Latest / DA CREW Podcast / DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #81_HOST TRIVEDA HARRIS_(SHOW #11))

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DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #81_HOST TRIVEDA HARRIS_(SHOW #11)) · DA CREW Podcast

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M o o o Donald Jackie Drummer, wrongfully incarcerated over thirty three years.
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We are seeking the release. Support the Free Texas Camp. Authors. Here's
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your chance to get to your work seen across the world. Be a part
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about fifties United Authors of Aspiring Authors. Max. Here's your chance to have
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your book, your en and your work broadcast through Alex the World. I
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can sweet, sweet squeeze, it was sweet see sweet. Good evening,
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and welcome to Believing the Journey podcast, where everything that you have been through
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in this life is connected to the purpose in which God has created you.
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This is episode number eleven for me, so I thank you all for tuning
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in. As always, we always got to go to God in prayer first
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before we do anything. So let's go to God in prayer. Dear Heavenly
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Father, thank you for bringing us together again in your midst and in your
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presence. Even though we have been through some things over these last couple of
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weeks, we still are included in the number on this side, and we
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thank you and we honor you continue to guide me in the way that you
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see fit. Allow me to continue to be obedient to the directions that you
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give me. I am grateful for this space, and i am grateful for
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this opportunity, and I'm grateful for the people that are here with me and
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your precious name, Jesus, I pray Amen. Now, I have a
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very very special guest tonight and the topic of this show is basically saying yes
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to yourself. Many times we don't always think about saying yes to ourselves as
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we think about saying yes to other people. My guest tonight is Miss Chanelle
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Coleman Wesley. She is a best selling author. She's accomplished playwright. She
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is a speaker and creative powerhouse of cc Inc, a company that conveys the
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power of her story. Is also has two platforms Black women authors. And
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she said yes to herself, which is why I decided to do the topic
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on saying yes to yourself now. She has many many other accolades, but
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the most important one that is near and dear to her heart is the role
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of mother to her six children and her two grandchildren who she is known as
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Gigi. Welcome my guests, Miss Chanel Coleman Wesley. Hey or how are
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you love? I'm good. I'm just excited to be in this space and
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thank you, thank you, thank you for allowing me to be able to
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be on this platform. I'm extremely extremely appreciative. Well, listen, I
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am glad that you are here with me because I am inspired just by you
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alone and all of the things that I have done my research on just the
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small amount of time that we've been talking with each other. And I mean,
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I didn't list everything that you sent me in your bio because I want
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to be able to talk about those things, because it seems like there's not
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enough time in the day to be able to do all the things that you
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do, but you make it look so effortlessly and you're good at what you
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do. So tell me about how you got started in the just a playwright,
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being an author, just anything, just start wherever you want to.
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I love it. I appreciate the question. Actually, I've been writing since
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I was about like seven or eight years old. I've been writing all this
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time, often know not anything consistent. Writing was very therapeutic for me as
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a survivor of abuse and sexual assault. I just had a copy mechanism through
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writing. There were things that I felt like I could not say or couldn't
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talk about. But hinting paper or you can just really become very intimate with
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and lay all your thoughts and your feelings and you don't feel ashamed or you
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don't feel as if you know you're gonna be betrayed by one's being putting what's
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being put down to paper. And so that's really what sparked the love of
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writing for me. It's an opportunity and you feel like things are happening outside
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of your control for you to be able to control things writing there if you
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say, what's going to happen? And so I've been writing for a while,
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but I just finally became a published author last year with my first book.
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Yes, it was just last year that I actually put something out into
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that atmosphere, and it was amazingly like keep on going, keep on going,
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like what else? What else? What else? Is so like,
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I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do to push out
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as much as I can. I said I was gonna put out five things
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this year. I did one. I'm working on this anthology and I have
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some couple of other things my belt, so I gotta hurry up and pump
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it out before December thirty. Fivest, Well, listen, you will definitely
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get it all done. I don't have any doubts or any worries about that.
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What you said about getting started with writing, I think that's one of
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the things that for me. Anybody to interrupt your thoughts or your feelings,
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You're able to get it all out when you need to, and then you
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can go back and look at it and then see if you're expressing everything that
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you need to express in that time. And that's one of the things that
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helped me to get started as well. So I definitely understand and agree with
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that completely, because when you're writing, you don't have anybody to interrupt you.
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You're able to get it out completely. If you got to walk away
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from it, you can walk away from it and then there's no judgment when
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you come back. So I understand you know how that happens, and writing
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is very very therapeutic for me. I started with poetry. I love yes,
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yes, Yes. Now the other question that I want to ask you,
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you have the platform for a black women authors. How did that get
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started? Actually, it's very organic. I was looking at the things on
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YouTube because I go to YouTube University. I don't know about who else go
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there, but I go there. I'm a frequent student. I feel like,
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you know, I can give my masters and you know, and my
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bachelor's and my pH d and a couple of subjects, and I always come
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back to refresh to see some things. And so, but I was getting
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ready to launch my book, I was thinking, you know, I need
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to find a platform that's created for women who are geared towards speaking towards the
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similar audience, who have a Christian faith, who believe in the idea of
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networking and collaborating, who really want to see each other win. Where it's
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the space where we're not competing against one another, that we're just showing up
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as our best self and we're just pushing not just ourselves for but the platform
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or and so I was looking to join something like this. And so I
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was on a network and I was just asking like, hey, is there
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such a group like this within this community? And if I was like no,
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And so, being a creative, when I don't see something that I
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want, my mind tells me go ahead and do it. Building like doing
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yea. So and so that's really and so we just kind of pulled people
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to get it to the to the post I'm like, no, yeah,
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but we'll join. So I'm like, Okay, what that means. I
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have to build the things that they could come to it. And so that's
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really what happened. It helped with you know, other authors being interested in
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just kind of talking about what kind of dynamics we wanted, UM, what
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type of UM platform was going to be. And it's really been amazing because
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I've made so many amazing connections within this space, just really amazing, amazing
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people. So I'm really really excited, um, not just for what it's
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done for the as far as a platform, but what it's brought to me
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personally, you know, as far as relationships. Like Jack Hacks, she's
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one of those amazing people from that space of Black women Office. Yes,
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I mean that's how I contacted you got you as well, because I put
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the message in there that I was looking for guests to be on this platform.
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And you got some friends who agree with you on Black on YouTube University,
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so they are in agreement that they go to YouTube University to get there,
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not try. I mean, that's basically where a lot of us go
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because anytime you need to know something, somebody else has already established something that's
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similar to what you're looking for, and all you need to do is take
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a little notes from there and added your own little spin on it, and
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then there you go, and that's it. So you can't really go wrong
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with that if you don't really know. Just going over there, somebody gonna
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teach you something. So trying true, yes, but going into there,
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Like as I said before, I'm very very shock, but it's hard for
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people to understand that. So when I said that message in there, I
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was like, oh Lord, nobody's gonna respond to me at all because I'm
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new to all of this, and we'll see what happens. And so I've
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been placing myself in spaces where I'm the new kid on the block, but
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it doesn't appear that I'm the new kid on the block, but I'm really
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the new kid on the block, and a lot of these spaces and a
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lot of these areas, but I want people to understand that just because I'm
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the new kid on the block, there's a lot that I want to share
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about myself and with others, And as long as we're able to reach that
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handback and help somebody else, that network will never be small and it will
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never be empty because you're always pouring into everybody else's cup and they're into yours.
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So there's always that level of overflow. And that's what I look for
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in any space that I go into, is to be able to receive and
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to pour into other people. Because sometimes I'll say, for me, I
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don't feel like I have a lot to say, but when I start talking,
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I say a lot. See that mean you have time to side,
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You have a lot to say. You just then know you had a lot
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to side. Yeah, And you know, I always want people to always
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feel comfortable being in this space to where they can let their hair down and
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just talk about whatever it is, because saying yes to yourself is one of
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those things that as a mother, number one, if you're a mother and
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you're a wife, and you're a friend and a daughter, a sister or
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whatever, you're always thinking of everybody else first, and it's never where we
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say, okay, you know what, let me just stop thinking about y'all
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for once and think about me. How did you come to saying yes to
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yourself and being in this space right now? Actually? But YouTube University?
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Okay, and so let me tell you how, because this is okay,
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okay, okay, I poured out my heart. You know, in my
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first book, Naked and Out of Shame, I tell stories about you know
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that are something may be familiar, stories in the Word of God about women
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in their journey, and then I compare that to a story in my own
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journey that may have some similar points. And then I try to get the
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reader to see her story because I believe there are three sides everything. Yeah,
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very true that as I poured my heart out and I was going to
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YouTube and I'm like, selling your book and what do you do? And
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they said, when nothing sells your book like your next book. And I'm
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like, what, so you mean in order to sell this book, I
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got to write another book. And it was like, yes, you got
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to write another book. So I'm like okay. And then I'm looking at
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stuff and they're like, well, you know, you want to be able
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to put out some things that you can produce a few works off of that
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one thing, so you can gather your following and they can come and take
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a ride with you in several different you know, different books. And I'm
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like, well, okay, where am I adding this space? What's something
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that's really genuine to me in the space that I feel that I can serve,
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and how am I able to pour passionately, purposefully and powerfully into women?
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And I just started thinking about where I was in my journey, because
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there was a time when I didn't say yes to myself. There was a
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time when I trunk myself. And as women and we're nurturers, we're just
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built that way start everyone else. And then to feel as if we are
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supposed to get the fright or not have anything at all to give ourselves and
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this is our role and that's really not how God designed us. You know,
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Yes we are to pour into these things, but we still have to
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be able to we're back into ourselves as well. So it was just with
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this ideology that I was thinking of where am I in this space in my
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life, and what's something that I feel that I could give, and what's
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something that I feel I could talk about and from my expertise and from my
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situations and from the circumstances that I've had in life, and what can I
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give? And so she said yes to herself unapologetically, I was born and
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it morphed into a summit that has now producing an anthology. So it's just
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really amazing. I've made so many connections since I said yes, just for
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the leaps of faith that I was taking on overcoming my own limiting beliefs,
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but then just creating a space for women to show up and say yes to
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themselves has brought me so much, you know, just in networking, in
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collaborations and personal relationships. So it's just been an amazing ride. So that's
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really what sparked, you think, and it's just going continuing to go on
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from there. And I think that is one of the most powerful statements that
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you can make, is because saying yes to yourself is never ever easy,
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especially when you have that role of being that nurturer and being the one that
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takes care of everybody else and being unapologetic about saying yes to yourself. Sometimes
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people are gonna be offended because you will say no to something else, but
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you're saying yes to yourself because it's important for you to say yes to yourself
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and say no to something that is not pleasing of the journey in which you're
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on at that particular time in your life. And most people will be offended
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by that statement. Those two letters is no right now, I'm not saying
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yes to you. I'm saying yes to me, So you're gonna have to
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take this no, and if you care enough about me, your respect my
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no, and then we can deal with you later, you know. And
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being able to say that yes, being able to say that and stand on
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that is one of the most important things as a woman, to be able
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to say no, mean no and dip back down from it. Those who
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care about you are going to respect that no in that moment, in that
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time and in that space. But we also have to be mindful of the
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fact that we're in that space, that we are in a time to where
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we can say yes to ourselves and make absolutely no apology for it, because
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that is what we're supposed to do in that time. Sometimes people will tell
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you that you need to go this way, you need to go to the
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right, when God is telling you you need to go to the left.
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And you can be obedient to man. You gotta be obedient to God because
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he's put you in a place, in a space in which he wants to
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blossom you and wants you to grow. And knowing when and where to say
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no is very very important. Yes, it's a journey, and I think
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because there's a time when I finally realized that I started saying yes to myself.
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But I was very apologetic, like it's okay, it's saying yes.
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Do you mind if say yes? They're gonna inconvenience to you if I say
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yes. And then they just came a point where I just became very unapologetic,
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like it'sn't now, and I'm gonna say yes to myself and I'm gonna
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have to make expences for it or I don't have to shrink myself. And
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so it was just a process like kind of like an evolutionary process that one
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minute I'm in this mindset, another minute I'm adopting a new mindset. And
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then it's like I said, it's first, you're always going to submit.
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You know your plans and your wheels before God and what God has for you,
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and you know what He's crafted into you. And then when you're putting
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other people and people's needs and things on your plate, you just have to
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ask God to give you the grace in the space to people to know how
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to operate, you know, in the way and in the fashion in which
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He wants you to. And then you're pouring into others but also still making
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sure you're taking time and that you're you yourself are a priority. Yea.
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And that is very, very true. And I'm sure along this journey,
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and especially in this time where you are in this journey, there were people
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that you thought were gonna be with you in this time and in this space,
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and you realize you couldn't hold on to them anymore because they were not
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willing to understand Number one, where you were going. Number two, they
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couldn't see the vision in which God had given you, so they didn't understand
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it. So it was the small minded individuals that had to fall off.
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And it may have been a season of isolation where you felt like, Lord,
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I don't even know what you're trying to do. I don't know where
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you're trying to take me. But these people I thought were near and dear
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to me, and I thought that they were going to be in this space
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with me, And I gotta be okay with letting them go because they're not
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supposed to be here in this space and in this time. And that's a
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hard thing to actually deal with as well, because we want our loved ones
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to be with us on this journey, to see us grow and to see
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us prosper and to blossom into who He's created us to be. But we
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also have to understand that when we pray and ask God to give us what
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we're asking for, that we're gonna have to let go of some things as
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well. And we don't always want to let go of those things. Girl,
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you said a mouthful. Let me just tell you I mean that problem.
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But I want to say, you know, but in this journey,
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I found all those things to be true. But what I found to be
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just something that I had to really take accountability for was for myself in the
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role that I played. One of the key things that I learned is that
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I teach people how to treat me. It's what I do, the things
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that I'm willing to accept. How I'm shrinking myself. If I'm going to
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mark my value down as a basement bargain, basement deal going on sale,
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you can get all this amazing stuff with a very low low price. That
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fact, now this is gonna be being ready to pick it up. Then
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that's how you know what I mean. And so I had to take myself
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the limiting views that I had of myself, and sometimes you know, you
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could be created for a space, and for a time and for a season,
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and God has equipped you with all these abilities and skills and even opened
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up possibilities. But sometimes it's our own limited mindsets that really kind of keep
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us blocked from being able to access those things. And so when I started,
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you know, saying yes to myself and becoming intentional about how operated and
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holding myself accountable and creating boundaries. Yeah, we think boundaries is a bad
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word. It's like, but you know, if God, in his infinite
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wisdom told to see, hey, you can go to this space but not
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further and land you can come here, and he infused within you know,
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nature, various laws and diagramic you know, dynamics to be able to keep
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everything, to be able to operate cohesively, then you have to have these
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same things in our relationship. You know that it's just me being more cognizance
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of my space and what's okay and what's not okay. And what I have
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learned from saying yes to myself is can't anyone It's back to say can't,
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but nobody can, you know, advocate for me the way I'm going to
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advocate for I know what I like, I know what I don't like,
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I know what you know what what speaks to me and what to me?
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And you know, I think as women were naturally, you know, protectors
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of everybody else. Okay, this can we protect them, but we don't
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speak up for ourselves or have that same energy when it comes to, you
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know, showing up for ourselves. And so I space where I'm like,
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you know, since you gotta show up for you, right if you can't
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show up, if you don't show up for you, how are you going
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to show up effectively? You know? Exactly true, that's true. One
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of the things that you said that is very very important, it's being able
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to account for self. And sometimes it's easy to place that blame on somebody
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else before we all sent the blame for ourselves. And that's one thing that
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I always try to tell myself is that every three to six months, this
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is something that I do for myself, and that is I do a self
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inventory of myself to see where I'm wrong and what stuff I need to do
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a little bit more work on. Because that's one of the things that I
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did in the very beginning when I divorced, was going through a divorce with
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my children's father, I did a self inventory to figure out where my strengths
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were, where my weaknesses were, where I needed to grow and everything.
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And when I tell you, it was one of the hardest things, but
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it was one of the things that changed my life in a way that I
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did not think it would would. And so I make it a point to
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do that every three to six months for myself, where I take out my
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journal and I write down the things in the areas in which I feel like
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I've grown a whole lot more because me saying yes to myself and doing this
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podcast is one of the things that helped me to step outside of my comfort
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zone because normally I am the person that's sitting in the back just you know,
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watching everybody else, and it's like, Okay, God, I don't
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know where you're leading me, but I'm gonna say yes to this right now,
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and whatever happens happens. I don't know what is going to happen,
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but I'm gonna say yes. But I'm also gonna take accountability for when I
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make a mistake, when I'm not on time, If I'm not showing up
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for myself, you can never expect anybody else to show up for you.
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So Trivida, you gotta get up and you gotta show up. And it's
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not easy always to show up for yourself, even when you're not feeling your
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best. But if you can get up, get dressed, and show up
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for yourself, then everyone else who is supposed to show up with you will
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show up and you'll never have to worry about anybody else not being present or
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when they're supposed to be with you. And that's one of the things that
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we have to be mindful of. If you're not showing up for yourself,
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you can never expect anybody else to show up for you because you're putting it
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off. You're procrastinating about so many things, and if you're procrastinating about it,
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then yeah, it's never gonna get done. So if you got a
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goal, you set that goal, you set a deadline for that goal,
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and then it will happen. But if you don't have no deadline, then
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you're never gonna achieve it. It's gonna be oh, well, i'll do
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that tomorrow, or I'll do that next week, or you know, next
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year. Next week turns in the next year, and then you're like,
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well, I had a pin, I had something I wanted to do,
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but you didn't step forward. You can do it. So it's like all
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the secret stouts around about seeing yourself yourself. So this is why you was
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really supposed to be in this. She said, Yes, anthology, this
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self identity checking compromising girl. I'm feeling that I'm like this, Why is
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she in this anthology at this point? All this knowledge that she's drifting around
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here. People need to know that that is deep and I'm gonna try that.
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Well, listen, it has helped me a great deal. That is
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something that I started back in two thousand and eight, and when I tell
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you it has helped me, it has helped me tremendously because being able to
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do that self inventory. Most people don't ever think about doing a inventory of
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self. They're quick to tell somebody else, well, you need to work
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on that, you need to stop doing that. Well, when was the
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last time you said I need to do this, I need to check myself.
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Sometimes you are the problem. And I tell people this all the time.
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You can't tell somebody else how to treat you if you're not even treating
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yourself right back. You can respect yourself, then they're gonna disrespect you.
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The same way because you don't care enough about yourself. Go ahead, but
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let me let me let me just say this girl, if you aren't in
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this in this anthology, I'm gonna know something. That's all I'm gonna tell
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you. That's self check Fanny. That that that right there. I mean
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you saying some of the HM. That's that's something I like mine thinking.
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I like, I'm just telling you've got to do that, you have to.
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And I think that was the thing because a lot of times I think
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we're self focused on, you know, what other people have done or how
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we've been treated, and we don't stop to think about the role that we're
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playing it. And I wrote this in the book and I said, you
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know, disclaimer it doesn't go for abuse in any of its forms, because
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abuse is something that happens outside of our control, and abuse abuse is never
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okay. You know, these are the things that we can control. You
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know, boundaries are necessary. No is an empowerment work that we have to
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utilize. It's a tool, but we don't want to use it. Most
28:10
times. We don't want to use it because we're worried about how someone us
28:12
is going to feel. You know, if we can show up and have
28:17
on this super woman cape, and then we're gonna do all the things that
28:19
everybody else wants us to do, and they're gonna have all this endless energy,
28:22
and we're gonna be able to be all of these various play these various
28:26
roles and positions, and it's just not fair to ourselves. We're setting ourselves
28:32
up for failure thinking we're gonna be able to show up in all these spaces
28:36
and places and that we don't need to reboot or reconnect or reset. All
28:41
of these things are important. I think as women, we spend so much
28:45
time, you know, comparing ourselves to other women. So I talked about
28:51
the fact that there is no competition. It's you versus you. It's you
28:55
versus who you are at this moment, as opposed to who you can be
28:59
six months from now, a year from now exactly. You know what if
29:03
women stopped trying to line themselves up and trying to say, well, she
29:07
has this and she has that. You know, as a child and in
29:10
my teen years, I had very low self esteem. And the reason why
29:14
was because I was always measuring worm carrying myself to someone else, and so
29:18
I always felt inadequate I always felt like I was lacking something. It wasn't
29:25
until I threw down my measuring rod and just accepted who I was, that
29:29
I was both fearfully and wonderfully made, and fearfully and wonderfully made too,
29:33
and it didn't take away anything for me. Why I'm always hello, gorgeous,
29:38
Hello beautiful, those things because as women, I think we're just naturally
29:44
hard on ourselves, these unrealistic versions of ourselves. We're trying to meet this
29:49
idea of perfection that it's impossible for us to meet in this space wonderfully flogged,
29:56
wonderfully amazing. And God uses us just as we are broken at all,
30:00
and he forms us and fashions us to be able to be utilized for
30:03
his glory, and that I think it's just amazing. Exactly. That is
30:08
very very true because God knew what he was making when he made us,
30:14
so there was no need to improve on their perfection in which he had already
30:18
created. So once we learn to accept. This is one thing that I
30:22
hate people say all the time, and it is God never puts more on
30:26
you than you can bear. And this is why I say I don't like
30:29
that, and that's because no He's not gonna put more on you that you
30:33
can bear, because he's already equipped you with everything that you need. It's
30:37
up to you to look with inside to figure out what He has equipped you
30:41
with. Because everything God places you in situations and everything, he's already given
30:48
you everything that you'll need to get to the other side. He's not gonna
30:51
show you a problem without showing you a solution. It's just up to you
30:55
to figure out how to get to the solution. But if you're not worried
30:59
about how to get there, then you're never gonna get there. You can't
31:03
pray and ask God to give you the solution if you're not even looking for
31:07
how to get there, just like let's stay, Prayer without works is dead.
31:10
So what are you working on? What are you gonna get to?
31:14
And also we must understand that every story in our lives, we're the villain
31:18
in somebody else's story when they behold. So you can't always say, well,
31:23
I've been perfect my whole life. No, you're not. Somebody else
31:26
looks at you as the villain in their story because you didn't agree with something
31:30
they said or they did. And it's okay to understand that It does not
31:34
have to be that you are so perfect that if you're so perfect, then
31:40
God can't use that. God needs you to be broken sometimes too. So
31:45
understand that your brokenness is gonna lead to somebody else being unashamed of what they
31:49
went through. Because a lot of us walk around holding onto mask and things
31:53
because we want to appear perfect, but we are not perfect. We are
31:56
made in His image, and his image sometimes just flowed for us. But
32:00
our flaws are who makes us. They make us unique, They make us
32:07
who we are. They make us these individuals. So if we are all
32:10
individually, put this in that gumbo pot and figure out how delicious is that
32:15
gonna takee when we all get together and put our spices. Okay, I'm
32:21
done, Okay something whatever? Where where the shine? If you shine?
32:30
I don't know it. I don't mean it's definitely not shye, ma'am not
32:35
at all sidelines at all. This is not you are you just need to
32:40
be robbed, right, that's all that thing? No, you're just not
32:45
shy, No man, Lissa, I promise you. I am. I
32:49
don't know what is happening. All I know is I am being guided by
32:53
God and what he tells me to do because any other time I'll be somewhere
33:00
in the back just sitting there looking like, oh no, you're gonna go
33:02
ahead, get up there and talk me and see when people see me in
33:07
person. This is another thing like I look tall while I'm sitting down.
33:10
I am only for eight So with that being said, i am tall in
33:16
spirits, Yes, ma'am. I am come through powerhouse at it. And
33:27
so it's like I am small, and so a lot of times in my
33:31
life for me, being as small as I am, I've been overlooked.
33:36
But this is something I posted on my Facebook page the other day and I
33:40
was at work and it just came to me and it was like, it
33:43
doesn't matter where you're standing or where you're sitting. When it's your time to
33:46
be seen or heard, God will make it known. So you don't have
33:51
to be the biggest person in the room, and you don't have to be
33:53
the loudest person in the room. When it's time for you to be seen
33:57
and be heard, you will be because God will make it so. So
34:00
just be patient and be quiet. And that's exactly what I said. So
34:06
you just gotta know that God has everything aligned for us if we just be
34:12
obedient. Now, sometimes we might run away, get a little distracted and
34:15
saying, you know what, Lord, I don't think that's for me,
34:19
because I will be honest with you, I will tell you the truth.
34:22
When I seen the vision that he had for me, I show enough,
34:28
said Lord, I think you delivered that message to something out of if because
34:30
it ain't for me, because I don't do this speaking thing. I don't
34:35
talk in front of people. That's just not what I do. So I
34:38
really and truly was trying to go to other way. But he was like,
34:43
look here, little girl, I'm gonna need you to come on over
34:45
here and do what I asked you to do. So me saying yes to
34:50
this a couple of months ago, I had no idea, but I look
34:54
at it like this everything like I wrote my first book thanks to my best
34:59
friend. And Lord knows I am stubborn and I am one of those people
35:02
who will procrastinate when it comes to certain things. And in twenty twenty,
35:07
she told me she had in twenty nineteen she had wrote her first book.
35:12
She came to my house and showed me what I needed to do, and
35:15
I was like, yeah, okay, that was in like April, April
35:20
or August somewhere in there, and I was like, yeah, okay,
35:22
that's cool, but that ain't for me. So the following year I would
35:25
put my poetry book together. It was twenty six poems, and I had
35:30
people to tell me it wasn't perfect, it didn't look like a book that
35:35
needed to be published. However, this is the thing that I want people
35:38
listen and look. I'm not even offended by because this was my response to
35:43
that. It wasn't your assignment, so God is not. I asked you
35:46
to put your name on something that doesn't belong to you. So God,
35:51
it didn't matter if it was perfect or not, because God didn't say I
35:53
needed it to be perfect. He just said he needed me to do it,
35:57
and I did. And so after that I did my second book,
36:00
which was Struggle Strength at Success Kiari Malformation Won't Win because I have a brain
36:07
disorder. In twenty thirteen, I lost my speech and so people would not
36:12
know that about me because you see me talking now, you never know any
36:17
of the stuff that I've been and that's only it's only because of Him.
36:22
I don't look like nothing that I've been through. And then I wrote Overcoming
36:28
Childhood Trauma, My Journey to Healing. Now I'm gonna do a second one
36:32
off of that because the relationship that I had with my mom. My mom
36:37
just passed away on June the fourteenth of last month, and so it's still
36:42
new and fresh for me. However, the things that my mother taught me
36:45
in that small window of time is so much more in Our relationship was healed,
36:53
and it was a lot of forgiveness, and it was a lot of
36:58
things that my mother struggled with and for her to know that she was forgiven,
37:05
that there was no hard feelings. We knew what she had dealt with
37:09
as a child growing up. So I'm gonna elaborate on that. And the
37:14
next book that I have that's coming out besides that one is gonna be God
37:19
Never counting Me Out. And I gotta write that one because that's the one
37:22
that he keeps telling me that I need to finish. So I'm working on
37:27
that right now. But the things that I have been through in my life,
37:30
and when I started to tell people I had a stroke in two thousand
37:35
and nine, I was thirty years old. I had a brain aneurysm.
37:37
At that time, two and thirteen. I ended up having a major flarah
37:42
with that and lost my ability to speak and everything, and doctors had no
37:45
idea of what was going on. My family was worried because they didn't know
37:50
what was going to happen with me, but me being stubborn and me being
37:55
hardheaded, it was one of those things. Okay, God, and I
38:00
don't know where you're taking me, but I'm going to do what is necessary.
38:06
I'm not having this brain surgery, so I trust you that you will
38:09
keep me, and you will God me, and he has done just that,
38:13
and that's why I continue to be obedient to what he tells me to
38:15
do. I don't second guess it. I might run away from it for
38:19
a little bit and be l I ain't ready for that, but I always
38:22
end up back where he tells me, which is why I decided to name
38:27
this podcast Believe in the Journey. Because everything has a purpose. Everything that
38:31
you're going through is connected. So if you don't know where this puzzle piece
38:36
goes in your puzzle, just keep living because eventually you'll figure out where that
38:42
piece goes. Because everything that you do in this life is connected to the
38:45
purpose in which you've been created. So in a I first of all,
38:52
I want to say just sorry for your loss. You know, it's definitely
38:57
you know, life of losing a mother. You know parents are bad,
39:01
but just losing your mother is it's something. So I just want to extend
39:06
my condolences to you and to your family. You know, you guys are
39:10
going through this time of bereavement. I think it's amazing that you haven't allowed,
39:16
you know, the things that you have gone through to become weights and
39:20
to keep you from running this race. You know, God has said something
39:24
before you, and you are continuing to run your best race. So I
39:29
just want to encourage you. Six and Sam, I see you sis like
39:31
I'm popping for you, like writing books, get them done, you know.
39:37
And it's not for anyone else to see what God has given to you.
39:40
It's not for anyone else to approve what God has told you to do.
39:45
And so you just walk into confirmation on that God has gifted these things
39:49
to you, and that He's gonna help you bring us things to past and
39:51
everything else is gonna work out the way it's supposed to. Ye gratulate you
39:55
and everything that you have doing, because again that is just amazing. Thank
40:00
you, thank you, thank you. Now, how can my guest on
40:05
the show and our audience, how can they get in touch with you?
40:07
If they want to connect with you on this anthology that you got coming up
40:13
the platform and black women authors, how can they connect with you? That's
40:20
a good question. So if they're trying, so let me be very very
40:23
transparent for black women authors. I'm only interested in black female authors who are
40:30
Christian. If you're a Christian, this would be a great space for you.
40:34
If you don't have a Christian audience or that's not what you're geared towards,
40:40
then this is probably gonna be a good fit for you. Also,
40:44
if you're not interested in networking and collaborating and helping to build a platform that's
40:50
going to push and propel everybody into rightness, then again this isn't a space
40:54
for you. If you're all about yourself and you don't want to connect and
40:59
you don't want to build you, you know, genuine relationships, if you
41:01
don't want to be you know, thinking of this thing like a relay race,
41:07
and then when it's this since time you our copy and you screaming,
41:10
you shot like out, you know, and then placivistic, then again,
41:17
this won't be the space for you. I'm all about creating a space that's
41:21
going to speak life and see the best in each other and push and prompt
41:27
and work towards building. This thing that's going to give light to these messages
41:30
that are censored in christis that I want to give people inspiration and hope and
41:36
be able to give them something that's going to help them to get on the
41:38
other side of their journey. So if they want to, if that's something
41:42
that they're interested in, they can find it on Facebook. We have a
41:45
group titled Black Women Authors there on Facebook. They can also reach me at
41:51
black Women Authors at gmails dot com if they're interested in joining. They'll have
41:55
questions that are geared along those three things I just said, and when you
42:01
answer them, just think about it. It's not a space if we're gonna
42:05
just sit around a space. We gotta work, sace, we gotta work
42:07
both. If you're here to work and you want to work, then come
42:09
on, we got some things for you. Yes, amazing people within that
42:14
space. So I wanted to fight them that way. They can show up
42:16
to um connect with me or the anthology to she said, yes to herself
42:23
at gmail dot com. They can also visit the website at www dot she
42:29
said, yes to herself dot com. Yes, they can get the book
42:36
entitled, she said, yes to herself unapologetically. They can pick it up
42:40
both of my website and on Amazon. But uh, and if they want
42:45
to connect with me, they can find me on those platforms. She said
42:47
yes to herself on Facebook unapologetically on Facebook, or they can also message me,
42:52
or they can hit me up in my messenger Chanelle call in Wesley,
42:55
either one of those ways. I'm fairly easy to contact, and I'm that
43:01
way across all social media platforms. All Right, well, you know I'm
43:06
gonna have to have you back on the show, So it's letting me know
43:12
what your schedule is looking like and we'll go from there. Because I have
43:15
truly, truly enjoyed this tonight. I can't wait since like we gotta hook
43:21
up. I'm like, I'm like, this woman is like a hall ball
43:22
of fire. Talk about she shot shot where listen I listen. That's my
43:32
personal opinion of myself. But every time I say that, everybody's like,
43:38
yeah, we don't see that. We don't know nothing about what you're talking
43:42
about. But you know, I have truly, truly enjoyed this, and
43:45
I thank everybody for tuning in as I always in all of my shows,
43:51
and this is it mino business. And stay out of God's because the only
43:55
thing he requires of you is to be obedient to what he's called to do.
44:00
So tune in next well not next week, but the following week,
44:05
July to twenty seventh, where my guests will be Miss Antonia Antonia Burns again.
44:13
We're gonna do an update on her if see if she actually started that
44:16
book. So you know, if I if you're on my show and I
44:21
tell you, I'm gonna update with you because you give me something that you
44:24
say you're working out, trust and believe, I'm gonna check her in on
44:28
you and see if that's actually what you're doing, because accountability stands for everything,
44:34
all right. So I love you guys, and tune in on July
44:38
the twenty seventh, and thank you again for being with us. Seeze no