Yeku-Yeku Baker

This episode features Yeku-Yeku Baker, a retired veteran, mother, and grandmother, who shares her transformation journey and explains how she helps others heal from trauma through her life experience and expertise.

Transcript

Chanda 0:00

This is Shonda Causer, and thank you for listening to Call's Reaction, the podcast. Colin and I are happy that you found us. And in this episode, we feature Yaku Yaku Baker, a retired veteran mother and grandmother who discusses her journey and how she helps others heal from trauma through her life and skills. Ultimately, she teaches us how to just be. Let's jump in.

Yeku-Yeku 0:46

Hey, how's it going, Chanda?

Chanda 0:49

Uh, you know, it's going it's going all right. You know, this week has its ups and downs, but it's Friday, and so I'm gonna ease into this weekend in a little bit. I'm gonna crack open some kava, but that's how my that's how my week is going. How are things going with you?

Yeku-Yeku 1:07

Uh my week is going very well indeed. I just passed a milestone birthday hitting uh the big 5-0. Woohoo! So, yes, very excited about that and spending time with my grandchildren and my daughters and building business and creating healing spaces. So this week has been um is been on the up and up. I feel like I've been in a slump for a while and I just allowed myself to be in that space, and I had a great um time away where I was able to uh meet you and some other women at a retreat. So I just gave myself some space to just be. So I really uh appreciate you um inviting me for this little chit chat. Thank you. And just for our audience sakes, can you who are you? Who are we talking to? Wow, that's that's a very loaded question there. Um, so birth name is Yaku Yaku Baker, child of love, child of innovation. Um, I choose B as what I go by now because one, it's easier to just be, and also um there's a lot of history in my name that is very special to me. So I like to have um kind of a little bit more of control over my narrative, if you will. I'm a 22-year Army veteran, I am an educator, currently a grad student studying uh transformational teaching and looking at it through a trauma-informed neuroscience lens. So I'm focusing right now on how people regulate their nervous system and understanding what the internal patterns that we have that kind of make us tick and helping us make more conscious choices.

Chanda 3:09

That's incredible. Um, you might know, or I don't know if I share with you, but I worked in more the ed reform space uh for about for about nine years. And so education or how people think is really um at the heart of why I organize or how I used to organize. Um, and I think in a in a large way, like my identity shift and also come into terms with more of my mortality because my age, I'm getting closer to that milestone too. And did you say it was your birthday this past week, B?

Yeku-Yeku 3:38

Actually, it was yesterday. Stop! Oh my goodness, happy birthday! Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Like I had a surprise party. I didn't totally unexpected. Um, my daughters, God bless those little girls that grew up to be these fantastic women. I I literally told them I don't want anything special. I don't, you know, I usually don't celebrate my birthday um at all. I just observe the day and just have the gratitude of, you know, making another rotation around the sun. But every year they managed to like trick me and surprise me in some fabulous way. And so my youngest daughter said she had a dental appointment yesterday, and I'm like, okay, I'll go along along with you. And something was telling me my spidey senses were going off. But by the time I got back home, they had decorated everything, their balloons, it was just really special and very intimate. So yeah, celebrating with family and the people that mean the most to you is really special.

Chanda 4:40

Like perfection. That's kind of my celebration.

Yeku-Yeku 4:43

Yes, it was absolutely I when I went to sleep last night, it just I just had like this sense of peace and stillness that I I don't think I've had for a long time. And knowing that I've raised some really fantastic girls, you know, not to toot my own horn, but the measure of your parenting doesn't always come in like really big grand moments. It really comes in those small moments where you just see the the difference and the change that you know these young people are making in the world.

Chanda 5:24

And how old are your children?

Yeku-Yeku 5:26

Uh, my oldest is 24, and my youngest will be 22 here in a few months. So she's 21.

Chanda 5:32

That's awesome. Congratulations.

Yeku-Yeku 5:34

Thank you. Thank you so much for that.

Chanda 5:36

I want to ask you a question though, um, that I was going um, and thinking about your your identities and how you introduce yourself and then hitting this this benchmark of life. What's keeping you up at night, B?

Yeku-Yeku 5:50

What is keeping me up at night? That's a great question, and I don't really think about it that often, other than in my day-to-day going around helping people figure out what's driving their bus, what is keeping their nervous systems dysregulated or out of whack. And for me, I think rest is a revolution, and when you were not sleeping well, we're not getting the best of ourselves. So if I'm up at night, it's because I haven't done the appropriate things to kind of settle in and get my body and my mind prepared for rest. And I think so many of us are struggling with that as well. So yeah, rest, getting actual sleep that is restful, that is nourishing, and that puts you in a place of power.

Chanda 6:56

Will you say more about that? Because I bet the audience would be, you know, this is it. We've had, I guess for the last what do you say, five years or so, that's been a revolution around rest, you know, um, and people are reclaiming their time back through restoring their systems. Um, but I heard you say to prepare for rest. Yes. What is that?

Yeku-Yeku 7:18

Well, there's um a real, I think it's a real bad um message that's been sent out that you know the grind culture and the hustle culture is the way to go. And um, when you're thinking about preparing for rest, you're thinking about being able to come into your body in a physical way, setting a routine or some type of um ritual that you'll do on a daily basis to get your body and your mind still. And that's what so many people have a challenge with is the stillness to be able to sit in the periods of discomfort, to be able to look at a situation from all sides. So when you're preparing yourself for rest, you're doing a mental and a physical and an emotional download where you're just letting things go, accepting the things that you can control, and then allowing those things that are out of your control to be in I would say godly hands. Um so I place things in God's hands that I have no physical power to control in this physical realm.

Chanda 8:50

I was just really listening to you about the discomfort, and um I am not good at this. That's why I wanted to hear a little bit more. B I go to bed around eight and I wake up at three o'clock like clockwork. Um, and I'm either trying to listen to an audiobook, or I'm trying to scroll a little bit more on the phone, or I tell myself go back to sleep, but I'll walk around and have water. But I think I just have come to the conclusion, like maybe my answers want me up at 3 a.m., or I'm a woman or of a sudden age that I need to be up. And so you are taking this different pathway. And I wonder if it's driven by like your history as as being a vet, like, how do you have that control over both your mental and physical just to shut down?

Yeku-Yeku 9:41

Well, it's it's definitely um something that I had to develop as a skill, and I feel like this is something that everyone can develop as a skill, and developing those tools. And when you say you're up at 3 a.m. each morning, maybe there is a calling for you because um that's the that's the hour where it's the stillest, and where you can actually listen to that quiet voice, that quiet inner voice. And for me, it does come and it does stem from my service in the military, you know. Um when I retired in 2015, I was lost, I was in a very dark place, I was alone for the first time and in solitude and not with my family, you know. The military is a family that you create for yourself, and you literally place your life in another man or another woman's hands. And so when you separate from the military, whether you've served six months or you've served 16 years, or you know, my like myself, um, 22 years, that sense of camaraderie and that sense of belonging shifts and your identity shifts along with that. So you have to find a new way to exist, which for me was through the healing lens. I went to massage therapy school and I really immersed myself into all things that deal with healing, the somatic, which is like the body's way of connecting with the spirit body, so we have different aspects of ourselves, if you will, and so we have the spirit body that's our soul that's connected to the higher realms, and then we have a physical body, and so when you're saying you're waking in the morning at that 3 a.m. hour, a lot of people traditionally know that this is the time where you're being called by spirit to sit in stillness, and like you were mentioning, like it's hard, it's hard to sit in that space where you're looking inward, and like I was saying, like the misnomer of the hustle, the grind, where everything is outside, right? Everybody is looking outside, but the answers are inside, the answers lie within, and those small, still spaces, and then those quiet moments.

Chanda 12:28

Yeah, I mean, I think that's something that you've given me something to think about, and I and I definitely know that that what you're saying is true, but I don't know what to do with those things, and I'm gonna have to keep exploring it. And this is not a personal self-help for Shonda, but I do appreciate you giving me a little bit of more color around there.

Yeku-Yeku 12:51

Oh, absolutely. I think every each each one of us, if we're doing things the right way, we're evolving, right? Like as humans on this planet, the goal is to make existence better for the next generation that's you know coming forward and the next wave of beings that are coming to the planet, and largely we find there's so much suffering because of the fact that we're looking outside of ourselves and we're not in regulated bodies, and those aren't the first lessons that we learn in life. Like, how do you regulate yourself when you're in a state of panic? And how do you bring yourself back from you know a flashback or like you know, the veterans that I work with? How do you breathe through those tough moments? Yeah, and still be okay on the other side of it. That's the challenge, and that's where the work is. And it's like I said, it's a skill. Like, I didn't just all of a sudden wake up one morning and I could just press a chill button and be a you know, just it it took time, it took development, and it also took really looking in the mirror to figure out what it is that I needed for myself. And most of the time we don't ask ourselves that question. We don't ask what's going on with me that's driving this behavior or this pattern, and it's all about patterns. Once you see the pattern, you can't unsee it, right? You see the pattern of your existence and you form an identity around those things, so it's just being able to unlearn that, like we were talking about rest. Why is rest such a revolution? Why isn't it something that is just built in by default?

Chanda 15:05

I mean, capitalism.

Yeku-Yeku 15:07

Absolutely. The system is rigged for us to be exhausted, right? Yeah, and if you have someone who's exhausted, are they operating in their highest form? Probably not. A lot of us who are soldiers or who have been soldiers know how to operate in pretty chaotic scenarios and situations, going to combat and and and dealing with these life-altering kind of situations, right? But the average person when they're faced with like real challenges in life, it's really hard to look at themselves in the mirror and say, Oh, I have to sit with this and see what it is that I'm creating. What are the patterns that I continually choose to keep getting these results?

Chanda 16:02

Yeah, I mean, it's easy to put blame people. I mean, more than anything, I hear people saying, you know, that's why I had to cancel my, you know, my brother, you know, I had to leave that job, or I I had to cancel my parents. And maybe though all those things are true, but I never hear folks saying this is how I messed up. And I'm wanted to pivot back a little bit, B, you alluded to having some challenges right at the end of, you know, your you know, you serving. Um is this how you kind of built yourself back up together? I know you have children, you know, and how did they how were they shaped by that dark moment that you described in your life to see where you are now, which sounds to be pretty joyful.

Yeku-Yeku 16:45

Well, joy is a choice. That's the first thing. You know, misery loves company, but joy tends to walk alone. And because those that's the road that's path that's less chosen. A lot of people want to place the blame on their parents, on how they were raised, on I retired from the military, or I had this thing happen to me, and it shapes and forms their identity and who they are and who they become in the world. Now, for me, retiring from the army was one of my greatest accomplishments, aside aside from my children, and so leaving that and trying to figure out what my purpose now was in the world was where I had to make some hard decisions, and I really had to do what a lot of people don't want to do, is just face themselves down. And and I would say, like the last 10 years, it it's it's been dark and it's been quiet and it's been lonely and it's been sad sometimes, and it's been a lot of work, and it's the work that people are afraid of because it's hard. But when I have two daughters, that I'm now having to show a different side, having to actually live up to, you know, the mother that they really deserve to have. Life after the military made me come to grips with like I didn't really do a great job all the time. And that's hard for people to say to themselves and to say to their children, and to really move forward in a positive way. A lot of times people get stuck in that I didn't do a good job, and there's no way out of it. They find themselves just I'm in this dark place and I don't know what to do. For me, it was just I'm in this dark place, there's a lot of pooping happen around me, I'm just gonna sit in it for a little while because I created it. Well accepting that responsibility is the challenge.

Chanda 19:21

Well, you know, I mean up until this point, you know, we don't know each other very well. Um you're talking about this work and you're doing this like internal assessment, you're rebuilding yourself. Um you've made some a lot of great achievements, you know, on paper. Uh and you know, and story. You have a lot of achievements. But I'm I'm curious to like the foundation that put you on this journey. Does your your mother, your father talk about healing and redemption in the way that you are? Is that where this comes from?

Yeku-Yeku 19:56

Well, I would say great question. I love that you posed the question about the mother, the father, and all those things. I think a lot of us, um, especially in my age group, the Gen Xers, uh were raised by parents who didn't have the same opportunities for healing and nervous system regulation and understanding what that actually means in a real practical way. Like they didn't have the tools. So my desire to heal and my desire to be well and to be whole stems from that. It stems from my upbringing, stems from the lack of knowledge that my parents had and wanting to do and be better for my own children, and to show people through modeling that healing is possible, change is possible, but healing doesn't come without change.

Chanda 21:01

And where did you and your and your parents, where did you grow up?

Yeku-Yeku 21:05

I grew up in Rhode Island mostly, and I moved to North Carolina um my junior year of high school, and then I joined the military there. So my upbringing was uh largely in a white setting. So I grew up as the poor little black girl who's really, really smart. So it was my intelligence and my intellect that really put me in places and spaces that most people don't have access to. So I learned very early on that knowledge is the key and intelligence is going to get me further. So that was the I would say the cornerstone. Of my upbringing was you must be twice as good to even keep your foot in the door. You know, we even though we've all heard it, uh, you have to be twice as good to put a little color for people who have it.

Chanda 22:19

Twice as good as whom? Of anyone?

Yeku-Yeku 22:21

Well, I as a black woman, I have to be twice as good as all of my counterparts, period, but specifically my white peers, um, to even get recognized. And even in that recognition, there's still the challenge of being looked at as different by your own peers. So I grew up in Rhode Island and then I moved to North Carolina. That's a big change. Totally. And I I think, you know, I've run into that throughout, like, kind of been the thread of my life where I've been like the only chocolate chip in the whole cookie. And, you know, I've been the only black face in a lot of white spaces, and then coming into my own around black women and and other people of color has has been eye-opening. Say more. Well, I notice that we as black and brown skinned people have to do like mental gymnastics when we're in different spaces. But when we're with each, you know, when we're amongst our own, there's just a a relaxation that happens. Like, you know, your shoulders kind of let down a little bit, and there's not um a need to perform, I I would say. It's more performative when you're in different spaces, and so we have to be flexible. And I think the biggest lesson I've learned in life is flexibility.

Chanda 24:21

That's so funny because you know, I was I was not having that same experience. You know, we recently met at a uh a space for all black black women, black and brown women, um and I actually had like a a feeling though that maybe half of the group was still performing, um and made me curious of this is a question I I I I I was pondering the is if I were a person who my whole existence and life, everything around me um was dominant culture, and I just say for like white, you know, and that is my home base. So therefore when I'm in a space of all you know, predominantly black women, that's where the performance was occurring, I I saw for some. And so I'm curious of what your assessment would be. It sounds like that was not your takeaway.

Yeku-Yeku 25:29

Um well, if you're talking about the experience that we had for this retreat this weekend, I think I was more focused on just being there to rest. I I mean I was really enjoying the fact that we were out in nature, the fact that we were having this moment for ourselves, and I don't know about performative, um, but there's definitely I don't know what the word would be, it's just a need to belong, or a feeling of a need to belong through your story. Um, I think we we were sharing about maybe the the bond that we have through trauma, that a lot of us kind of share a common thread. I think that's what I noticed the most that there was a common story amongst all of us, right? We all have had like that moment where we were the outlier or the you know on the outs with our family, or just whatever the dynamic was, there was a power struggle in some way, and I feel like for the most part, holding yourself accountable is gonna be the way out of those situations. I didn't see a lot, I didn't see a lot of that, you know, and and and you really to to really be autonomous and a sovereign being, it really means to like accept all of it. Like the good, the bad, the ugly parts, the performative nature, like the code switching, like all of that. Like we have to do all of those things. And many times when you haven't established your identity and found your core of who you are, you tend to flip-flop around.

Chanda 27:37

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a good I think performative is is too harsh of a word because that's not the right word. Because I think it's so unconscious in a way.

Yeku-Yeku 27:47

There you go. It is it is unconscious. You've been coping this way for all of your life, right? Yeah, and every situation that you've been placed in has told you a certain message, an underlying message. And I think for black women specifically, um that collaborative energy has not been there because we've always been taught to compete against each other and your brown skin and your light skin, you know, and pitting each other, you know, against one another. Um there's been done historically. And so when you get in situations like that, for me, it was just nice to just slow down and be in a receiving type of atmosphere, or like even having someone taking the time to think about creating that space was really powerful for me because I mean, when are we looking after each other like that? When are we actually taking the time to say, hey sis, you know, when is the last time that someone poured into you? Then you weren't running on fumes or you weren't up all night worrying about the next meal or the next bill that's gonna be paid. When did you just get a chance to say, I'm going to rest, I'm going to sleep, I'm going to be in myself and give myself a chance to just be.

Chanda 29:27

Oh, absolutely. I like that you keep invoking your name also.

Yeku-Yeku 29:32

Absolutely, because it's important. I you know, and I it's it's funny. Like, my name is Yakuyaku. That's my birth name, that's the name that my father gave to me. And in this new chapter of my existence here, and and my purpose is to serve and to teach people how to just be, because we are really good at doing a lot, yeah. But we do it to the detriment of our own soul, of our own spirit. Like, you know, we could I was exhausted, you know, like going into a healing space wasn't just like, oh, I'm gonna go heal. No, it was like I I couldn't get out of the bed, I couldn't like make simple decisions, it was overwhelm times a thousand when you actually put it all down and you sit in the quiet of your mind and realize what a crazy place it is in there, yeah.

Chanda 30:45

Yeah, I think that for me going into that space, because have you been in a lot of women's like outdoor retreats?

Yeku-Yeku 30:53

No, that's probably one of my first ones. Well, specifically, like I said, I mean, who really takes the time to to come up with these things? The the thing that I'm into is vipassana meditation. I am a vipassana to the core, and I can go into that um a little bit and explain it, but I've never had the chance to be out in nature the way we were.

Chanda 31:20

So that was my that was my fourth experience, and that was my first time being exclusively. Um, what was primarily black women and I think a uh a few Latino women, uh women of color, but that was my first, so I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. Here's what I've learned in the other outdoor spaces, you know. I've learned, you know, uh canoeing or how to shoot a rifle. We would do some really fun stuff, we would learn, we would rest, and you know, we'd have some wine. And and and it was it was okay because it was designed to be a short, like it was okay not to go so deep because it was about three days, you know.

Yeku-Yeku 31:54

Yes.

Chanda 31:55

But what I experienced was actually great pain on the outset of our our journey together. And people shared a lot of painful things that ordinarily, if you were just talking to a new person, you wouldn't open up so quickly, you know, with an introduction. And so for me, uh I wrestle with this this idea like, oh, I'm I'm not in exclusively white spaces all the time. You know, I I live just outside of DC. Um, I live in an international city, you know, there are lots of different uh people that I get to come in and interact with. I do have uh pain, we all do, and the stories that they shared were human stories, you know, they were universal in pars, and some of them were rooted in race because that's the outcome of living, you know, in the United States. Right. It was more hurt and pain um versus uh the opportunity for for joy, you know. Um and that's what I I left feeling I have a really good ass life. I I did, and it made me feel um I'm happy grateful was absolutely the word B. I feel very grateful. Hey, I want to say this I know we're at time, but I'm grateful for this conversation. Uh B absolutely for more. How are we gonna close this out?

Yeku-Yeku 33:24

Hmm. Rest is revolution, rest is revolution.

Chanda 33:30

Thank you.

Yeku-Yeku 33:32

You're so welcome. Thank you. Oh my gosh, this was really um this is eye-opening for me. And I appreciate the invitation for us to even just sit down and chat.