Black Women North of 50

In this insightful interview, Tamela Floyd, LCSW explores the transformative power of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, its relevance to intergenerational trauma, and its impact on Black women's mental health. Discover how understanding parts, healing ancestral wounds, and cultivating curiosity can lead to profound personal growth.

What if some of the pain you carry has passed down through generations? In this thoughtful conversation, author Tamala Floyd explains how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy helps us understand our inner parts, explore inherited family wounds, and begin healing patterns passed down through generations. Learn how curiosity, compassion, and awareness can lead to meaningful change and personal growth.

As we come to the close of 2025, some conversations deserve to be revisited.

This episode, originally published earlier this year, returns as our final episode of the year.

In this episode, Wynn talks with therapist and author Stevon Lewis about the inner bully. This is that critical, relentless voice that questions our worth, our choices, and our right to rest or succeed.

In this episode, they also explore how this inner bully evolves as we age, how it’s shaped by intergenerational survival, and why Black women over 50 often carry it more heavily than they realize.

You’ll Hear About:

• The difference between intuition and self-criticism

• Intergenerational survival patterns that shape self-doubt

• Why naming the inner bully creates distance and power

• The role of community, belonging, and accountability

• Letting go of perfection while staying committed to becoming

🔔 Subscribe + Connect:

YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

Some conversations stay with you long after the microphone turns off. This is one of them.

Originally released on June 1, 2025, this powerful episode returns for the holiday season on December 9, 2025, because the truths shared here about depression, silence, stigma, and healing continue to matter deeply, especially for Black women navigating life north of 50.

In this encore episode, psychiatrist Dr. Rhonda Williams and host Wynn Helms have an honest, compassionate conversation about what depression actually looks like, how it hides in plain sight, and why so many of us normalize symptoms we should never have to carry alone.

Together, they break down the difference between “a rough patch” and a clinical depressive episode, how hormonal shifts and life transitions amplify emotional strain, and the complex ways spirituality, community, and generational silence shape our mental health.

✨ You’ll Hear About:

• How to recognize when sadness becomes a clinical crisis

• Why Black women over 50 are especially vulnerable and often overlooked

• The emotional weight of menopause, caregiving, and life reassessment

• The spiritual tension between faith, prayer, and seeking professional help

• The stigma around antidepressants, and why they’re not a sign of weakness

• The generational impact of untreated depression in Black families

• How therapy, connection, and daily habits form a healing toolkit

🔗 Resources Mentioned:

• Psychology Today – therapist directory

• American Psychological Association – mental health resources

• Therapy for Black Girls – directory for Black female therapists

• BlackFemaleTherapists.com – community and therapist listings

• Your primary care doctor or insurance panel for referrals

🔔 Subscribe + Connect:

YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

What makes a story worth telling?

In this solo episode of Black Women North of 50, Wynn opens up about what she truly wants this podcast to be: a home for real stories told by real women north of 50.

As we're approaching the New Year, Wynn reflects on what it means to live with authenticity, curiosity, and courage as a black woman navigating life beyond 50. This episode is about the messy, beautiful, non-linear paths that brought us here.

✨ You’ll Hear About:

• What the podcast Black Women North of 50 is truly becoming

• Why our unpolished stories matter more than ever

• Learning from “mistakes” that actually shaped who we are

• The courage it takes to live, learn, and begin again

• How community and conversation become healing spaces

• Wynn’s hopes for the next season of the podcast

🔔 Subscribe + Connect:

YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

What does it take to believe there’s still more waiting for you, even after life has thrown every curveball imaginable?

In this episode of Black Women North of 50, Wynn chats with Dana Bell, Licensed Professional Counselor and founder of "Let’s Talk with Dana Bell".

Dana shares her experiences in her early days as a welfare fraud investigator and real estate agent, to her years serving as a parole agent in Michigan’s correctional system.

She opens up about ignoring her calling (at first), finding her way back to counseling, and how loss, resilience, and obedience to that “still small voice” brought her to where she is now: helping others believe in their better.

✨ You’ll Hear About:

• Why we sometimes take the long road to our true calling.

• How grief and faith can become turning points toward purpose.

• The power of believing in your ‘better’, no matter your age or past

• Dana’s journey from corrections to counseling and podcasting

• What it means to bring compassion and structure to healing work

• Finding courage to start something new, even when it’s scary

🔗 Connect with Dana Bell:

Website: letstalkwithdanabell.com

🎙️ Podcast: Believe in Your Better — launching January 2026 on YouTube and Spotify

📍 Based in Michigan | Licensed Professional Counselor | Speaker & Mentor

🔔 Subscribe + Connect:

YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

What does it really mean to tell the truth, especially when the truth is messy, uncertain, or still unfolding?

In this solo episode, host Wynn Helms reflects on her 30-day journey to rediscover the deeper purpose behind Black Women North of 50.

Wynn opens up about her own creative crossroads, the fear of vulnerability, and her desire to move beyond surface-level success stories.

Instead, she’s creating space for real conversations, about the journeys, the stumbles, the lessons, and the quiet victories that often go unseen.

✨ You’ll Hear About:

• Why authenticity can feel risky, but worth it

• The beauty of sharing the journey, not just the highlight reel

• How vulnerability creates deeper human connection

• Letting go of perfection and embracing the learning curve

🔔 Subscribe to Black Women North of 50 for more stories and real talk: YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

💌 Want to share your story or suggest a topic?

Connect with Wynn

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

What if the very pain you’ve been running from is the thing that can heal you?

In this episode of Black Women North of 50, Wynn sits down with Denise James, psychotherapist and author of Back to Love, to explore how looking into our own story—without fear—can open the path to transformation.

Denise shares her deeply personal journey from a childhood marked by absence and survival to a woman who reclaimed her worth, spirit, and calling through the power of self-reflection and truth.

Her story reminds us that healing is about returning to our past with love, understanding, and compassion for the self that endured it all.

✨ You’ll Hear About:

• How facing your story can become a sacred act of healing
• The connection between mental breakdowns and spiritual breakthroughs
• Healing childhood wounds and rewriting generational stories
• What it means to live authentically in a world obsessed with perfection
• Using writing and reflection to return “back to love”
• How therapy, spirituality, and creativity can work together to guide us home

Listener Reflection / Invitation:

Take a moment to ask yourself—what part of your story still aches to be heard? Your pain isn’t your ending; it may be your invitation to rise into purpose.

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🔔 Subscribe to Black Women North of 50 for more stories and real talk: YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

💌 Want to share your story or suggest a topic?

Connect with Wynn

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

What does spirituality look like when you stop trying to define it—and simply live it?

In this candid solo episode of Black Women North of 50, host Wynn Helms opens up about a deeply personal topic she’s kept quiet for years: her spiritual journey.

From a childhood home where religion wasn’t part of daily life, to discovering her own faith through curiosity, books, and lived experience, Wynn shares the story of how she found her connection to something greater, and on her own terms.

She reflects on growing up with questions about truth and belief, exploring different religious paths, and eventually finding a spiritual home in the Church of Religious Science and Agape International Spiritual Center in California. She also talks about how spirituality now shapes her work as a psychotherapist and her vision for this podcast as a space for connection, authenticity, and dialogue.

💬 “People don’t have to believe what I believe—it’s the dialogue that matters.” — Wynn Helms

You’ll hear about:

• Wynn’s early curiosity about faith and her mother’s surprising advice on belief
• What drew her to spiritual communities like Agape and the Church of Religious Science
• The difference between spirituality and organized religion—and why she left the “business” of it
• How her understanding of the mind-body-spirit connection shapes her work and life
• The power of conversation, connection, and finding meaning beyond doctrine

At its core, this episode is an invitation to be curious about your own spiritual path, to embrace what resonates with your soul, and to keep the conversation open.

🔔 Subscribe to Black Women North of 50 for more stories and real talk: YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

💌 Want to share your story or suggest a topic?

Connect with Wynn

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com

Before social media and before hashtags, there was Soul.

In this episode of Black Women North of 50, host Wynn Helms sits down with Regina Jones, a true trailblazer who carved out her place in history as the first Black woman to publish an entertainment newspaper about black artists in the U.S.

Through her work with Soul, Regina became a voice for Black music and culture in the 1970s, spotlighting legends when mainstream media wouldn’t.

She opens up about the reality behind her rise: getting pregnant at 15, surviving hardship, and refusing to be defined by anyone else’s expectations. Regina shares stories of walking into male-dominated rooms with her head held high, creating opportunities when none existed, and working with icons like the Jackson 5. Her journey is a lesson in resilience, vision, and power.

You’ll hear about:

- How Regina turned early hardships into fuel for her ambition

- Navigating a male-dominated industry as a young Black woman in the ‘70s

- Why self-belief and resilience are non-negotiable

- The legacy she hopes to leave for future generations of Black women entrepreneurs

This episode is more than a look back at history — it’s a celebration of what’s possible when a Black woman decides to bet on herself.

🔔 Subscribe to Black Women North of 50 for more stories and real talk: YouTube: @BlackWomenNorthof50

💌 Want to share your story or suggest a topic?

Connect with Wynn

Instagram / Facebook: @BlackWomenNorthof50

Email: [email protected]

Website: blackwomennorthof50.com