Wine, Wisdom & What Now? is a lifestyle podcast for Black women navigating reinvention, identity shifts, wellness, and the “what now” season of life. Through honest conversations, reflective storytelling, and expert insight, host Yolanda Holliday creates a space where women feel seen, supported, and reminded they don’t have to navigate this season alone.
Ep 002 | We Get to Choose Joy: Reinvention, Self-Care & Starting Over | Wine, Wisdom & Choosing Yourself
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In this episode of Wine, Wisdom & What Now?, Yolanda sits down with licensed mental health therapist, self-care coach, and breast cancer survivor Joy Robbins for an honest conversation about what happens when life shifts and you're forced to rediscover yourself.
From navigating the empty nest season to redefining self-care beyond spa days and bubble baths, Joy shares how a breast cancer diagnosis deepened her commitment to living intentionally, setting boundaries, and choosing joy every day. Together, they explore the identity shifts many women experience after 40, the importance of prioritizing your well-being without guilt, and why therapy can be one of the greatest gifts you give yourself.
If you've ever found yourself asking, "Who am I now?" or wondering if it's time to put yourself first, this conversation is for you.
In this episode, we discuss: • Navigating the empty nest season • What true self-care really looks like • Boundaries as a form of self-care • Finding yourself during life's transitions • Breast cancer survivorship and resilience • Choosing joy with intention • The benefits of therapy and mental wellness
Guest: Joy Robbins Licensed Mental Health Therapist, Self-Care Coach, and Founder of Creative Counseling & Consulting and Enjoy Wellness Retreats.
One of our favorite parts of the show is In Her Season, a listener-driven segment where trusted experts answer real questions from women navigating life's transitions. Whether you're facing changes in your health, relationships, career, finances, identity, or simply wondering "what now?", this space is for you.
Have a question you'd like answered on a future episode? We'd love to hear from you.
Your question may be featured anonymously on an upcoming episode of Wine, Wisdom & What Now?
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a woman who needs the reminder that choosing herself is not selfish.
Ready to find your Circle? The Curated Circle is a community for Black women 40+ to connect, learn, grow, and navigate this season of life together. Learn more and join us at Curated Living by YH.
ou don’t have to navigate this season alone. The Curated Circle was created to give Black women 40+ a space for honest conversations, meaningful connection, trusted resources, and sisterhood. Come find your Circle at Curated Living by YH.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of Wine, Wisdom & What Now?
If today’s conversation resonated with you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with another woman navigating her own “what now” season.
And remember — you do not have to navigate this season of life alone.
Until next time, pour a glass, give yourself grace, and keep becoming.
Joy Robbins
I really don't care what anybody else thinks about how I live. Like living out loud for real. There's something so beautiful about a woman in her 40s and 50s and starting to get it.
Yolanda Holliday, Host
Welcome to Wine, Wisdom, and What Now. My name is Yolanda Holliday, and I am your host. I greatly appreciate you for joining me on this journey. Today's guest is a small town girl taking life by storm and honoring her ancestors with every intentional step. Joy is passionate about supporting and challenging every woman she encounters to elevate her self-care, strengthen her mindset, and prioritize her well-being. She is a licensed mental health therapist and self-care coach, and she leads two transformative spaces: Creative Counseling and Consulting, PLLC, and Enjoy Wellness Retreats, LLC. Through her work, Joy helps women think better, feel better, and ultimately do better. She lives by two guiding beliefs. When we think better, we feel better, and then we do better. And when women take care of themselves, everyone wins. Joy is also a recent breast cancer survivor. That experience reshaped her understanding of what it means to truly live and deepened her commitment to helping women care for themselves without guilt or hesitation. Her resilience, her joy, and her unwavering dedication to women's wellness makes her an inspiring voice for today's conversation. Joy, I thank you for joining me today. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker
It's a pleasure. Jumping into this conversation, I wanted to ask you for what experience can you share with us that you're in during this season?
Speaker 1
Well, I am a newly minted empty nester. We just celebrated one year. And so I think that has been, thank you, the major and defining part of our lives, my life and also my husband's life, because you know, we prepared for this and then it happened, and it's like, okay, so what am I supposed to do in this season? But I think I was ready for a lot of reasons that I'm sure will come out in the podcast.
Speaker
I understand. I am also an empty nester. It's been about six years. Yeah. And I I too was, I don't, what do I do? I'm so used to being a mother, who am I? Yes. And then I'm telling you, it's been six years. I've gotten used to it. And it didn't take that long.
Speaker 1
Because we spend so much of our time, our life really devoted to being a mom. And sometimes we neglect ourselves, and then we wake up and it's like, okay, what do I do now?
Speaker
Right, right, right. So, in this journey, what is your process or how are you going about rediscovering who you are in this process in this season?
Speaker 1
So, when my younger son was in middle school, I got some really good advice from one of my really good girlfriends. She said, Go ahead now and start developing your passions, your interests, and your hobbies, because one day you're going to need those to really kick in. So I took her advice. I was like, okay, yeah, it's not going to be with all that. And it really was. So I took those years and really dug deep into my own personal health journey, my own personal self-care journey, started taking golf lessons, like just doing different things. So now life is still full in the absence of motherhood, which really was like the driving force of a lot of my life. So I still have things that are just uniquely joy now.
Speaker
That was some great advice to receive because most people don't even think about what happens next. We're living for we're we're mothers right now, and that's what we're living for. And we don't really think about the what's next.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Absolutely. And then it's like one day it you drop them off and you come home. It's like, what am I supposed to do?
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. So for your self-care journey, what exactly did that look like and where are you with it right now?
Speaker 1
I did my undergraduate work and graduate work with research around self-care. So it has been something that I've always been interested in. And as I think back, I worked in the drugstore my first job because I love just the cosmetics and the skin care. So self-care has always been something that has intrigued me. And I think listening to the stories of the women that I treat from the mental health perspective and really understanding if we take good care of ourselves, everybody wins. The pandemic shifted a lot of how we view self-care because for many of us, it was let's get my hair done, go get a facial, go get a massage. When the pandemic came and shut that down, we had to figure out different ways of really deepening our self-care practice. And so I took that personally. I was like, okay, so self-care has to be deeper than skin deep. And so I really start to embrace journaling, meditation, mindfulness. The list goes on and on, and really intentionally practicing self-care every single day.
Speaker
Amazing, amazing. I think I also have struggled or traveled that journey. And what I find, and what a lot of our listeners may find, is life gets busy. Yes. We're pouring into everyone else. There is no time for real self-care. What advice would you give to a woman that's just in that season of she can't find the time or don't know how to find the time?
Speaker 1
And I make that shift. We don't find it, we create it. Amen. It doesn't have to be big, copious amounts of time. I am the queen of let's keep this thing simple. So it can be like right now, as I'm talking to you, my feet are on a grounding mat so that I'm calm and centered. It can be small things that we incorporate into our day. We have so much going on. So we don't want to add anything, but if we can integrate self-care, I think that's that's the truth. That's the truth.
Speaker
Right. And for the person or the woman that doesn't know how to even start, what are three things that she can easily implement today?
Speaker 1
Drink more water. Cut off the screen at an hour or two before bedtime. Journal. And just let it go. Yeah.
Speaker
Yes.
Speaker 1
So something doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, or it doesn't have to take a lot of time.
Speaker
Right, right. So I find in this season, and a lot of people refer to it as midlife, but I don't like that word for a reason. I don't know what the reason is. I just don't like it. So I always call it a season. But in this season, we as women, we get to a point, and it doesn't have to necessarily have to be empty nets, but we get to a point where we nothing feels right. Have you experienced that season? And if so, what did it look like for you? And have you gone through it yet or are you still in it?
unknown
Hmm.
Speaker
I would say my toe is still in it.
Speaker 1
I think the breast cancer diagnosis at the end of 2024 really shook me. Like no lump, no family history. So I think that made me start to question okay, so who am I? Who am I going to be? How am I gonna let this shake me or define me? And I think what I had to go back to was the roots of my faith. And really, you know, taking hold of that and speaking differently, the way that I tell my clients to speak. I was like, okay, Joy, now it's your turn, and speaking life and nothing less than that. So yeah, and then I've always, well, I shouldn't say always, I've been really deep in the self-care practice personally for like five years. But that really made me dig a whole lot deeper, and my self-care is not negotiable. Like it is, it happens every day, it happens throughout the day, and nobody gets to take that away from me.
Speaker
Love it. Boundaries. Absolutely. Boundaries are another form of self-care, yes. Boundaries and and what I received from what you just said is regardless of the situation mindset, because when you rooted yourself in your faith, and when you said you had to say the things that you sold your clients, that the the issue is the issue. It's all about how you think about it and how you choose to deal with it.
unknown
Right.
Speaker 1
Because life is gonna happen. So for me, it was breast cancer. For someone else, it might be loss of a job, or it might be, you know, children acting up. It could be anything, and we're all gonna get thrown something. We are let that stop us from taking good care of ourselves.
Speaker
Right, right. So from your journey with breast cancer, being the survivor that you are, how did it shift you? How did it change you?
Speaker 1
I wake up with expectation of, okay, God, what are you gonna do today? Because if you healed me from breast cancer, like I'm amazed that okay, so what's next? Like, how big can you really get? Because to me, that was huge. Like in my era, when you heard the word cancer, it you think somebody's probably gonna die. Like that's just the connotation that I had. And so to think that I was healed from that, I mean, that's like pretty exciting. So it's pretty cool to wake up each day, like, okay, so what what big one are you gonna do today?
unknown
Right.
Speaker
Because clearly he's not done with you. So he is not done. I'm still here with right. Thankfully, we're getting to have this conversation. Yes, absolutely. So, knowing the shifts and the things that you have experienced, looking back at your younger younger self, what advice would you give her?
Speaker 1
Trust the plan. Take the next best step, even if you can't see the staircase, just take that next best step. Don't listen to everybody else's comments because they're gonna have something to say. If you went left, they're gonna say you should have gone right. If you went up, they're gonna say you should have gone down. So just ignore all of that. I think that has been huge for me in the last year and a half or 15 months of of survivorship. I really don't care what anybody else thinks about how I live, like living out loud for real.
Speaker
That is powerful. We all have a different journey of how we get there, but when we get there, that is powerful.
Speaker 1
And we lock in. I think there's something so beautiful about a woman in her 40s and 50s. I think we start to get it. And it's like, you know what? You're gonna have something to say regardless. I might as well give you a storyline.
Speaker
Right, right. And I think that before we get it, we're we're at a place where we're like, um, is it just me? Because you feel the shift. You feel something changing. We don't really talk about it. So you wonder, is it just me? And you question yourself, am I being the bad person for setting these boundaries? Am I being the bad person for putting me first? Because as someone said at the event on Saturday, we have to destigmatize the word selfish because it is okay to put you first.
Speaker 1
Yes. I try to help my clients. If we put ourselves, understand that if we put ourselves first, then we actually have more capacity to do more. So it's really not selfish, it's selfless. So that I'm putting myself first. So I'm not just, it's not just me only, but it's me first so that I have more to give. If we can make that shift, and many of us didn't see our moms and grandmoms do that, so it's new for a lot of us.
Speaker
It is.
Speaker 1
But if we can make that shift, everybody connected to us wins. I believe that wholeheartedly.
Speaker
I agree. I agree with you. So, what now in this season, what are you allowing for yourself?
Speaker 1
Joy.
Speaker
I love it.
Speaker 1
I think my parents knew something by naming me this. Just how can I not find happiness? Because we know that's temporary, and things can come and go, and happiness can ebb and flow with that. But joy is just this deeply rooted. It's more grounded, it's more secure, it's regardless of the situation, I can still choose to have joy. It's not that every day I wake up and it's like, okay, you know, everything is wonderful, but I make the choice, okay, how am I going to find joy in this situation?
unknown
Right. Right.
Speaker
It's intentional. Yeah. It's intentional. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And we get to choose that.
Speaker
Okay, before we go, if you had to give advice to a woman that's listening, and she just doesn't know, she's just in a place of the beginning of her shift, what advice would you give her to get through her shift?
Speaker 1
That's what some good ones. Aye, I many of us don't pursue therapy. And I think the advice I would give is if you need some support, see a therapist. Like let somebody be your accountability partner, be your cheerleader, hold your hand until you get steady on your feet. And then we as therapists, we kind of move to the background. So after you start getting your C legs, we move further and further away. And I think that is one of the best gifts that we can give ourselves is to have 53 minutes of an unbiased person that is outside of the situation to really sit in that with us. So yeah, I would say try therapy or go back to therapy if you've tried it before.
Speaker
Yeah, I just to add to that, I I feel like mental health is not taken as serious as it should be. Just as important as physical health. So the same way we go to the doctor every year for a physical, even if we think life is perfect, we should be checking in with the mental health therapist at least once a year.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And we often think that it's gotta be crisis before I go, or you know, I didn't didn't have a bad childhood. I can't go to therapy. No, sometimes we kiki in therapy, and it's just a good time because it's your time to do whatever. So we celebrate, we cry, we grieve, we mourn. Anything can come to the therapeutic space. So yeah, I'm that's my soapbox because mental health is my thing.
Speaker
Well, if if someone did want to get in touch with you regarding your two spaces, what is the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Speaker 1
Best way is email joy robbins at creative counseling group.com. That's the mental health practice. And if you're wanting more wellness and how to do this, because the wellness side of this is all right, I don't necessarily have a diagnosis. I just need to learn how to take better care of myself. And that's J Robbins at enjoy wellness retreats.com.
Speaker
I greatly appreciate you coming to share your light, your spirit, your testimony. It has been amazing. I'm sure it will help someone who is on their journey. Thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation, and I invite you to continue the conversation with us in our Facebook group. The Facebook group is the curated living circle. If you search that in Facebook, you will find it, answer the questions, and we will gladly accept you in. In addition, I want to remind you about our segment called In Her Season. In her season is the segment where we take your questions and we sit down and we discuss them with a trusted professional. To submit a question, please email in her season at winewisdom whatnow.com. We are also on Instagram at winewisdom in what now. I would like for you to communicate with us outside of these conversations. If you have any questions, please send them to questions at winewisdom what now.com. Until we meet again, I hope that you have an amazing week.
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