Cultivate Your Essence

Cultivate Your Essence đź“ŤIL | GA: We are a mental health private practice dedicated to serving Black Women & Women of Color.

Before she became Clinical Supervisor. Before she became the quiet, steady force behind every session our team holds. Be...
05/18/2026

Before she became Clinical Supervisor. Before she became the quiet, steady force behind every session our team holds.

Before she became the standard the rest of us are measured against —

She was this little girl in the pink dress.

Meet Haile Pollard-Durodula, LCPC, CCATP. Our Clinical Supervisor at Cultivate Your Essence. A licensed clinician. A Black mother. And the reason every woman who walks into our practice is held by someone trained, accountable, and ready to do the work alongside her.

Becoming HER doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in real time, in real bodies, in real homes — and sometimes it starts with a little girl who hasn’t been told yet what the world will ask her to carry.

This week, Haile is publishing a piece every Black parent — and every clinician working with Black children — needs to read. Parent-to-parent. Therapist-to-parent. On what we miss in our own homes when we read our kids’ anxiety as attitude.

Coming Wednesday on the blog 🤎.

05/07/2026

She was the woman who gave until there was nothing left.
Soft on the outside. Steel underneath. Loving everyone — except the woman in the mirror.

Ericka knows that woman intimately.

Because she was that woman.

A divorced mother of two, raised in faith, trained to pour. She believed God was enough — and He was. He met her in the rubble. He restored her piece by piece.

But somewhere along the way, she discovered something else: that healing has many hands. And one of them is therapy.
So she went back to school. She built her boundaries. She remembered her softness. She came home to herself.
And now — she sits across from women just like her every week, helping them remember too.

Becoming HER isn’t a moment. It’s a slow, sacred return to the woman you’ve always been underneath everything you’ve had to carry.

🌿 Healed.
🌿 Evolved.
🌿 Restored.

She is waiting for you. And so is Ericka.

Some women are waiting for permission to come home to themselves.

Consider this it đź’š.

Ericka is currently welcoming new clients in Georgia. Comment HER below or tap the link in bio — and let’s begin your becoming.

Before she was the woman in the red blazer, sitting across from couples and veterans and Black women learning to breathe...
05/06/2026

Before she was the woman in the red blazer, sitting across from couples and veterans and Black women learning to breathe again — She was this little girl.

Yellow dress. Soft eyes. Already holding the kind of softness the world would later try to talk her out of.

Meet baby Ericka đź’š.

The girl who would grow into a divorced mother of two. Into a woman who poured into everyone before she remembered how to pour into herself. Into a clinician who learned, the hard way, that healing has many hands — and one of them is therapy.

Her becoming didn’t happen overnight. It happened in the rubble. In the prayer. In the boundary. In the moment she stopped giving from her hurt and started giving from her healing.

She was built — slowly, sacredly, on purpose.

Now she sits across from women just like her, every week — holding space for the kind of healing that doesn’t make for pretty captions, but does make for whole lives.

🌿 Ericka Keith, MA, MFT — now welcoming new clients in Georgia.

If something in this post stirred you — that’s not a coincidence. That’s the woman inside you, recognizing the woman inside her.

Comment HER đź’š to book a consultation, or tap the link in bio.

Mental Health Awareness Month started Friday. And this was the first conversation on my heart.Y’all know I don’t do take...
05/05/2026

Mental Health Awareness Month started Friday. And this was the first conversation on my heart.

Y’all know I don’t do takedowns — I do truth-telling. So if you saw the Joe Budden interview making the rounds last week, you already know what prompted this carousel. But this post isn’t about her. It’s about us.

The Black woman scrolling at midnight, looking for someone who looks like her, sounds like her, and seems to get it.
She deserves to know the difference between the loudest voice in the room and the one most qualified to hold her.
I had to say something — not from frustration, but from conviction. Because I’ve watched too many of my sisters take advice from people who were never trained to give it, and pay the price in private.

If the carousel stirred something in you, pay attention to that. That’s discernment. Don’t talk her out of what she’s telling you.

Comment LICENSED or tap the link in bio to book a consultation with our team. CYE is welcoming new clients in Illinois and Georgia đź’š.

There’s a kind of woman the world depends on quietly.She’s the one who shows up.The one who stays late at the hospital.T...
04/28/2026

There’s a kind of woman the world depends on quietly.

She’s the one who shows up.

The one who stays late at the hospital.

The one who keeps the family functioning when grief moves in.

The one who makes sure everyone else has eaten — and forgets, again, to feed herself.

She’s the strong one.
The reliable one.
The one who never falls apart in front of anyone.

But somewhere underneath all that holding — there’s a woman who is exhausted. Quietly grieving. Carrying weight nobody knows the size of. Loving everyone in her life so fully she has somehow become a stranger to herself.

If you’ve ever been her — this one is for you.

For the women who walk into Cultivate Your Essence carrying that kind of weight, healing begins the moment they meet someone like Tasha.

Tasha Jackson, MS, QMHP brings more than 20 years of clinical wisdom into every session — and just as importantly, she brings the lived experience that makes her trustworthy in a way no degree alone can. She has cared for a parent. She has lost a parent. She has held her family together in seasons no one was holding her. She does this work because she has lived this work.

Her clients describe her as warm, grounded, and deeply honest — the kind of therapist who can sit beside you in the heaviest seasons of your life without rushing you through them. She specializes in grief and loss, caregiver burnout, divorce and heartbreak recovery, identity work, and couples therapy — meeting every person and partnership exactly where they are.

Because Becoming Her isn’t only about reinvention.

Sometimes Becoming Her is the slow, sacred work of finally letting yourself be cared for too.

🌿 Tasha is accepting new clients — Online in Illinois.

đź”— Book through the link in bio!

Sunday pause 🤎.Where does your body feel the loudest — and what has it been trying to tell you?The tight jaw. The shallo...
04/26/2026

Sunday pause 🤎.

Where does your body feel the loudest — and what has it been trying to tell you?

The tight jaw. The shallow breath. The shoulders sitting somewhere up near your ears. The tension in your hips you can’t seem to release. The stomach that knots before you even know why.

Your body has been keeping score.

It remembers what your mind minimized. It holds what your schedule didn’t have time for. It stores what you told yourself you were “fine” about.

Your nervous system is not dramatic. It is reporting.

This week, instead of asking “what’s wrong with me?” — try asking:

“What has my body been trying to tell me that I haven’t made space to hear?”

That question is the beginning of restoration.

And if the answer feels too big to sit with alone — our team at Cultivate Your Essence is here for exactly that work 🤎.

đź“Ť Now accepting new clients in Illinois & Georgia!

đź”— Book through the link in bio.

04/24/2026

“The anxiety behind overgiving. The fear behind staying in unhealthy relationships. The trauma behind hyper-independence.” 🤎

That’s the work.

In this reel, Lillar breaks down what actually happens in the therapy room when a woman is ready to stop being strong for everyone else — and start being honest with herself.

The women Lillar works with are the women who have been holding it down for a long time. They love hard. They show up for everyone. They’ve built lives that look good on paper.
And underneath? They’re tired.

Tired of overfunctioning. Tired of feeling guilty for choosing themselves. Tired of being disconnected from the woman they actually are.

If that’s you — this is what the work looks like with her:
→ Understanding your attachment style
→ Learning emotional regulation
→ Rebuilding self-trust
→ Breaking generational cycles
→ Reclaiming your identity

Because Becoming H.E.R. isn’t about doing better. It’s about becoming more aligned with who you actually are.

From her: “You can expect raw, honest conversations, emotional validation, tools to set boundaries, growth-focused therapy, and accountability with compassion.”
That’s therapy that actually moves the needle.

đź“Ť Lillar is accepting new clients in Illinois.
đź”— Book your consultation through the link in our bio.

Save this one and send it to the friend who always says “it’s just how I am.” 🤎Here’s the truth most of us were never ta...
04/23/2026

Save this one and send it to the friend who always says “it’s just how I am.” 🤎

Here’s the truth most of us were never taught:
Attachment isn’t personality. It’s adaptation.

The way you show up in relationships — the chasing, the shutting down, the over-giving, the sabotage — isn’t random. It’s a blueprint your nervous system built in childhood to keep you close to the people you needed to survive.

If love was inconsistent, you learned to chase it. If love was conditional, you learned to need less. If love was unsafe, you learned to want and fear it at the same time.

That pattern made sense then. But the same blueprint that kept 7-year-old you safe? It’s probably the one keeping 37-year-old you stuck.

Here’s the good news: attachment isn’t permanent. Your nervous system learned it — which means your nervous system can unlearn it.

You’re not broken. You’re patterned. And patterns can be healed.

That’s the work our therapist Lillar Burton, LPC, NCC specializes in at Cultivate Your Essence.

Which pattern resonated most?

Share below 👇🏾

đź“Ť Lillar is accepting new clients in Illinois.
đź”— Book through the link in bio!

04/22/2026

Meet Lillar. Not just the therapist — the woman 🤎.

Lillar had to heal from the fear of being misunderstood.

Evolving for her has looked like choosing authenticity over approval — and making peace with the fact that the people meant for her will understand her, and the ones who don’t were never meant to hold her anyway.

Right now? She’s restoring her self-trust and her personal power.

And that is exactly why she does this work with Black women every day — because she knows firsthand what it takes to stop performing for approval and start choosing yourself out loud.

This is what Becoming H.E.R. actually looks like.

Not a performance.

A return.

If her story resonates with something you’ve been carrying — that’s not a coincidence.

That’s a signal.

đź“Ť Lillar is accepting new clients in Illinois đź”— Book your consultation through the link in our bio!

01/12/2026

We don’t traditionally make posts like this.

But our founder and CEO felt it was important to share.

Because right now, so many Black women and women of color are carrying a quiet weight—navigating uncertainty, financial pressure, political stress, family responsibilities, and emotional exhaustion—while still being expected to function, perform, and hold everything together.

What this moment reminds us is something we talk about often in mental health work: The process can look messy and still lead somewhere meaningful.

Just because things don’t look good yet doesn’t mean they aren’t moving.

Just because you don’t feel calm all the time doesn’t mean you’re failing.

And just because this season is challenging doesn’t mean hope is off the table.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do—for your nervous system, your mental health and your overall well-being—is to step back from constantly monitoring the stress, regulate your body, and trust that things can still come together without you being in survival mode every second.

If you’ve been feeling anxious, discouraged, or overwhelmed lately, you’re not alone—and you’re not broken. This is a heavy moment for many, and it’s okay to acknowledge that while still choosing hope.

We see you. We’re holding space for you. And we believe that even when the process doesn’t make sense, healing and stability are still possible.

12/12/2025

Why I Started Cultivate Your Essence đź©·

A special message from our founder .

I started Cultivate Your Essence because I got tired of watching Black women and women of color break in silence.

We’re taught to pray harder, work harder, love harder — but not to rest. Not to say “I’m not okay.” Not to fall apart without feeling like we’ve failed.

I wanted to build a space where we could unlearn that.

Where we could breathe without apologizing.

Where our healing wasn’t rushed, dismissed or judged.

Too many of us have been surviving our lives instead of living them — showing up for everyone else while slowly disappearing from ourselves.

CYE was born to interrupt that cycle. To remind us that healing doesn’t make you weak — it makes you whole.

Because you don’t have to choose between being strong and being soft. Between being successful and being at peace.

You deserve both.

You deserve you.

So welcome to Cultivate Your Essence.

A sacred space for the strong ones who finally decided they deserve to heal too.

It’s time to make yourself a priority. Start your healing journey with us at Cultivate Your Essence — because your peace deserves space too 💚🫂❤️‍🩹.

Address

111 West Jackson Boulevard Downtown, Suite 1700
Chicago, IL
60604

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 8pm
Tuesday 9am - 8pm
Wednesday 9am - 8pm
Thursday 9am - 8pm
Friday 9am - 8pm
Saturday 9am - 3pm

Telephone

+17086541929

Website

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