Chianti Lomax: Evolving While Black: Happy, Authentic, and Free
Sep 3, 2024
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Chianti Lomax, an advocate for personal authenticity and freedom, shares her transformative journey from Greenville, South Carolina, to a career in positive psychology. She discusses the power of self-discovery through education and unique experiences. The conversation dives into the importance of self-awareness, breaking generational patterns, and redefining happiness, especially for Black women. Chianti emphasizes personal agency, accountability, and creating a supportive community to empower underrepresented voices and foster authentic fulfillment.
Kianti Lomax highlights the transformative power of exposure to diverse experiences in fostering personal growth and self-efficacy in marginalized communities.
She emphasizes the importance of positive psychology principles in enhancing individual well-being and making them accessible to all, particularly for people of color.
Challenging traditional success narratives, Kianti advocates for self-acceptance and emotional resilience as essential aspects of achieving authentic happiness and fulfillment.
Deep dives
Empowerment Through Exposure
Kianti Lomax emphasizes the significance of exposure in fostering personal growth and self-efficacy. Growing up in a challenging environment, she benefited from programs like Girl Scouts and college field trips that broadened her perspective on what was possible for people who looked like her. These experiences showed her that being successful and thriving was attainable, which countered the survival mentality she was taught. This realization inspired her to write 'Evolving While Black,' aimed at providing similar empowering insights to others in the Black community.
Transformative Power of Positive Psychology
Kianti's journey into positive psychology revolutionized her approach to personal well-being. Initially drawn to coaching and supporting organizational change, she discovered that the principles of positive psychology could be applied to individual lives, enhancing joy, peace, and resiliency. Her enrollment in an applied positive psychology program catalyzed her understanding of how personal belief systems can either hinder or support one's growth. This newfound knowledge ignited her passion to make these scientific principles accessible to everyone, particularly to those in marginalized communities.
Redefining Success and Happiness
In her discussions about happiness, Kianti challenges traditional narratives that equate success with marriage or financial stability. Instead, she advocates for self-acceptance and self-love as critical components of personal fulfillment. By redefining what success means and emphasizing that happiness can exist independently from societal expectations, Kianti encourages individuals to create joy on their terms. This perspective empowers readers to recognize their worth beyond external validations and to focus on personal growth and authenticity.
Navigating Emotional Resilience
Kianti highlights the importance of acknowledging and navigating a spectrum of emotions rather than suppressing negative feelings to attain a constant state of happiness. She promotes the practice of being present with one’s emotions and suggests strategies, such as gratitude and self-compassion, to foster emotional resilience. This approach encourages individuals to recognize that feeling a range of emotions is natural and that using tools from positive psychology can help manage these feelings effectively. By doing so, people can create their own spaces of joy amidst life’s challenges.
Building Self-Awareness and Boundaries
Kianti underscores the necessity of self-awareness as the foundation for personal transformation and setting healthy boundaries. She offers practical exercises, such as polling friends for feedback about one’s strengths and areas for growth, to enhance external self-awareness. Furthermore, she discusses the importance of establishing boundaries, particularly within family dynamics, to protect one’s mental and emotional well-being. By articulating her experiences, Kianti empowers others, especially women from similar backgrounds, to assert their needs and prioritize their happiness.
How do Black women grow, transform, and make good use of the power they possess? In her new book, Evolving While Black, inspirational life coach and “Chief Happiness Curator” Chianti Lomax shares a guide to help Black women achieve authentic happiness and liberation on their own terms. This episode of Insights at the Edge brings you into her company with Sounds True founder Tami Simon as they discuss Chianti's personal journey and the many practical approaches she teaches.
Give a listen to their conversation on: education, the golden key to improving your life; positive psychology; how exposure creates expansion; learning ways to flourish in the face of systemic racism and oppression; listening to hip-hop that empowers us; shifting from poverty to possibility; breaking free from the inherited belief systems that no longer serve you; mindfulness and emotions; what Chianti discovered while skydiving; the challenge of accurately assessing your own level of self-awareness; "polling your crew" to learn how you show up in life; the life satisfaction pie and how much of our happiness is ours to determine; journaling as a vehicle for rewriting your truth; taking your thoughts "to court"; optimism research and the A,B,C, D method; three dimensions of happiness: pleasure and gratification, strength and virtue, and meaning and purpose; self-acceptance and validation; setting healthy boundaries; and more.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
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