Monikka Stallworth didn't set out to make an exhibition. She set out to stop hiding.

In 2016, within moments of her mother's death, a sentence arrived that she couldn't shake: life is for living. It took years to understand what that sentence was asking of her, and years more before she could show anyone the photographs she'd taken of the woman she had spent decades keeping secret.

In this conversation, the artist behind Met Mo For This talks with Dr. Nicole about the long middle: the marriage she tried everything to save, a habit she hid from nearly everyone, the night she cut off more than a decade of locs while on the phone with her mother's best friend, and a poem that came to her at the least poetic moment imaginable. Along the way, she makes a case you don't often hear about transformation. Before anything can change, she argues, you need somewhere safe enough to let it, the way a caterpillar finds a protected place before it ever becomes a chrysalis.

This is an episode about the difference between fixing and feeling, what grief sets in motion without asking permission, and what it means to reclaim the parts of yourself you were taught to be ashamed of. Monikka also reads her poem "Feel" in full.

• (00:00:00) - Intro and Welcome to The Room
• (00:01:26) - Introducing Monika Stallworth and Her Exhibit
• (00:02:06) - Mother's Passing and the Message 'Life is for Living'
• (00:03:33) - Filing for Divorce and the Need for Safety
• (00:05:13) - Finding Safety Through Creativity and Butterflies
• (00:07:29) - The Poem That Came to Her
• (00:09:23) - Hiding Shame Around Smoking
• (00:10:31) - Safety as the Chrysalis Condition for Change
• (00:12:08) - What Happened Between 2016 and 2021
• (00:14:41) - Mother and Grandmother as Supplemental Love
• (00:17:25) - Therapy, Listening, and Feeling Her Feelings
• (00:19:51) - Submitting Desires and Learning Self-Compassion
• (00:21:12) - The 50th Birthday Portrait Session
• (00:23:13) - Being Honest About Smoking and Receiving Compassion
• (00:24:31) - Capturing the Transformation in Photographs
• (00:26:18) - Her Father's Quiet Compassion
• (00:27:59) - Cutting Off Her Dreadlocks After Loss
• (00:31:52) - Losing Weight and Confirmation at the Courthouse
• (00:33:14) - Identity, Marriage, and the Shame of Single Motherhood
• (00:39:07) - Reading the Poem 'Feel'
• (00:44:27) - Stillness, Marinating, and Understanding the Space Between
• (00:45:47) - Reclaiming Creativity and Giving Herself Permission
• (00:49:19) - The Value of the Chrysalis Process Itself
• (00:52:56) - What She Had to Release
• (00:54:23) - Still in Transition: Be Still and Know
• (00:58:51) - Compassion, Reclaiming Yourself, and Final Wisdom
• (01:02:43) - Where to Find Monika and Closing Thoughts