Patty has special guest Dr. Lulu Umeh on the podcast today. She’s led an incredible life and has shared much of her wisdom in her two books. How to Raise Well-Rounded Children and The Warrior Women Project: A Sisterhood of Immigrant Women.
What does it mean to live a well-rounded life? Dr. Lulu shares a bit of her story and the things she’s overcome. She reminds us that life is what we make it. It’s about being intentional.
One of her jobs is that of suicide prevention activist. She explains that LGBTQ+ children contemplate suicide 3 times the rate of their heterosexual peers. It’s the second leading cause of death among all people aged 10-24. Giving children and their parents the resources they need is part of her mission.
Understanding non-binary in today’s world comes with many questions. Dr. Lulu explains that she’s helping parents recognize their fears. She offers that she’s not coming from a place of perfection. She’s had to learn too.
How can we be allies?
It’s simple. Kindness to all. If you see something, say something. When we see each other as people, looking past perceived differences, we can see that people are hurting.
Be willing to listen. You don’t have to have answers, or solutions. Just kindness and a willingness to accept people for who they are, unconditionally.
As the saying goes, when you know better, do better.
Connect with Dr. Lulu
About Dr. Lulu Umeh
Dr. Umeh, aka Dr. Lulu “The Momatrician,” is a Nigerian-born International Keynote Speaker on Bullying and Youth Suicide. A self-proclaimed Suicide and LGBTQ+ Activist.
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TRANSCRIPT
50:00:04.3: Welcome to the space for magic podcast where people who are led by their hearts come to learn the secrets to receiving all the gifts the Universe has for us. I’m your host, Patty Lennon. I’m an ex-type A corporate banker turned intuitive coach using a blend of common sense, brain science, and just a dash of magic, I’m here to help you create abundance in every area of your life and business. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome everyone to this episode of the space for magic podcast. I suspect that you are going to fall in love with today’s guest. I have, and I barely know her. I’ve known most of her through her written work and having caught her on another podcast interview, so I am bringing you Dr. Lulu today, who is… I thought about reading you her bio because I’m so afraid I’m gonna miss all the juicy gems that are in there, but I really want you to understand why it was so important to me to introduce you to her. So Dr. Lulu is momatrician, she’s a person, she was a former lieutenant colonel, she is a suicide prevention activist she’s also the mom of a young adult who identifies as non-binary, she has so many badges of honor on her lifelong process of being a human on this planet, I can’t even begin to list them all.
0:01:41.8: But the reason I felt so passionate about introducing you to Dr. Lulu is one of my children’s friends, was dealing with some pretty serious mental health issues, and when I heard Dr. Lulu on a podcast, she was talking about suicide prevention, and it was an issue that was very much alive for me, and then as I’ve talked about here, being a white, I am in the process of educating myself on how to make sure I’m doing what I need to do to raise children who are anti-racist and Dr. Lulu had books both on both these topics, well, then I reached out to bring her on to the podcast with the question mark in my mind of how does someone have the resilience to produce the work that Dr. Lulu has, I haven’t shared all of it with you and I will, as we go through this interview, she told me in response to that, that she has a brand new book out, which is all about warrior women and immigrant women who have created these amazing lives in the face of so many uphill battle. So, Dr. Lulu welcome.
0:02:49.4: Thank you so much, I appreciate that. And every time I hear my bio read and third person, I’m like that.
0:02:57.9: Meme know and I just… The surface, I scratch the surface of all of that you have accomplished and done, so tell me… What didn’t I talk about? That feels meaningful for you. That you want our listeners to know. I mean.
0:03:15.5: It’s only fifty-two years, right? So it’s a whole lot that you didn’t talk about, but I think what you talked about is fine, but… Yeah, I was born in Nigeria, most people don’t remember. But I was born in Nigeria, I was bullied like crazy before the age of 10, I had an attempted sexual assault at the age of 9, and when I went to boarding school for girls at the age of 11, I was bullied also there and had my first sexual assault, so low. And when I was in med school, my first year med school, I was married and abusive husband, all of those things that most people have had. But I think what I’d like to talk about is the space in between the fact that I love to write, and I love to draw, and I love to dance, and I love my kids, and each one is so different and each one has taught me more than any book or any textbooks could have ever taught me about life and living and being a parent and being an adult and standing for what I believe in, and cutting my dreadlocks that I wanna cut my dread locks and getting new dreadlocks if I wanna get…
0:04:24.8: Things like that. It’s not in any textbook, so I’m learning now that it’s the spaces in between the times of trauma that we tend to not focus on, but the truth about the Native American adage is the wolves you feed gets fatter. So if you feed the thoughts of all the negativity, then yes, you’re gonna remain in that negative thought space and nothing is gonna be right, but if you say, Well, what about the spaces in between… Yes, I was married to an abusive man, but I divorced him and I’m… Okay, right, and I’m okay by myself, that’s, you know. Yeah, it happened, but I’m also happily single. You know what I mean? So I think we have to be intentional. I think intentionality is what I think is missing in… Even in me, when I deal with my own imposter syndrome, I have a book that’s been in my head, and I told my accounting, my accountability partner, yesterday, that’s what I said, I’m going to come up with the 12 titles of the book this week, so help me God. I have to because it is in my head, and I have another book for parents that have pretty much finished writing, but all of those things and is anybody gonna read it? Is it gonna do well, even with four best sellers that are doing well, so I’m a normal person, but when those thoughts come, I ask myself, Well, is this thought serving you right now, one, or sometimes, okay, I’ll let myself just kind of wallow in it for two seconds, and then we gotta keep going, and so I know people don’t like to make lists, I make lists and I just…
0:06:13.3: I make all the list of everything I need to do on a Monday, and I have til Friday to get them all done. And if I don’t finish doing them, I’ll do them next week. So I give myself a lot of grace and I just know that we just have to keep going, and the day you stop moving, the… Do you give in… It’s literally the day you die as someone who has been suicidal, I know if you give in, you will die. Prince EA said something that I don’t know if he’s the originator of it, he said a lot of people die at the age of 25, they just get buried at 75, so are you gonna be that kind of person that dies at 25, your soul is dead and you’re just living and just a shell. So when I go, anywhere, I wear bright colors. Cause I wanna wear bright colors. If I dance and sing if I wanna do and seeing, I just finished just recording my daily show that I do every day on Instagram, and I was dancing, and one of the comments was like, I love her energy. We all have that energy, I just choose to harness mine and showcase mine, it’s not because I’m not going through a divorce right now, I am, but I’m gonna be happy because I can…
0:07:33.4: There’s enough negativity out there, if you want that, you’re gonna get a full boatload of that, so just manifests and express positivity and it’s not so bad, really, once you practice and practice, you become progressive ’cause they look perfection, right? You just become progressive in that and you get better and better every day, so I don’t think that I don’t have a magic… I don’t know, wand or a magic cloud. Two weeks ago, I would lean on my bathroom floor in fetal Position crying. I was crying that Monday morning, ’cause Monday morning, my mornings for meeting my Consortia, they are my mornings for setting my pace for the week, everything I need to do for the week, and I was in fetal position crying because I had said it to retire the next week which was last Monday, the 5th of July, was the day that I took my oath as a physician 30 years ago in medical… When I graduated from medical school. So I said, I’m gonna retire at 30. And so that day I was like, Oh my goodness. What do you mean? You wanna retire. The thoughts, what are you gonna do? What if it doesn’t work out? You have this fantastic job as a physician, you get paid a boatload of money…
0:08:53.6: Why would you wanna leave that? Things like that. And so I was crying to myself that, Oh my goodness, I’m gonna make a mistake, so even I go through that, but after I had a good cry, it took me a few more days, and then today I’m back this week, I’m actually back with a vengeance to keep going, because working with parents of queer kids, LGBTQ+ kids, helping them accept their children, because there’s a higher rate of suicide amongst these children, so if I’m gonna be a suicide prevention activist, then I need to go out in the field and do the work, and it’s okay to be afraid, but courage is defined as fear plus action, so yes, I am afraid, but I am still doing it ironically, that afternoon, that Monday afternoon after I was done crying, I looked in my email and right there was an email from CBS this morning with Gayle King and her friends, and they wanted me to come on their show. And then there was another email from the city of San Antonio, they want me to be part of a photo shoot to showcase diversity, and then there was another email from voice America, they want me to have a review show of my own, and then there was another email from my us best, they wanted me to review a LGBTQ+ products.
0:10:18.8: So that same afternoon where I was crying in the morning, all of these things happen, sometimes just need to cry and just be done with it, and then leave the door open for new things to come in to say…
0:10:32.8: I wanna ask you about that ’cause that was my big question for this interview too, is where do you find the resilience… And what I’m hearing you is that you give yourself the time to feel what you’re feeling fully, and then from there, you can then move forward and… Have you always been like this?
0:10:54.3: I honestly don’t know if I have… What happens, I’ve never really sat down to check to see how I always be like this, but as a pediatrician and as a mother, I know that children… They need to cry sometimes. And when they cry, they feel better, and we still have the ability to cry, and I was just telling my sister today who lost one of her best friends to cancer, and I told her, I said, You know, just cry already and be done with you crying ’cause she was like, I don’t know if I should show my daughter that I said, you should ask it to show your daughter that you are vulnerable and then you’re human and then you’re crying, and I told… I said, That’s the way we were raised. And I didn’t… That was not appropriate. I didn’t think my dad was human, I thought he was super human, but he made no mistakes, and that’s not true, as I got older, I realized my dad was human and he’s fallible, but he didn’t wanna show me that there’s this toxic masculinity and patriarchy that just… Kills the world to not show that you have vulnerability and you have the book, and you know that one of the things I talk about, my super power is this VFAB, Vulnerability, F-Fearlessness, A is authenticity, and B is boldness.
0:12:12.6: Those are the four things that I live by… I am fearless in the sense that I’m gonna look you in the I and still gonna do it, except if it’s a reptile or frog or an amphibian, my kids now I don’t like those. But even recently, I’m telling myself, You know what, The reptiles are like me either they’re on away from me so that they can’t harm me, and so I’m now trying to say to myself, You know what, you cannot be this tough talking, doctor, coach on this side and then you’re afraid of amphibians, like literally frogs, what are they gonna do? But my whole life, I’ve been afraid of frogs, my whole life I’ve been scared of amphibians, and two nights ago, my middle man child, saw a dead gecko in the little the windows, the little light fixture. And he was like, Mom, you need to leave. Just go away. And I was like, What? Just go aways ’cause I see a gecko but he’s a dead Jack. He was like, What? Because they grew up knowing me as being afraid of live or dead. I don’t care anything, geckos amphibians lizards. I’m going to the opposite direction, but truly…
0:13:22.7: Does that thought serve me So coming back to all of this now, because I’m now a certified coach, I’ve gone through coaching school, and I now know that the one person that can defeat you is yourself, that’s why David beats Goliath, because David saw himself as Goliath… And that’s why one of my favorite pictures is the cat that looks in the mirror and he’s a lion. So if my thoughts defeat me, then it doesn’t matter what my enemies are gonna bring… I’ve already defeated myself, so I was like, You know what, no, I look at the lizard and I’m gonna walk past the lizard. And today I saw a dead frog, normally, I’ll run to the other side of the group and I just walked by and that’s it. Girl, you’re doing it. So it’s baby steps. Nobody has the best answers, nobody has all the answers. A while back, I was a launched a new business, he was working with kids who were suicidal, it was largely successful. And then covid came and it just died, a natural death. But before that happened, one day I went into a doctor’s office, it was like my 11th doctors office that in to just tell them about my services, and I walked into the bathroom and I asked the lady for the bathroom, and she showed me the bathroom.
0:14:40.5: I walked in a back to, and I was walking into was the mirror, I winked it myself, and I sent myself go, you’re killing it. And that phrase, so that sentence gave me my second wind ’cause I was tired, I was in heels, and I was here to try to pitch my business in another doctor’s office, but I said to myself, girl, you’re killing it. And that was my own self-boosting my own self, and we need to do that from time to time, we have to do that from time to time cause it’s important. So I’m learning more and more than if I don’t say, Girl, you’re killing it, I’m gonna have the wrong energy when I meet the people, and then they’re gonna be, Well, you know, there was this doctor that came… I don’t know. She Santana, if you don’t want that. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that we have all of the power within us, and that’s why coaching works, because coaching helps you harness the inner David, as it were, or the inner… I don’t know, Tiger or tigress, that lives already within you.
0:15:48.9: Yeah, I love that. And that really was my question was, Where is this resilience come from and I see you actively create it for yourself. I’m curious, I know you’re doing a lot of work with a population that right now, I believe, I think feels misunderstood and is misunderstood, they feel exactly what the reality is, are these children who are walking a journey that has no clear path, meaning… Sexuality is such a new topic of discussion, a lot of the previous generations just didn’t talk about it, so why do you believe you’re so involved with children or is it young adults who are navigating sexuality in a new way and understanding themselves in any way?
0:16:44.9: Well, actually, first of all, sexuality is not a new thing. Even the good book has people in there who were called UNIX, which were as first, I’m concerned non-binary and sexuality. Well, that’s gender, but if you look, there was a post on Facebook where I don’t know where it came from, a ton posted pictures from, I don’t know, the 19s and items and the twins and of people who were same sex unions then and who were living against the Greens as a Nigerian, as an evil woman, we have in the history of Evil and women who used to take wives in the history of Igboland way before the white man came with his Christianity and exchange his Bible for sleeps. I’m all about calling a thing a thing, I happen to have relatives way before me that were captured as slaves me. So I’m not making up something, I’m not saying something, I’m not creating something. The white man’s version of Christianity was rooted on fallacy. There’s something called the slave’s Bible. And in the slave Bible, they removed lots of verses that were counter-slavery, any kind of verses that encouraged the mutiny, they removed… This is real facts, and I’m not making it up.
0:18:27.0: But more than that, more than that, I think just even coming in to today’s world, I’m very proud of the younger generation because they are the future, they definitely are the Saviors, they don’t care, you say you’ll know your non-binary, they’re like, Okay, great, so what’s for dinner versus the old generation, you’re not binary was what as they got to do with, what’s gonna happen to me? What are my friends gonna say what’s my church, gonna say what’s my… My my my, well it’s not about you, and so I actually do not work with the youth anymore, I work with their parents at helping them realize that it’s not about them, those are the examples that my own non-binary child set to me, Mom, it’s not about you, it’s not about you. And so I’m not coaching them from a place of perfection, I’m coaching them from a place of I also struggle with non-binary… What is that? I have known in my child’s cases there were two, but I didn’t know what non-binary was, it was a brand new phrase, I’ve never heard before, ever, but it was not up to me to hold onto the fact…
0:19:33.5: Okay, because I’ve never heard about it. That makes it wrong. Or because I’ve never heard about it. That makes it untrue. Or because I’ve never heard about it. Then I don’t want to learn about it. No, how do you learn about something? You just learn about it. Oh, wow. There’s this new restaurant in town, Okay, let’s go check it out. I’m learning about it or oh wow there’s this new phrase non-binary. Fantastic, I’m gonna learn about it. And just as my child is non-binary… We learn about everything else. A lot of the parents that I meet, they said, Well, you know, I’m okay with gay. I’m okay as long as it’s not my child. Then you’re not. Okay, we do. That’s bullshit. And not okay with it. And the truth is, why are you not okay with it? If you go to the fifth why and the next why and then the next why and the last bottom why, it comes back to you and your own fears and your own insecurities and your own self esteem issues, studies have shown that most of the really bad toxic homophobes are closeted gays, I didn’t make that number up. But as a 2021 February, the Gallup poll showed that less than 50% of American teenagers are straight…
0:20:56.6: Less than 50% of American teenagers who were surveyed were non-LGBT, look-it up. So if that’s the case, then it’s time that parents started looking at their children with a different eye and almost going into a space where it’s a matter of time versus it’s never gonna be… What were you gonna say?
0:21:25.6: Yeah, so you had said earlier that the LGBTQ+, the young people, there’s a higher level of… The suicide rate is higher in that community… Did I get that right? Everything.
0:21:40.9: Bad is higher in that community… Yeah, and I use the word bad very lightly, ’cause that’s much worse words, they have a higher rate of self-harm, they have a higher rate of body dysmorphia which means they’re not okay with their body, they have a higher rate of substance abuse, they have a higher rate of homelessness, one in three. Homeless youth identify as LGBT one in three, and that’s with the knowledge that 76% of people who are surveyed abstain from responding when people plead the fifth… What does that mean? So that number could be higher, they have a high rate of STDS, they have a high rate of sexual assault, they have a high rate of promiscuity almost, because they are dealing with lies that have been told to their parents, they’re dealing with trauma from people around them, that are bullying from people around them, most of the first bullies are their own parents, they’re dealing with ostracization, dealing with denial and disownment. They’re dealing with all of that. And so before the age of five, all of those negative energy and trauma that is fed to them, they now grow up with this history, I’m not good enough, my parents don’t love me, parents don’t understand the power that they have.
0:23:18.2: As the parents, the power that they have, as the first relationship that the child has ever is with the parents, they don’t realize the power that they have as potentially the first bullies of their kids, they don’t realize the power that we have as being the most important person in their child’s life. Literally, they’re the most important person. And so when the most important person in your life doesn’t accept you for who and what you are, I do have to sell the fact that suicide is higher. I have to sell it. It’s an easy sell. But here’s the problem, here’s the problem. Orthodox medicine, the kind that I used to practice when the child is brought to the doctor or to the councilor therapy second, whoever, by the parents, the parents is usually the one telling the story, Oh, my child is sad and depressed and acting anxious and all these things. Right. And the first place they go is the prescription path to write an anti-depressant, to write ADHD medicine and anxiolytic, all of that, because even in the medical field, they lack knowledge. Why? Because there’s new verbiage coming, there’s new things coming up that we’re not up to speed, and so sadly, even though some of these kids do get sent to therapy, enough of them get sent for conversion, enough of them get put on medication, and even those who go to therapy, some don’t have gender affirmative therapists, some don’t have trauma informed therapists, some don’t have therapists who even know anything about the LGBTQ, so have a Christian therapist who push their religion.
0:25:18.0: I had a guy in my Facebook group who was a Christian therapist, and he had the nerve to tell another parent that God is in control, and as far as they pray hard enough, the child is not really trans because that’s not of God, that’s not affirming. That’s not fair. You don’t get to tell me what my gender is… Gender identity is a very personal journey, so I want you to see why I’m going to the root, to the parents, the ones that are the first relationship, they are the ones that are possibly the first bullies. Yeah, they are the ones that tend to disown their kids and send them out of their homes, they are the ones that bring their kids to the doctor’s office and approving of the child being put on medication, which may possibly further victimized the child because if that child was he happy three years, the happy five-year-old, Hey, Happy seven. And they realize wait, I am attracted to the same gender, and then they start acting scared and depress because their parents are like, homosexuality is a sin. You’re gonna go to hell. I want you to see the picture of painting here, that child starts acting sad and depressed and not wanting to speak or whatever, and then we take them to the doctor and they get put on medication.
0:26:42.4: I wanted to let that sink in, now, I’m not here to tell you that there are no people who need medicine for depression, I’m here to say that a child who is in the LGBTQ+ space does not need medication for depression, if indeed the depression is coming from the lack of acceptance, ostracization, bullying, 75% to 90% of these kids have been bullied at least once and possibly 100% of these kids have been bullied once as a child who wa5s bullied, I know what bullying can do, it can cause you to jump to your death, so my work is not for the soft-hearted… I don’t go about it soft-heartedly, because for these kids… For enough of these kids is a matter of life and death.
0:27:38.6: So if someone is listening that maybe has children of their own or they’re just an adult who wants to make sure they are part of a helpful population and not… Part of the problem is there maybe behaviors, because I would say… I could be wrong, but I would say of people who are listening to this podcast are at least consciously believing they are not homophobic, consciously believing now that, Man, that doesn’t mean there’s other stuff now going on underneath the surface, but they’re trying to be good people when it comes to acceptance. So is there behaviors to look for their thought patterns to look for that someone may not realize that they are being a part of the problem more than the solution.
0:28:33.2: Studies have shown that gender identity becomes apparent at the age of three years old, he’s a ball shifter, so it can be as early as 18 months and as late as five, which means the cis-gendered boy or a cisgender girl, which is a person or a child, whose gender identity is incongruent with their genital organs… I’m gonna say that again for those at the back, cisgendrality, that a word is a situation where an individual feels that they have a certain gender and that gender agrees with their sexual organs, that cisgender it… I just made up that word… Okay. Gendrality is not a word, I just made it up. Gender-ness, I think is the correct. But either way, you know what I’m talking about, that human being knows by the age of three that they are cisgender ed, my question to anyone listening to me is, Do you therefore think that at three a transgender person would know… Do you therefore think that at three… A non-binary person would know the answer is obvious, here’s the problem, the child goes to school, and it just say, Alright, all the boys to this side and all the girls to this side, and then you know in your head that your gender does not agree with you sexual organs.
0:30:12.6: Which side do you go to, so these kids that… That early to know. The thing about it is that child might not come out until the 17, they might not come out until 12, they might not come out until their 40 idea. I want the parents to hear me when I say the number one reason children do not come out to their parents, the child does not feel safe enough to come out… They don’t feel safe enough to come out. If that child has known potentially since they were five, they don’t feel safe enough now that’s gender. The other half of the coin is sexuality, which is different from gender, gender is divided into two… Gender identity and gender expression. For gender expression is when somebody wants to talk a certain way, walk a certain way, dress a certain way, behave a certain way, as projected is normal by society, girls should wear dresses, girls who act weak, boys are strong, whatever lies that society tells us for getting that every human being has both masculine and feminine energy after human… So when you come to sexuality becomes accurate, by the age of 9 to 11, sexuality is the process or the ability to know who you are emotionally or physically attracted to have a relationship with that is different from gender.
0:32:04.8: So LGB is sexuality, CIAP plus is gender. So people don’t know that. So my job is to try to see why the work I’m doing is not… Let’s just talk about it for five minutes. Is huge. A lot of parents think that, Oh, much, I went to college and became gay, but now that you know what I know, did that child go to college and become gay, or did the child get to college and find people who affirm their sexuality, the found their tribe and so they did to come out because they didn’t feel safe enough at home, so it’s not as easy as, Oh, I’m trying my best to not be homophobic… You can’t really try… If somebody tells you that they are, they are… And I know, I know before you say it, there are people who would tell me, Well, there’s this one person and that one person who said they were given… Then they said they were not. Now that you know what I know, do you believe truly that they said they were gay and then they rescinded? Or do you think that the environment that they live in caused them to say, You know what, I’m not gay, just leave me the heck alone.
0:33:27.8: Which is it, I’m not gay. So you can leave me alone. It’s not the same, I’m waiting for my mother to die before I come out, it’s not the same. People tell me that, Well, there’s this person who was traded the gateway bullshit, because I don’t know any human being who I see on the left hand side, Association, homophobia, hatred from the world being called to the unique hell trying we pray out of… Loneliness, drug abuse, sexual assault, possible. Suicide on one side, love and acceptance on the other side. Everybody says, Oh, you are normal on the other side, and then you’ll choose… They will cautiously choose, the site has all of the negative… No one in their right, Nintendo people should be aware. Be aware and also beware when the child said, Well, I was gay, and then I was prayed over, because the true kids are so trusting of their parents, they would do anything for their parents to continue to love them, they would do anything to remain in the good… Whatever, I have a friend in Nigeria right now who is in his 30s, who told me categorically, I will not come out.
0:34:54.5: ’cause I don’t wanna lose my father’s inheritance, and I want you to sit on that for a second and see what the simple are dealing with, why suicide for them is a great option than to live a life of lies. And I’m not making anything up. We can delete this after we’re done, I’m not here to make friends, because there’s a child out there who needs their mother to hear my voice today and set them free, and I also don’t want to be parents out there to replace their child in the closet, and not say anything about it, and not deal with it and not wanna talk about it, ever… My job is not easy. I would rather take the easier path and just remain a pediatrician and write prescriptions for sceptre all day, but am I really living my passion? Am I truly being a David? When I’m doing that, that’s cowardice. When you’re called to save lives, you must answer the call, the easier path is to remain in premade pediatrician, you can see that for yourself.
0:36:05.2: How do we become an ally? What does that look like?
0:36:09.9: Being an ally is just when I, racism or homophobia or any inequality type thing. Being an ally is simple. See something wrong. Say something about it. Regardless of what the outcome is gonna be for you. Not making it about you. The universal law is Love Yourself, and then love your neighbor as you love yourself. The universal law is that of kindness to all… Kindness is not a parent job, kindness is not a neighbor job is… Everybody can be kind. Last June, my neighbor’s child put a gun to his head, I knew that kid, I never said anything to him. He was one of the gothic kids, but I always saw him just looking, not happy, but I was like, It’s not my kid. Me, so we need to now, once we know better, do better. I’ve always spoken to the kids out of Boston, it’s what I’ve always done, I still do that, but I didn’t do that with that kid, I just… Somehow I just was like, I don’t know. He may not wanna talk. Whatever excuse I give myself. So being an ally means, you know when someone is hurting, we all have that feminine energy of knowing when someone doesn’t look good, the eyes are the window to your soul.
0:37:35.1: You know when I’m not having a good day? And one of the things I tell the kids to do is to sit with the person, just sit with them, don’t see anything, the next they sit with them again, the third sits with them again, and they might open up to you or they might not, but in your heart, you know you’re doing something. It’s not really for parents, Per se is for everyone. We all know the child who’s hurting the Nigerian adage says, it takes a village to raise the child. Then you say it takes parents, so it takes a village, which was The Palm wine Tapper, the bus driver, the parent, the woman at the well, the people at the sewing machine, please. Whatever it takes all of us to reach the reach I like to say, it also takes a village to save the child… So we’ve all been called to raise the kids together, whether we for them or we didn’t, because someone who’s not a parent today will become a parent someday, their system, I die and certainly they have to raise their sisters kids. I don’t know. So being aware is re-knowing that a child who says that they can literally does not choose that the only choice, be me, is to come out and tell you…
0:39:00.2: They didn’t choose to be gay. They did choose to tell you, and so if you find yourself blessed enough to be that person, then your work… There is done. I was bullied when I was a child, when I was 16, I knew I liked girls, and I told my dad, and my dad said, this problem, your face. You’re gonna grow out of it. And so I did what every good child does, suppress it has suppressed it as much as I could and married a man and bought three sons, but I knew inside of me… And I was living a lie. And after my divorce, I was like, You know what, I don’t… I’m 42 years old, you can’t tell me anything. At this one, I’m not sustaining. I came out at 42. So I’m saying that it’s not everyone that you don’t have to be a parent, it could even be you, not you, Patty Lennon, but it could be you listening to me. There may be just me. Could you be… Could you be… Because I had a family member who came out and I antagonized them, why? Because I was like… The thing I said earlier on, a lot of people who are in technicalities, because I was white, I was scared.
0:40:20.9: The countries, if you come out there, you can be punished to move by dead, can be punished by 14 years in prison, all this craziness, but I wasn’t really living my triaging them, it should have still be supported regardless of course, I ended up making good idea. And going through my own journey of regrets and apologies and ask you for forgiveness. Because once you know better, you do better. Some of us don’t get a chance, I suppose for kinase, the kids can go to a very dark place very quickly, and so for me, coming out of my dark place was me doing the things that I like to do a lot of jumps. If you wait, jump. Love cops, I cook, I love writing, I write. So finding something inside of you, finding that inside of you, which helps you to be authentic to yourself is what you need to survive, all of that, and then not listening to what people say, Not one… Not worrying about what people say. But it’s easy, I sit them down in it, Penny.
0:41:26.3: That’s true. Yes. So, Dr. Luo, thank you so much for this. If someone’s listening and they want to learn further from you, is it your Instagram show, where do you want them to find you…
0:41:38.9: My Instagram, so is a good step because it’s not lurking is people are the people that I don’t know. Random people querying the crispa parents had a parent today, allies, they’re the ones talking on my show, which is why the show is great, so the show is called The Prime corner, our coming up to richer, and we’re actually in the process of uploading all of them to the YouTube, so people can go there and watch them, and then also uploading them to a podcast with the same name, the Pride corner, our coming out series and more. And then I have a website where I have if PDF that you can just download that talks about 10 things you should know about raising your LGBT side things issue. Now, I took about some of the things I talk about today, about the bullying and other things. Okay, so my website is doctor to Dr. Lulu dot com, dr-lulu.comwebsite.
0:42:44.1: And we can… We’ll put those links in the show notes as well. So people can click through any other locations, you want people looking for you.
0:42:53.8: All my books out when Amazon or anyway, Books are so… So if you go to Amazon and type my name Uchennah Umeh… You will see my four books and some parents and Novos is really trying to get them into any book store that would have them. So that’s one thing. I have a free webinar on my website that’s titled How Not to respond when your child comes out, I think that’s another good thing that people can watch is about an hour, I think how not to respond when your child comes downout, and then I have a free 60-minute session that I’m offering for now, on my website also, I think it’s calendly.com/drlulu, you’ll get the 16 60-minute free session just to kinda talk to someone who has walked your walk right now, who is not coming to us from perfection… I’m coming to you from… I used to be you, and sometimes I’m so you… I still struggle like any normal human being, but you have to pick up yourself and just keep growing, so thank you so much for the space, I really appreciate.
0:44:03.9: And really appreciate. Yes, and those are so generous offers… Well, I so appreciate your time and you educating me and us here. Thank you so much. And everyone check out the show notes so that you can follow Dr. Lulu in all her spaces. Thank you. Welcome him.
0:44:21.3: If it helps at all. I think there’s a book that I could recommend… I didn’t write the book, but I love… The book is called Beyond the gender binary. Beyond the gender binary by Alok Vaid-Menon… That should be everybody’s handbook. I love it to pieces, and I don’t get any kind of anything by putting the book out there, I don’t get any kind of primate, but the focus is exactly what my child would say to you if you had a conversation with them, a beautiful book, book reached by a gene on binary person teaching the world about gender, non-binary ness and all of the other things in between, so I love… Everyone should get awesome.
0:45:14.3: Alright, thank you so much, Dr. Lulu very well hey thanks for listening if you know someone who needs to hear this message please share this episode with them and if you’re feeling really generous I’d love for you to leave us a review at your favorite podcast app it helps us reach many more people and it fills my heart with so much joy when I hear what you have to say about what I’ve shared I’m cheering for your success have an amazing day and don’t forget always create space from magic.
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