If you thought LeToya Luckett-Walker was gracing the stage of Essence Festival’s Beauty Carnival on Friday to talk about how she snapped back after having her baby in January, then you showed up for the wrong segment.
Instead, the singer got real with festival goers, sharing a motivational “sermon” about self-love, self-care, and allowing yourself to be imperfectly beautiful. In a heartwarming conversation on ESSENCE’s Beauty Carnival Stage, Luckett told us that the secret to “bouncing back” is to stop beating yourself up and to appreciate who you are.
The 38-year-old admitted that she felt the pressure associated with looking a certain way in the entertainment industry, but now she doesn’t subscribe to it.
“Everyone’s journey is very different. We look in the mirror before we have a child and we’re like, ‘Oh, this is me, this is who I am. This is the LeToya that I know,'” she detailed.
“Then, you have the baby, and you’re so excited. You go back to that same mirror, and you go, ‘Wait a minute. Who is this? What body?’ But here’s the thing, it’s still you. Regardless if it’s a new you, regardless if you put on a couple of pounds, or something’s different. It’s still you. It’s you evolving and that’s what I have to keep in my mind.'”
Her message to other moms going through the post-baby ups and downs?
“Stop beating yourself up, ladies. Stop beating yourself up and appreciate who you are,” Luckett Walker advised.
It’s that attitude that inspired the singer and actress to get back to work one month after giving birth. Luckett told festival goers that she jumped back to work in an effort to show the real her.
“For me, I couldn’t go into hiding. Four weeks after having Gianna, my daughter, I was on TV with all the chins, giving you all this back fat,” she recalled. “I want people to see me in my most vulnerable state, and I need them to be able to relate because of a lot of times what you see on TV, a lot of time what you see on these stages, it’s not even real. You have people that are suffering in silence because they don’t want to accept their bodies or they’re afraid of being bullied.”
If you’re not right mentally, it’s going to go all bad by 12 noon.
For anyone going through a bounce back, the new mom suggests focusing on yourself.
“You’re the focus,” Luckett advised. “If you’re not right mentally, it’s going to go all bad by 12 noon.”
She also suggested that you “know the truth about yourself and speak a word of encouragement to yourself.”
We know it’s only Friday, but the Greenleaf actress definitely took us to church.