortable, it's classic. You can pretty much wear it with anything and that's what I'm stepping in. Y'all know the drill. I'm stepping in. Y'all know the drill. If you like them, get you some, all right. So, kira, thanks so much for being here, thanks for having me, and I feel like you're on like a whirlwind tour. You're all over the place.

Kira J: 2:50

I am all over the place. I never sit still.

Lish Speaks: 2:54

I love that for you, though. I really do. Thank you, I feel like and we're going to talk about this more, but you've been going viral for a decade, right, but I honestly feel like you're finally really getting your flowers in this season. And what I mean by that is, people are hearing more than just one version of you. Right, I think you know some of your subject matter, some of the stuff your book was books about people kind of had like, oh, she gives a relationship advice.

Kira J: 3:27

Yeah.

Lish Speaks: 3:28

But I feel like this is probably a symptom of us maturing and growing older. Exactly, you're really giving great life advice, centering advice. So how does it feel to be in this season of your life?

Kira J: 3:47

feel to be in this season of your life. It feels like about time because I'm getting emotional, because I've always gotten attention and the thing about going viral with the wrong attention. It doesn't feel the same as being able to go viral and to know that I'm making a positive impact. It definitely feels so much different than me going viral, spewing negativity. You know me going viral as the male basher or going viral as just saying F this and F that it feels very different to you. Know Kara is out here changing life and speaking love and that viral feels different because I was so scared that if I change and I grow, am I still going to get the same response? So I held back from it for a while and to see what it's doing, that I have given into my ascension, I'm just. I'm so happy, so blessed.

Lish Speaks: 4:36

I love that for you and I feel it. You feel like you're vibrating higher.

Kira J: 4:39

Much higher Much higher.

Lish Speaks: 4:42

I love that. I love that Listen.

Kira J: 4:46

I read that you published your first book at 20. Yeah, I finished it as a teenager and I believe like right after my 20th birthday I gave it to the world okay, so you publish your first book at 20, and now you are 33, 33 all right, so 13 years ago so, looking back on the person who wrote that book and the person who published that book, what would you tell her now?

Lish Speaks: 5:09

Would it be anything different that you would do or say to her at this time?

Kira J: 5:12

I just want to say thank you, because who I was when I wrote that book is essentially who I am now. But I lost my way in the middle, so I didn't necessarily change into a new person. I just got back to who I was then. So I just want to say thank you for her coming to get me and remind me. Like Kara, this is who we are. We're losing the plot, we're losing ourselves. So it doesn't feel like I've changed. It's just like I reverted to who I used to be and I feel like the Kara that wrote Naked again.

Lish Speaks: 5:51

It feels who I used to be and I feel like I feel like the care that I wrote naked. Again it feels amazing. I love that you said her coming to get me. She came and got me. Yeah, because we save ourselves a lot more than we think. We're always looking for some external, you know person. You know obviously God, right, yes, we're going to give God praise, but he's put what we need in us and we're always looking for some external boyfriend, husband, friend, opportunity, job whatever and I love that you acknowledge that she came back and got me.

Kira J: 6:15

She came and got me Because everything is interchangeable, but this, this relationship, is with you always. We are our souls. So, even if we change bodies and lifetimes, your soul will always be who you are. So, on a soul level, she just came and she rescued me, like hey, you forgot about me a little bit, don't forget about me, I'm here.

Lish Speaks: 6:32

And she came and she got me, and now we're back together, I love that you made a post a couple of months ago about going back home and you said something. I'm going to paraphr, obviously, but you said something. Like you know, I wanted to write this long post about going back home, not being ashamed about going back home or about, you know, finding yourself in old, familiar places and blah blah blah, but the bottom line is I'm secure in my decision.

Lish Speaks: 6:57

Yes, you know, houston, I'll be back Harlem. I miss you, so I'm coming home.

Kira J: 7:06

Tell me a little bit about the journey to going back home and what it did for you. I talked about this the other day. I was spiraling really bad towards the end of last year Extreme drinking problem. I never shared this publicly but I had did a tour last summer and when I got off of that tour I got robbed. Like my door got kicked in, tv snatched off the wall, all my belongings, like I lost pretty much a lot of my belongings and I wasn't home at the time that the robbery happened.

Kira J: 7:35

But I had this extreme amount of fear of what if I had been home? And it's just me and my baby. I'm alone in this city. I don't feel safe here now. I don't know if this is somebody I know, I don't know if it was a fan who was watching, I don't know if it was a random break-in, I didn't know. So from that fear, that's how my drinking problem got developed. I was having to drink just to fall asleep because I could not fall asleep in my place anymore.

Kira J: 8:01

I wound up moving, still didn't feel safe in Houston anymore, and then the drinking had got so bad and my mental health was on such a decline that one of my friends was just kind of like I think you forgot who you are in this moment and the minute that you remember who you are, you're going to come back swinging, but right now you just operating from a space of you having forgot. So you have to remember who you are. And I said I said, okay, what do I do to remind me of who I am? And you can relate to this. So much of who we are is New York. Yes, it's in your blood. So it's like I could try to go on this find myself journey in Houston. Find myself journey and traveling, find myself journey here, there, wherever.

Kira J: 8:44

But I just needed some New York energy and it was at first I was like I can just bring my mom down here and she can help with that. But it was bigger than just needing my family and needing my community. I needed my city. So I went home and I felt so grounded and I felt so you know, for New York to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It's surprising how safe it feels when you feel unsafe everywhere else. So I went home and I got my mental health in order and I got grounded and I got in touch with my family and my healing and I came back to Houston so much better.

Lish Speaks: 9:18

Yeah, I love that and, first of all, I'm glad that you made that decision, because so many of us stay stuck in places, not just physical places Catch it but in places because we're afraid to admit that this is not working for me right now. Right now, this is not working for me. I'm losing myself, I'm forgetting myself. I have a problem. I'm developing habits that I don't myself. I'm having a. I have a problem. I'm developing habits that I don't like. I don't even.

Kira J: 9:47

I ain't even that person, you know but I knew that nothing like that had ever happened to me before. So I knew that I wouldn't be able to just, oh, this is crazy, I'm going to go back to regular. And everybody else was kind of like brushing it off. But I was very unsettled and I was very triggered. So my behavior started to change because that had happened and I was just like, yeah, I need to get back to who I was before. This thing happened to me, Like it was a lot.

Lish Speaks: 10:13

Yep, no, absolutely. And New York has a. You know, it's funny. I'm from Brooklyn and I went to high school in Harlem and went to City College and lived, ended up living in the heights for a good portion of my adulthood, so harlem has a lot. I got a lot of love for harlem, um, and when I was in high school I remember they're always being like I'm for, like the brooklyn kids was like we from brooklyn, we were like you really do like your set it's.

Kira J: 10:40

It's a battle. New yorkers, we have unity outside of the city, exactly, and in the city. It's like every man for themselves, exactly, and it goes so crazy because it's like, all right, it's borough to borough, yep, and then within the borough it's east side and west side, and then within, the east side, west side, it's avenue and avenue and block to block, project to project.

Lish Speaks: 10:57

It's a thing it's so funny I do when I'm in New York and I'm walking around especially familiar territory, you know, and I'm seeing they change this into this and they change that into that, they change this into this and they change that into that. I I have to laugh a lot because I'm like this place. You don't even know this place anymore, but you know this place. Yes, yes.

Kira J: 11:20

Like you know, and then you're looking at all the kids like, oh, look at y'all on these streets that we used to turn upside down, yes yes, yes, it's crazy.

Lish Speaks: 11:26

Every time I'm in Harlem and I see, if I'm in Harlem around the time school gets out and I see the FDA kids and their uniforms, I just be like that used to be me. That used to be me, and so I'm glad that you were able to go back home and kind of get that. I want to take you back a little bit. You know you've been doing spoken word for a long time. Do you remember your first poem, either written or performed?

Kira J: 11:50

and like what it was about. What sparked it? I do so. My first performed poem is called Mirror. I wrote it at 13. And what sparked it was that feeling of nobody's coming to save you At 13? At 13. I battled childhood depression really bad. So that feeling of nobody's coming to save you At 13. At 13. I battled childhood depression really bad. So that feeling of nobody is coming to save you, you have to save yourself. I would write poetry to myself and you know, just talk to myself in the mirror. And that poem I wrote it and my teacher, I gave it to my teacher, ms Carter, shout out, ms Carter, shout out to the teachers. And she got it like to where the districts and the schools would come hear me perform it. And it was just a huge thing that to this day I could perform. Mira, at 33, and it sounds like a 33-year-old wrote it.

Lish Speaks: 12:36

I love that.

Kira J: 12:37

But that's how long poetry has been in my blood. I wrote that 20 years ago.

Lish Speaks: 12:41

Wow, yeah, that's crazy. I love that.

Kira J: 12:43

You know I love poetry, because for me it's um, and I always make the distinction between poetry and spoken word art, because they are two very different things.

Lish Speaks: 12:53

They're cousins, they're family, but they're two different things, and I started writing poetry in middle school Um and in my eighth grade yearbook. I was able to submit two poems, and one was about one of my teachers and the other one was called the World Outside my Window and it was about gentrification.

Kira J: 13:09

And when I think back I'm like how was I writing about this in the 8th grade? How do you know? But that's the beauty of poetry. It was about best-by changing it makes you so deeper than just surface-level conversation? As an an eighth grader you might not have been able to articulate that in in casual conversation, but as a poet, yes it just comes out naturally.

Kira J: 13:28

So much yeah so I've been a poet since I was nine, but I didn't become a spoken word artist until I was 13. Okay, it's such a different thing. Like you said, they cousins. It's different, but it's not the same.

Lish Speaks: 13:38

It's different um, I love that you're still on stage. Thank you, I I'm like fake shy now. I don't know what happened to me. It's like riding a bike, though. You just got to get back up there. Yeah, you know, it's so funny. I've been through so many different iterations of my career. Right now I'm in my media era, you know, wanting to be a host and a speaker and a red carpet commentator and things like that. But a lot of the things that we do, they just carry us into the next season. And so how did writing poetry carry you into becoming an author, carry you into creating a film? Having the film played in Imagine Johnson on 25th Street, carry you into what you're doing now, which is touring with you know, tonight's conversation, I believe it's called. Oh yeah, I did.

Kira J: 14:28

I did one of the seasons.

Lish Speaks: 14:29

Yeah, and on the podcast, Like how can you see what thread can you see? It's a better question. What thread can you see? Having carried you from thing to thing to thing?

Kira J: 14:40

It all comes back to the poetry, because everything I do is a poetic sense to it. Like, even when you watch me on tonight's conversation, people be like who is this? She's articulate, AF. And they like that's that poet, Karen J, Like I think I'm so much of a poet we already knew, though the New Yorker was like that's our girl.

Kira J: 14:58

You know what I mean. That's our girl of a poet that I speak poetry. I'm poetry even when I don't try. So poetry is a part of everything. The poetry is in every book that I've written. The poetry is in the film. The film was just different breakdowns of my poetry visuals. So I think poetry allows me the space to express without suppression, because suppression leads to depression. So the expression of poetry makes it so that I can't hide nothing in any room I walk into. Even if there's a mask that should be worn, it ain't going to fit me. I just got to get that raw. The poetry, just it's all along the line, okay.

Lish Speaks: 15:37

That leads me to a different question that I had later, but I'm going to bring it now. There's a conversation going on online about transparency versus vulnerability, right, and I would like to know from you because I feel like you're a very open book, right but if you're anything like me, you know how to make people feel like they know a lot about you without actually telling them every single thing that's going on. Thank you, baby. So how do you straddle the line? Being someone who pretty much lives out loud on the internet, uses their personal stories to write poems and create content and create inspirational quotes, how do you tell the line between being transparent or being vulnerable?

Kira J: 16:18

Um, so I believe that the difference between the transparency and the vulnerability is how susceptible you are to being hurt by what you share, because if I'm transparent, then I'm telling you a story that's going on with me that I'm comfortable with. I'm just transparently filling you in a full, transparent moment. This is what's going on. But to be vulnerable means that I'm risking being hurt by sharing this. I am risking being hurt by sharing this. I am risking being embarrassed by sharing this. I am risking losing an opportunity by sharing this. So everybody who is transparent isn't necessarily vulnerable. Correct, because vulnerable means that something can get to this. Yes, so for me there's a cost.

Kira J: 17:02

There's a cost to your vulnerability. Transparency is just. This is what I'm sharing Full transparency. This is what I'm sharing. But vulnerability means that something can happen after I share this. I can be hurt, I can be embarrassed, I can be attacked All of the things. So, um, what I've learned as I've gotten older because I used to be transparent, vulnerable this is what's happening in real time. Everything in my life was in real time. This is what just happened. But as I got older, I developed more personal relationships that I feel safe enough to be vulnerable in to, where I don't have to be so vulnerable online. Don't have to be so vulnerable online To where, for example, that story that I just shared about the break-in last year I never said that on my timeline Because when I went to go post it on my timeline, someone close to me was like baby, this ain't social media business.

Kira J: 17:56

Right now, people are going to think this is a story. People are going to think this is content. Let us deal with this right now. Come talk to me about how you feel about it, but I don't think your timeline needs to know that you just got robbed. We'll help you through that. So I never talked about it, never mentioned it in the interview, because I was ready to be transparent, but I was super vulnerable. So he knew he was like this ain't the time, this ain't the time for that. So I think the timing of when to say something is the difference, um, and everybody doesn't have the strength to be vulnerable and everybody doesn't have the strength to be transparent as well the discernment to be transparent exactly so discernment it does, because even in transparency you can't say every single detail.

Lish Speaks: 18:41

You got family to protect. You got people's feelings to at least be mindful of, mindful right. When I have certain stories that I want to tell, I have to figure out how to tell okay, I'm not the only character in that story, yes, even though it did happen to me, right, so there's really a, a maturity maturity that's word, because the old Kara, I've been doing this for so long that there was no line.

Kira J: 19:07

Everything was online. My relationship with my daughter's father. There was no covering, there was no protecting, there was no. It was one of those things in hindsight I look back and I'm like I would have done so much, so different, because, again, the maturity wasn't there to have any type of protection over the other parties involved in my story.

Lish Speaks: 19:33

Yeah, and we also. We were on a different internet and I tell people that all the time.

Kira J: 19:37

You know, we were on a very different internet.

Lish Speaks: 19:40

It was For better or worse right, but people were telling their real story. Everything wasn't curated, it wasn't for our brand.

Kira J: 19:49

Yeah, we wasn't thinking about none of that. You know what?

Lish Speaks: 19:52

I mean, yeah, you just got up there and you told your life and I also think we did not grow up on the internet. I'm a little bit older, I'm three years older than you. We did not grow up on the internet as much as these kids like they have it from the time they're born pretty much you know, I tell people all the time I was 18 years old before I got on Facebook because you had to be in college and have a college email address. Now we had Skonex. Yes, you already know.

Kira J: 20:14

Skonex.

Lish Speaks: 20:16

But even that, you went on Skonex for a couple minutes and you went back to your real life.

Kira J: 20:19

You went back to your real life, all day, you know, you went out.

Lish Speaks: 20:22

So, when Facebook even first was popping, you went outside, you took your pictures, you did whatever, and then you came home and uploaded them and looked at other people. You know now Smartphones Smartphones, and which I love, listen, smartphones make me a good deal of money. I'm grateful, but you know so I know that you're like man, I would have did things differently, but I do want you to take solace in this. The father knew when to give you the discernment and maturity you needed, because, had you not grown and you doing that stuff now, the stakes are much higher. Yes, Right, so you did it.

Kira J: 21:03

When somebody got to look hard to go back and they got to be doing too much, right now, the person that you are um is in the right time. You know I mean you're in the right, you're in the right time. I always say that god's plan is so much better than so much better so much better.

Kira J: 21:18

I think that I had to do it all that way as well, because the change is so potent, like everybody can pinpoint exactly when Kara shifted. Yeah, because how wild and reckless I used to be, not even just in relations.

Lish Speaks: 21:34

I don't even remember you being that wild and reckless, oh girl but you know, I see everything from the my my content it was, it was nasty.

Kira J: 21:43

Well, I remember you.

Lish Speaks: 21:45

I remember you being provocative with the poetry. I do remember that.

Kira J: 21:47

Forget the poetry. I was telling story times as soon as I would be laying next to a guy and telling you exactly what I did. It was a mess. I could look back on some of those tweets with my head down like did I really say that I was? Oh, my goodness Clutches my pearls. It was a mess. And then I'm like the cost of it was my personal relationships, because the men that I was dating were private and they don't want to be content.

Lish Speaks: 22:11

yeah, but I'm like let me tell you how I did yeah, yeah, girl, I would never now what part did your relationship with God play in you changing um?

Kira J: 22:22

I went through life, I always had a relationship to where God would talk to me. Right, but everybody could talk to God, but everybody don't listen. So once I developed my obedience, I'm going through life, doing what I want to do. Doing what I want to do is failing, Doing what I want to do, what I want to do is stumbling and fumbling. And I'm just going through life and then God is like any day now whenever you're ready to listen.

Kira J: 22:43

I've been told you what to do is like any day now, whenever you ready to listen. I've been told you what to do. I said you know what I'm going to give into my ascension this year and I'm going to be obedient to whatever you call me to do. And literally overnight, everything worked out in my favor. I love it. Everything worked out in my favor and I went to church, cause I'm not a Christian but I was raised in Islam. I'll be able to go to a mosque, a church, anywhere I can hear the word of God at the time I need it. Closest church to me was a Christian church and the sermon that day was I remember it verbatim the day that everything shifted. The pastor said God is calling you into a season of silence. Document do not discuss, because wolves do not just prey on sheeps, they gang up on lions. And as a Leo, I took that person. I said silence. God is. God wants me to be silent. I'm a speaker.

Kira J: 23:30

I'm a speaker. He said document it, don't discuss it. Just keep your receipts, just document things between me and you talk to God about it. So I started just taking notes and inventory of everything that was happening, without feeling the need to share how it was all taking place. I love that. It took a lot of obedience, though. Yeah, because I wanted to talk about it. Everybody is like I literally got off a tour. In the middle of tour, I abruptly stopped performing for almost a year and everybody's like what is going on with Kara J?

Lish Speaks: 24:00

And.

Kira J: 24:00

I'm like I can't talk about it right now. I'll let y'all know when God say it's time to talk about it right now. And now it's been the time to talk about it. This is why I had to go away for a while. I love that.

Lish Speaks: 24:10

I love that obedience changed you. Yes, because we changed you. Yes, because we find obedience to be oppressive, oh, I gotta stop doing this and stop doing that. But it's really freedom, it is. Think about your relationship with your daughter, right? Yeah, when she's obedient to you, she has to do more. Yes, right, but we don't see god that way. We see obedience as, oh, you're not letting me do what I want, you don't want me to have fun, you don't want me to.

Kira J: 24:31

I look at it like the things that i'ma consider fun, following my way is going to be unhealthy. Yeah, so if I'm obedient and I follow your way, the fun that you allow me to have is going to be so much better, and I love me a guilt free fun.

Lish Speaks: 24:45

Yes, that's my favorite kind of fun. It's amazing and I try to.

Kira J: 24:48

I'll be walking around screaming obedience at the top of the mountaintops and everybody. I think that word has to be in front of pray. Yeah, cause y'all praying, but y'all not in front of the obedience of your prayers. Okay, you prayed and then God said do X, y, z.

Lish Speaks: 25:01

You ain't going to do it, so you got to be obedient.

Kira J: 25:05

And then it's like look at what your life becomes when you listen.

Lish Speaks: 25:07

We're children.

Kira J: 25:08

We're ultimately just children of God.

Lish Speaks: 25:17

Listen can take you through. It's amazing, it's so true, and it helps you remember that you don't need to control everything right, even with my friends and my family, my husband, you know, when there's something that I'm like okay, god, I want to see you do this, I want to see you move in this way. Sometimes, you know, I'll say what I think about something here or there. I just had a long talk with my mom last night about some stuff that you know we're working on and I'm just like I'm going to talk to my daddy and let my daddy talk to his child Period. I don't need to give 15 speeches and have 17 talks, you know, let, let let God help them with obedience.

Kira J: 25:46

You know what I mean. It's not my job to make people obey God.

Lish Speaks: 25:49

It's my job to obey.

Kira J: 25:50

And in my obedience.

Lish Speaks: 25:52

I can be an example and live my life and hopefully God will that. But I really, I really love that answer. You know you talked about your male friends and helping you get through that time. I mean, you've been very open online about you know about your male friends and what they mean to you and having real platonic relationship. Intimacy, platonic intimacy, yes, when you think about the state of single women, right, right, women period, but let's talk about single women, because that's what people like to hear you talk about. When you talk about the state of single women, what do you think they are missing If you had to give them a message beyond what you already have? What do you think they're missing when it comes to being able to just be friends with a man?

Kira J: 26:36

What do you think they're missing when it comes to being able to just be friends with a man? It takes a lot of forgiveness because a lot of women have been hurt by men. So in order to allow men to come into your life in any capacity, you have to trust them. And in order to trust them, you kind of got to forgive what the men in your past have done. What the men in your past have done, that's good. I credit the shift in the journey back to one of my closest friends, because when I met him I was still the professional male basher. We actually met at a poetry show and I got on stage. I forgot you used to call yourself that, yes that's how bad I was.

Lish Speaks: 27:10

I forgot that you used to call yourself that I remember that. The professional male basher.

Kira J: 27:20

So I got on stage and, uh, his name is aj, he's one of my closest male friends. I got on stage and I said I'm carrie j, the professional male basher, blah, blah, blah. And I got up there and I did my whole spiel and he was like, he was like okay, so I'm not in the business of trying to prove people wrong of what they've experienced with men, but I do want to be one of the guys who changes your perception of what you think men are. So like. Can we be friends so I can show you that men aren't what you've experienced of them?

Kira J: 27:46

Yeah, and I was like all right, but it's like, over the years, I get it. Yeah, I get it, and I appreciate my friends who are patient with me enough to see my pain and not take it personally, because a lot of men see your pain and they go oh, she's a lost cause, forget her she's damaged, she's this and that, but I have men who came and got me and said, no, you're just hurting and you just haven't had men treat you properly, platonically, and this is what you need to experience.

Kira J: 28:19

So come on over here, be loved correctly, and then you'll get all of that out your vocabulary. And if you watch the way I speak about men now, male basher, what, like I used to say what so much so that I forgot that that was even your brand.

Kira J: 28:31

Exactly so much in my past, because, it's like, because of my friendships with my friends, it allowed me to love men outside of my romantic intentions of them. Yes, and I feel like if you only experience men romantically, then you're only going to know what you've experienced through heartbreak, through betrayal, through lying and cheating. But because my platonic relationships are so strong, I'm experiencing a support, I'm experiencing a community, the tribe, it's like my male friends are my family, you know and so it's just like a family love for real.

Lish Speaks: 29:03

I love that. One of the things I love about um. I have two male best friends, um, and one of the things I love most about them is that there is a protection that doesn't require me to be anything. You know, and this is before I was married. You know, as a single woman, men only protect you if they're interested in you, if they love you, if they're sleeping with you, if they're whatever fill in the blank. But what those friendships taught me was I deserve love, protection. I have value just by showing up, and I think that's something that I want more women married, single, whatever to experience. Yes, because, even being married, knowing that I have those guys you know and they're married and I'm best friends with their wives, and all that Knowing that I have those guys who will show up for me, who love me, who will, you know, ride for me if I need them to.

Lish Speaks: 30:00

You know whether we talk every day or don't, whether we write go months without talking and shout out to dylan and wander my male besties um but um, you know, and I have other male friends who I'm very close.

Kira J: 30:12

I have I have more male friends than I have. Well, no, I think I have like more female friends than I have male friends, but my relationships with my male friends is just a little bit more deeper. They deep, you know what I mean Like my best friend Thais. We kind of do everything together. Like he moved to Houston with me from Harlem because it was like I feel like I'm out here by myself and he was like no, you're not, I'm on a flight, don't worry about it, I'll be there soon.

Kira J: 30:42

Like that type of covering and that type of protection, like you say, it's just unmatched. But I think that women can't get that unless they forgive. I love that. I love that Forgiveness has to come into it because in order for me to even allow these men to love me, I can't hate y'all. Yes, how am I going to, how am I going to let you come and protect me if I'm, if I'm, so angry at your gender? Yes, and one thing I talked about on my birthday this year um, part of loving the people who protect you is not putting yourself in situations that you need protection from yes.

Kira J: 31:07

Because there was a time when I was spiraling, where I was doing this and I was doing that, and they always have to come to my rescue. They gotta come get Kara drunk from a warehouse. They gotta to come get Kara messing with the wrong dude. They just had to keep coming to get me and I said you know what? I got to remove myself, so old Kara can come get me, so then I wouldn't always need to be saved and that would just feel so different. Shout out to the good friendships.

Lish Speaks: 31:30

Shout out to the good friendships. And I can relate to that because I think you know, when I was younger, thinking about um getting married, and even when my husband and I were dating, you know I'm like y'all. Someone come up to me like I want to make sure that you know, and he's like we got stuff to lose. I ain't never gonna nobody disrespect you, but I'm not trying to go to jail every time you don't like the way someone said. Somebody said something and I think it's a part of the New York moment too.

Kira J: 31:57

I was about to say, like we have to because people don't understand. You grow up in a city where it's not even safe to be soft.

Lish Speaks: 32:05

Yes, and grown men are approaching you at 11. 11. I had this body since I was nine. I be telling a story. All the time I've been thick and full-figured, my whole life.

Kira J: 32:16

I always say that a lot of women chose femininity for their comfort. That I had to reject for my safety. So when you're seeing a New York woman and she's being aggressive, she's being hard, it ain't because we want to, it's just it ain't safe to be a little girl when you grow up. So then when I move to the South and I get my tribe and I meet my Southern men, I get around them. The men that I hang with in Houston is so masculine that I'm like, oh my God, I get to be a girl at the first time in my 30s.

Kira J: 32:45

That's how I felt when I got my husband Right. It's so unsettling, like I'm a girl, I get to be a girl. I don't have to be, I don't have to be hardcore, hardcore camera. I'm in my white year now. Yes, so you know, I do the color years on my birthdays, so the white year is just about reclaiming my softness and my innocence. And it took 33 years to get to a white year because I never felt safe enough. Yeah, now it's like, wow, I can be soft. Yeah, I go outside with them and it'd be so many of us outside and they just all be in the front and I just mean that like a girl it's just it feels so amazing to be a girl Like I love my friends, and the masculinity is not because they gun-toting and staying At all.

Lish Speaks: 33:24

What you looking at, no, it's just a presence, it's an aura. It's an aura, it's a presence.

Kira J: 33:28

I say there's a difference between men. Who commands respect? Correct, because my male friends, they ain't got to tell you not to try them. You know it's just so militant you're going to look at them and be like, no, thank you.

Lish Speaks: 33:41

Yeah, and then what I had, to realize, too, is a lot of the men that I felt like were so masculine and so this and so that you know when I look back on them, they ain't dollar in the bank, couldn't fill out a job application if I didn't help them, cause that's not a man I mean like. And so as I got older, I realized, oh, yes, you need somebody to protect you. Yes, you need somebody who's about they, you know who's staying on business, but you also need someone who is secure. You know what I mean, because that's what will help you actually move forward in life, and so I love that you have that that I want to talk about where your mind or heart, however you feel like going, is romantically. I don't tell you why. I'm asking you that, okay.

Lish Speaks: 34:24

You said something in an interview that I thought was profound. You said I'm always okay, but walking away from anything that has confusion, because I know my husband is sure he'll know that it's me for him, yes. So where are you at right now when it comes to romance and relationships?

Kira J: 34:43

So I did. You know, I did a year of celibacy, a year of no dating, no FaceTiming, just isolating myself from men. And now I'm in therapy. I've been in therapy for the last year and my therapist is just like on me. Like Kira, this husband that you want is on the other side of you taking that step to go on that first date baby. You cannot keep avoiding this first date.

Kira J: 35:05

He's not going to break in your house, he's not going to manifest and poof on your couch. So it's like I'm at this space of knowing that I want the companionship, but not necessarily knowing if I'm ready to get back out there and I just can't do anything half half in it. So again, I just feel like my husband he's going to have to come with such an energy that I'm not going to have to question does this guy like me, you know. So I'm ready for it. I want to sit on the couch on Christmas in our matching pajamas. I want to go to sleep talking about our life goals. I want to eat dinner together. I want to have more children. I want all of the things, but I don't know. It's just been so long. You know. That's the trouble with like celibacy, and the longer that you do it, the more comfortable you feel in it and I've never been this happy in my life so it's like I'm so happy right now love is the risk to be unhappy because I'm so happy in my singleness and my solitude.

Kira J: 36:14

I'll be crying tears of joy just by myself, kicking my feet on the bed. I'm so happy. But if I decide to go and bring someone into that, I'm risking you coming and messing up my stuff. So it's just it's a lie. It's a lie. I know that eventually I'm going to have to. Yeah, but there's no one in the picture right now. Okay.

Lish Speaks: 36:34

I'm going to say this. I think that you know my experience is different from yours. So I was actually a virgin until I got married and so, yeah, girl that's a whole other conversation Nearly killed me. So, like you, we're talking about teenagers. I made this promise to God as a teenager. I got baptized at 14. And you know that I would wait for marriage. Now I really thought I'd be married by like 24, 25, the latest so.

Lish Speaks: 37:01

I'm like cool, I can you know. When them thirties hit, I was like all right now, how I'm gonna do this? And then when I met my husband, I was like how am I going to do this? Because now it's one thing to be pure um, or to be, you know, to abstain when you don't have nobody. But when you got somebody who you're attracted to, you're spending time with and we had to really talk and get help and have boundaries and all that because it's like listen, I ain't gonna break this promise. Now, how long were y'all dating?

Lish Speaks: 37:31

before two years two and a half years, maybe two years that's amazing yeah, it was hard, so god told you he was your husband, though, so let me tell you this is what I'm getting to. You talked about how your husband will be sure, how you won't be. You won't have to guess whether he likes you. This man came into my life like a wrecking ball, okay, like we went on a date, a blind date that my best friend set us up with shut my.

Kira J: 37:56

Y'all need to set up my blind date because I clearly don't know what I'm doing by myself we were on a blind date and I lived here.

Lish Speaks: 38:05

He still lived in Brooklyn. We were on a blind date to the Brooklyn Museum. That was March 21st. July 21st he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. So four months. But in between that, every time I would come up to New York for different gigs. I was doing like music stuff, teaching different things, and he would take me out every time I went. So I went to New York between March and the end of April that year I had gone to New York three times and then I had released a song called Black Don't Crack and he came for the release party in June. It was Juneteenth.

Lish Speaks: 38:42

But he told me on our third date, like you know, I don't want to date anybody else, I want to focus on getting to know you. You know he lived in New York for a year and a half in our relationship and then he moved to Atlanta. He moved to Atlanta in December. He proposed in February. I didn't know, but he had the ring before he even moved here. I found that out later. Obviously, intention, just very clear intention, and even to this day I don't ever have to guess how my husband feels about me or what he thinks of me, or if he finds me attractive or if he supports my dream. It's very clear. But I waited a long time for that, and so what I always tell people I got married at 35. I'll be 37 in february, we got married last, uh, august what I always tell people is it's worth the wait, because that piece you feel is because you like you. I liked myself. Yes. So when someone else came along and liked me, it wasn't a shock to my system of course you like me.

Kira J: 39:43

I've been waiting for somebody to come along. I did not always feel that way.

Lish Speaks: 39:47

God kept me single just long enough to get to that place. I don't really subscribe to the whole. It'll come when you're ready. It'll come when you least expect it. I don't know subscribe to the whole. It'll come when you're ready. It'll come when you least expect it. I don't know about all of that, but what I do know is that when you are at a place where you feel good about yourself, where you're happy, where you're good, that's the most freedom. I'm going to tell you I'm very happily married, right, I feel the best when I feel good about myself when I'm walking around here busted, disgusted, head, not done. You know how we are as women, whatever right.

Lish Speaks: 40:24

And he could be all up on me Until I feel good. I don't feel good, I can be trying to work through. You know we have a business together. I do a bunch of stuff. I can be trying to work through all this stuff and he'd be like you're brilliant, it sounds good Until I feel good about the research I've done and I feel confident enough to sit on this couch. Of course, from Kara J, it don't matter what he think, and that's why people get married or get into relationships and then find out, oh, this didn't cure me, it's not going to Right. You know what I mean. Yes, you're probably closer than you think, but guess what? So what if you're not right? Because you're good? Yes, and so many people lay in relationships very unhappy, and I think what you've realized and it's something I realized in my early 30s as well is it's better to be single than to be in a relationship in which you were.

Kira J: 41:11

Yeah, I always say. A huge part of it for me is that I don't want a husband. I want my husband and when you know that it's yours, you willing to wait differently. It can't just be anybody. It's so specially curated for me that it can't just be a good guy. It can't make sense, it can't. All of these things don't matter. I'm not waiting for a husband, I'm waiting for my husband and I'm gonna feel it and I'm gonna know it's gonna be my hair standing up, it's gonna be whoa. This is my person and I have not met him. I have not found that so I love that.

Lish Speaks: 41:47

I want hear that you don't need to wait for a husband, you need to wait for your husband and that'll help with jealousy. You know people feel. You know, oh, everyone's getting married, everybody's having a baby, everyone's but you know what's crazy?

Kira J: 42:03

I don't. I've I've never really experienced jealousy because I've experienced motivation so much. Yeah, so I purposely seek out like engagement content. I like to follow all of the black love pages. I like to talk to my married friends and girl what did he do for you this week? Like Ashley, when I just called her, I'd be like, oh, so how are things going? Like, I love to be around married people because it just motivates you.

Kira J: 42:26

Seeing it Cause a lot of people experience the jealousy because they feel like, why not me? I like to experience the happily married people because it's like, oh my god, it's possible for me.

Lish Speaks: 42:36

I was the same way. All my friends were married. I was a maid of honor more times than I wanted to be.

Kira J: 42:41

I'll be I'll be third willing with married couples all the time well, you'll come hang with us next time you're in la, tell me how's it going. Like I love, I love it, I love and it's. And it's not to say I don't love all women being in happily married couples, but just watching black women be loved correctly it just does something to my heart.

Lish Speaks: 42:58

I love it, I love it. Okay, listen, let's let's a little bit here. Um, I feel like you are a master not only at building things, but rebuilding things right. So I've literally watched you build your brand right. I've watched you build books, build films, um, and then I remember when your page got hacked no, it got deleted deleted.

Lish Speaks: 43:23

Your page got deleted and I watched you rebuild that page, rebuild your brand online, um, and I remember being like girl, I'm glad I found you again. I mean, you was like I'm here, girl. I'm here to tell you that.

Kira J: 43:35

I was not what I mean. You was like I'm here, girl, I'm here to tell you that I was not going to get back on. I was devastated.

Lish Speaks: 43:38

Yeah. So what gives you in that circumstance but even in others, you talked about your life, you moving back home. Now you're going back to what gives you that grit to rebuild things.

Kira J: 43:49

Time, because time is going to pass anyway. No matter what you do, the sun is coming back up tomorrow. No matter what you do this time. Next year will be November 2025. No matter what you do with the time, it's going to come. So you can sit there mad about what happened at the present time, or you can just make moves for your future self.

Kira J: 44:12

And one of my favorite memes says my biggest fear is being right here next year. And that quote. I saw that for the first time in like 2014. And I reference it all the time because next year is coming. How is next year going to look different from this year? Every time I lose something, I'm like okay, boom. Today I'm back at ground zero. If I just do what I got to do, I can be up If I just let the time do what it's supposed to do and not being prideful. A lot of people are too prideful to be starting from the bottom again. Yes, people don't want to be seen trying. People don't want to be seen trying. People don't want to be seen trying. People don't want to be seen starting from ground zero, especially if you were at a height. Yep, I got deleted at 200,000 followers. I could have been like you know what I'm not starting over. You done passed that. Now I'm going to a quarter million Period.

Lish Speaks: 44:58

You see what I'm saying.

Kira J: 44:59

I was like I lost 200,000 followers. What is going to happen? My platform I don't want to start over. I said you know what, kara? You got the blueprint. Now you know how to build it back up now. You know how to collaborate. You know how to reach out to this company. You know how to do this. Do that quarter million people back on the page that I started from scratch.

Kira J: 45:15

And a beauty of when that page got deleted, I was able to separate my brands. So, instead of it being one page of Kara J memes and Kara J poetry, now I have two pages of one with the quotes and the memes and then one with the poetry, and both of them are well over hundreds of thousands. So, accepting the pivot again, when you, you, you, just as spiritual as I am, we believe in God's plan, not ours. So it ain't for me to know why your plan was to get my page deleted. And then you look back and you go, oh, you wanted me to separate the brands. That's why that happened and it just works out so much better when you just accept it. We're going to be 80 one day, god willing, we're going to be 80. So what you're going to do with your 30s, what you're going to do with your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. The time is going to pass. Get started, started. I don't care if you wake up at 45 years old and say I don't like what I'm doing. Okay, start something else.

Lish Speaks: 46:08

I talk about this all the time. I talk about this with my parents. I talk about this with my friends. You can live multiple lives. There was a time where I was a rapper. Before that, I was a spoken word artist. Before that, I've been a million things. They all feed each other. You know what I mean I. They all feed each other. You know what I mean. I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 10, 20 years from now, but I know that right now, I'm not afraid to be seen trying to do a podcast.

Kira J: 46:31

Oh, everybody is doing a podcast. I used to be a chef.

Lish Speaks: 46:34

I remember.

Kira J: 46:35

I was a chef in New York City With that white coat. With my white coat, my black coat, my hat. I remember I used to be yes, because you're not supposed to have one existence. God wouldn't make you have all of these talents. Yes, and everybody don't even realize that you have about five, six, seven God-given talents within you Things that are just naturally easy to you.

Lish Speaks: 46:59

Explore them, explore them. Yep, I For me, I think in this season of you know the Internet and virality, it's very easy to think everybody is doing something. I've heard people say oh, everybody had a podcast. No, everybody doesn't. Right, everybody thinks they're an influencer. No, everybody doesn't. You know what I mean. It's just that you're seeing that so much. Oh, everybody wears designer. I can tell you a million people. You know what I mean. You might see an Hermes bag every three. You know swipes, but when you walk around in the street, very rarely, exactly.

Lish Speaks: 47:36

Do you see, even in New York even in the places where people do get to it. You're not going to see that every second.

Kira J: 47:43

It's this overconsumption of perceived realities Correct.

Lish Speaks: 47:46

And I always go back to the whole example of you. Go down the grocery aisle, you see 15 different types of bread. 15 different types of bread. So if you sit there and say well, I'm not going to create a bread line, because people already have bread. Well, you're missing out because I bet you, every year a new bread line comes out and it's going to be on that shelf, it's going to be on the shelf.

Lish Speaks: 48:02

So, yeah, I love that. I love that. You know talking about virality and going viral online, you've been doing that for a decade. You've done it with quotes, you've done it with video, you've done it with story times, you've done it with lives right? What is your relationship to virality, and here's what I mean by that Do you still just kind of get online and share stuff, or is there a pressure that you feel now to share something that will trend or will, you know, go viral?

Kira J: 48:31

for me, the formula is no formula. Honestly, I never know what's gonna go viral. Yep, I'll post something thinking oh, this is gonna go up me too, and it'll be like you know 50, maybe a hundred thousand, and then I'll post something and go in 50, maybe 100,000 is a flex, but you got to think about what it does right. The thing that I'm just posting at 2 am can get millions and I'll be like what, what was that? I never know anymore, so I don't stick to a timeline.

Kira J: 49:05

Funny enough, if you notice that in the last month or couple months, all of my viral posts is just a random 2 am things that I posted before I went to bed. So it's no formula to it, just posts, and I think that when you give from that pure of a place, then it's going to be received by whoever it's meant to be received by. I will say I am always happiest when my poetry goes viral because that is more of my passion and it allows me to enter more spaces, get more bookends and that's typically what I work the hardest at. Now my quotes is just it's just downloads from God. So God say, say this, I say that, and if that goes viral it's cool, but I don't take the credit.

Kira J: 49:44

That was a message you know. Like I do like when, like podcast clips go viral because it allows me the space to talk more and interview more. But you never really know yeah, you never know anymore. I'll post something going what that? That clip was really good. What is with this 10,000 views. What is with this 50,000 views? But it's like just accepting it. Social media algorithms are very weird right now, yes and yeah.

Lish Speaks: 50:10

That's a whole other thing.

Kira J: 50:11

But there's no pressure anymore because it's not on me, it's on the algorithm.

Lish Speaks: 50:15

And I think for me I love that answer the pressure stopped when I stepped into what was actually my purpose, which I feel like is media. When I was doing music, I felt a lot of pressure. When I was doing music, I felt a lot of pressure. When I was doing poetry, I felt a lot of pressure. I post these clips because I'm. Why wouldn't I post them? I'm doing all this work, right, right, but I don't care. You know what I mean.

Lish Speaks: 50:42

And I think for me, when I did start going viral earlier this year, I was shocked because I've been getting on the internet talking about God for a decade. This is not new. I mean, even my poetry had a spiritual lean. Um, my music certainly had a spiritual lean, and so I was like this is nothing new. But what I think changed is was my consistency, and I think a lot of times people want to. Well, it's just natural whenever it comes out, I'll do do it, and you know it's not, it's not forced, and I don't have a time, which is fine, which is actually a good thing. But you can't do it one day and not do it again for two months and then do it for two weeks and not do it again, not if you actually want to have, um, an impact that is consistent right Now. Once you get to a certain level right, and you have a quarter million followers and you, you can take a month off.

Kira J: 51:29

Yeah yeah, because you have the content to sustain it.

Lish Speaks: 51:33

But if you're just getting started and you have 22 videos, you, even if you're not on the schedule because I'm not on this, I need to be on one, but I mean like automate the schedule, yes, even when, if you don't feel like posting, there's things that that you can say okay, boom, this post Monday this post Tuesday, just automate it Because I find that, as a creative, a lot of us don't want to be on the internet.

Kira J: 51:55

We don't, but people don't understand. Your most favorite viral content creators don't want to be online all day. I ain't posting. You know, we're being present in the real world. I have a tattoo right here that says be present. I don't want to be online all the time, so I have to remember to write down Kara post on TikTok. Kara post on Facebook. Kara post on Twitter.

Lish Speaks: 52:17

I got some payout. I can help you with that.

Kira J: 52:18

Girl, it's so bad that I just, you know, so just figure out a schedule of it and then you know, let it do what it do for me, I'm lucky enough to be married to a techie, so he's he's like I got it.

Lish Speaks: 52:32

But the biggest I know. I call him Jimmy Neutron Cause he really is about that life.

Lish Speaks: 52:36

Um, but you know the the biggest thing for me, especially this year, because I had taken a long time off making videos. I was still doing everything else I do, but I was taking a long time with making videos and what I realized is you have to give the people something to engage with, right? I just wasn't giving people anything to engage with for long periods of time Me too, and so once I got my stash up, now I'm good. I can not record for two or three weeks because I have so much content that I can just put out, you know.

Kira J: 53:05

What I was doing when I didn't have anything to give. I was blessed enough to have collaborated with so many other people that other people would share my stuff, even when I wasn't so. If you look at my page, most of the posts that are on my page are clips of other people's shows, and other people help me go viral when I take my Kara J hiatuses. My following has grown accustomed to not expecting consistency out of me, because full transparency.

Lish Speaks: 53:30

I'm not posting nothing in December. I feel like you're very consistent.

Kira J: 53:34

No, I go on runs. So what I'll do is you'll see me everywhere August, september, october, november. I am not doing a single show in December. I'm not posting nothing in December. I'm not posting no quotes, no threads, no tweets. I'm going into my shell because I need to recharge and create some things.

Lish Speaks: 53:53

You know what? I think it is Other people posting me. I was going to say so many of my friends and family post you.

Kira J: 53:59

I just feel like I'm always seeing you, and then the crazy thing is I'll write a thread. It'll be from 2020. It's going viral in 2024. So it feels as if I'm giving you something, but that's four years old. I ain't had nothing new to say in a little minute. So I am, I am the queen of going into my shell, and it has a lot to do with, um one, my mental health. So I always have to make sure that my mental is good enough to share. Can't pour from an empty cup, yep and two, I used to battle insecurity so bad that I didn't like to share videos if I didn't feel like I looked presentable or I look pretty, or if I look like this you're down my street.

Kira J: 54:39

You're talking to me right now, when like if my weight fluctuates and I have adenomyosis, so my hair gets to growing in and I can't get a wax and all of the things. Like old Kara would not come to an interview without makeup, without a weave, and it's just something about locking your hair and it's something about detaching from filters. I ain't used a filter in almost a year now and part of everything I went through last year helped me to get connected with who I am and not how I look. I have this video I did with this platform called Pure Poetry Shout out to Pure Poetry. I didn't have on a weave. I didn't have on no makeup. It's just me and my glasses, pure face. And I was so nervous. I was like I'm going to do this show in front of 500 people and I hope that they're listening to what I'm saying and not being shallow enough to say, oh, she didn't look like this, her acne in the video.

Kira J: 55:29

Dumb Videos was the first videos on the platform to have millions of views. They posted two clips from my set. Both videos hit millions of views and I was the first one on the whole platform to do that and I said you know what. This is so comfortable for you and it helps with that pressure of how I need to look on stage. Because you even think if I'm doing a show then I have to be like this at a show. But poetry ain't that. Poetry is bare face and head wrap. Sometimes Poetry is natural. So if you can get on stage as a poet and look as you are and still go viral, then I was like don't ever put that pressure on yourself again. And now I'm comfortable to just show up as I am.

Lish Speaks: 56:07

I love that I often make myself go live without makeup because just to not get caught up in the matrix. Don't get caught up. I'm like you. The people need to see how you actually look. Yes, so that you don't feel this pressure to show up looking like this all the time. Because you don't look like this all the time and sometimes God gives you something to say and you need to say it right then. And there, looking the way you look, and that's such a new insecurity for me.

Kira J: 56:30

I think that insecurity came the more popular I got, because I was viral carer doing my 2 am lives and my mumu and my bonnet, and I never cared. And then it was something about the last few years where I was just like, okay, I'm in rooms with celebrities now and I'm on red carpets now and I'm on the news now, I need to change. And then I started to change and it felt unauthentic.

Lish Speaks: 56:53

It's like, okay, no, I need to change back, I need to be who I am and stand on who I am and be comfortable I love that One of my favorite quotes from you and it's actually personally helped me is when you said this to women I'm. I feel like you were talking to women. You said take more pictures of yourself this year. Yes, your anxiety is lying to you. You're really beautiful and all those insecurities are in your head. That I just want to tell you. That, personally helped me to get back online and do videos and post pictures of myself, because I had kind of bowed out a little bit what was behind that post.

Kira J: 57:32

That quote. A lot of people don't realize, because I am so viral on Twitter that I don't always show my face You're used to seeing my memes and seeing my icon or avatar that there is a period of time where I wasn't showing my face at all. I wasn't doing lives, I wasn't doing interviews, I wasn't doing shows. So I wrote that quote to just tell me like Cara, this is all in your head, people miss your face, people miss your voice, and a part of being a writer is that when a writer disappears, you might not know, because they'll keep writing. Yeah, so it's like people were still seeing my words, but nobody realized that they hadn't saw my face in a long time. It was a long time since people had seen my face when I wrote that quote. Um, so that was for me, but I was sharing it for women as well.

Kira J: 58:24

Like most of the messages that I give to women is just me having those conversations with Kara, like take those pictures you are, you are beautiful, people love seeing your face. And then when I posted it and I think the very first time I posted that it was on my new account and it got like 200,000 likes and millions of reach and I was just like man, how many of us needed to hear that. And then I posted it again this year and it did the same thing. Like 400,000 people liked it. And I'm just going wow, this message is so imperative to so many of us that, again, because of apps like threads or apps like Twitter or Facebook statuses, you won't even realize that somebody that you follow ain't posting themselves, because you'll still see them, you'll still see their words, but the pictures matter too, the videos matter too. So that was to get me back into showing me outside of my memes.

Lish Speaks: 59:22

Yeah, I love that, thank you. How do you translate these messages for Nala, for a little girl? How do you bring these big concepts of what I'm sure you want her to know about, you know, not being insecure, loving herself, you know, knowing herself? How do you make them bite size for?

Kira J: 59:43

her For the most part, nala is. She's actually the one who translates it for me, because when I was deep in my insecurity and not able to show myself online without a filter or without makeup, it was actually her. You know. That was her saying mama, you look beautiful Like you. You like, take this off your face. You don't look like my mom. So it's not necessarily me making it bite size for her, it's. It's almost always her making it adult size for me, like she's the reason why I have my confidence. Nala. I call her an Afro girl right, because she's not the little girl that wants her hair straightened. She's not the little girl that wants her hair straightened. She's not the little girl that always needs to be oh, your hair is not done if it's not brushed. Nala is an Afro girl. She's like give me my Afro. Let me look like the natural beautiful black girl that I am. The Beyonce that she grew up on is brown skin girl.

Lish Speaks: 1:00:43

So she's like brown skin skin girl. So she's like brown skin. She's that era of little black girl. You know what I mean.

Kira J: 1:00:56

Um, so her confidence is just unmatched. That it helps me get my confidence. So I promise you it's not me trying to tell her baby, you're so beautiful, you're so amazing. So the other way around, it's her going mama, your hair looks so pretty, your face looks so like you look fine. Mama, you don't need this, you don't need that like. It's just so amazing the way she pours into me.

Lish Speaks: 1:01:12

I love it, I love it. You know you are a single mom. Yes, you're a mom. Um, you're teaching your daughter entrepreneurship. So when she you know you, she went viral, yes, and you made a book out of it Best selling author at five Period Best selling author at five. You know, what advice would you give to a mom who is struggling, who's not in a healed season, who might still be on the internet going back and forth with people and bashing the baby dad and all that? What advice would you give her to say you know, your baby is watching and here's what I would encourage you to do.

Kira J: 1:01:50

What would you say to her? So this message is not just going to be for moms, but for anyone who is struggling with anything. I don't believe that struggle can cease or even pain can alleviate without community. I tell people to invest in community in the same way we invest in our relationships, in the same way we invest in self-love and self-care. So many of us are trying to do things on our own that our tribe can help us with. Like I said, I didn't get out of those spaces by myself. I got out of all of that public this and that because my friends are coming to collect me. My tribe is coming to say, hey, that's not what we're doing, I would.

Kira J: 1:02:29

I cannot crash out because of the way my tribe holds me accountable. I cannot suffer as a single mom because if I get to doing too much, my friends is finna, come get her. You know what I mean. Like I'm coming to pick up nala today. You need a minute. You know what I mean. So we need to get back to community. Pause. Love is amazing. Romantic love, it's beautiful.

Kira J: 1:02:54

But if we invested in our friendships and our tribes the way we do our search for all these other things, if the work that you think that you're doing on yourself and I. I need to get myself right and I need to to get my mind right. You don't even know that God made human beings for each other. There's a friend. He got, waiting on you for y'all to come along and help each other. So mothers, women who don't have children yet, loners, people who are feeling isolated, people who are feeling depressed community is your friend. I am nothing without my tribe, so I can't crash out because I got to answer to people. If I try that, I got people. That's going. What's going on here? What's this post about? Uh-uh, you know I have to get checked, delete it.

Lish Speaks: 1:03:41

Delete it.

Kira J: 1:03:41

Exactly. We're not doing this and, like I said, when I got robbed last year, I was ready to go content. I'm recording the Uh-uh. That's not what we doing. Take that down. This community Community is the secret to so much of our life problems. I love that. And then you find out that people who are battling depression the most are the ones who are doing it on their own.

Kira J: 1:04:03

You don't got to do this world on your own. Isolation is not your friend. Yeah, so community for moms, for people, and then even even say you know, if you, if you have a child and you're by yourself and you feel like you can't hang out with your friends because your friends don't got kids and they don't understand. I moved to houston by myself with my daughter and I was super intentional on meeting some mom friends. Intentional, I was like I don't, I don't want to be cara j in houston because I'm going to be living in houston.

Kira J: 1:04:29

What I did my entire first year there was just meet some moms. Hi, I'm caring your kid. Like, just get around some mom friends and then you feel less alone because on those days where you feel like I can't go out and oh, I ain't got no babysitter, then guess what? I got a company called you don't need a sitter and it shows you all the fun stuff you can do with your kids and your friends. I like that and it's like you don't need a sitter. The kid's going to play over here, the mom's going to do our thing over here. We feel so defeated because we're doing things alone. So community is the secret to getting out of those dark spaces for sure.

Lish Speaks: 1:05:01

That's really good. One of the things I try to help people understand in the Christian space but just in life, is we cannot swing the pendulum. You know, one direction or the other. Balance is very important, and what I mean by that in terms of community is we either want to be independent or dependent, and both those things are not good. Interdependence is what we have to aim for. You know, when you're too dependent on people, you're needy. You don't see your own value without them, you struggle to make decisions because you're so dependent. When you're independent loneliness, depression, you know you end up feeling like no one is really there for you. Correct what you're saying, don't matter, I'm going to do what I want.

Lish Speaks: 1:05:47

Correct. But when you're interdependent, it means we are leaning on one another, and I love what you said about I can't crash out because I got to answer to people. I'm big on accountability. I'm big on iron, sharpening iron. My friends, they're going to call me out on some stuff.

Kira J: 1:06:03

Yes, out on some stuff. Yes, they go, you know it's. It's not going for certain things, no, and it don't have to be nothing with the internet.

Lish Speaks: 1:06:10

I can call my best friend, yeah, and say I had. I said you know, I got into it with my mother. I said this and this and that, and she said you said what? Did you apologize? Yeah, I apologize, but I just don't understand. No, you need to, and this has been happening since I was a teenager. I have a friend. We used to be very, very close, but we're cool now. Her name is Keisha, keisha Eugene. I'll never forget it. I was on the phone with her and my mom told me that I think she told me to clean my closet and I was like, okay, and then my, I've always kept some accountability in the clip. Yes, I think God just knows I'm reckless and I need people to check me. Um, but that community is is super important. I got two, two more questions for you. Um, you've written many books, yes, yes, you've written many poems, yes. Do you have a favorite? Um, and why is it your favorite?

Kira J: 1:07:08

Oh, this is good. One of my friends asked me recently what was my number one favorite? And I have this poem called Do you Believe in God. And Do you Believe in God is my favorite because it is the only poem that I sat and wrote in one sitting. Well, it was the only poem. I just recently wrote another poem in one sitting. That is that long, but it was a download. I was sleeping and God woke me up and said get up, write this down. And I got up and I didn't know the direction it was going and I wrote the whole story in one sitting and it's the story of how I find my husband. I saw that and I was like I saw you were leaving.

Lish Speaks: 1:07:48

God my love. Yes, I know that poem.

Kira J: 1:07:53

So it's crazy because I wrote it so many years ago without having done any of the work that God told me was going to be necessary for the poem right? So in the poem I'm talking about how God said you need to isolate, you need to heal, you need to build your strength, you need your success. I had nothing of those things at the time. So now I'm 33 and all of the things that I wrote about are finally in fruition. So it's like, oh, this is what that poem was about. Back then I didn't understand it. I just love that poem so much because it's a full circle, full circle premonition piece that God told me you're going to I'm going to give you a amazing husband, but you got to do all of this work first.

Kira J: 1:08:29

That's one of my favorites, for sure. I love so many of my poems.

Lish Speaks: 1:08:32

Of course. Of course. I've got poems that I wrote years ago that I still love. It's like picking a favorite child For me, a favorite is sneakers.

Kira J: 1:08:39

I love them all. When we talk of happiness and healing that is my favorite poem dedicated towards my healing I will say good, that's good.

Lish Speaks: 1:08:48

Um, I like to ask a question here when we close out the show. Being at the name of the show is I'll just let myself in. Uh, my question is this in the grand scheme of things, what do you want your legacy to be? Um.

Kira J: 1:09:05

I think that, ultimately, my entire legacy is to make people feel less alone. I think that everything that I write or everything that I say is just in alignment with people feeling related to, because I grew up feeling very alone in my experiences. Um, so I think that the whole entire Kara J brand, the entire Kara J work of art, all the poems, all the public speaking, all of the messages, are so that you can feel related to and you can feel like you're not alone. And then, from that space of not feeling alone, then you start doing the things that is needed to build that feeling in your personal life. But if I could be the first person that you listen to that make you feel like she gets me, then I've done my job.

Lish Speaks: 1:09:55

I love it. I love it, kira. First of all, thank you for your vulnerability, thank you for your years of service to the Internet. You're welcome and thank you for the fact that you've allowed us and taken us on the journey. You know, on your healing journey. It takes a lot of bravery, it takes a lot of humility, you know, and I really believe that your life will continue to be blessed because of it. Unfortunately, this is going to air after your show at the Apollo coming up, so you will be at the Apollo this coming week, but is there anything going on for you either in 2025? I know December you're going to chill out, yeah but just anything that you want people to know, anything you want people to buy or where can they find you? Let the people know.

Kira J: 1:10:38

So this coming year 2025,. It is going to be the year that I launch my podcast, the year that I put out my first poker word album and the year that I put out my next book. I love it, and the podcast, the spoken word album and the next book are all called. I have no idea what I'm doing, because I find that social media has built this vision around people being gurus and people giving all of this great advice, and I love being the person that gets online to let people know in full transparency I am winging the Oops. I have no idea what I'm doing. Your favorite content creator probably has no idea what they're doing.

Kira J: 1:11:21

None whatsoever your favorite author has no idea what they're doing. Your favorite poet, your favorite, whoever we all just trying to figure this out and me not having no idea what I'm doing. Your favorite poet, your favorite whoever we all just trying to figure this out.

Lish Speaks: 1:11:33

And me not having no idea what I'm doing, I hope that I can help people feel a lot less alone in their lostness.

Kira J: 1:11:38

I love that. I love that. Listen, I'm a big fan of the podcast.

Lish Speaks: 1:11:40

Big fan, yes, you have to come be on my show. You already know I tell people all the time everyone should do a podcast. If you do it and you don't like it, fine. At least you have memories and whatever. But there is something so freeing, there's something so therapeutic, there's something so selfless about getting online and talking about things in a way that allows other people to be seen and giving other people a space to come and talk about their lives and sharing your platform. And because everything you do involving speaking is excellent, I already know the podcast is going to be amazing.

Lish Speaks: 1:12:12

So you let me know when and where and I'll be there. All right, yes, all right, y'all. That's been another episode of. I'll just let myself in. Listen, y'all know the drill. We're here, same time, same place, every week. If you love what we're doing, if you appreciate it, if it's blessing you in any way, please share it with a friend, a family member or just someone who you think needs it. Give us a review, subscribe to the channels, follow us on social media. It's really important that we engage as a community and continue to do this. Like I said before in our last episode, we do have an email address, speakers at lish speakscom, where you guys can write in your thoughts, your ideas, your letters, your love mail, because we ain't accepting no hate mail and we can definitely read that. We will definitely read those things on the show. I'm excited because, as we continue to move forward with our podcast, we learn more and more about how to serve you best. This has been another episode of. I just Let Myself In and I'll see y'all next time, peace.