December 25, 2025 • 44 mins
In this final episode of Season 4 and to close out the year, Devi shares a conversation from the Mental Wealth Expo with Dr Key Hallmon and Dené Logan. Before diving into a meaningful discussion on conscious communication. Devi reflects on the current season of life and emphasizes self-nourishment and support. Dr. Key Hollman and Dené Logan share insights on emotional language, overcoming reactivity, and fostering genuine connections.
The discussion includes practices for effective communication, self-awareness, and accountability. Both guests emphasize the importance of compassion, forgiveness, and the daily routines that help maintain emotional balance. The episode closes with a reminder to use these tools in personal relationships to create lasting change, including references to each of the panelists' books: No One Is Self-Made by Dr Key, Sovereign Love by Dené Logan, and Living in Wisdom by our very own Devi Brown.
✺
Connect with Dr Keys
Website: DrKeyHallmon.com
IG: @DrKeyHallmon
Read: No One Is Self-Made By Dr Key Hallmon
✺
Connect with Dane Logan
Website: DenéLogan.com
IG: @Dene.Logan
Read: Sovereign Love by Dené Logan
✺
Connect with Devi:
Website: https://devibrownwellbeing.com/
Living In Wisdom Book: https://www.devibrown.com/book
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devibrown/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deeplywellpod/
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Holds it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Now, release slowly again deep in, helle.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hold release, repeating internally to yourself as you connect to
my voice. I am deeply well. I am deeply well.
(01:22):
I am deeply I'm Debbie Brown and this is the
Deeply Well Podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Welcome back to the show. I'm Debbie Brown. As always,
thank you so much for being here. I hope this
season in your life is moving with alignment, with.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Ease, and with some softening to it.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Wherever you are in the world, however, this particular season
of life and this holiday season is affecting you. I
know for so many of us, there are a lot
of different unique challenges in this time of year. So
wherever you are, I hope that you are finding ways
to be with yourself, to nourish yourself and to support yourself.
(02:22):
All right, this episode, we have another very special episode.
This past October, we gathered for the fourth annual Mental
Wealth Expo. That is one of the big flagship events
that we do every year for the Mental Wealth Alliance,
which is an incredible foundation that is founded by my
(02:42):
brother Charlotte Mane the God and that I am a
very proud board member on. So this year I had
the honor of the privilege of hosting and creating two
really wonderful conversations that we at the stage with at
the expo, and I'm so grateful to share another one
with you here today. Today's episode is a beautiful exploration
(03:06):
of communication, the heartbeat of every single relationship that we hold,
whether with our loved ones, our communities, or within ourselves.
Many of us did not necessarily grow up with emotional
language or tools to process feelings and communicate without defensiveness
(03:28):
or tools to communicate what our truth is with ease.
So often breakdowns and connections come not from a lack
of love, but from an unprocessed emotion, from reactivity, or
from old patterns that we just haven't yet examined or
had the chance to garner technique or tools to transcend.
(03:53):
I'm joined today. I'm joined on this panel, I should say,
by two amazing women with amazing, really important work that
they bring to the world, Doctor Key Holman and DANAE. Logan,
two powerful voices in relational growth and communal healing. Together
(04:14):
we explore what conscious communication looks like in practice, responding
with clarity instead of reaction and choosing love over ego,
asking ourselves in moments of tension, do I want to
be right or do I want to be in relationship.
I've had the pleasure of having both of these dynamic
women on the show previously, so if you get a chance,
(04:38):
look back in earlier episodes to check out the conversation
that I had with Dannay Logan from about two seasons ago,
and a conversation I had earlier this season with Doctor
Key Holman.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Doctor Key is an entrepreneur and an author of No
One Is Self Made. Doctor Key empowers leaders to build
sustainable community rooted businessiness is through her village model. Dnay
Logan is a Los Angeles based marriage and family therapist
and author of Sovereign Love, A guide to healing relationships
(05:11):
by reclaiming the masculine and feminine within. Dnay blends shadow work, mindfulness,
and ritual to help people show up more authentically in
both relationships and self connection. In this episode, we talk
about honoring the gift of this generation, the ability to
name our emotions, talk about our inner worlds, and heal
(05:33):
patterns our families may never have had the language for.
We discuss accountability as an act of love relationships as
sacred mirrors, and how self awareness and emotional responsibility deepen
our capacity to truly connect. This conversation invites us to
pause before we react, lead with curiosity, and practice repair
(05:59):
when miscommunication happens. It's about owning our patterns without shame,
releasing perfectionism, and choosing growth again and again. Towards the
end of this conversation, doctor Key and in A share
personal practices from their work, from walking with God and
nature to radical self compassion, to supporting you and communicating
(06:21):
with more present grace and heart in your own life
without further ado. Welcome to our beautiful conversation. So if
you can hear the sound of my voice, I want
to invite you to get uncrossed in your seat, straight spine,
soft belly, and we'll just ground into this moment with
(06:43):
one nice, full deep brah. Okay, we're going to do
it in through the nose. We'll do it out with
her slips.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
It'll sound like this.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Let it come all the way in and all the
way out, all right. Go ahead and begin your deep
in hell through your nose.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
Hold it at the top and let it out, all right.
How are you feeling good.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Let's begin this next restorative, juicy, full conversation. So today's
conversation is on effective communication. How many people wish either
the people around you could communicate better or would like
(07:42):
to find more tools for really, really excellent communication. Yeah,
thank you. Well, we are in for it because we
have some incredible women here to teach you in a
very deep way. In this conversation that we're having, we're
going to be unpacking emotional processing, emotional language, the art
(08:05):
of communicating without reacting or getting defensive or deflective. And
we're going to explore how to expand our emotional vocabularies
to really be able to talk about what.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
And how we are feeling.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
So I am so so so so deeply honored to
be joined by two powerful teachers for this conversation. Our
first amazing teacher and panelists is doctor Key Hallman. She
is an entrepreneur and author of No One Is Self Made.
Doctor Key empowers leaders all over the country and world
(08:41):
to build sustainable, community rooted businesses through her village model.
Thank you so much for being here, Yes, thank you.
We are also joined by DANAE.
Speaker 6 (08:56):
Logan. She is a Los Angeles based.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Marriage and family theorypist and author of Sovereign Love, A
Guide to healing relationships by reclaiming the masculine and feminine
within Dina Blend's shadow Work, mindfulness and ritual to help
people show up more authentically in both relationships and self connection.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
So together in this conversation, and before I get into
the questions we're going to impact, what does it even
mean to effectively communicate? What does that actually look like
in daily practice, whether it's in our families and homes
and our partnerships, our relationships that are most important to us,
or within our communities and the work we do and
the people we work with. So as a baseline to
(09:45):
really just kind of set this conversation is just to
acknowledge that many of us never learned emotional vocabulary or
tools for healthy communication for so many reasons, but none
of those reasons do we have to be in judgment
of our selves because of communication breakdowns often come from
our own unprocessed emotions. Reactivity usually happens defensiveness, deflection, and
(10:11):
effective communication. When we really get to learn it and
be in practice with it, it strengthens not just our
personal relationships that we have with people but also the
health of our greater community and the organization organizations that
we are part of.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
So I want to start. I'll start with you, doctor Key.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Many of us seem to really default to reactivity and conflict.
What practices help us or how do we begin to
kind of train our minds to help us slow down
a little bit so that we can respond to the
people near us with clarity.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
deVie started with a hard question, y'all, that was hard.
That was honestly hard. So thanks Debby, I love you
for that. This is what I say. I think we
all have been in a moment where we responded by
how we felt more than processing how someone will receive
(11:12):
what we're saying. So just to make it plain, when
you start doing this and then you hit sind real
hard and you take a moment and it was like, oh,
I wish I could take it back. The reality is
that we all have been there. If it's people that
we work with, if it's people that we love, folks
(11:35):
that we just like, sometimes, we all have been there.
And we also see it a lot on social media,
where we used to call it Twitter fingers, but I
don't think that exists anymore. What works for me, and
what has worked is that I'm always in a place
that am I honoring myself? And how I respond to this?
(11:57):
Am I honoring the vessel of me being here? Am
I honoring myself when I hit respond or if I
hit sin? Because my greatest responsibility and how I'm trying
to show up in the world is I want to
show up in the world honorably. So that takes a
level of discipline to operate in honor. So if I
(12:20):
can give you all just a practice, before you hit sin,
you ask your You ask yourself and am I honoring
the highest of my being in this response? Am I
responding from a place that my light is being illuminated?
Or is this or is this my darkness? Every time
(12:44):
I've asked myself those questions, I've had to sit my
own self down, put the phone down what Ericabadu said,
and I've had to say and wait before I respond.
So I hope those two things that you can just
ask yourself the high use of my vibration? Am I responding?
Am I honoring myself? And how I'm responding?
Speaker 6 (13:06):
That is so so good?
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Could I ask you a part A to that question?
What about in the moments that we're convinced we're right
where you feel like, now, I gotta get this off
because I am right in this situation.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Absolutely, we can be right, and we can be right
with love. So we're not responding from a place of
being inauthentic even when we're right. But it's this weapon
of our response. Is it meant to cause harm in
our rightness? These are the questions that we have to
ask ourselves. So I am emphatic when I think I'm right.
(13:50):
I just want you all to be clear. I sit
up different too. I'm ready. But my work has given
me the discipline and that when whatever I put out
in the world, while I'm right, while i'm direct, I
make sure that it's coded in love, love for myself,
(14:13):
love for how I want to be held, and also
if this was reverse the way that I will want
to receive that type of love. Because we get give,
we give get, So I'm always in the cycle for
my own self love and self preservation.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yes, I'm like, these are the things that like change
our lives, you know, Like That's what I've really been
taking away from this whole day, is like these are
the things.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
This is what changes your life, you know that moment.
Speaker 7 (14:51):
I'm laughing when you were working director key because I
think they say, you know you're growing when you're like
typing out the whole text message and then you start
to press delete, delete, like you know what, never mind,
because that's growth.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah, when you can make the paragraph like a sentence,
or get on the phone and kind of talk it out.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Yeah, or not respond at all in that moment.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, right, you don't have to have to And sometimes
in situations it's like, I don't have to participate with this.
This may be the energy you're giving me or what
you want to bring out of me, But it's always
that choice.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Can I add to that.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I think there's an old couple's therapy adage, and I
primarily work as a couple's therapist, and it's do I
want to be right or do I want to be
in relationship? And a lot of times we're prioritizing the
right and sacrificing the relationship and the harmony and the relationship.
And I think a lot of times the truth doesn't
need defense to the extent that we think it does.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Right, And so it's like things sort of play out
but if I need to be right.
Speaker 7 (15:49):
A lot of times what I'm doing is creating ruptures
in our relationships that aren't really necessary for us to create.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
So true, thank you, I'll see with you right now, Denay.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
How do cultural or generational differences shape the way people
communicate their emotions and how can we bridge that space
that gap with some compassion? And I mean in the
sense that we're all navigating intergenerational relationships right, Like certain
things we wish our parents could just get, Like why
don't they get that? Or our children or you know
(16:23):
that plays such a role.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, I love that question.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
I think that's something we were talking about earlier today,
that there's a lot of ways that in terms of
mental health and the processing and the tools that so
many of us are doing so much work to accumulate.
Our parents didn't have a lot of access to that.
Our parents' parents didn't have a lot of access to that,
and it was sort of a lot of times in
other generations children should be seen and not heard and
(16:46):
like compliant child is a good child and things of
that nature. That we understand more about what that's doing
to our emotional health, and I think we have to
give a lot of grace to those of our family
members who for really good reason and a lot of
times we're afraid of seeing a therapist or you know,
there are aspects of what that meant within Black communities
(17:08):
that we have to be really honest about that haven't
been talked about in terms of our mental health. And
so yeah, I mean, we're here and we're doing this work,
and I think at the same time we have to
I don't know. Just sitting here and seeing all of
you gather to talk about mental health makes my heart
so happy because I feel like ten years ago there
was still so much stigma, especially in the black community
(17:29):
around I'm struggling, I'm overwhelmed. I'm really struggling with anxiety
or depression or whatever it was. And I think we
were really doing a lot of work to put a
lot of that down.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Truly, like the way the landscape has shifted, the way
that we're able to be with each other or just
call a thing a thing sometimes is like what we
were held back from doctor Key.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
Yes, I would love to add to that, we were
having a conversation upstairs. What I want us to understand
to even be in this space today as a privilege.
So while we're here to talk about wellness and to
(18:09):
get tools about being well, the work stops if you
only came here to get something and to not share
what you learn. The gift of our generation is that
we have the privilege to know different communication modalities. We
have the gift of being able to convene on a
Saturday morning and talk about our feelings and talk about communicating.
(18:33):
I think if we take life in these moments as
gifts and privilege, then we would have grace and compassion
for the things that our mothers and grandmothers and great
grandmothers and fathers could not do. Because I don't know
all about y'all. Me and my mother rest in peace. But
on Saturdays she was working, and I can imagine that
(18:56):
she dreamt of spaces like this, and even in her
wildest dreams, she didn't even know in the moment of
her working and trying to take care of my siblings
and I that when she was exhausted, she was a
little bit more harsh. When she was fatigued, she was
a little bit more impatient when life was wearing her down.
(19:20):
Sometimes she just couldn't physically show up because her vessel
was tired, and I sit on this stage today and
I know the gift of my life is the privilege
of her sacrifices. And so what I am welcoming for
my nephews is the privilege of them understanding that their
(19:42):
greatest self exists if they take whatever I pour into
them to take it further. So I'm hoping that you
all take these moments today, all these conversations, drop it
in your household and in your friend group. But then
you have to push and say, we gotta take it
first there, because that is why we are here.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, wow, wow, we can. I know we can all
deeply relate to that. And that level of grace and
compassion is so important, especially in our family relationships because
those really deserve it. You know, our family relationships are
often the hardest. It's our spiritual curriculum. It's where it starts,
(20:24):
you know. But being able to bring grace to that
and dignity to the experience and understanding is so important.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Deeply.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Well, I want to ask, so we're giving tools, right, Like,
we're talking about some tools and processes, but ultimately change
doesn't really occur without a greater sense of personal self
awareness of like what your role is in life and
your conversation. So from each of you, I'd love and
(20:58):
I'll start with you Tonnay. What what is the role
of self awareness? How important is that personal work overall,
and how you're able to do this more community based
in a personal relationship work.
Speaker 7 (21:11):
Yeah, I think the personal work and what I like
to talk about a lot is personal responsibility is everything
because we can only meet another to the extent that
we've met ourselves, right, So if we're really hard on ourselves,
it's really hard for us to be compassionate with other people.
And I think whenever we're talking about relationships, so much
of what we were talking about like we want to
(21:31):
be understood, we want to be right, we want to
sort of defend the.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Truth as we see it.
Speaker 7 (21:36):
And something I come back to a lot is like
our work is to pause and really try to understand
before being understood, right, And if I can make that
the practice and almost sometimes like the mantra, seek to
understand before seeking to be understood, Like I will say
that to myself in relationship dynamics, But there's something that
happens when we're in a relationship with another person, when
(21:58):
they feel seen and heard by us. Instantly, the defenses
start to drop a little bit and we start to soften,
and we're in conversation versus sort of like battling it
out to be understood. Right, So I think, if I
can just really take responsibility for myself and am I
really trying to understand or am I demanding that this
person see me and understand me, it just takes things
(22:20):
a lot further in terms of how we're able to
connect with one another.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, deeply. And I'm hearing too. It's like how holistic
it all is.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
It's like, as you're doing that work with another, you
are also doing your own inner work, whether you're thinking
about it or not.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
And I think if we see these relationships as sacred
mirrors a lot of times and showing us to ourselves.
And when I feel really activated or when I feel
really like it's difficult to tolerate the way this person
is showing up, why is that so hard for me?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Can I be curious?
Speaker 7 (22:52):
Not judging myself, But like I always say, if it's
hysterical within me, there's something historical, And so there's probably
a story I'm telling myself about something I felt in
the past. That is really making me defend against what
I'm feeling now. But normally it's not about what's going
on right now. It's something historic that's coming up for me.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, that's so important that distinction, Like what did I
walk into the room with already?
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Absolutely?
Speaker 6 (23:17):
Yeah, thank you doctor key.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
So y'all do this thing every every night before I
go to sleep, right before I send my prayers, I
asked myself, were there moments in the day that I
could have been more kinder to myself? There are moments
in a day that I should have just given myself
a little bit more grace. But there are moments in
(23:41):
a day that I wish I did not hear seeing
on ned tacks. Were there are moments in the day
that the way I showed up was really not my
highest self. And however, I answer those questions where all
my yeses are all my nose I look at as
an invitation that awareness only grants and open the door
(24:05):
for us to be better. So like, if you have
the muscle of awareness, like you see yourself, like you
know it's you when you being toxic? Okay, and say
that again, hold on y'all listening. We know it's us
when we're being toxic. If you are aware in this
(24:26):
moment like, oh, that was me, I want you to
see it as an invitation that you have the gift
of awareness to know is you, and it's only an
invitation for you to do better next time, and also
to go back and for me, I apologize, because an
apology is all also an invitation to tell another person
(24:51):
it was me. And I hope what I'm mirroring back
to another person that when is them, it empowers them
to do the same. Do these self assessments, but I
want to share that there were times in my life
when I did my own self assessments and I was
far too hard on myself. People who are perfectionists and
(25:12):
I'm a recovering one, that a plus plus student. That
was me. But I had to learn that even in
a pursuit of perfection, was distorting my own vision for
who I'm meant to be. And so I had to
let perfectionism go and I just allowed myself to just
(25:33):
be emphatically who I am, all the nuance and even
the contradictions, all the love and all the light and
in moments some dark, because we all are a spectrum
But because I do this self assessment work. Every time
I wake up in the morning, I look at myself
in the mirror. I know the woman that's looking back
(25:56):
at me, and I love the person that I'm seeing,
the work assessed, the work of us doing our work.
It's truly just an invitation so we can be our
highest selves. And then we get to meet people along
the journey and we get to show up illuminating our light.
And a thing about light is either going to run
(26:19):
somebody away or draw more people to us. That is
the gift of light.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Come on, wow, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Why is accountability so hard for people?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
As you were talking, doctor K I was thinking that
there's a part of us, our ego mind. A lot
of times, the part of us that I always say
edges God out or edges like that we are beyond
just these human bodies, right, that we are eternal. But
it really struggles with the idea that I'm not diminished
in any way by being wrong, and that we came here.
I believe in this life school to like work, it
(27:00):
out to be valuable to make mistakes, and that's a
part of how we learn. We can't learn by being perfect,
Like I have not learned a lot in my life
in the times when I got things perfect. It's normally
when I, you know, I fall a little short, and
I forgive myself and I try again next time. But
I think when we're apologizing and taking accountability for the
way that we showed up and like I wish I
(27:21):
would have done that better, it's really like I have
to remind myself no part of me is diminished by
being human. Like I think a lot of times we're
expecting something beyond our humanity, and it really requires that
we start there, like, yes, I'm going to mess up.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's a part of this human experience, you.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
Know, yes, and we all will yes.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
I think you know, many of us was raised in
how American society is designed, even from our early years
in school. There's rules for everything. There's right, there's wrong,
and so so much of what we were taught about
accountability only came up in moments that we were told
we were wrong. So they're there when accountability shows up
(28:04):
at our door. I think our defenses come up because
we feel that we are wrong, and when we respond
from a place of being defensive, ego is there trying
to protect us. The little girl little boy who is
always told that they were wrong or different shows up
trying to protect us. So there is so much in
society that has constructed the way that we think, and
(28:27):
because we are we have been programmed to think and
feel a certain way that we don't even understand that
I'm showing up in this way of not being able
to be held accountable because I am in my programming.
So what I'm what helps me is that I'm always
working to deprogram the societal things that has been seeped
(28:48):
into my spirit. I'm always working to to say, kid,
is this how you feel? Is this the way you
are taught to feel? This is this is how is
this is in the essence of your being? Or it's
just a product of this societal programming. But accountability, if
(29:09):
we can tell ego to chill out for a minute,
we can tell our little girl a little boy selves
we're safe, and to say that accountability is only an
opportunity to level up. Every time that I get to
be held accountable for something that I could have done differently,
It's only a door for me to level up. Don't
(29:30):
we all simply want to level up from day to day,
season to season, year to year, birthday to birthday. So
if you look at accountability as an invitation to level up,
I tell you all to accept it fully because we're
meant and we are here to be our highest selves.
To hold accountability as an honor and tell your little
(29:54):
girl little boy self, you're good, you're safe, you're understood,
and even if you didn't have right in this moment,
you steel okay, oh.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Wow, thank you both like that. That that's some of
our deepest work, you know. And I think nothing kind
of destroys the trust in any relationship more than like
passive apologies and passive accountability.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
Yeah, And I think so often why we don't apologize
or we're not accountable is when we apologize a lot
of times, instead of the like acceptance of the apology,
the person will be like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
And when you did that, da no da da da,
And so it's like not going.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
To not do that right because all of us will
defend against shame, right.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I think you're right.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
So often our earliest experiences of accountability were really rooted
in shame, and as humans, no matter what, we're going
to defend against the way shame feels at all costs
so understanding that I don't have to be perfect in
order to be worthy of love. I'm already worthy. But yeah,
it's a little like, even when people can't receive my
apology or my accountability, I'm proud of me for doing
(31:03):
the thing and saying the thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Yeah, because we can be wrong and not be like
fundamentally wrong as a being, as a person.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Like one of the things that drives me nuts is
when people will be like, well, if you if you
did feel any kind of way about such and such,
then I'm no, you know, you made the person.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
Feel that way. Like, let's just say it, you know,
and create space for that.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
But thank you both so much. We are so close
to being out of time, but I'm gonna push my
limits because I really want to get these questions. So
my next question for each of you is what does
it look like to begin to reset or repair a
relationship that is stuck in constant miscommunication?
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Constant miscommunication.
Speaker 7 (31:57):
Thinking about that, you know, I think if I'm I'm
in this space where I like to do a thing
called segment intending, right, and it's a little bit I
really am intentional around the energy that I want to
bring into this space between me and this person.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I do this with my kids dad a lot, right,
So it'll be like, before.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
I go into this, I know that we have a
tendency to get in conflict about certain things. Now, there
are ways that a lot of times when we are
in our most intimate relationships, that's actually where we feel
safest to get in these patterns of conflict. Any of
you who have children know when you drop them off
at you know, primary school or whatever, they'll be like.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Oh, that child is a little angel. And then they'll
bring the child back to you and you'll be like,
what angel, because they like wow.
Speaker 7 (32:42):
When they get home to you, because you're their safe space.
You're the place where they can be their fullest expression
of selves. But that's actually what happens in our most
intimate relationships as well. It's like I feel safe sometimes
being not the highest self version of me. But if
we can really say, like, I want to take so
much much responsibility for the way that I am showing
(33:02):
up in our dynamic, the energy that I bring, and
we can do a pause and reset at any moment.
So I will tell couples all the time if you
feel like I've lost it and I'm just not proud
of the way I'm showing up. Just say to your
partner or whoever the person is, you know it, give
me five minutes. I'm going to into the bathroom. I
need a pause, I need a break, and then like
have another moment of like segment and tending when I
(33:24):
go back in there.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Here's how I want to show up.
Speaker 7 (33:26):
Here's the way I want to be energetically in our interaction,
and we can do that at any time. But I
also think curiosity is really important because when we're really
intimate with someone else and we know one another really well,
we think that we know what they're going to say
before they say it, and we start finishing their sentences
and rolling our eyes. It's just it's human stuff when
(33:48):
we're really close to people. But if I can just
be so curious about your experience and what's happening for
you and not draw my own conclusions, I think that's
how we break those patterns of communication because a lot
of times we're not curious, so we're not really hearing
one another anymore.
Speaker 6 (34:04):
You know that's so good? Yeah, so true.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I'll ask you both, what is one daily practice that
you recommend from each of your teachings and books, which,
by the way, if I haven't said this already, both
of these women have phenomenal, phenomenal books that are out.
So I really encourage everyone to get on their pages
and order the things. But what is a practice from
(34:30):
each of your teachings that the audience can start today
to kind of get them into a space for better
communication but also just a better lived experience.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
In chapter six of my book, I talk about and
for entrepreneurs and small business owners or builders, even folks
who are in corporate companies and say, you know, I'm
just trying to show up differently. I wrote a book
with how we can do that as a collective, How
we can move away from individualism because I think it
is has led to the breaking down of our community,
(35:06):
and how do we get back to collectivism. While a
lot of my work is centered on economic liberation, what
I know for sure is that if we do not
take care of our minds, body, and spirit, the money
is for not. We can invest an over index and
(35:27):
want of our business and our endeavors and our careers
to scale, but we don't want our souls to scale up.
So I write about these things, but I share the
things that I do. Debbie open with One of the
things that I do, especially when I get stressed or
if I am getting ready and if I'm having a
(35:48):
tougher conversation with someone that we do not communicate the best,
I always take a deep breath because that deep breath
centers and calms my nervous system and it's me back
in my body again and I remember who and whose
I am in that moment. Another thing that I do
(36:08):
every day beyond me taking my deep breasts and if
you can and you have access to it, and if
your body allows, I go outside and I go for
my walks, y'all. I'll be out there hugging trees and everything.
But my walks center me the things. And I don't
listen to anything. I don't talk on the phone. I'm
(36:30):
just allowing myself to be freely disconnected but connected to
the source. And while I am, I'm a deeply spiritual person.
So I always feel a part of my journey is
I'm always looking for God in the things. So seeing
(36:51):
in the spring flowers blooming, I'd be like, I see you, guy,
and I know you see me, and I look at
these trees, and magnolia trees are my faces. When I
see I see the face of God, and it centers
me every single time. Y'all, so things that we have power,
We can control our breathing. And when you find yourself
(37:12):
about to go there, you about to say that thing,
always remember your higher self and take a breath and
hold it for a moment. You got to remember who
you are and if your life allows it, and if
your body allows it, if you can get outside. If
it's not every day, I deploy upon you to get
outside and take a walk around your neighborhood or wherever
(37:34):
you may live. And while you're not, if you can
disconnect from talking to people and allow yourself to be
heard and held by nature and by God. This helps me.
I'm only here today because I have these practices.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
Be'tiful?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 7 (38:02):
For me, the most effective tool in my toolbox, honestly
is radical self compassion. And I think my entire life
shifted the day that I decided that I get to
be a work in progress. And I always say I
forgive myself for everything. I forgive myself for the person
I was five minutes ago. I'm a new denay, and
I think with every breath we get to begin again,
(38:24):
and that's the power of really being in presence, right,
and that everything is here to teach me.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
This is my soul's curriculum, I believe.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 7 (38:33):
Think in the world, so much of the chaos and
the polarization and the real difficulty seeing other people I
think comes from how much we demand perfection of ourselves.
And I think the extent to which I can be
compassionate with myself, I just find myself able to be
so much more compassionate with those around me. So yeah,
(38:55):
I think if we can just decide, like you get
to be human, you get to fall short and forgive
yourself and begin again as many times as you need to,
forever and ever. Amen, That to me has been the
game changer.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Yeah, the practices each of you shared, I mean they
really are life changing, and I just want to share
with everyone here. Sometimes we think our story is too
hard or too dark, or the thing we're going through
with ourselves or with the person with us, that it's
so big that stopping to like be with nature or
(39:33):
take that breath or take that moment, that can't do it.
That just won't be enough to heal or fix this.
But the truth is, like that is really those are
the only things that really can because it's about you
being in your body, observing your life, having your experience.
So they are just such essential things to consider to
slowly add into your life that breath we did when
(39:55):
we came out. Fifteen seconds. You got fifteen seconds, right.
We can spend a couple minutes on ourselves and our
bodies because Lord knows, we give our energy and we
give ourselves to so many other things that we don't
get an investment back on, you know, like scrolling or
binge watching. But thank you both so much for this
(40:18):
powerful conversation, and I want to further echo before we
leave this stage. You know, even using these tools, you
might get it wrong sometimes, but it's practicing, it's doing
it different the next time. It's not getting it wrong,
and then just saying well, this is the way it's
going to be, this is how I am. It's every
(40:39):
time you get a chance to practice, you get to
experiment with these tools and these new ways of being
with the people in your life and with yourself. So
I just want to shout out one more time, doctor
Key's latest book new book is No One Is Self
Made and DANAE. Logan's book is Sovereign Love. Thank you
both so much for joining us. DEVI, what's the name
(41:01):
of your book? Yes, I have a new book out too.
It's called Living in Wisdom and it's a guide for
embracing grief and developing self mastery. So grief is constant,
joy is there too? How do we make harmony with
both in our life? Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Thank you everyone, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
M okay, yes, I adore them. Thank you everyone for
spending time with us today. Thank you so much to
doctor Key and today yet again for saying yes to
this when I ask them to be a part.
Speaker 6 (41:37):
Of this conversation, to fly to New Jersey.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
To spend time away from their lives to join us
in community. With the thousands of people in the Triceda
area that joined us for this incredible half day of programming,
I cannot say thank you enough. They joined me with
just the true care of their hearts and generosity as
we did this for the community. As everyone moves forward
(42:05):
from listening to this conversation, I really invite you to notice,
as soul work the moments that you feel activated, the
moments where defensiveness rises, when urgency wants to take over,
when being right feels more important than being connected. These
are all sacred invitations and opportunities to pause, to soften,
(42:28):
to breathe, and to choose again. We get to honor
all of the generations that came before us who didn't
have this language, while still using our voices to build
new patterns of honesty, compassion, and repair. Share this episode
with a friend who needs it in your life. Who
(42:49):
would this be a great icebreaker for?
Speaker 6 (42:52):
Where are things unsaid?
Speaker 4 (42:53):
Where are conversations unfinished and not completed? Maybe this podcast
episode can be the olive branch. Please share with me
how it landed, how you're using this conversation, Share it
on threads, on ig anywhere else that you like to
(43:15):
share the deeper things. And I can't wait to be
back with you next week. Thank you so much for listening.
Please give us a five star review, a written review
on Apple, and we'll be back now.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
I'm that mistay.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
The content presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational
and informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement
for personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not
constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable
to consult with your healthcare provider or health team for
(43:54):
any specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect
with me on social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts,
don't forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this
episode to a friend. Deeply Well is a production of
(44:16):
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacqueis Thomas,
Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You
Heard That's by Jarrelen Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Holds it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Now, release slowly again deep in, helle.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hold release, repeating internally to yourself as you connect to
my voice. I am deeply well. I am deeply well.
(01:22):
I am deeply I'm Debbie Brown and this is the
Deeply Well Podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Welcome back to the show. I'm Debbie Brown. As always,
thank you so much for being here. I hope this
season in your life is moving with alignment, with.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Ease, and with some softening to it.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Wherever you are in the world, however, this particular season
of life and this holiday season is affecting you. I
know for so many of us, there are a lot
of different unique challenges in this time of year. So
wherever you are, I hope that you are finding ways
to be with yourself, to nourish yourself and to support yourself.
(02:22):
All right, this episode, we have another very special episode.
This past October, we gathered for the fourth annual Mental
Wealth Expo. That is one of the big flagship events
that we do every year for the Mental Wealth Alliance,
which is an incredible foundation that is founded by my
(02:42):
brother Charlotte Mane the God and that I am a
very proud board member on. So this year I had
the honor of the privilege of hosting and creating two
really wonderful conversations that we at the stage with at
the expo, and I'm so grateful to share another one
with you here today. Today's episode is a beautiful exploration
(03:06):
of communication, the heartbeat of every single relationship that we hold,
whether with our loved ones, our communities, or within ourselves.
Many of us did not necessarily grow up with emotional
language or tools to process feelings and communicate without defensiveness
(03:28):
or tools to communicate what our truth is with ease.
So often breakdowns and connections come not from a lack
of love, but from an unprocessed emotion, from reactivity, or
from old patterns that we just haven't yet examined or
had the chance to garner technique or tools to transcend.
(03:53):
I'm joined today. I'm joined on this panel, I should say,
by two amazing women with amazing, really important work that
they bring to the world, Doctor Key Holman and DANAE. Logan,
two powerful voices in relational growth and communal healing. Together
(04:14):
we explore what conscious communication looks like in practice, responding
with clarity instead of reaction and choosing love over ego,
asking ourselves in moments of tension, do I want to
be right or do I want to be in relationship.
I've had the pleasure of having both of these dynamic
women on the show previously, so if you get a chance,
(04:38):
look back in earlier episodes to check out the conversation
that I had with Dannay Logan from about two seasons ago,
and a conversation I had earlier this season with Doctor
Key Holman.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Doctor Key is an entrepreneur and an author of No
One Is Self Made. Doctor Key empowers leaders to build
sustainable community rooted businessiness is through her village model. Dnay
Logan is a Los Angeles based marriage and family therapist
and author of Sovereign Love, A guide to healing relationships
(05:11):
by reclaiming the masculine and feminine within. Dnay blends shadow work, mindfulness,
and ritual to help people show up more authentically in
both relationships and self connection. In this episode, we talk
about honoring the gift of this generation, the ability to
name our emotions, talk about our inner worlds, and heal
(05:33):
patterns our families may never have had the language for.
We discuss accountability as an act of love relationships as
sacred mirrors, and how self awareness and emotional responsibility deepen
our capacity to truly connect. This conversation invites us to
pause before we react, lead with curiosity, and practice repair
(05:59):
when miscommunication happens. It's about owning our patterns without shame,
releasing perfectionism, and choosing growth again and again. Towards the
end of this conversation, doctor Key and in A share
personal practices from their work, from walking with God and
nature to radical self compassion, to supporting you and communicating
(06:21):
with more present grace and heart in your own life
without further ado. Welcome to our beautiful conversation. So if
you can hear the sound of my voice, I want
to invite you to get uncrossed in your seat, straight spine,
soft belly, and we'll just ground into this moment with
(06:43):
one nice, full deep brah. Okay, we're going to do
it in through the nose. We'll do it out with
her slips.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
It'll sound like this.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Let it come all the way in and all the
way out, all right. Go ahead and begin your deep
in hell through your nose.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
Hold it at the top and let it out, all right.
How are you feeling good.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Let's begin this next restorative, juicy, full conversation. So today's
conversation is on effective communication. How many people wish either
the people around you could communicate better or would like
(07:42):
to find more tools for really, really excellent communication. Yeah,
thank you. Well, we are in for it because we
have some incredible women here to teach you in a
very deep way. In this conversation that we're having, we're
going to be unpacking emotional processing, emotional language, the art
(08:05):
of communicating without reacting or getting defensive or deflective. And
we're going to explore how to expand our emotional vocabularies
to really be able to talk about what.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
And how we are feeling.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
So I am so so so so deeply honored to
be joined by two powerful teachers for this conversation. Our
first amazing teacher and panelists is doctor Key Hallman. She
is an entrepreneur and author of No One Is Self Made.
Doctor Key empowers leaders all over the country and world
(08:41):
to build sustainable, community rooted businesses through her village model.
Thank you so much for being here, Yes, thank you.
We are also joined by DANAE.
Speaker 6 (08:56):
Logan. She is a Los Angeles based.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Marriage and family theorypist and author of Sovereign Love, A
Guide to healing relationships by reclaiming the masculine and feminine
within Dina Blend's shadow Work, mindfulness and ritual to help
people show up more authentically in both relationships and self connection.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
So together in this conversation, and before I get into
the questions we're going to impact, what does it even
mean to effectively communicate? What does that actually look like
in daily practice, whether it's in our families and homes
and our partnerships, our relationships that are most important to us,
or within our communities and the work we do and
the people we work with. So as a baseline to
(09:45):
really just kind of set this conversation is just to
acknowledge that many of us never learned emotional vocabulary or
tools for healthy communication for so many reasons, but none
of those reasons do we have to be in judgment
of our selves because of communication breakdowns often come from
our own unprocessed emotions. Reactivity usually happens defensiveness, deflection, and
(10:11):
effective communication. When we really get to learn it and
be in practice with it, it strengthens not just our
personal relationships that we have with people but also the
health of our greater community and the organization organizations that
we are part of.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
So I want to start. I'll start with you, doctor Key.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Many of us seem to really default to reactivity and conflict.
What practices help us or how do we begin to
kind of train our minds to help us slow down
a little bit so that we can respond to the
people near us with clarity.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
deVie started with a hard question, y'all, that was hard.
That was honestly hard. So thanks Debby, I love you
for that. This is what I say. I think we
all have been in a moment where we responded by
how we felt more than processing how someone will receive
(11:12):
what we're saying. So just to make it plain, when
you start doing this and then you hit sind real
hard and you take a moment and it was like, oh,
I wish I could take it back. The reality is
that we all have been there. If it's people that
we work with, if it's people that we love, folks
(11:35):
that we just like, sometimes, we all have been there.
And we also see it a lot on social media,
where we used to call it Twitter fingers, but I
don't think that exists anymore. What works for me, and
what has worked is that I'm always in a place
that am I honoring myself? And how I respond to this?
(11:57):
Am I honoring the vessel of me being here? Am
I honoring myself when I hit respond or if I
hit sin? Because my greatest responsibility and how I'm trying
to show up in the world is I want to
show up in the world honorably. So that takes a
level of discipline to operate in honor. So if I
(12:20):
can give you all just a practice, before you hit sin,
you ask your You ask yourself and am I honoring
the highest of my being in this response? Am I
responding from a place that my light is being illuminated?
Or is this or is this my darkness? Every time
(12:44):
I've asked myself those questions, I've had to sit my
own self down, put the phone down what Ericabadu said,
and I've had to say and wait before I respond.
So I hope those two things that you can just
ask yourself the high use of my vibration? Am I responding?
Am I honoring myself? And how I'm responding?
Speaker 6 (13:06):
That is so so good?
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Could I ask you a part A to that question?
What about in the moments that we're convinced we're right
where you feel like, now, I gotta get this off
because I am right in this situation.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Absolutely, we can be right, and we can be right
with love. So we're not responding from a place of
being inauthentic even when we're right. But it's this weapon
of our response. Is it meant to cause harm in
our rightness? These are the questions that we have to
ask ourselves. So I am emphatic when I think I'm right.
(13:50):
I just want you all to be clear. I sit
up different too. I'm ready. But my work has given
me the discipline and that when whatever I put out
in the world, while I'm right, while i'm direct, I
make sure that it's coded in love, love for myself,
(14:13):
love for how I want to be held, and also
if this was reverse the way that I will want
to receive that type of love. Because we get give,
we give get, So I'm always in the cycle for
my own self love and self preservation.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yes, I'm like, these are the things that like change
our lives, you know, Like That's what I've really been
taking away from this whole day, is like these are
the things.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
This is what changes your life, you know that moment.
Speaker 7 (14:51):
I'm laughing when you were working director key because I
think they say, you know you're growing when you're like
typing out the whole text message and then you start
to press delete, delete, like you know what, never mind,
because that's growth.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah, when you can make the paragraph like a sentence,
or get on the phone and kind of talk it out.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Yeah, or not respond at all in that moment.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, right, you don't have to have to And sometimes
in situations it's like, I don't have to participate with this.
This may be the energy you're giving me or what
you want to bring out of me, But it's always
that choice.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Can I add to that.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I think there's an old couple's therapy adage, and I
primarily work as a couple's therapist, and it's do I
want to be right or do I want to be
in relationship? And a lot of times we're prioritizing the
right and sacrificing the relationship and the harmony and the relationship.
And I think a lot of times the truth doesn't
need defense to the extent that we think it does.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Right, And so it's like things sort of play out
but if I need to be right.
Speaker 7 (15:49):
A lot of times what I'm doing is creating ruptures
in our relationships that aren't really necessary for us to create.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
So true, thank you, I'll see with you right now, Denay.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
How do cultural or generational differences shape the way people
communicate their emotions and how can we bridge that space
that gap with some compassion? And I mean in the
sense that we're all navigating intergenerational relationships right, Like certain
things we wish our parents could just get, Like why
don't they get that? Or our children or you know
(16:23):
that plays such a role.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, I love that question.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
I think that's something we were talking about earlier today,
that there's a lot of ways that in terms of
mental health and the processing and the tools that so
many of us are doing so much work to accumulate.
Our parents didn't have a lot of access to that.
Our parents' parents didn't have a lot of access to that,
and it was sort of a lot of times in
other generations children should be seen and not heard and
(16:46):
like compliant child is a good child and things of
that nature. That we understand more about what that's doing
to our emotional health, and I think we have to
give a lot of grace to those of our family
members who for really good reason and a lot of
times we're afraid of seeing a therapist or you know,
there are aspects of what that meant within Black communities
(17:08):
that we have to be really honest about that haven't
been talked about in terms of our mental health. And
so yeah, I mean, we're here and we're doing this work,
and I think at the same time we have to
I don't know. Just sitting here and seeing all of
you gather to talk about mental health makes my heart
so happy because I feel like ten years ago there
was still so much stigma, especially in the black community
(17:29):
around I'm struggling, I'm overwhelmed. I'm really struggling with anxiety
or depression or whatever it was. And I think we
were really doing a lot of work to put a
lot of that down.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Truly, like the way the landscape has shifted, the way
that we're able to be with each other or just
call a thing a thing sometimes is like what we
were held back from doctor Key.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
Yes, I would love to add to that, we were
having a conversation upstairs. What I want us to understand
to even be in this space today as a privilege.
So while we're here to talk about wellness and to
(18:09):
get tools about being well, the work stops if you
only came here to get something and to not share
what you learn. The gift of our generation is that
we have the privilege to know different communication modalities. We
have the gift of being able to convene on a
Saturday morning and talk about our feelings and talk about communicating.
(18:33):
I think if we take life in these moments as
gifts and privilege, then we would have grace and compassion
for the things that our mothers and grandmothers and great
grandmothers and fathers could not do. Because I don't know
all about y'all. Me and my mother rest in peace. But
on Saturdays she was working, and I can imagine that
(18:56):
she dreamt of spaces like this, and even in her
wildest dreams, she didn't even know in the moment of
her working and trying to take care of my siblings
and I that when she was exhausted, she was a
little bit more harsh. When she was fatigued, she was
a little bit more impatient when life was wearing her down.
(19:20):
Sometimes she just couldn't physically show up because her vessel
was tired, and I sit on this stage today and
I know the gift of my life is the privilege
of her sacrifices. And so what I am welcoming for
my nephews is the privilege of them understanding that their
(19:42):
greatest self exists if they take whatever I pour into
them to take it further. So I'm hoping that you
all take these moments today, all these conversations, drop it
in your household and in your friend group. But then
you have to push and say, we gotta take it
first there, because that is why we are here.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, wow, wow, we can. I know we can all
deeply relate to that. And that level of grace and
compassion is so important, especially in our family relationships because
those really deserve it. You know, our family relationships are
often the hardest. It's our spiritual curriculum. It's where it starts,
(20:24):
you know. But being able to bring grace to that
and dignity to the experience and understanding is so important.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Deeply.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Well, I want to ask, so we're giving tools, right, Like,
we're talking about some tools and processes, but ultimately change
doesn't really occur without a greater sense of personal self
awareness of like what your role is in life and
your conversation. So from each of you, I'd love and
(20:58):
I'll start with you Tonnay. What what is the role
of self awareness? How important is that personal work overall,
and how you're able to do this more community based
in a personal relationship work.
Speaker 7 (21:11):
Yeah, I think the personal work and what I like
to talk about a lot is personal responsibility is everything
because we can only meet another to the extent that
we've met ourselves, right, So if we're really hard on ourselves,
it's really hard for us to be compassionate with other people.
And I think whenever we're talking about relationships, so much
of what we were talking about like we want to
(21:31):
be understood, we want to be right, we want to
sort of defend the.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Truth as we see it.
Speaker 7 (21:36):
And something I come back to a lot is like
our work is to pause and really try to understand
before being understood, right, And if I can make that
the practice and almost sometimes like the mantra, seek to
understand before seeking to be understood, Like I will say
that to myself in relationship dynamics, But there's something that
happens when we're in a relationship with another person, when
(21:58):
they feel seen and heard by us. Instantly, the defenses
start to drop a little bit and we start to soften,
and we're in conversation versus sort of like battling it
out to be understood. Right, So I think, if I
can just really take responsibility for myself and am I
really trying to understand or am I demanding that this
person see me and understand me, it just takes things
(22:20):
a lot further in terms of how we're able to
connect with one another.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, deeply. And I'm hearing too. It's like how holistic
it all is.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
It's like, as you're doing that work with another, you
are also doing your own inner work, whether you're thinking
about it or not.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
And I think if we see these relationships as sacred
mirrors a lot of times and showing us to ourselves.
And when I feel really activated or when I feel
really like it's difficult to tolerate the way this person
is showing up, why is that so hard for me?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Can I be curious?
Speaker 7 (22:52):
Not judging myself, But like I always say, if it's
hysterical within me, there's something historical, And so there's probably
a story I'm telling myself about something I felt in
the past. That is really making me defend against what
I'm feeling now. But normally it's not about what's going
on right now. It's something historic that's coming up for me.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, that's so important that distinction, Like what did I
walk into the room with already?
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Absolutely?
Speaker 6 (23:17):
Yeah, thank you doctor key.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
So y'all do this thing every every night before I
go to sleep, right before I send my prayers, I
asked myself, were there moments in the day that I
could have been more kinder to myself? There are moments
in a day that I should have just given myself
a little bit more grace. But there are moments in
(23:41):
a day that I wish I did not hear seeing
on ned tacks. Were there are moments in the day
that the way I showed up was really not my
highest self. And however, I answer those questions where all
my yeses are all my nose I look at as
an invitation that awareness only grants and open the door
(24:05):
for us to be better. So like, if you have
the muscle of awareness, like you see yourself, like you
know it's you when you being toxic? Okay, and say
that again, hold on y'all listening. We know it's us
when we're being toxic. If you are aware in this
(24:26):
moment like, oh, that was me, I want you to
see it as an invitation that you have the gift
of awareness to know is you, and it's only an
invitation for you to do better next time, and also
to go back and for me, I apologize, because an
apology is all also an invitation to tell another person
(24:51):
it was me. And I hope what I'm mirroring back
to another person that when is them, it empowers them
to do the same. Do these self assessments, but I
want to share that there were times in my life
when I did my own self assessments and I was
far too hard on myself. People who are perfectionists and
(25:12):
I'm a recovering one, that a plus plus student. That
was me. But I had to learn that even in
a pursuit of perfection, was distorting my own vision for
who I'm meant to be. And so I had to
let perfectionism go and I just allowed myself to just
(25:33):
be emphatically who I am, all the nuance and even
the contradictions, all the love and all the light and
in moments some dark, because we all are a spectrum
But because I do this self assessment work. Every time
I wake up in the morning, I look at myself
in the mirror. I know the woman that's looking back
(25:56):
at me, and I love the person that I'm seeing,
the work assessed, the work of us doing our work.
It's truly just an invitation so we can be our
highest selves. And then we get to meet people along
the journey and we get to show up illuminating our light.
And a thing about light is either going to run
(26:19):
somebody away or draw more people to us. That is
the gift of light.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Come on, wow, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Why is accountability so hard for people?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
As you were talking, doctor K I was thinking that
there's a part of us, our ego mind. A lot
of times, the part of us that I always say
edges God out or edges like that we are beyond
just these human bodies, right, that we are eternal. But
it really struggles with the idea that I'm not diminished
in any way by being wrong, and that we came here.
I believe in this life school to like work, it
(27:00):
out to be valuable to make mistakes, and that's a
part of how we learn. We can't learn by being perfect,
Like I have not learned a lot in my life
in the times when I got things perfect. It's normally
when I, you know, I fall a little short, and
I forgive myself and I try again next time. But
I think when we're apologizing and taking accountability for the
way that we showed up and like I wish I
(27:21):
would have done that better, it's really like I have
to remind myself no part of me is diminished by
being human. Like I think a lot of times we're
expecting something beyond our humanity, and it really requires that
we start there, like, yes, I'm going to mess up.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's a part of this human experience, you.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
Know, yes, and we all will yes.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
I think you know, many of us was raised in
how American society is designed, even from our early years
in school. There's rules for everything. There's right, there's wrong,
and so so much of what we were taught about
accountability only came up in moments that we were told
we were wrong. So they're there when accountability shows up
(28:04):
at our door. I think our defenses come up because
we feel that we are wrong, and when we respond
from a place of being defensive, ego is there trying
to protect us. The little girl little boy who is
always told that they were wrong or different shows up
trying to protect us. So there is so much in
society that has constructed the way that we think, and
(28:27):
because we are we have been programmed to think and
feel a certain way that we don't even understand that
I'm showing up in this way of not being able
to be held accountable because I am in my programming.
So what I'm what helps me is that I'm always
working to deprogram the societal things that has been seeped
(28:48):
into my spirit. I'm always working to to say, kid,
is this how you feel? Is this the way you
are taught to feel? This is this is how is
this is in the essence of your being? Or it's
just a product of this societal programming. But accountability, if
(29:09):
we can tell ego to chill out for a minute,
we can tell our little girl a little boy selves
we're safe, and to say that accountability is only an
opportunity to level up. Every time that I get to
be held accountable for something that I could have done differently,
It's only a door for me to level up. Don't
(29:30):
we all simply want to level up from day to day,
season to season, year to year, birthday to birthday. So
if you look at accountability as an invitation to level up,
I tell you all to accept it fully because we're
meant and we are here to be our highest selves.
To hold accountability as an honor and tell your little
(29:54):
girl little boy self, you're good, you're safe, you're understood,
and even if you didn't have right in this moment,
you steel okay, oh.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Wow, thank you both like that. That that's some of
our deepest work, you know. And I think nothing kind
of destroys the trust in any relationship more than like
passive apologies and passive accountability.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
Yeah, And I think so often why we don't apologize
or we're not accountable is when we apologize a lot
of times, instead of the like acceptance of the apology,
the person will be like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
And when you did that, da no da da da,
And so it's like not going.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
To not do that right because all of us will
defend against shame, right.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I think you're right.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
So often our earliest experiences of accountability were really rooted
in shame, and as humans, no matter what, we're going
to defend against the way shame feels at all costs
so understanding that I don't have to be perfect in
order to be worthy of love. I'm already worthy. But yeah,
it's a little like, even when people can't receive my
apology or my accountability, I'm proud of me for doing
(31:03):
the thing and saying the thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Yeah, because we can be wrong and not be like
fundamentally wrong as a being, as a person.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Like one of the things that drives me nuts is
when people will be like, well, if you if you
did feel any kind of way about such and such,
then I'm no, you know, you made the person.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
Feel that way. Like, let's just say it, you know,
and create space for that.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
But thank you both so much. We are so close
to being out of time, but I'm gonna push my
limits because I really want to get these questions. So
my next question for each of you is what does
it look like to begin to reset or repair a
relationship that is stuck in constant miscommunication?
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Constant miscommunication.
Speaker 7 (31:57):
Thinking about that, you know, I think if I'm I'm
in this space where I like to do a thing
called segment intending, right, and it's a little bit I
really am intentional around the energy that I want to
bring into this space between me and this person.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I do this with my kids dad a lot, right,
So it'll be like, before.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
I go into this, I know that we have a
tendency to get in conflict about certain things. Now, there
are ways that a lot of times when we are
in our most intimate relationships, that's actually where we feel
safest to get in these patterns of conflict. Any of
you who have children know when you drop them off
at you know, primary school or whatever, they'll be like.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Oh, that child is a little angel. And then they'll
bring the child back to you and you'll be like,
what angel, because they like wow.
Speaker 7 (32:42):
When they get home to you, because you're their safe space.
You're the place where they can be their fullest expression
of selves. But that's actually what happens in our most
intimate relationships as well. It's like I feel safe sometimes
being not the highest self version of me. But if
we can really say, like, I want to take so
much much responsibility for the way that I am showing
(33:02):
up in our dynamic, the energy that I bring, and
we can do a pause and reset at any moment.
So I will tell couples all the time if you
feel like I've lost it and I'm just not proud
of the way I'm showing up. Just say to your
partner or whoever the person is, you know it, give
me five minutes. I'm going to into the bathroom. I
need a pause, I need a break, and then like
have another moment of like segment and tending when I
(33:24):
go back in there.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Here's how I want to show up.
Speaker 7 (33:26):
Here's the way I want to be energetically in our interaction,
and we can do that at any time. But I
also think curiosity is really important because when we're really
intimate with someone else and we know one another really well,
we think that we know what they're going to say
before they say it, and we start finishing their sentences
and rolling our eyes. It's just it's human stuff when
(33:48):
we're really close to people. But if I can just
be so curious about your experience and what's happening for
you and not draw my own conclusions, I think that's
how we break those patterns of communication because a lot
of times we're not curious, so we're not really hearing
one another anymore.
Speaker 6 (34:04):
You know that's so good? Yeah, so true.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I'll ask you both, what is one daily practice that
you recommend from each of your teachings and books, which,
by the way, if I haven't said this already, both
of these women have phenomenal, phenomenal books that are out.
So I really encourage everyone to get on their pages
and order the things. But what is a practice from
(34:30):
each of your teachings that the audience can start today
to kind of get them into a space for better
communication but also just a better lived experience.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
In chapter six of my book, I talk about and
for entrepreneurs and small business owners or builders, even folks
who are in corporate companies and say, you know, I'm
just trying to show up differently. I wrote a book
with how we can do that as a collective, How
we can move away from individualism because I think it
is has led to the breaking down of our community,
(35:06):
and how do we get back to collectivism. While a
lot of my work is centered on economic liberation, what
I know for sure is that if we do not
take care of our minds, body, and spirit, the money
is for not. We can invest an over index and
(35:27):
want of our business and our endeavors and our careers
to scale, but we don't want our souls to scale up.
So I write about these things, but I share the
things that I do. Debbie open with One of the
things that I do, especially when I get stressed or
if I am getting ready and if I'm having a
(35:48):
tougher conversation with someone that we do not communicate the best,
I always take a deep breath because that deep breath
centers and calms my nervous system and it's me back
in my body again and I remember who and whose
I am in that moment. Another thing that I do
(36:08):
every day beyond me taking my deep breasts and if
you can and you have access to it, and if
your body allows, I go outside and I go for
my walks, y'all. I'll be out there hugging trees and everything.
But my walks center me the things. And I don't
listen to anything. I don't talk on the phone. I'm
(36:30):
just allowing myself to be freely disconnected but connected to
the source. And while I am, I'm a deeply spiritual person.
So I always feel a part of my journey is
I'm always looking for God in the things. So seeing
(36:51):
in the spring flowers blooming, I'd be like, I see you, guy,
and I know you see me, and I look at
these trees, and magnolia trees are my faces. When I
see I see the face of God, and it centers
me every single time. Y'all, so things that we have power,
We can control our breathing. And when you find yourself
(37:12):
about to go there, you about to say that thing,
always remember your higher self and take a breath and
hold it for a moment. You got to remember who
you are and if your life allows it, and if
your body allows it, if you can get outside. If
it's not every day, I deploy upon you to get
outside and take a walk around your neighborhood or wherever
(37:34):
you may live. And while you're not, if you can
disconnect from talking to people and allow yourself to be
heard and held by nature and by God. This helps me.
I'm only here today because I have these practices.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
Be'tiful?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 7 (38:02):
For me, the most effective tool in my toolbox, honestly
is radical self compassion. And I think my entire life
shifted the day that I decided that I get to
be a work in progress. And I always say I
forgive myself for everything. I forgive myself for the person
I was five minutes ago. I'm a new denay, and
I think with every breath we get to begin again,
(38:24):
and that's the power of really being in presence, right,
and that everything is here to teach me.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
This is my soul's curriculum, I believe.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 7 (38:33):
Think in the world, so much of the chaos and
the polarization and the real difficulty seeing other people I
think comes from how much we demand perfection of ourselves.
And I think the extent to which I can be
compassionate with myself, I just find myself able to be
so much more compassionate with those around me. So yeah,
(38:55):
I think if we can just decide, like you get
to be human, you get to fall short and forgive
yourself and begin again as many times as you need to,
forever and ever. Amen, That to me has been the
game changer.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Yeah, the practices each of you shared, I mean they
really are life changing, and I just want to share
with everyone here. Sometimes we think our story is too
hard or too dark, or the thing we're going through
with ourselves or with the person with us, that it's
so big that stopping to like be with nature or
(39:33):
take that breath or take that moment, that can't do it.
That just won't be enough to heal or fix this.
But the truth is, like that is really those are
the only things that really can because it's about you
being in your body, observing your life, having your experience.
So they are just such essential things to consider to
slowly add into your life that breath we did when
(39:55):
we came out. Fifteen seconds. You got fifteen seconds, right.
We can spend a couple minutes on ourselves and our
bodies because Lord knows, we give our energy and we
give ourselves to so many other things that we don't
get an investment back on, you know, like scrolling or
binge watching. But thank you both so much for this
(40:18):
powerful conversation, and I want to further echo before we
leave this stage. You know, even using these tools, you
might get it wrong sometimes, but it's practicing, it's doing
it different the next time. It's not getting it wrong,
and then just saying well, this is the way it's
going to be, this is how I am. It's every
(40:39):
time you get a chance to practice, you get to
experiment with these tools and these new ways of being
with the people in your life and with yourself. So
I just want to shout out one more time, doctor
Key's latest book new book is No One Is Self
Made and DANAE. Logan's book is Sovereign Love. Thank you
both so much for joining us. DEVI, what's the name
(41:01):
of your book? Yes, I have a new book out too.
It's called Living in Wisdom and it's a guide for
embracing grief and developing self mastery. So grief is constant,
joy is there too? How do we make harmony with
both in our life? Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Thank you everyone, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
M okay, yes, I adore them. Thank you everyone for
spending time with us today. Thank you so much to
doctor Key and today yet again for saying yes to
this when I ask them to be a part.
Speaker 6 (41:37):
Of this conversation, to fly to New Jersey.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
To spend time away from their lives to join us
in community. With the thousands of people in the Triceda
area that joined us for this incredible half day of programming,
I cannot say thank you enough. They joined me with
just the true care of their hearts and generosity as
we did this for the community. As everyone moves forward
(42:05):
from listening to this conversation, I really invite you to notice,
as soul work the moments that you feel activated, the
moments where defensiveness rises, when urgency wants to take over,
when being right feels more important than being connected. These
are all sacred invitations and opportunities to pause, to soften,
(42:28):
to breathe, and to choose again. We get to honor
all of the generations that came before us who didn't
have this language, while still using our voices to build
new patterns of honesty, compassion, and repair. Share this episode
with a friend who needs it in your life. Who
(42:49):
would this be a great icebreaker for?
Speaker 6 (42:52):
Where are things unsaid?
Speaker 4 (42:53):
Where are conversations unfinished and not completed? Maybe this podcast
episode can be the olive branch. Please share with me
how it landed, how you're using this conversation, Share it
on threads, on ig anywhere else that you like to
(43:15):
share the deeper things. And I can't wait to be
back with you next week. Thank you so much for listening.
Please give us a five star review, a written review
on Apple, and we'll be back now.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
I'm that mistay.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
The content presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational
and informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement
for personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not
constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable
to consult with your healthcare provider or health team for
(43:54):
any specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect
with me on social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts,
don't forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this
episode to a friend. Deeply Well is a production of
(44:16):
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacqueis Thomas,
Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You
Heard That's by Jarrelen Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Devi Brown
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