April 23, 2025 • 56 mins
It can often feel like healing should look a certain way. Meditating, journaling, saying your affirmations—these are surely all factors of the healing process. But what happens when you know you need to dig deeper, but can’t figure out how? Sometimes healing isn’t as aesthetic or straightforward as it looks online. It’s messy. It’s nonlinear. It’s showing up to do the hard work when you’d rather keep it light.
Today I'm excited to have Devi Brown joining us again. Devi is a Well-Being Educator, Multidisciplinary Healer, author, and Host of the Deeply Well podcast. As the founder of Devi Brown Well-Being, she has dedicated her career to helping leaders, artists, and athletes navigate healing, self-discovery, and personal growth through mindfulness, spiritual psychology, and holistic wellness practices. In today’s conversation, we explore this deeply introspective and thorough guide to emotions and values, cultivating self-connection, and unlocking one’s highest potential to build a stronger foundation rooted in holistic healing.
About the Podcast
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session four eight of Airpy for
Black Girls podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after
a word from our sponsors. It can often feel like
healing should look a certain way. Meditating, journaling, seeing your affirmations.
(01:21):
These are surely all factors of the healing process. But
what happens when you know you need to dig deeper
but can't figure out how. Sometimes healing isn't as esthetic
or straightforward as it looks online. It's messy, it's nonlinear.
It's showing up to do the hard work when you'd
rather keep it light. So today I'm very excited to
have Debbie Brown join us again. Debbie is a well
(01:44):
being educator, multidisciplinary healer, author, and host of the Deeply
Well podcast. As the founder of Debbie Brown well Being,
she has dedicated her career to helping leaders, artists, and
athletes navigate healing, self discovery, and person of growth through mindfulness,
spiritual psychology, and holistic wellness practices. After serving as Chief
(02:07):
Impact Officer at Choprah Global, she now sits on the
board of the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. She's also
the author of Crystal Bliss and most recently, Living in Wisdom.
In today's conversation, we explore this deeply introspective and thorough
guide to emotions and values, cultivating self connection and unlacking
(02:28):
one's highest potential to build a stronger foundation rooted in
holistic healing. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share with us on social media using the hashtag
TBG in session, or join us over in our Patreon channel.
To talk more about the episode, You can join us
at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot Com. Here's our conversation.
(02:54):
Thank you for joining me again. Demy.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh my god, what thank you for having me. This
is the conversation I've been waiting for.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, it feels like it has been a long time.
We've seen each other kind of socially in between, but
it has been a long time since we've gathered behind
the podcast, Mike, So what has been going on? I
feel like that's a big question. What's been going on
and bringing you joy? Last chatted?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Ooh, you know what has been bringing me a lot
of joy? Truly, the feeling of completion this book that
I'm going to be talking about with you today. It
had rattled in my mind for six years, took me
about two years to do, and then when I finally
(03:38):
turned in the manuscript and got the galley, it felt
like all of this space came into my spirit and body.
You know. It's like it was something that I needed
to complete and share. And as soon as that happened,
I feel like I've been given access to like new
layers of my own creativity, new layers of thought. I
(04:00):
have space to think about new things. It's been feeling
really joyful. My body is kind of getting used to it,
my mind is getting used to it. But that feels
really exciting for me. I feel so much space inside
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I love that. What a beautiful answer, you know. And
I know, like the book process is a very long
process regardless, right, Like it takes years before people see
it on the sholws. But tell me about the timing
of this, Like how had it been sitting with you
for so long before it kind of finally was given birth?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know. I wrote my first book almost eight years ago,
which was called Crystal Bliss, which was a beautiful opportunity
and I was able to share, you know, my passion
for crystals, my passion for meditation. But I had a
lot of deeper stories to share, and that was always
known to me that at some point I was going
to share a lot deeper perspective and look and technique
(05:00):
and healing process, things that I had been working with personally,
things that I had amassed a lot of practice, and
things that I had used with clients. And so I
felt like God gave me the seed, the feeling, and
it wasn't so much about getting it done right away.
I had a few different iterations of this kind of
come through for about six full years, but it was
(05:22):
really about divine timing and so God kept telling me, watch, look, prepare,
write down, start creating the space for this kind of
creativity to tell these kinds of stories. But it was
really about finding new ways to kind of romance my
life a little bit in the process of doing that,
(05:44):
like call my creativity forward to tell some harder stories
in a way that felt really useful, felt really purposeful.
And so that process was really interesting. I mean, oh
my God, did I fight it, fight it? Did I
fight the process? Did I stop and start so many times?
(06:05):
So many times? And then it made sense, you know,
And I think it was funny. One of my favorite
teachers and healers who tends to work with a lot
of creative something he said to me when I told
him that, Okay, the contract is signed, now I know
I got to deliver it. You know, we're going to
get going. He told me something really beautiful that turned
out to be very true for me. He said, you know,
(06:27):
when you're writing something that really is kind of I
call it like my debut rap album because all the
great hip hop classics, it is everything that artists went
through in their life up into the debut album. So
every perspective, every life experience, it is like you know,
this grand offering, and so he said, you know, when
you're ready to give that grand offering, you're going to
(06:50):
notice that some of your life is going to speed up.
You're going to have resolution about certain things you're writing about.
You're going to be given these kind of miraculous whispers
and symbols and cues from God to help you complete
the work. And I found that that really happened for me.
You know, some of the things that I write about
in the book, my past marriage, my relationship with my family,
(07:12):
my son. You know, I started seeing such miraculous growth
in all those areas as I put kind of the
pen to the paper or my fingers to the keypad.
And then by the time I finished the book, it
was really like this volume of life and living that
was just so complete in all the best ways, like
(07:32):
every single loose string had been tied into a bow.
And I'm just like immensely grateful for that. It ended
up being such a therapeutic, to say the least, catalyzing
process for me.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Mm hmmm. Yeah. You know, Debbie, and you know, being
a fan of your work and being you know, in
connection with you for the past couple of years, like
you definitely are someone who shares, right, Like, I don't
feel like you are super secretive, Like you are a
part of your work in the ways that you share.
But this book was definitely different, right, Like, you definitely
share more about like grief and laws in ways that
I don't feel like I had seen you share in
(08:08):
your platform, and I know that can be a risk,
and I'm sure it felt like that to you. I
wonder if you can share, Like, how do you know
you are in a heeled enough space to be able
to share about something on the written page, Because there's
like the feeling it, and then there's the writing it
and then releasing it for other people to kind of
take in, Right, So, how do you know when you
(08:29):
are in a place to be able to write about
you know, some of the things you wrote?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
God, I knew when I came on the show these
questions would be questioned name, oh my God, and thank
you so much for your words? My lord? Do you
know the feeling is mutual? I think I have a
few ways that I think I want to approach this question.
I know we are in a day and age of
like deep sharing and deep truth and as I was
(08:55):
kind of walking through a lot of the stories that
I share in this book, I was also in the
midst of serving. You know, a lot of the things
that were coming forward were happening like immediately when the
pandemic started, and so that wasn't a place to share from.
You know, like I have a lot of patience for
the unfolding of life, and I feel like I am
(09:18):
someone that believes in sharing the wisdom and not necessarily
steeping in the pain and sharing the trauma of the moment.
Now that is not for everybody, but as a teacher
and as someone that helps facilitate and guide, I think
that's really important. I needed to metabolize the experiences that
were happening to me in my life. I needed to
(09:39):
be in process with it, because you know, at first experience,
at first glance, you kind of have to sift through
the pain, sift through the reflection, and start to see
where everything is falling. So I had to let myself
be shattered in certain respects and just let it all
kind of be in front of me before before I saw,
(10:00):
you know, what is what is the rebuild? What is
the learning? What is the work that is in front
of me? I believe deeply that every single thing that
happens to each and every one of us serves purpose.
And by serve purpose, I mean literally serves a purpose
and your life and in the world, but also serves
(10:21):
and informs your life's purpose. And I felt like a
lot of the experiences that I have through some dark
teachers in my life, like loss and grief and betrayal,
you know, those are things that are meant to be
deeply thought about and understood. You know, I was in
a lot of pain, and I had a lot of
(10:41):
reverence for the pain that I was in, and so
I felt like I needed to see it through. I
needed to see myself be on the other side of it.
I needed to see the wisdom in it. And then
I needed to start sharing and teaching my learnings in
real life and seeing how those things were affecting other people.
And then I felt like it was ready to be
(11:02):
shared in the book. A lot of this, I mean,
just every story I tell in here has probably never
been heard before, because I really thought I needed to
give some of those experiences the respect that they deserved.
And it didn't feel like doing that on an Instagram
post or an Instagram story or even one singular podcast
was really the place to do that. So I sat
(11:24):
with my work and I sat with my learning, and
I made it useful and I wrote about it. And
my deepest intention is that it is useful and necessary
and helpful to whoever happens to connect with it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And is there any part of you that has been
worried about, like how these not seen before stories will
be received or impact the work that you do as
like a teacher and a healer and a facilitator.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I wanted to say I worry about that. I will
say that just in general, the feeling of being so
vulnerable and open it brings up a lot of things,
you know, I think naturally, I'm a very private person.
Probably anyone that follows me knows that. Like, I'm definitely
down to give glimpses. But I save my best parts
for the people that know me and for the people
(12:11):
that have time and presence in my life. And that's
really important because I think, you know, especially in this
day and age, with all the sharing and all the
broadcasting of ourselves, we can really get burnt out and
we can kind of contort ourselves to meet the perception
of so many people. We don't know and that don't
know us. So I save a lot of my best
(12:33):
parts for me and those I'm close to. But you know,
I did have this experience where as soon as the
book was finished and I had the galley and it
hit me and it was like, Oh God, all this
is all this is going to be in the world.
I just kind of built an altar for my book
and I started praying to God about it, and I
was like, I need to make peace with this. I
need a big peace with the feeling of being seen
(12:57):
in some of the harder moments, because you know, when
you write a book, well, really, when you do anything, now,
it exists for as long as it exists, and it's
on public record, and everyone will have access to these
kind of more intimate pieces and parts of you. So
I didn't have fear. I know God wanted me to
(13:18):
do this, so it felt like an honor to do,
you know necessary. But I did spend a lot of
time in prayer in these last six months waiting for
this book to come out, just really being with myself
and being with my truth and knowing that it's all okay,
and every story that's told. I'm completely on the other
(13:40):
side of you know, for many years, for many years,
I've been on the other side of So I have
a lot of confidence in that and a lot of
pride in what my life looks like.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So you know, you kind of come out the gate
swinging in this book, Daddy, Like one of the first
chapters is you have permission to shatter, basically like to
complete we fall apart, and as much value as I
think we both recognize, I think for our community, for
the therapy for black girls, community minity, people will hear
that and be like, absolutely not, I don't have time, right, Like,
(14:11):
we are doing our best to just hold it together,
and so talk to me about like the permission to
shatter and the value that's on the other side.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
This is something I've thought about so much because I think,
especially within our community, we've just had to be resilient
for centuries, right, So it's like some of our resilience
and are forging through and our process and our positivity, right,
our ability to not be beaten is what is our
(14:42):
strongest pull in most moments, and it's incredibly beautiful. I'm
so grateful, so grateful for the generations of resilience that
have been burrowed deeply into my cells. And at the
same thought and point of that, you know, a lot
of us alive right now. We're the first generation that's
ever even had a chance to feel. So there are
(15:02):
a lot of things that we're doing for ourselves, and
we're doing for our children, We are doing for our
parents that has just absolutely never been done before. But
it's going to change the flow of how we're able
to be ourselves forever. And so, you know, I think
(15:23):
being broken gets a bad rap. It's not about being
broken forever. It's not about putting this label on yourself
that has to be your identity. I am broken, but
a lot of us go through things that absolutely break us.
A lot of us go through things that hurt in
ways most people couldn't imagine. And so I had spent
so much of my life someone who had experienced various traumas,
(15:48):
various complex situations since birth. I'm someone that was just
always piecing myself back together and going and going fast
and doing well. And I'm just like you know, covered
in a little bit of scar tissue, but still luminous
in doing what I'm supposed to do. But that also
meant that I wasn't really in a space to feel
(16:10):
all the things that God needed me to know. And
I find that when we don't allow ourselves to feel
the fullness of our emotions, whatever that is, we're also
cutting off kind of our divine channel to God because
we're not listening, we're not choosing to kind of interact
with what's present. And so I didn't want to feel
(16:31):
cut off, you know, I didn't want to feel muted emotionally.
I know what that feels like to kind of forge
through and so all of your senses are a little
bit dulled. So when some of the bigger things that
happened to me in recent years happened, I felt like,
what am I holding it all together for? And what
could I be if I don't right? Like? What could
(16:54):
I be if I don't Throughout so much of my life,
I had looked at myself safe, for instance, like a
vase that somehow kept either falling over or getting thrown
against the wall. And then I'm like kinsugi, like using
this goal to piece myself back together, and now I'm
a vase again with all these golden cracks. But then
(17:16):
some things happened and I was just like, this has
to stay on the floor. I don't want to be
contained anymore. I don't want to be a vessel again.
I don't want to be a vase that holds things.
I just want to be free. And I think that
is some of the beauty of what letting yourself break
and then choosing what you'll become after that really provides us.
(17:36):
It's true freedom.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Mhm. And how do we because I think that there's
a level of safety that has to be there before.
I mean, I'm thinking, I think this is kind of
where our worlds collide. Like I'm thinking about this as
a therapist, Like you know, what are we putting down
so that there's like a blanket almost for these pieces
to fall apart?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Right? Like?
Speaker 1 (17:54):
What is the safety? And you kind of walk through
that kind of roadmap for what healing looks like. Can
you talk a little bit of about recognizing like, okay,
it's time for things to shadow, but maybe the work
that needs to be done before you.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Aways, so we are not just stopping at the brokenness, right,
Like part of becoming is finding the help you need
and finding the help you deserve. And for many of
us that get to that point of having such a
big break. It means that usually throughout our entire lives
there was no support, and so you were used to
kind of holding it together and being just with yourself.
(18:28):
But when you are in the pursuit of freedom, when
you are in the pursuit of becoming more, I think
it is absolutely imperative to not solely rely on your
own guidance and counsel, but to seek and get help,
and to be really adaptable and fluid in the kind
of help you seek. Right. So, I'm someone that had
(18:51):
been going to therapy for many, many, many, many many years,
but I found in this moment that actually it wasn't
cognitive therapy that was most helpful for me, And so
I found resources to say, well, I know that this
particular modality may not be a fit for me anymore,
but what could be? And so I found myself going
(19:11):
into specifically somatic therapy and then finding different somatic processes
to work with myself at home. I found myself deeply
leaning into practices that I had known for many many
years but maybe hadn't been as present with as I
could be. I found myself becoming really devoted to the
(19:32):
way that I cared for myself when you're in your
most broken states. I think it is so important to
make your life as beautiful as you possibly can. For
all of us, based on what our lives look like
at the time, be it socioeconomic status, be it flexibility,
be it freedom, that's going to be a little bit
different for each of us. In this book, I have
(19:54):
so many different practices and protocols and just kind of
deeper understandings of it's available to people. But for each
of us, that's a unique recipe we have to find
for ourselves. But I believe deeply in a holistic approach.
Some of the things I did, of course, was be
in therapy, work my own process, meditate every day. I
(20:15):
made a lot of time to rest. I think what
I recognized was I had been in fight or flight
and freeze my whole entire life. So I didn't even
know who I was or what I felt like. If
I wasn't putting out fires for other people or myself,
if I wasn't kind of carrying the emotional labor and
weight from everyone around me all the time, and so
(20:38):
part of my ability to figure out what is the
truth of who I am and how I feel really
rested in dedicating two entire years, two entire full years
to resetting my nervous system. That is not something that
can happen in a weekend. It's something you can taste,
it's something you can begin to really receive from deep
(21:00):
relief from right away. But it also takes time for
your body to heal and your body to create some
new pathways for your brain to heal. And so I
leaned into a lot of those practices, and it became about,
you know, being able to lean on deeply supportive community,
my friends, my family, healers, other people in my space, therapists,
(21:25):
and it was about being incredibly devoted to my own
self and my own soul and my own body like
I never have before in my life. I cut out everything,
no TV, no movies, really, no music except for a
solelection playlist shout out to Jokay for over two years,
and it was about reparenting myself, healing the parts of
(21:48):
me that said yes to chaos even though I didn't
realize it. It became about forgiving myself for some of
the positions I put myself into, and it became about
learning how to be the kind of mother I've always
dreamed of. Being with my son and being completely focused
on that part of my life more than anything else.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So, Debbie, I would love to hear your thoughts on
this because I hear you talking about like spending so
much of your life in like fight or flight and freeze,
and I think many of us are operating in that
place right and it feels like we have to kind
of crash or there is some experience of crashing before
we recognize, you know what, this is not serving me,
Like it feels like there needs to be typically some
(22:31):
big thing for us to then say, I'm going to
make this change, like I'm going to look at how
I interact with the world. I want to look at
how I change things. Do you feel like there has
to be some big thing or has that been your
experience and like the clients you've worked with, or could
it be that somebody just says, hey, I want to
examine this for myself even before like a big thing happens.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I absolutely think that both paths can happen. I think
it really depends on the level of awareness and kind
of the fine tuning of one's own intuition. I think
for a long time because some of those parts of
me were really disjointed. I had to or continue to
find myself, specifically learning through pain and challenge. Something that
(23:12):
I've said for a long time is, you know, listen
to the whispers, because you do have a choice. Listen
to the whispers. They're always there. God always comes to
us as this kind of blissful little kiss on the
cheek or whisper, And whether or not we listen depends
on incrementally how much more intense our experiences get that
(23:33):
want our attention. So I didn't listen to a lot
of whispers for various things in my life, and I
heard them clearly, and I kept telling myself, I can
control this, I can find a way around this. I
can find a way for that not to be the case.
And so eventually God caught my fade. I got a
punch in the face, I got knocked down on the floor.
(23:57):
So I think, you know, as people, we learned pain
until we don't. My shattering allowed me to really understand
that I can learn with ease, I can learn with grace.
I can learn through really observation and the twinkle of
an eye, the whisper, the symbols, and that now very
(24:18):
much that's how I make new choices and pivot in
my life. That's how I know how to kind of
walk away from something before I even walk into it.
And so I think at this point in my life,
I can absolutely learn through joyous experiences. I learn so
much through presence and observation of others or just reflection
(24:39):
on my own self and my own awareness with God's grace.
But I think before you get to that place, a
lot of us have to be disarmed. And if we
don't disarm ourselves when we're told to, our ability to
do it through gentleness does kind of change. But we
can get back to that. There's this quote that I love.
(25:01):
It's this very old, kind of beautiful little anecdote that said,
the snake that cannot shed must perish. So if we
don't learn to shed our skin as we're being called
to and told to every time, you may have to
die for it, right, not literally, I hope, but figuratively.
You may have to have some kind of internal death
(25:21):
or dark knight of the soul. But if if you
really listen, you can just let it be a shed.
You can let it be this kind of gentle unraveling
and unfolding, an opportunity for something new and different.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
More from our conversation after the break. So you've used
this word a couple of times already today, and I
was particularly struck by it in reading the book Devotion,
because I don't feel like that's a word I've seen
used in like healing texts in you know, like this World,
(25:58):
and so I want to hear more about this idea
of devotion and like the relationship, it has to a
greater sense of healing.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I think when we approached the conversation of self care,
and as someone that has been really kind of teaching
self care, specifically in a holistic lens for the last decade,
it was one of the hardest things that I ever
had to do for myself but also had to teach.
Whenever I'd walk in rooms and talk about self care,
people felt like it was so silly or small that
(26:28):
it couldn't possibly give you the healing that you need,
or that it was selfish, or if you've had complex
lived experiences, it could be deeply triggering and uncomfortable to
start to meet your own needs or be present with
yourself and your body. I started to switch the lens
(26:49):
to really being about a path of devotion devoting myself
to deepening my connection with God and devoting myself to
myself learning what my needs are. And I think when
we look at it as being in devotion of it
changes the reverence that we have for ourselves in our lives,
(27:09):
and it really allows us to approach it in a
way that can be very consistent and also very beautiful.
Right instead of just like, oh, I've got to, you know,
band aid this up, I've got to band aid that up,
I've got to fix that pothole, and just to stay
above ground, I'm looking at it as a pleasure. I'm
looking at it as a privilege to care for my heart,
(27:33):
to care for my one life that I'm getting, to
care for, my purpose, to care for the things that
God has entrusted me with, and you know, really just
to care for this life that I have been given.
And I think when we're able to look at ourselves
as being worthy of our own devotion, it changes the
(27:55):
way that we're able to show up in some of
our harder experiences, and it changes the way that we're
able to be ourselves in the world and with other people.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So in the book you talk about and you just
mentioned it too, like this need for control that many
of us have, that it may not even be like
obvious on the outside, and that that is the thing
you've often to wrestle with most good clients. Can you
say a little bit about how we may be masking
this need for control in our lives and how it
shows up in your work?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Oh my god, I think one of the biggest ways
so many of us mask what is truly just a
desire to control is through self righteousness. It's through service,
It's through a lot of good intentions, right, And I
think that's what makes it tricky for us to find,
especially for those of us that are empathetic, that are
(28:47):
highly sensitive, that are intuitive, that are people that are
deep feelers and really caring. It is so easy to
get high on your own supply when you're someone that
people come to for things, you know, But it's also
incredibly isolating, and so you know, I think when we
are trying too hard to control our own experience, to
(29:12):
find solutions just from our own minds for our experience,
or to control the feelings that other people are having
around us, we really miss the mark, you know. I
think control is this very clever, sophisticated way of avoiding
what it is to feel, what it is to trust,
(29:34):
what it is to truly have faith. You Know, something
that I find really interesting is a lot of people
I know that have deep faith, that really have deep
connections with God, struggle with control, completely struggle with it.
And I always say, but where's the room for God?
If you're making all the decisions. Where's the room for God?
(29:57):
If you are by yourself with only your brain trying
to come up with every solution before you just sit
and feel and look at what's in front of you.
So I think it's really important for people to just
gently look at the ways that they avoid their own
emotion and the ways that they avoid allowing other people
(30:19):
to have emotions. So what that looks like sometimes is
like if someone comes to you and you know, either
they tell you they need help or you are projecting
on them that they need help, and you're now rushing
into action to come up with all these solutions or
fix it or make it more comfortable. I'd really question, like,
(30:40):
what is it that you're scared of, and what is
it that you're avoiding, and what is hard about feeling
the pain and other people and the pain in yourself?
And just sit with it, because it won't go away
until you do.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
So you give us an outline in the book of
these practices that and you describe them as practices. Right.
I think that we, you know, ultimately would be doing
daily to kind of give ourselves the best chance at healing. Right, Like,
this is what healing actually looks like in practice. But
meditation is the one that you talk about being the
most difficult, even though in my mind it feels like, oh,
like this feels like not an easy process, but it
(31:15):
feels easy to access in a lot of ways. So
can you talk about like what meditation is and why
it is often so difficult for people?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Oh my god, yes, Oh, meditation has been one of
the single greatest gifts of my entire life, and it's
also been one of my most challenging teachers to sit with.
So meditation, I think it in the most simplistic way
that we see and know it. It's like sitting down,
being still and being silent. And that sounds easy enough,
(31:48):
I think till each of us try to do it,
because what happens when you get still everything comes to
the surface. Most of us spend so much of our
lives trying to move fast to bypass what we're feeling,
or bypass some of the harder realities of life, or
even past memories and ruminating thoughts. We just go, go, go, go, go, do,
(32:09):
do do. When you meditate, we're saying, hey, you are
worthy and enough without doing anything, and that can be
incredibly confronting if you have spent your whole life doing
the opposite. So the thing about meditation, which I think
is very similar to joy and anything else we're doing
with ourselves for the first time, is it is a practice.
(32:29):
It is about being present without judgment, and it's about
really just letting yourself look at your own discomfort. The
few first times that you sit down to meditate, it
may annoy you, depending on what's happened in your life.
It may terrify you, depending on what's happening in your life.
When you were still, when you were quiet, things are
(32:50):
going to come up to the surface. But I think
the beauty of a meditation practice is they come up
to the surface so you can begin to observe them
and relate to them differently, and relate them so you
can actually find the space of what is my authentic
voice and what is my ability to just be present
and see what is in front of me and happening.
(33:11):
A lot of us kind of miss the observation phase
because we're going straight into action. But if we don't
sit and really behold what's in front of us, absolutely
nothing changes inside of us or outside of us, even
if we feel like it does, even if we feel
like we are accomplishing or gaining or doing. At some point,
(33:32):
we're all going to be forced to sit and be
still and reckon with ourselves and reckon with our choices.
When you kind of proactively approach certain practices, you give
the opportunity to yourself to not always have to do
that through a lot of challenges and a lot of
practices in the book that I share, especially meditation, it's
(33:54):
about bringing yourself into a quiet power, bringing yourself into
a new access point of who and what you are,
and also connecting your brain and your heart. You know,
one of the hardest things I think about meditating and
I think about doing various practices, is so many of
(34:14):
us are intellectualizers. And that's exactly why you wrote this book.
You cannot think your way out of some of your deeper,
harder experiences and truths you can only feel your way
out of them, and through meditation and through doing various
practices you build your capacity to do that with.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Ease mm hmm and in my mind, and you have
outlined this in the book as well, like meditation often
is a nice compliment to journaling, which you also talk about.
So can you talk about the purpose of journaling as
a part of healing as will?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah, Oh, journaling is where you really give yourself the
chance I think, to release you know, and journaling can
be just so bespoken, unique to each of us and
how each of our brains work. So for some people,
journaling through voice notes feels really good, and I always
recommend for some people that like to journal in that way,
including myself, sometimes whenever you get a chance, try to
(35:09):
just get those voice notes somewhere and transcribe them. I
prefer kind of keeping our journals so we can look
back at who we are and continue to see how
we grow. Some people like to burn the paper as
soon as it's done. See what feels best for you.
But you know, journaling either through voice notodes, through prompts,
through questions and guidance that you're gaining from other sources
(35:33):
or through your own guidance, but it gives you a
place to be in deep inquiry with yourself in a
safe way. So I think it's journaling is one of
the greatest ways to track your growth. It's one of
the greatest ways to really begin to see how you
uniquely think about things and feel about things. It's a
way to give space for anger, because we deserve to
(35:55):
feel that too if we do. It's a space to
really give over to sadness when you feel it, give
over to personal accomplishment and happiness. But I believe we
should be documenting our lives like at the end of
the day, no matter what you do, no matter who
you love, no matter what you create, life is really
(36:18):
about you and God. That is the fundamental relationship while
you're here. It is about your unique individual human experience first,
which then allows us to come into community. And I
think journaling really helps you get more clear on what
your human experience is and what the sum of your
experiences have created in your life.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
So one of the questions that you offer, both I
think as a journal problem but also for a lot
of the larger exercises that you're asking in the book
is who am I call to be right now? And
I think when I think about that question, especially in
the backdrop of everything happening in the world, I feel
like my answer is like lid something around, like a
being of service to other people. But and see, I'm
(37:02):
probably doing what you are encouraging us not to do
in the book. I'm judging my answer, like should the
answer be like something for somebody else or should the
answer be something like inherently for me. So I'm wondering
if you can give suggestions around, like how do we
answer that question? And I'm guessing the answer to that
question might be different at different points in our lives.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Absolutely, And I think, honestly, the answer to the question
it's kind of both. When we ask ourselves that question,
you know, being alive, we are having two distinct experiences
at the same time. We are having our internal experience,
the part that typically only we know about, and we're
having our external experience what we are doing in the world,
(37:41):
how we are in relationship with others, and what their
perception of us is. So that is happening at all
the time, and so I think it's fair to ask
yourself that question in both of those ways. Who am
I being called to become? Inside? First? And then who
am I being called to become in the greater world?
In service, because we're all alive to serve and any
(38:03):
of the work that we are blessed or privileged to
do on ourselves. Because sometimes it is very true that
it can feel absolutely impossible to do this depending on
your circumstance. But if you do have the privilege and
the fortitude to do some of this personal work on yourself,
it's imperative that you then turn that into service. It's
(38:25):
why we're here. So I think when we're in that
space of asking ourselves, who am I being called to become?
Right now? It is an ever evolving answer that we
should always be in flow with. We should always be
asking that question when we find ourselves kind of in
new chapters of who we are, new moments. We are
(38:45):
constantly shedding, and with every shed we get the chance
to become more, to become something else, And I feel
to become something more beautiful, more powerful, more influential to
whatever our person an all ecosystem is.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
More from our conversation after the break. So you know, Debbie,
I am always, well, not always, but often thinking about
like social media and like technology and how it impacts
like healing, and like what this work looks like now
(39:25):
versus like twenty years ago. And so you recently posted
on Threads I believe I believe it was Threads that
you feel like you are a couple of years away
from like completely not even being online, right, like it
kind of is there at the store front, but not
really like really engaging. And I also was struck by
in the book, like how many times you're talking about
our online behavior in terms of like unfollowing people or
(39:48):
unfollowing people, and like how that's a part of our
lexicon that was not there twenty years ago. And so
I'm wondering, like what role do you see social media
and technology kind of playing and healing and how we
have to be careful about the role that it's playing
in our lives.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh my god, what a question. What a question, And
what a time to be alive, because I just want
to like kind of ground in the fact that, like
we are really doing things no human being has ever
done before, and we are living lifestyles that have absolutely
never existed on this planet before, and there is really
(40:24):
something to be said for that, you know, like we
really kind of have to look at that and give
ourselves a lot of grace. There's a reason why we're
stressed out and why we do feel like we don't
really know what we're doing, because we are doing a
lot of things that our bodies and brains just were
not evolutionarily designed for. Yet are we are that missing link?
(40:48):
We are the cavemen of this time? But I think
you know, first of all, yeah, my desire is to
really be off social I love serving, I love being
with people, but I am an in person person. God
designed me really for one on one or God designed
me to share energy with human beings I am physically with,
(41:09):
and that is always my priority. I always give more
to my real life than my digital life ninety percent
of the time. So I have a profound longing to
not be perceived. I have a profound longing to not
be on social media, to not have to tweet, to
not have to thread, to not have to be on
(41:31):
Instagram other than for absolute pleasure. And I think that
part has been weird for a lot of us because
we are trying to be so many things online and
sometimes it really isn't possible or easy to be your
truest self, especially if you're a lover. I think the
Internet was really hard for me over the last fifteen
years because I am a lover to the bone, I
(41:55):
am an impath to the bone, and I kind of
historically observed patterns and shifts, and so we have made
huge shifts into being so much more positive to each
other in the last couple of years, I think since
the pandemic. But if it was five years ago, my god,
everyone was ripping each other to shreds. Let's not forget
(42:17):
the read each other culture that was so prevalent. Just
there was so much tearing down, There was so much negativity.
Anything anyone said was just met by people on all
corners of the world with all kind of bizarre projections
and things. And I think that's the thing that I
don't love, you know, when that happens online. And I
also recognize I don't have to take it. I think
(42:39):
we have this kind of false belief that you have
to take in what anybody from anywhere says to you,
and it's just not true. They don't know who you are, period.
You know, a stranger telling you something online. It is
such a minuscule view, even if it is praise. You know,
we can never take neither praise nor criticism too deeply,
(43:00):
So I choose to not really engage with either. I
choose to just listen to what I'm supposed to do,
try to show up with my work and with the
people that you know, I'm able to be in front of.
But I think we're an interesting time where the internet
has given us so much access to community and to
(43:20):
the ability to be seen, be heard, be in some
form of relationship with others. But I think everyone should
watch closely that they are not using that to bypass
having real connection in real life. If you're someone who
has been maybe a little harder to do that in
real life. It is very easy to find sanctuary in
(43:42):
an online world and mistakenly think that that's enough, But
it's not the same thing as true relationship, as true connection,
as being present for your human, earthly experience. I think
it's really important that we don't turn our lives into
a game of sims without realizing it, and look up
(44:03):
and say, you know, what am I? What is my life?
What is my real legacy? What impact have I actually had?
And where have I been quite honestly wasting time or
wasting resources. I think the last few years there's just
been this kind of like, yes, cis culture of everybody
liking and leaving comments, but not building relationship in real life.
(44:29):
Real relationship with another human being requires a lot more
than likes and praise and quick little messages on social
media or texts. It requires vulnerability. It requires pros and
cons and effort and getting it wrong sometimes, something that
I love with all my real life friends. It's like,
(44:51):
I'll be the first to say, please, don't pedestal me.
I am gonna get a lot of this wrong. I
have to have this space. I tell this to people,
to people I'm friends with, I have to have the
space to disappoint you. I have to be allowed to
disappoint you sometimes. And I think we miss that very
necessary building and stretching and growing when we are only
(45:15):
focused kind of on online networking or keeping up with
the likes and the posts and the responses and the
dms on social media.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
And that is definitely a word there. Debbie, thank you so.
I love that you kind of round out the book
by talking about the importance of reclaiming joy, and I
wonder if you could offer us some ideas around like,
how we dismantle this idea that joy is something that
needs to be earned.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Oh, my goodness, my anecdote for that, because I think
I was very much that person where I didn't realize
it until I actually felt the real thing inside of
my body. But we can get really addictive to perform
of joy, which is some of you know, especially if
(46:03):
you're someone that does kind of have great things happening,
and so you're making announcements or you're giving speeches, or
you have beautiful posts, or you have people that are
cheering for you. You know, I always ask when those
things happen, do you feel it inside to the same
degree that you are pushing it externally. That's a big
(46:24):
important thing to look at because a lot of times
we can, without even our own permission or knowing, get
stuck into a cycle of performative joy, which is acting happy,
acting excited, having the raw raw yelling, celebrating, you know,
all the exclamation points, all the parties. But how many
of us have those experiences and inside still feel like
(46:47):
it's not enough, And then wonder why, and wonder what's
wrong with us? Why don't I feel as happy as
I should? Why don't I feel as happy as people
think I should. And so when you start looking at that,
it kind of opens up a new world for us.
You know, one of the things that I think it's
important to know is on that journey to joy, it's
going to take practice. You're going to have to stretch
(47:09):
your capacity to feel good things and to feel safe
about it. If you've had, you know, a harder time
in life maybe than others, or more challenges than others,
there is going to be a fear that if I
give myself over to this joy, will the other shoe drop?
Will I be blindsided by something bad happening? The truth
(47:30):
is maybe right, The truth is most likely another shoe
will drop at some point, because that's what it is
to be alive, that's the human experience. Both are always
going to be happening. Grief and joy, challenge and progress
are always always present and a part of what this
(47:51):
human experience is. And I think when we just allow
ourselves to kind of accept that guaranteed truth, we can
relax into joy because we're grateful that it's come, and
we're grateful it's here while it's here for however long
it's here, and that joy and that feeling, and that
(48:12):
allowance creates the fuel for us to be able to
survive and move through absolutely everything else that may greet
us on the path. And so my road to that
was really through kind of constructing what I came to
understand and call tiny joys. I am not searching for
happiness in my life. I'm searching always. I am embodying
(48:38):
enoughness to me, the journey isn't about happiness. It's about
everything feels like enough. I don't feel lack, I don't
feel like I need a rush to the next thing.
I don't feel like I am putting up walls against
the good things. I feel like everything around me is enough,
all my needs are met. And my way to that feeling,
(49:02):
which I'm so grateful for and love, was through tiny joys.
It was through kind of seducing myself a little bit
romanticizing myself, learning how to turn myself on and bring
myself a smile with absolutely nothing, you know, not with
another person, not with something tangible or in front of
(49:24):
me or an opportunity. It was going outside and taking
deep breaths and feeling the beautiful glow of sunshine hitting
my face, closing my eyes and seeing the glow of orange,
or feeling the warmth in the center of my forehead
or on my neck or chest, and just saying, my God,
(49:44):
that beauty makes it all make sense, you know, being
able to be present in nature, gardening really activated that
in me, or sometimes just lighting an incense, buying myself flowers,
you know, creating joy for yourself. It's not about the
big announcements or the performances. It's about how do I
keep that little oven that's inside of me burning At
(50:07):
old times. It is not always going to be a raging,
crackling fire. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just going to
be that barely lit candle flame that I'm trying to
keep on. But it's about feeding that personal fire with
whatever makes you smile. The things that make me smile,
(50:30):
our beauty, our sunshine, are drawing sometimes with my sun,
creating a flower arrangement, rearranging things in my home, you know,
closing my eyes and listening to a great mix, dancing
and dancing and dancing around my house, opening up all
the windows in my house. And that always feels like
(50:51):
not only does it feel like enough, it feels like
such a privilege. It feels like such a privilege to
feel the things so deeply.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
So, DEBI, how are you hoping that people engage with
in What do you hope they get from living in wisdom?
Speaker 2 (51:09):
I hope from living in wisdom, you know, you'll really
get permission to incorporate and integrate all the aspects of
what your unique human experience has been, if it's been
one that has had some complex trauma, you know, which,
as everyone knows listening to this show and your expertise,
it's not just maybe one big thing that happened to
(51:31):
you for some of us, for a lot of us,
it is a lot of constant things that have happened
to us. And so I think my book is really
dedicated to people who have had experiences like that. I
think this book is for people that have had a
lot of those kinds of challenges but also find themselves
(51:51):
wanting to keep their hearts wide open, wanting to find
a way to serve, wanting to find a way to
make all of these experiences useful, for those that have
been on a path maybe of being a wounded healer,
or want to understand themselves more. I really wrote this
book and the way I kind of structured it was
for people that you know, maybe a lot like I
(52:12):
was over intellectualizers. You have a lot of knowledge. You've
read the books right like you may have been in therapy.
You may have read other self help books. You may
have deep knowing. You know where the pain lies, you
know what to call it. You're clear on all what
the attachment, you know all the different attachment systems are.
(52:33):
But for whatever reason, your life still doesn't feel like
it's changing. You're not necessarily seeing the truth and the
result of all this work that you've been bringing into
your brain, yet in the life that you're living. This
book is about integrating all of that and bringing it
into your body, bringing it into your heart, making it useful,
(52:54):
making the pain of your life useful for you, and
allowing you to transcend it. And I do that, of course,
through some storytelling, through guidance, and then through a lot
of practices. And I hope that everyone that uses this
book it'll become, you know, this dog eared companion. You'll
read it, but then you'll keep coming back to it.
You'll keep using it as a resource for meditation, for
(53:17):
somatic practice, for you know, learning about essential oils and
maudras and journal prompts, and how to make affirmations that
really empower your personal life. But it is about you
becoming your healer. You know something I try to let
a lot of people know when I'm either leading a
retreat or working one on one with clients is we're
(53:37):
going to get really deep. But I am not your healer.
You cannot project on me that I am here to
save you and I'm the reason that you're going to
get to the other side of whatever it is. I
am a healer, studied and practiced. I am here to
light the torch so you can see yourself more clearly.
(53:58):
But it all rests within you and your own heart.
And I hope that this book gives people more access
to the truth of their heart, to that extra reservoir
of strength that really sits inside of us, and permission
to deeply recover from what may have happened or not
happened in your life.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
So where can people find their copy? Debbie? What is
the book's website? In any websites are a social channels
you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (54:28):
So this book is available everywhere officially April twenty second.
I also did the audible, which I'm really excited about.
I love using my voice so you can listen to
the audiobook. You can get the book anywhere that you
like to buy your books, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble. Please
join me. I will be on tour very soon. I
can't wait to meet everybody as I'm working with this book.
(54:50):
You can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com,
Forward slash Book, and also of course my ig at
Debbie Brown Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
We'll be shut in. We do that in the show notes.
Thank you for spending some more time with us today, Debbie.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Thank you so much, Doctor Joy. It is always a
privilege and a pleasure to be with you. Thank you
for your work, and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
I'm so glad Debbie was able to join us again today.
I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.
So learn more about her or to grab a copy
of Living in Wisdom. Be sure to visit the show
notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session four eight.
Did you know? You can leave us a voicemail with
your questions for the podcast. If you have movies or
(55:35):
books you like to suggest for us to review, drop
us a message at Memo dot FM slash Therapy for
Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind.
We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're
looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist
directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. This
episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Indy Chubhu and Tyree
(55:58):
rush An. Was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all
so much for joining me again this week. I look
forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take good care,
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session four eight of Airpy for
Black Girls podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after
a word from our sponsors. It can often feel like
healing should look a certain way. Meditating, journaling, seeing your affirmations.
(01:21):
These are surely all factors of the healing process. But
what happens when you know you need to dig deeper
but can't figure out how. Sometimes healing isn't as esthetic
or straightforward as it looks online. It's messy, it's nonlinear.
It's showing up to do the hard work when you'd
rather keep it light. So today I'm very excited to
have Debbie Brown join us again. Debbie is a well
(01:44):
being educator, multidisciplinary healer, author, and host of the Deeply
Well podcast. As the founder of Debbie Brown well Being,
she has dedicated her career to helping leaders, artists, and
athletes navigate healing, self discovery, and person of growth through mindfulness,
spiritual psychology, and holistic wellness practices. After serving as Chief
(02:07):
Impact Officer at Choprah Global, she now sits on the
board of the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. She's also
the author of Crystal Bliss and most recently, Living in Wisdom.
In today's conversation, we explore this deeply introspective and thorough
guide to emotions and values, cultivating self connection and unlacking
(02:28):
one's highest potential to build a stronger foundation rooted in
holistic healing. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share with us on social media using the hashtag
TBG in session, or join us over in our Patreon channel.
To talk more about the episode, You can join us
at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot Com. Here's our conversation.
(02:54):
Thank you for joining me again. Demy.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh my god, what thank you for having me. This
is the conversation I've been waiting for.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, it feels like it has been a long time.
We've seen each other kind of socially in between, but
it has been a long time since we've gathered behind
the podcast, Mike, So what has been going on? I
feel like that's a big question. What's been going on
and bringing you joy? Last chatted?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Ooh, you know what has been bringing me a lot
of joy? Truly, the feeling of completion this book that
I'm going to be talking about with you today. It
had rattled in my mind for six years, took me
about two years to do, and then when I finally
(03:38):
turned in the manuscript and got the galley, it felt
like all of this space came into my spirit and body.
You know. It's like it was something that I needed
to complete and share. And as soon as that happened,
I feel like I've been given access to like new
layers of my own creativity, new layers of thought. I
(04:00):
have space to think about new things. It's been feeling
really joyful. My body is kind of getting used to it,
my mind is getting used to it. But that feels
really exciting for me. I feel so much space inside
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I love that. What a beautiful answer, you know. And
I know, like the book process is a very long
process regardless, right, Like it takes years before people see
it on the sholws. But tell me about the timing
of this, Like how had it been sitting with you
for so long before it kind of finally was given birth?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know. I wrote my first book almost eight years ago,
which was called Crystal Bliss, which was a beautiful opportunity
and I was able to share, you know, my passion
for crystals, my passion for meditation. But I had a
lot of deeper stories to share, and that was always
known to me that at some point I was going
to share a lot deeper perspective and look and technique
(05:00):
and healing process, things that I had been working with personally,
things that I had amassed a lot of practice, and
things that I had used with clients. And so I
felt like God gave me the seed, the feeling, and
it wasn't so much about getting it done right away.
I had a few different iterations of this kind of
come through for about six full years, but it was
(05:22):
really about divine timing and so God kept telling me, watch, look, prepare,
write down, start creating the space for this kind of
creativity to tell these kinds of stories. But it was
really about finding new ways to kind of romance my
life a little bit in the process of doing that,
(05:44):
like call my creativity forward to tell some harder stories
in a way that felt really useful, felt really purposeful.
And so that process was really interesting. I mean, oh
my God, did I fight it, fight it? Did I
fight the process? Did I stop and start so many times?
(06:05):
So many times? And then it made sense, you know,
And I think it was funny. One of my favorite
teachers and healers who tends to work with a lot
of creative something he said to me when I told
him that, Okay, the contract is signed, now I know
I got to deliver it. You know, we're going to
get going. He told me something really beautiful that turned
out to be very true for me. He said, you know,
(06:27):
when you're writing something that really is kind of I
call it like my debut rap album because all the
great hip hop classics, it is everything that artists went
through in their life up into the debut album. So
every perspective, every life experience, it is like you know,
this grand offering, and so he said, you know, when
you're ready to give that grand offering, you're going to
(06:50):
notice that some of your life is going to speed up.
You're going to have resolution about certain things you're writing about.
You're going to be given these kind of miraculous whispers
and symbols and cues from God to help you complete
the work. And I found that that really happened for me.
You know, some of the things that I write about
in the book, my past marriage, my relationship with my family,
(07:12):
my son. You know, I started seeing such miraculous growth
in all those areas as I put kind of the
pen to the paper or my fingers to the keypad.
And then by the time I finished the book, it
was really like this volume of life and living that
was just so complete in all the best ways, like
(07:32):
every single loose string had been tied into a bow.
And I'm just like immensely grateful for that. It ended
up being such a therapeutic, to say the least, catalyzing
process for me.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Mm hmmm. Yeah. You know, Debbie, and you know, being
a fan of your work and being you know, in
connection with you for the past couple of years, like
you definitely are someone who shares, right, Like, I don't
feel like you are super secretive, Like you are a
part of your work in the ways that you share.
But this book was definitely different, right, Like, you definitely
share more about like grief and laws in ways that
I don't feel like I had seen you share in
(08:08):
your platform, and I know that can be a risk,
and I'm sure it felt like that to you. I
wonder if you can share, Like, how do you know
you are in a heeled enough space to be able
to share about something on the written page, Because there's
like the feeling it, and then there's the writing it
and then releasing it for other people to kind of
take in, Right, So, how do you know when you
(08:29):
are in a place to be able to write about
you know, some of the things you wrote?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
God, I knew when I came on the show these
questions would be questioned name, oh my God, and thank
you so much for your words? My lord? Do you
know the feeling is mutual? I think I have a
few ways that I think I want to approach this question.
I know we are in a day and age of
like deep sharing and deep truth and as I was
(08:55):
kind of walking through a lot of the stories that
I share in this book, I was also in the
midst of serving. You know, a lot of the things
that were coming forward were happening like immediately when the
pandemic started, and so that wasn't a place to share from.
You know, like I have a lot of patience for
the unfolding of life, and I feel like I am
(09:18):
someone that believes in sharing the wisdom and not necessarily
steeping in the pain and sharing the trauma of the moment.
Now that is not for everybody, but as a teacher
and as someone that helps facilitate and guide, I think
that's really important. I needed to metabolize the experiences that
were happening to me in my life. I needed to
(09:39):
be in process with it, because you know, at first experience,
at first glance, you kind of have to sift through
the pain, sift through the reflection, and start to see
where everything is falling. So I had to let myself
be shattered in certain respects and just let it all
kind of be in front of me before before I saw,
(10:00):
you know, what is what is the rebuild? What is
the learning? What is the work that is in front
of me? I believe deeply that every single thing that
happens to each and every one of us serves purpose.
And by serve purpose, I mean literally serves a purpose
and your life and in the world, but also serves
(10:21):
and informs your life's purpose. And I felt like a
lot of the experiences that I have through some dark
teachers in my life, like loss and grief and betrayal,
you know, those are things that are meant to be
deeply thought about and understood. You know, I was in
a lot of pain, and I had a lot of
(10:41):
reverence for the pain that I was in, and so
I felt like I needed to see it through. I
needed to see myself be on the other side of it.
I needed to see the wisdom in it. And then
I needed to start sharing and teaching my learnings in
real life and seeing how those things were affecting other people.
And then I felt like it was ready to be
(11:02):
shared in the book. A lot of this, I mean,
just every story I tell in here has probably never
been heard before, because I really thought I needed to
give some of those experiences the respect that they deserved.
And it didn't feel like doing that on an Instagram
post or an Instagram story or even one singular podcast
was really the place to do that. So I sat
(11:24):
with my work and I sat with my learning, and
I made it useful and I wrote about it. And
my deepest intention is that it is useful and necessary
and helpful to whoever happens to connect with it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And is there any part of you that has been
worried about, like how these not seen before stories will
be received or impact the work that you do as
like a teacher and a healer and a facilitator.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I wanted to say I worry about that. I will
say that just in general, the feeling of being so
vulnerable and open it brings up a lot of things,
you know, I think naturally, I'm a very private person.
Probably anyone that follows me knows that. Like, I'm definitely
down to give glimpses. But I save my best parts
for the people that know me and for the people
(12:11):
that have time and presence in my life. And that's
really important because I think, you know, especially in this
day and age, with all the sharing and all the
broadcasting of ourselves, we can really get burnt out and
we can kind of contort ourselves to meet the perception
of so many people. We don't know and that don't
know us. So I save a lot of my best
(12:33):
parts for me and those I'm close to. But you know,
I did have this experience where as soon as the
book was finished and I had the galley and it
hit me and it was like, Oh God, all this
is all this is going to be in the world.
I just kind of built an altar for my book
and I started praying to God about it, and I
was like, I need to make peace with this. I
need a big peace with the feeling of being seen
(12:57):
in some of the harder moments, because you know, when
you write a book, well, really, when you do anything, now,
it exists for as long as it exists, and it's
on public record, and everyone will have access to these
kind of more intimate pieces and parts of you. So
I didn't have fear. I know God wanted me to
(13:18):
do this, so it felt like an honor to do,
you know necessary. But I did spend a lot of
time in prayer in these last six months waiting for
this book to come out, just really being with myself
and being with my truth and knowing that it's all okay,
and every story that's told. I'm completely on the other
(13:40):
side of you know, for many years, for many years,
I've been on the other side of So I have
a lot of confidence in that and a lot of
pride in what my life looks like.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So you know, you kind of come out the gate
swinging in this book, Daddy, Like one of the first
chapters is you have permission to shatter, basically like to
complete we fall apart, and as much value as I
think we both recognize, I think for our community, for
the therapy for black girls, community minity, people will hear
that and be like, absolutely not, I don't have time, right, Like,
(14:11):
we are doing our best to just hold it together,
and so talk to me about like the permission to
shatter and the value that's on the other side.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
This is something I've thought about so much because I think,
especially within our community, we've just had to be resilient
for centuries, right, So it's like some of our resilience
and are forging through and our process and our positivity, right,
our ability to not be beaten is what is our
(14:42):
strongest pull in most moments, and it's incredibly beautiful. I'm
so grateful, so grateful for the generations of resilience that
have been burrowed deeply into my cells. And at the
same thought and point of that, you know, a lot
of us alive right now. We're the first generation that's
ever even had a chance to feel. So there are
(15:02):
a lot of things that we're doing for ourselves, and
we're doing for our children, We are doing for our
parents that has just absolutely never been done before. But
it's going to change the flow of how we're able
to be ourselves forever. And so, you know, I think
(15:23):
being broken gets a bad rap. It's not about being
broken forever. It's not about putting this label on yourself
that has to be your identity. I am broken, but
a lot of us go through things that absolutely break us.
A lot of us go through things that hurt in
ways most people couldn't imagine. And so I had spent
so much of my life someone who had experienced various traumas,
(15:48):
various complex situations since birth. I'm someone that was just
always piecing myself back together and going and going fast
and doing well. And I'm just like you know, covered
in a little bit of scar tissue, but still luminous
in doing what I'm supposed to do. But that also
meant that I wasn't really in a space to feel
(16:10):
all the things that God needed me to know. And
I find that when we don't allow ourselves to feel
the fullness of our emotions, whatever that is, we're also
cutting off kind of our divine channel to God because
we're not listening, we're not choosing to kind of interact
with what's present. And so I didn't want to feel
(16:31):
cut off, you know, I didn't want to feel muted emotionally.
I know what that feels like to kind of forge
through and so all of your senses are a little
bit dulled. So when some of the bigger things that
happened to me in recent years happened, I felt like,
what am I holding it all together for? And what
could I be if I don't right? Like? What could
(16:54):
I be if I don't Throughout so much of my life,
I had looked at myself safe, for instance, like a
vase that somehow kept either falling over or getting thrown
against the wall. And then I'm like kinsugi, like using
this goal to piece myself back together, and now I'm
a vase again with all these golden cracks. But then
(17:16):
some things happened and I was just like, this has
to stay on the floor. I don't want to be
contained anymore. I don't want to be a vessel again.
I don't want to be a vase that holds things.
I just want to be free. And I think that
is some of the beauty of what letting yourself break
and then choosing what you'll become after that really provides us.
(17:36):
It's true freedom.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Mhm. And how do we because I think that there's
a level of safety that has to be there before.
I mean, I'm thinking, I think this is kind of
where our worlds collide. Like I'm thinking about this as
a therapist, Like you know, what are we putting down
so that there's like a blanket almost for these pieces
to fall apart?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Right? Like?
Speaker 1 (17:54):
What is the safety? And you kind of walk through
that kind of roadmap for what healing looks like. Can
you talk a little bit of about recognizing like, okay,
it's time for things to shadow, but maybe the work
that needs to be done before you.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Aways, so we are not just stopping at the brokenness, right,
Like part of becoming is finding the help you need
and finding the help you deserve. And for many of
us that get to that point of having such a
big break. It means that usually throughout our entire lives
there was no support, and so you were used to
kind of holding it together and being just with yourself.
(18:28):
But when you are in the pursuit of freedom, when
you are in the pursuit of becoming more, I think
it is absolutely imperative to not solely rely on your
own guidance and counsel, but to seek and get help,
and to be really adaptable and fluid in the kind
of help you seek. Right. So, I'm someone that had
(18:51):
been going to therapy for many, many, many, many many years,
but I found in this moment that actually it wasn't
cognitive therapy that was most helpful for me, And so
I found resources to say, well, I know that this
particular modality may not be a fit for me anymore,
but what could be? And so I found myself going
(19:11):
into specifically somatic therapy and then finding different somatic processes
to work with myself at home. I found myself deeply
leaning into practices that I had known for many many
years but maybe hadn't been as present with as I
could be. I found myself becoming really devoted to the
(19:32):
way that I cared for myself when you're in your
most broken states. I think it is so important to
make your life as beautiful as you possibly can. For
all of us, based on what our lives look like
at the time, be it socioeconomic status, be it flexibility,
be it freedom, that's going to be a little bit
different for each of us. In this book, I have
(19:54):
so many different practices and protocols and just kind of
deeper understandings of it's available to people. But for each
of us, that's a unique recipe we have to find
for ourselves. But I believe deeply in a holistic approach.
Some of the things I did, of course, was be
in therapy, work my own process, meditate every day. I
(20:15):
made a lot of time to rest. I think what
I recognized was I had been in fight or flight
and freeze my whole entire life. So I didn't even
know who I was or what I felt like. If
I wasn't putting out fires for other people or myself,
if I wasn't kind of carrying the emotional labor and
weight from everyone around me all the time, and so
(20:38):
part of my ability to figure out what is the
truth of who I am and how I feel really
rested in dedicating two entire years, two entire full years
to resetting my nervous system. That is not something that
can happen in a weekend. It's something you can taste,
it's something you can begin to really receive from deep
(21:00):
relief from right away. But it also takes time for
your body to heal and your body to create some
new pathways for your brain to heal. And so I
leaned into a lot of those practices, and it became about,
you know, being able to lean on deeply supportive community,
my friends, my family, healers, other people in my space, therapists,
(21:25):
and it was about being incredibly devoted to my own
self and my own soul and my own body like
I never have before in my life. I cut out everything,
no TV, no movies, really, no music except for a
solelection playlist shout out to Jokay for over two years,
and it was about reparenting myself, healing the parts of
(21:48):
me that said yes to chaos even though I didn't
realize it. It became about forgiving myself for some of
the positions I put myself into, and it became about
learning how to be the kind of mother I've always
dreamed of. Being with my son and being completely focused
on that part of my life more than anything else.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So, Debbie, I would love to hear your thoughts on
this because I hear you talking about like spending so
much of your life in like fight or flight and freeze,
and I think many of us are operating in that
place right and it feels like we have to kind
of crash or there is some experience of crashing before
we recognize, you know what, this is not serving me,
Like it feels like there needs to be typically some
(22:31):
big thing for us to then say, I'm going to
make this change, like I'm going to look at how
I interact with the world. I want to look at
how I change things. Do you feel like there has
to be some big thing or has that been your
experience and like the clients you've worked with, or could
it be that somebody just says, hey, I want to
examine this for myself even before like a big thing happens.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I absolutely think that both paths can happen. I think
it really depends on the level of awareness and kind
of the fine tuning of one's own intuition. I think
for a long time because some of those parts of
me were really disjointed. I had to or continue to
find myself, specifically learning through pain and challenge. Something that
(23:12):
I've said for a long time is, you know, listen
to the whispers, because you do have a choice. Listen
to the whispers. They're always there. God always comes to
us as this kind of blissful little kiss on the
cheek or whisper, And whether or not we listen depends
on incrementally how much more intense our experiences get that
(23:33):
want our attention. So I didn't listen to a lot
of whispers for various things in my life, and I
heard them clearly, and I kept telling myself, I can
control this, I can find a way around this. I
can find a way for that not to be the case.
And so eventually God caught my fade. I got a
punch in the face, I got knocked down on the floor.
(23:57):
So I think, you know, as people, we learned pain
until we don't. My shattering allowed me to really understand
that I can learn with ease, I can learn with grace.
I can learn through really observation and the twinkle of
an eye, the whisper, the symbols, and that now very
(24:18):
much that's how I make new choices and pivot in
my life. That's how I know how to kind of
walk away from something before I even walk into it.
And so I think at this point in my life,
I can absolutely learn through joyous experiences. I learn so
much through presence and observation of others or just reflection
(24:39):
on my own self and my own awareness with God's grace.
But I think before you get to that place, a
lot of us have to be disarmed. And if we
don't disarm ourselves when we're told to, our ability to
do it through gentleness does kind of change. But we
can get back to that. There's this quote that I love.
(25:01):
It's this very old, kind of beautiful little anecdote that said,
the snake that cannot shed must perish. So if we
don't learn to shed our skin as we're being called
to and told to every time, you may have to
die for it, right, not literally, I hope, but figuratively.
You may have to have some kind of internal death
(25:21):
or dark knight of the soul. But if if you
really listen, you can just let it be a shed.
You can let it be this kind of gentle unraveling
and unfolding, an opportunity for something new and different.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
More from our conversation after the break. So you've used
this word a couple of times already today, and I
was particularly struck by it in reading the book Devotion,
because I don't feel like that's a word I've seen
used in like healing texts in you know, like this World,
(25:58):
and so I want to hear more about this idea
of devotion and like the relationship, it has to a
greater sense of healing.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I think when we approached the conversation of self care,
and as someone that has been really kind of teaching
self care, specifically in a holistic lens for the last decade,
it was one of the hardest things that I ever
had to do for myself but also had to teach.
Whenever I'd walk in rooms and talk about self care,
people felt like it was so silly or small that
(26:28):
it couldn't possibly give you the healing that you need,
or that it was selfish, or if you've had complex
lived experiences, it could be deeply triggering and uncomfortable to
start to meet your own needs or be present with
yourself and your body. I started to switch the lens
(26:49):
to really being about a path of devotion devoting myself
to deepening my connection with God and devoting myself to
myself learning what my needs are. And I think when
we look at it as being in devotion of it
changes the reverence that we have for ourselves in our lives,
(27:09):
and it really allows us to approach it in a
way that can be very consistent and also very beautiful.
Right instead of just like, oh, I've got to, you know,
band aid this up, I've got to band aid that up,
I've got to fix that pothole, and just to stay
above ground, I'm looking at it as a pleasure. I'm
looking at it as a privilege to care for my heart,
(27:33):
to care for my one life that I'm getting, to
care for, my purpose, to care for the things that
God has entrusted me with, and you know, really just
to care for this life that I have been given.
And I think when we're able to look at ourselves
as being worthy of our own devotion, it changes the
(27:55):
way that we're able to show up in some of
our harder experiences, and it changes the way that we're
able to be ourselves in the world and with other people.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So in the book you talk about and you just
mentioned it too, like this need for control that many
of us have, that it may not even be like
obvious on the outside, and that that is the thing
you've often to wrestle with most good clients. Can you
say a little bit about how we may be masking
this need for control in our lives and how it
shows up in your work?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Oh my god, I think one of the biggest ways
so many of us mask what is truly just a
desire to control is through self righteousness. It's through service,
It's through a lot of good intentions, right, And I
think that's what makes it tricky for us to find,
especially for those of us that are empathetic, that are
(28:47):
highly sensitive, that are intuitive, that are people that are
deep feelers and really caring. It is so easy to
get high on your own supply when you're someone that
people come to for things, you know, But it's also
incredibly isolating, and so you know, I think when we
are trying too hard to control our own experience, to
(29:12):
find solutions just from our own minds for our experience,
or to control the feelings that other people are having
around us, we really miss the mark, you know. I
think control is this very clever, sophisticated way of avoiding
what it is to feel, what it is to trust,
(29:34):
what it is to truly have faith. You Know, something
that I find really interesting is a lot of people
I know that have deep faith, that really have deep
connections with God, struggle with control, completely struggle with it.
And I always say, but where's the room for God?
If you're making all the decisions. Where's the room for God?
(29:57):
If you are by yourself with only your brain trying
to come up with every solution before you just sit
and feel and look at what's in front of you.
So I think it's really important for people to just
gently look at the ways that they avoid their own
emotion and the ways that they avoid allowing other people
(30:19):
to have emotions. So what that looks like sometimes is
like if someone comes to you and you know, either
they tell you they need help or you are projecting
on them that they need help, and you're now rushing
into action to come up with all these solutions or
fix it or make it more comfortable. I'd really question, like,
(30:40):
what is it that you're scared of, and what is
it that you're avoiding, and what is hard about feeling
the pain and other people and the pain in yourself?
And just sit with it, because it won't go away
until you do.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
So you give us an outline in the book of
these practices that and you describe them as practices. Right.
I think that we, you know, ultimately would be doing
daily to kind of give ourselves the best chance at healing. Right, Like,
this is what healing actually looks like in practice. But
meditation is the one that you talk about being the
most difficult, even though in my mind it feels like, oh,
like this feels like not an easy process, but it
(31:15):
feels easy to access in a lot of ways. So
can you talk about like what meditation is and why
it is often so difficult for people?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Oh my god, yes, Oh, meditation has been one of
the single greatest gifts of my entire life, and it's
also been one of my most challenging teachers to sit with.
So meditation, I think it in the most simplistic way
that we see and know it. It's like sitting down,
being still and being silent. And that sounds easy enough,
(31:48):
I think till each of us try to do it,
because what happens when you get still everything comes to
the surface. Most of us spend so much of our
lives trying to move fast to bypass what we're feeling,
or bypass some of the harder realities of life, or
even past memories and ruminating thoughts. We just go, go, go, go, go, do,
(32:09):
do do. When you meditate, we're saying, hey, you are
worthy and enough without doing anything, and that can be
incredibly confronting if you have spent your whole life doing
the opposite. So the thing about meditation, which I think
is very similar to joy and anything else we're doing
with ourselves for the first time, is it is a practice.
(32:29):
It is about being present without judgment, and it's about
really just letting yourself look at your own discomfort. The
few first times that you sit down to meditate, it
may annoy you, depending on what's happened in your life.
It may terrify you, depending on what's happening in your life.
When you were still, when you were quiet, things are
(32:50):
going to come up to the surface. But I think
the beauty of a meditation practice is they come up
to the surface so you can begin to observe them
and relate to them differently, and relate them so you
can actually find the space of what is my authentic
voice and what is my ability to just be present
and see what is in front of me and happening.
(33:11):
A lot of us kind of miss the observation phase
because we're going straight into action. But if we don't
sit and really behold what's in front of us, absolutely
nothing changes inside of us or outside of us, even
if we feel like it does, even if we feel
like we are accomplishing or gaining or doing. At some point,
(33:32):
we're all going to be forced to sit and be
still and reckon with ourselves and reckon with our choices.
When you kind of proactively approach certain practices, you give
the opportunity to yourself to not always have to do
that through a lot of challenges and a lot of
practices in the book that I share, especially meditation, it's
(33:54):
about bringing yourself into a quiet power, bringing yourself into
a new access point of who and what you are,
and also connecting your brain and your heart. You know,
one of the hardest things I think about meditating and
I think about doing various practices, is so many of
(34:14):
us are intellectualizers. And that's exactly why you wrote this book.
You cannot think your way out of some of your deeper,
harder experiences and truths you can only feel your way
out of them, and through meditation and through doing various
practices you build your capacity to do that with.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Ease mm hmm and in my mind, and you have
outlined this in the book as well, like meditation often
is a nice compliment to journaling, which you also talk about.
So can you talk about the purpose of journaling as
a part of healing as will?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah, Oh, journaling is where you really give yourself the
chance I think, to release you know, and journaling can
be just so bespoken, unique to each of us and
how each of our brains work. So for some people,
journaling through voice notes feels really good, and I always
recommend for some people that like to journal in that way,
including myself, sometimes whenever you get a chance, try to
(35:09):
just get those voice notes somewhere and transcribe them. I
prefer kind of keeping our journals so we can look
back at who we are and continue to see how
we grow. Some people like to burn the paper as
soon as it's done. See what feels best for you.
But you know, journaling either through voice notodes, through prompts,
through questions and guidance that you're gaining from other sources
(35:33):
or through your own guidance, but it gives you a
place to be in deep inquiry with yourself in a
safe way. So I think it's journaling is one of
the greatest ways to track your growth. It's one of
the greatest ways to really begin to see how you
uniquely think about things and feel about things. It's a
way to give space for anger, because we deserve to
(35:55):
feel that too if we do. It's a space to
really give over to sadness when you feel it, give
over to personal accomplishment and happiness. But I believe we
should be documenting our lives like at the end of
the day, no matter what you do, no matter who
you love, no matter what you create, life is really
(36:18):
about you and God. That is the fundamental relationship while
you're here. It is about your unique individual human experience first,
which then allows us to come into community. And I
think journaling really helps you get more clear on what
your human experience is and what the sum of your
experiences have created in your life.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
So one of the questions that you offer, both I
think as a journal problem but also for a lot
of the larger exercises that you're asking in the book
is who am I call to be right now? And
I think when I think about that question, especially in
the backdrop of everything happening in the world, I feel
like my answer is like lid something around, like a
being of service to other people. But and see, I'm
(37:02):
probably doing what you are encouraging us not to do
in the book. I'm judging my answer, like should the
answer be like something for somebody else or should the
answer be something like inherently for me. So I'm wondering
if you can give suggestions around, like how do we
answer that question? And I'm guessing the answer to that
question might be different at different points in our lives.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Absolutely, And I think, honestly, the answer to the question
it's kind of both. When we ask ourselves that question,
you know, being alive, we are having two distinct experiences
at the same time. We are having our internal experience,
the part that typically only we know about, and we're
having our external experience what we are doing in the world,
(37:41):
how we are in relationship with others, and what their
perception of us is. So that is happening at all
the time, and so I think it's fair to ask
yourself that question in both of those ways. Who am
I being called to become? Inside? First? And then who
am I being called to become in the greater world?
In service, because we're all alive to serve and any
(38:03):
of the work that we are blessed or privileged to
do on ourselves. Because sometimes it is very true that
it can feel absolutely impossible to do this depending on
your circumstance. But if you do have the privilege and
the fortitude to do some of this personal work on yourself,
it's imperative that you then turn that into service. It's
(38:25):
why we're here. So I think when we're in that
space of asking ourselves, who am I being called to become?
Right now? It is an ever evolving answer that we
should always be in flow with. We should always be
asking that question when we find ourselves kind of in
new chapters of who we are, new moments. We are
(38:45):
constantly shedding, and with every shed we get the chance
to become more, to become something else, And I feel
to become something more beautiful, more powerful, more influential to
whatever our person an all ecosystem is.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
More from our conversation after the break. So you know, Debbie,
I am always, well, not always, but often thinking about
like social media and like technology and how it impacts
like healing, and like what this work looks like now
(39:25):
versus like twenty years ago. And so you recently posted
on Threads I believe I believe it was Threads that
you feel like you are a couple of years away
from like completely not even being online, right, like it
kind of is there at the store front, but not
really like really engaging. And I also was struck by
in the book, like how many times you're talking about
our online behavior in terms of like unfollowing people or
(39:48):
unfollowing people, and like how that's a part of our
lexicon that was not there twenty years ago. And so
I'm wondering, like what role do you see social media
and technology kind of playing and healing and how we
have to be careful about the role that it's playing
in our lives.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh my god, what a question. What a question, And
what a time to be alive, because I just want
to like kind of ground in the fact that, like
we are really doing things no human being has ever
done before, and we are living lifestyles that have absolutely
never existed on this planet before, and there is really
(40:24):
something to be said for that, you know, like we
really kind of have to look at that and give
ourselves a lot of grace. There's a reason why we're
stressed out and why we do feel like we don't
really know what we're doing, because we are doing a
lot of things that our bodies and brains just were
not evolutionarily designed for. Yet are we are that missing link?
(40:48):
We are the cavemen of this time? But I think
you know, first of all, yeah, my desire is to
really be off social I love serving, I love being
with people, but I am an in person person. God
designed me really for one on one or God designed
me to share energy with human beings I am physically with,
(41:09):
and that is always my priority. I always give more
to my real life than my digital life ninety percent
of the time. So I have a profound longing to
not be perceived. I have a profound longing to not
be on social media, to not have to tweet, to
not have to thread, to not have to be on
(41:31):
Instagram other than for absolute pleasure. And I think that
part has been weird for a lot of us because
we are trying to be so many things online and
sometimes it really isn't possible or easy to be your
truest self, especially if you're a lover. I think the
Internet was really hard for me over the last fifteen
years because I am a lover to the bone, I
(41:55):
am an impath to the bone, and I kind of
historically observed patterns and shifts, and so we have made
huge shifts into being so much more positive to each
other in the last couple of years, I think since
the pandemic. But if it was five years ago, my god,
everyone was ripping each other to shreds. Let's not forget
(42:17):
the read each other culture that was so prevalent. Just
there was so much tearing down, There was so much negativity.
Anything anyone said was just met by people on all
corners of the world with all kind of bizarre projections
and things. And I think that's the thing that I
don't love, you know, when that happens online. And I
also recognize I don't have to take it. I think
(42:39):
we have this kind of false belief that you have
to take in what anybody from anywhere says to you,
and it's just not true. They don't know who you are, period.
You know, a stranger telling you something online. It is
such a minuscule view, even if it is praise. You know,
we can never take neither praise nor criticism too deeply,
(43:00):
So I choose to not really engage with either. I
choose to just listen to what I'm supposed to do,
try to show up with my work and with the
people that you know, I'm able to be in front of.
But I think we're an interesting time where the internet
has given us so much access to community and to
(43:20):
the ability to be seen, be heard, be in some
form of relationship with others. But I think everyone should
watch closely that they are not using that to bypass
having real connection in real life. If you're someone who
has been maybe a little harder to do that in
real life. It is very easy to find sanctuary in
(43:42):
an online world and mistakenly think that that's enough, But
it's not the same thing as true relationship, as true connection,
as being present for your human, earthly experience. I think
it's really important that we don't turn our lives into
a game of sims without realizing it, and look up
(44:03):
and say, you know, what am I? What is my life?
What is my real legacy? What impact have I actually had?
And where have I been quite honestly wasting time or
wasting resources. I think the last few years there's just
been this kind of like, yes, cis culture of everybody
liking and leaving comments, but not building relationship in real life.
(44:29):
Real relationship with another human being requires a lot more
than likes and praise and quick little messages on social
media or texts. It requires vulnerability. It requires pros and
cons and effort and getting it wrong sometimes, something that
I love with all my real life friends. It's like,
(44:51):
I'll be the first to say, please, don't pedestal me.
I am gonna get a lot of this wrong. I
have to have this space. I tell this to people,
to people I'm friends with, I have to have the
space to disappoint you. I have to be allowed to
disappoint you sometimes. And I think we miss that very
necessary building and stretching and growing when we are only
(45:15):
focused kind of on online networking or keeping up with
the likes and the posts and the responses and the
dms on social media.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
And that is definitely a word there. Debbie, thank you so.
I love that you kind of round out the book
by talking about the importance of reclaiming joy, and I
wonder if you could offer us some ideas around like,
how we dismantle this idea that joy is something that
needs to be earned.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Oh, my goodness, my anecdote for that, because I think
I was very much that person where I didn't realize
it until I actually felt the real thing inside of
my body. But we can get really addictive to perform
of joy, which is some of you know, especially if
(46:03):
you're someone that does kind of have great things happening,
and so you're making announcements or you're giving speeches, or
you have beautiful posts, or you have people that are
cheering for you. You know, I always ask when those
things happen, do you feel it inside to the same
degree that you are pushing it externally. That's a big
(46:24):
important thing to look at because a lot of times
we can, without even our own permission or knowing, get
stuck into a cycle of performative joy, which is acting happy,
acting excited, having the raw raw yelling, celebrating, you know,
all the exclamation points, all the parties. But how many
of us have those experiences and inside still feel like
(46:47):
it's not enough, And then wonder why, and wonder what's
wrong with us? Why don't I feel as happy as
I should? Why don't I feel as happy as people
think I should. And so when you start looking at that,
it kind of opens up a new world for us.
You know, one of the things that I think it's
important to know is on that journey to joy, it's
going to take practice. You're going to have to stretch
(47:09):
your capacity to feel good things and to feel safe
about it. If you've had, you know, a harder time
in life maybe than others, or more challenges than others,
there is going to be a fear that if I
give myself over to this joy, will the other shoe drop?
Will I be blindsided by something bad happening? The truth
(47:30):
is maybe right, The truth is most likely another shoe
will drop at some point, because that's what it is
to be alive, that's the human experience. Both are always
going to be happening. Grief and joy, challenge and progress
are always always present and a part of what this
(47:51):
human experience is. And I think when we just allow
ourselves to kind of accept that guaranteed truth, we can
relax into joy because we're grateful that it's come, and
we're grateful it's here while it's here for however long
it's here, and that joy and that feeling, and that
(48:12):
allowance creates the fuel for us to be able to
survive and move through absolutely everything else that may greet
us on the path. And so my road to that
was really through kind of constructing what I came to
understand and call tiny joys. I am not searching for
happiness in my life. I'm searching always. I am embodying
(48:38):
enoughness to me, the journey isn't about happiness. It's about
everything feels like enough. I don't feel lack, I don't
feel like I need a rush to the next thing.
I don't feel like I am putting up walls against
the good things. I feel like everything around me is enough,
all my needs are met. And my way to that feeling,
(49:02):
which I'm so grateful for and love, was through tiny joys.
It was through kind of seducing myself a little bit
romanticizing myself, learning how to turn myself on and bring
myself a smile with absolutely nothing, you know, not with
another person, not with something tangible or in front of
(49:24):
me or an opportunity. It was going outside and taking
deep breaths and feeling the beautiful glow of sunshine hitting
my face, closing my eyes and seeing the glow of orange,
or feeling the warmth in the center of my forehead
or on my neck or chest, and just saying, my God,
(49:44):
that beauty makes it all make sense, you know, being
able to be present in nature, gardening really activated that
in me, or sometimes just lighting an incense, buying myself flowers,
you know, creating joy for yourself. It's not about the
big announcements or the performances. It's about how do I
keep that little oven that's inside of me burning At
(50:07):
old times. It is not always going to be a raging,
crackling fire. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just going to
be that barely lit candle flame that I'm trying to
keep on. But it's about feeding that personal fire with
whatever makes you smile. The things that make me smile,
(50:30):
our beauty, our sunshine, are drawing sometimes with my sun,
creating a flower arrangement, rearranging things in my home, you know,
closing my eyes and listening to a great mix, dancing
and dancing and dancing around my house, opening up all
the windows in my house. And that always feels like
(50:51):
not only does it feel like enough, it feels like
such a privilege. It feels like such a privilege to
feel the things so deeply.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
So, DEBI, how are you hoping that people engage with
in What do you hope they get from living in wisdom?
Speaker 2 (51:09):
I hope from living in wisdom, you know, you'll really
get permission to incorporate and integrate all the aspects of
what your unique human experience has been, if it's been
one that has had some complex trauma, you know, which,
as everyone knows listening to this show and your expertise,
it's not just maybe one big thing that happened to
(51:31):
you for some of us, for a lot of us,
it is a lot of constant things that have happened
to us. And so I think my book is really
dedicated to people who have had experiences like that. I
think this book is for people that have had a
lot of those kinds of challenges but also find themselves
(51:51):
wanting to keep their hearts wide open, wanting to find
a way to serve, wanting to find a way to
make all of these experiences useful, for those that have
been on a path maybe of being a wounded healer,
or want to understand themselves more. I really wrote this
book and the way I kind of structured it was
for people that you know, maybe a lot like I
(52:12):
was over intellectualizers. You have a lot of knowledge. You've
read the books right like you may have been in therapy.
You may have read other self help books. You may
have deep knowing. You know where the pain lies, you
know what to call it. You're clear on all what
the attachment, you know all the different attachment systems are.
(52:33):
But for whatever reason, your life still doesn't feel like
it's changing. You're not necessarily seeing the truth and the
result of all this work that you've been bringing into
your brain, yet in the life that you're living. This
book is about integrating all of that and bringing it
into your body, bringing it into your heart, making it useful,
(52:54):
making the pain of your life useful for you, and
allowing you to transcend it. And I do that, of course,
through some storytelling, through guidance, and then through a lot
of practices. And I hope that everyone that uses this
book it'll become, you know, this dog eared companion. You'll
read it, but then you'll keep coming back to it.
You'll keep using it as a resource for meditation, for
(53:17):
somatic practice, for you know, learning about essential oils and
maudras and journal prompts, and how to make affirmations that
really empower your personal life. But it is about you
becoming your healer. You know something I try to let
a lot of people know when I'm either leading a
retreat or working one on one with clients is we're
(53:37):
going to get really deep. But I am not your healer.
You cannot project on me that I am here to
save you and I'm the reason that you're going to
get to the other side of whatever it is. I
am a healer, studied and practiced. I am here to
light the torch so you can see yourself more clearly.
(53:58):
But it all rests within you and your own heart.
And I hope that this book gives people more access
to the truth of their heart, to that extra reservoir
of strength that really sits inside of us, and permission
to deeply recover from what may have happened or not
happened in your life.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
So where can people find their copy? Debbie? What is
the book's website? In any websites are a social channels
you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (54:28):
So this book is available everywhere officially April twenty second.
I also did the audible, which I'm really excited about.
I love using my voice so you can listen to
the audiobook. You can get the book anywhere that you
like to buy your books, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble. Please
join me. I will be on tour very soon. I
can't wait to meet everybody as I'm working with this book.
(54:50):
You can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com,
Forward slash Book, and also of course my ig at
Debbie Brown Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
We'll be shut in. We do that in the show notes.
Thank you for spending some more time with us today, Debbie.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Thank you so much, Doctor Joy. It is always a
privilege and a pleasure to be with you. Thank you
for your work, and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
I'm so glad Debbie was able to join us again today.
I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.
So learn more about her or to grab a copy
of Living in Wisdom. Be sure to visit the show
notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session four eight.
Did you know? You can leave us a voicemail with
your questions for the podcast. If you have movies or
(55:35):
books you like to suggest for us to review, drop
us a message at Memo dot FM slash Therapy for
Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind.
We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're
looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist
directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. This
episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Indy Chubhu and Tyree
(55:58):
rush An. Was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all
so much for joining me again this week. I look
forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take good care,
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