March 20, 2024 • 28 mins
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In this insightful episode of the Faithfully Feminine Podcast, host Imani Bailey invites listeners on her personal journey navigating the complex world of romantic relationships. As a single woman devout in her faith, Imani unearths wisdom, positive affirmations, and personal stories of her experiences in the dating scene. She encourages her audience to invite God into their dating lives, advocating for spiritually fulfilling relationships, emphasizing self-love, self-worth, and the importance of setting standards based on biblical principles.
This narrative also reveals the challenges that come with the union of romantic life and faith. Imani shares her moments of pain, confusion, and divine clarity, detailing her trials with complicated dating scenarios, heartbreaks, and experiences with deceiving men. The episode is a spiritual call-to-arms aimed at single women and offers valuable guidance on journeying through dating with faith, patience, and grace.
Join in this insightful conversation as we delve into the dynamics of singlehood, spiritual warfare, and the journey towards marriage. We discuss the importance of vigilance in spiritual life amidst dating, deceptive behaviors, and the need for unwavering faith. There's a fascinating revelation about how counterfeit suitors might present as answers to prayers, bringing to light the intricate dynamics of ending relationships and strategies to navigate through these sensitivities.
This episode explores the challenging societal expectations and body-shaming issues faced by women in today's world. More than just a conversation, it's a call for recognition and respect of personal feelings, desires, and needs. It emphasizes the dangers of engaging with toxic content and its impact on self-perception and relationships.
We extrapolate the journey of singlehood that requires being open, praying diligently, and discerning between divine intervention and mere good occurrences. This episode bestows valuable advice on being proactive in the dating scene, handling potential suitors, and using divine guidance to distinguish the best from the good. Listen to be enlightened, empowered, and equipped on your journey towards finding a fulfilling marriage.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This episode is dedicated to all my single women out there. Share this with
a friend before we even start the episode if she is single.
And this is the best pit talk, y'all.
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, it girls. I hope you all are doing amazing.
Welcome to Faithfully Feminine Podcast, where I, your host, Imani Bailey,
(00:21):
shares all things faith, all things feminine, and practical ways to transform
yourself through navigating womanhood. while sharing lessons God has taught me along the way.
Sit back, relax, and let's get into some things.
Hey girl. Hey, I know I'm late. I've been literally going through it,
but whenever I am late, I do come bearing gifts.
(00:41):
It's kind of like when you go to someone's house and you never show up empty handed.
Y'all know y'all missed the episode. Well, I missed recording and releasing an episode on Monday.
And I highly, and I know I say it every podcast episode, but I do highly encourage
you all to follow me on TikTok because I really feel like my TikTok, I just go live.
(01:02):
And you are more prone to understanding what is going on in my life and why I just, I slip.
And I was so used to it. We've been doing this for two seasons now of me uploading
on Wednesdays. So me changing to Mondays has been been very, very hard for me.
So I just want to thank you all so much for your patience. Please have grace with me.
(01:23):
I just have to be better at procrastination.
So God is still working on me. And honestly, God really helped me throughout
this entire week or really this past two weeks in my dating life.
Like I said, this episode is dedicated to every single woman in out there.
And it's so interesting that my platform has really changed into this because
(01:48):
if you followed me for a while,
you know that I started off doing makeup on YouTube and then it got into hair
and then it kind of morphed into this personal development and refinement and
femininity and my walk with Christ.
So you see the as wretched videos as they could be still still on my social
(02:08):
media platform because like, why not? That's yeah, that's life.
But and throughout my relationship, and I was in a pretty long relationship,
and that was with someone who I thought I would marry, honestly.
And looking back, I know God always has a plan.
And I am glad that that did not come to fruition. prohibition.
(02:32):
I do aspire to be married. I do believe, and it says in the Bible that the reason
why Adam, well, God created Eve is because Adam needed a helper and it's not good for men to be alone.
You will see the Bible verses in the description of this episode.
But I, for the first time in my life, actually, I'm on season two of Bachelorette on TikTok.
(02:58):
And if you are new here, Here, Bachelorette or Bachelife on TikTok is a series
in which I navigate single life, womanhood, and dating in D.C.
Now since I was in Atlanta.
And my last relationship, we just were not equally yoked.
I'm so glad that, you know, we broke up right before I moved here and I had
(03:20):
sat down, I prayed, and I told God, like, hey, look, I know you have a plan,
but this is my last single season.
And so I've been single since, when did I move here? I moved here April.
So April, 2023, we're coming up on a year.
Actually, yeah, no, yeah, we're coming up on a year now. So 12 months of me
(03:42):
being single, but enough about me.
I invited God into my dating life. And when you invite God into your dating life,
like jot this down as a single woman, I highly recommend you sit down,
pray, Pray and write out the type of man that you want. Pray over it.
Tell God you invite him into your dating life and be prepared for it to be a total mess.
(04:11):
And I'm not joking when I say that. And when I say mess, I mean a beautiful
mess because God will hurt your feelings.
Not intentionally, but your feelings will be hurt by God's actions whenever
you invite him into your dating life.
And I've soon come to find out that, wow, God is moving.
(04:33):
I had cheers to me finding my husband this year, like literally New Year's.
And my friends looked at me like I was straight crazy. And I was like,
we cheers into this, babe.
I believe it. There's a life of death and a power of the tongue.
I'm speaking in fruition.
I cheers to me and my husband on my birthday too. I was like,
yep, cheers to me, you know, my husband finding me. Cheers to more life.
(04:53):
Cheers to, I mean, I cheers to more than that.
But I included that into it. My friends looked at me again, like,
girl, this girl is, and I said, no, I'm serious.
I was at a point where I'm just so tired.
And I think we, We, or you listening to this, probably have had this realization
at some point or another, and especially in the space that I'm in,
(05:15):
I feel like there's no getting away from certain content.
You can block, you can unfollow, you can delete or whatever.
I even started blocking keywords.
And it's just like, it's no getting away from the woman bashing content.
I don't know what it is. My heart goes out to teenage girls and younger women,
(05:35):
like younger girls, because there's no getting away from it.
I can imagine like opening up my phone as a teenage girl every day and listening
to men bash women, listening to men say things like, we got to hold these women
accountable and listening to just the rhetoric.
And I'm so tired of it. And the bullying that I was getting online from on TikTok,
(05:58):
now it doesn't really hurt my feelings as much or doesn't bother bother me as
much, but it would just make me so angry. And I had this bitterness.
I don't want to say against every man because I love men, but the things that
I was just exposed to every day on a constant basis,
(06:18):
it just made me feel so disgusted and it made my stomach hurt.
And I was like, God, I'm so over this.
I'm so over Satan because that's really what it is.
I'm so over Satan trying to distract me by sending these hooligans, sending these people.
(06:39):
And I'm just kind of getting caught up in the web of it, right?
Whether it's for a couple of months or a couple of days. And so y'all,
I sat down and I want you to do this.
Not only invite God into your dating life, not only do I want you to sit down
and write down the type of godly man that you want,
but well before you even do that you have to study
(07:00):
the bible to understand who and what a godly man is because when it comes to
the bible it either is or it isn't child it's no in between and yeah people
are not perfect please watch out for the man that says but i'm not perfect because
those usually the ones i just want to say that in my experience those be the ones.
(07:21):
But you have to watch out for people and for counterfeits because just like
God hears our prayers, Satan knows too.
The devil is here to steal, kill, and destroy. He knows his ending and misery loves company.
He want to drag as much people as he can to hell with him.
So you have to be steadfast.
(07:45):
You have to keep your head on a swivel.
And I say this so many many times I said this in my last blog post,
you have to keep your head on a swivel because the enemy is always here to still kill and destroy.
And I realized, and I want you all to know that within dating,
I know we talk about a lot of things that are physical just because in day-to-day
(08:08):
life, we go on dates, we're having conversations with men, we're getting to
know them because that's what dating is. You're collecting data.
Can I be with this person? And no, you're not supposed to know if you could
be with this person on the first date. Like that is not your husband.
You're still still getting to know him?
Is the shoe the right fit? Do y'all vibe together? Do y'all have kind of common
interests or are y'all complete opposites and do y'all not mesh or whatever?
(08:30):
There's stages to getting to know people just like you get to know friends.
I don't expect you to be like, oh, this is the one the first week.
And if you are feeling like that, then that's another issue and another topic
for another episode and another podcast.
But in the physical realm, I had a kind of traumatic experience on a date.
And I don't even want to say kind of traumatic. It actually was traumatic for me.
(08:55):
And it put me in a place of panic, anger, frustration.
And I remember feeling like multiple feelings that night on that date.
And I shared the date on my TikTok.
Hell, the link will be in the description box at this point.
And I remember praying to God like, oh, my gosh,
(09:17):
please remove any man expeditiously who is not from you and who is not meant to be my husband.
I literally that was my prayer. That was my literal prayer. Prayer,
y'all. Word for word, bar for bar.
You know, it's like, oh, we want to see your prayer. That was the Imani prayer. prayer.
(09:38):
And ever since I prayed that prayer to God, y'all, these men have been showing
the end. And I also said, and God, let it be known that it is you who is removing them.
I need to know clear as day because I know you are not the author of confusion.
(09:59):
I prayed that prayer.
I want to say I prayed that prayer on a Monday. One guy was dating Wednesday
at 5 a.m. He texted me some BS talking about how he was so confused.
I knew that was God. Okay. He was gone.
I met another guy. I followed up with God. I'm inviting you throughout this whole season.
(10:21):
By the third date, no, actually second date, he ended up exuding some red flags.
First date, he said something that was a bit interesting to me about he had
brought up God. And I said, OK, OK, this is great.
Again, I like to listen more than I speak, contrary to y'all hear my mouth.
Y'all hear me chitter chatter all the time.
(10:44):
But he had brought up something very interesting and it just had my ears on alert. alert.
By the second date, I was like, this is very interesting. He had complained
about me not helping him plan dates. A man is supposed to be a leader.
He can't even lead. If a man can't lead you on a date, he don't need to be leading
your household, which means you don't need to be dating him.
The point blank period, end of discussion. So I was like, okay,
(11:06):
that's really interesting.
And then by the third date was the traumatic experience that I had.
And God was like, okay, clearly you didn't pick up on the first two.
So we're going to click in as a high gear. and with everything, I'm like, I know.
It goes against word for word, bar for bar for what God says how a man is supposed
to treat a woman and how a godly man is supposed to act.
(11:29):
And I've never had men remove themselves that fast or me having to remove them
that fast ever in my dating life.
Like usually it's like, I'm like four or five dates in or maybe sometimes I
meet somebody and I'm just like, ah, okay, no.
Know but it's been like crazy stuff
y'all hasn't even been no like no everyday stuff it's
(11:50):
been like insane stuff to where
I'm like I know this is God because I even asked
him but what happens when you invite
God in the physical realm stuff starts act
like these men start acting crazy you realize okay this is this is not him what
happens is like when you get your feelings hurt and I remember after that traumatic
(12:12):
date and the man started doing all this stuff and you can go on my TikTok and
listen to it. I talked about it on TikTok live.
He started doing all this stuff and saying all this stuff about me.
And it kind of hurt my feelings because I was like, wow, I thought we had a conversation.
I wasn't going to date him again. But like to hear someone being so mean spirited,
(12:33):
I mean, opposite of fruits of the spirit, ain't no fruit of the spirit showing
in sight. Like the tree was not bearing no type of fruit, okay?
It was just planted. Was it even planted? I don't even know.
But to hear all of this, it hurt my feelings. And I was like, God, like.
This hurts. I'm tired. I actually want to give up.
(12:55):
I will be okay with not being married.
I remember like literally saying that I'm okay with not being married if it
means for the sake of peace, because if it means that I have to attach myself
to some demonic entity disguised as some man who is presenting himself as not being that,
I would rather just be alone.
(13:16):
And God had reminded me that one
he is always here so if you're in
the season if you're in this season and you are tired like
I mean more tired than Kelly Price I am here
to remind you you have stumbled across this podcast episode for a reason and
I'm here to remind you that God is with you every step of the way he is protecting
(13:39):
you from both seen and unseen there are a lot of unseen forces forces, that we can't even,
it just, it dawns on me, like, when you hear, say, when I just speak something,
and like, you see in someone's spirit, how they respond, and how they get so upset,
and how they're me-spirited, and how they start spewing lies,
(14:00):
and you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't do anything to him, but in reality,
I didn't, I didn't sleep with him, so now it's not what he presented to be is
a demonic force that is trying to get.
And I started thinking, I said, oh my gosh, what if I slept with this man,
which was not even what I was thinking about, but what if I slept with this man?
(14:21):
What type of strongholds and spirits does this man have attached to him to be
going so hard for somebody he just met?
Like, it's just when you start Start unraveling these things outside of thinking
about the physical actions that people are doing, but the type of fruit that they are bearing.
(14:45):
God reminded me in that moment when I told him, I'd rather be alone.
Hey, I created Adam and help her for a reason. It's not good for you to be alone.
It's not good. It wasn't good for Adam to be alone. It's not good for you to be alone.
The enemy is out here to steal, kill, and destroy, regardless if you're single,
(15:05):
if you're in a relationship, hell, when you're married, especially the enemy
can't stay in a covenant. it.
So it's like you have to be steadfast now because when you get into a marriage,
it might not look the same as far as like dealing with demonic men going on
dates and all this stuff.
But the enemy still will very well and can very well attack your marriage.
(15:30):
And how you go into a marriage and how you practice going into battle spiritually
while you are single will help you when you aren't married.
I've talked about this in my spiritual warfare episode, but it's so important
every day to put on the full armor of God because you do not know what awaits you.
(15:52):
Satan hears your prayers, single woman. He knows a counterfeit.
He will send a good counterfeit.
Before you get the real thing, you get a counterfeit that appears to be,
be, oh, this is kind of what I pray to God about.
Okay. He does X, Y, and Z. He has this.
He can be a provider. He's exuding great behaviors. He's talking about God.
(16:16):
Like one guy that I was dating, he was very generous because I had generosity.
Of course, I need me a generous man. Can't be dating a stingy man now.
He was so generous when I first started dating him. He was just like.
I don't even know if it was love bombing. I don't know what,
I don't think it was love bombing. I think he's just a genuinely generous man.
(16:39):
And turned out that that was the one that was confused, right?
He didn't know what he wanted, but he would love to have played house, right?
Because that definitely makes sense in a selfish form. You see how that goes?
And another thing is that as a single woman, in,
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I've realized that some of us would rather dwindle and whether or not communicate
how we feel than send that HR text message, breaking it off.
And I kind of struggle with the HR text message. I don't know why.
I have no issue saying how I feel, but cutting someone loose and thanking them
(17:20):
for their services, to me, it's just kind of like, oh, I'll just keep dating him.
Maybe we'll see how it goes or maybe you know I don't
something about the HR message I had this fear deep down
inside if I sent the HR message to the wrong guy cutting it
off then maybe he will like get upset and do something terrible to me and I
think pretty sure the fear comes from me being in high school dealing with a
(17:44):
stalker and everything y'all know this story I had to get a restraining order
at 16 on the next boyfriend.
And so dealing with all of that and the trauma of like not feeling safe within
my parents' house, not feeling safe at school, not feeling safe at work,
like always having to have my head on a sliver, always feeling like this man
was going to pop up somewhere, which he literally did.
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And it was just like, I would rather let things kind of simmer down or like
go ghost or have them go ghost or just keep dating them until they realize I'm
not going to sleep with them and then they'll leave anyway,
then literally tell them, hey, this is not working.
So that's my own trauma. But I noticed a lot of us are kind of like that.
(18:30):
I'm talking to my other friends. We all kind of do the same thing.
And that could be because men don't really see women women as a physical threat.
So when it comes to women and how some men take rejection, again,
it's not necessarily their physical being, but the spirit that they have in them.
The reason why people do and say the things that they do,
(18:52):
and act the way that they act is because the spirits that they have attached to them.
It's not necessarily just them or what you did.
And the sooner you grasp this concept while being single, the easier it will be.
And I'm not saying that you're not going to have days to break down because
at the end of the day, being a woman in this world is very hard.
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It's like you get made fun of for being small. You get made fun of for being
big. You get made fun of for having a child young.
God forbid you have a child too old. God forbid you be single.
And then somebody's like, Like, why are you single?
Something's wrong with you. God forbid you want to have a job.
God forbid you want to be a stay-at-home mom. Like, honestly,
there's no winning. There's no winning.
As a woman in this world, there's no winning. You got to be held accountable
(19:32):
for men's action, child.
They love to say who's, I went on a date, first and last, this man never seeing me again.
And he was like, oh my gosh, who's going to hold these women accountable?
And I'm like, women have been held accountable for men's actions for years.
What are you talking about?
I was like, this man sounds crazy. Yeah, he's never going to see me again.
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And so the sooner you grasp as a single woman, it's not about the things that
you have done or the things that you've said or the fact that you didn't sleep with him.
It's about the spirits that he has attached to him, the strongholds that he
has to break off of, right? And that's not your battle to fight.
That's not you to explain.
(20:15):
Sometimes you take off that cape and you exit stage left and you go where you
are loved and you go where you're appreciated.
And if you're not appreciated where you are, then it's time for you to leave.
They have to get the HR message.
And I think I'm actually gonna start putting examples of some like break off
messages in my blog. So look out for that and sign up for blog email updates
(20:39):
because you're really missing out if you don't.
Switching gears, as a single woman, another thing I've learned is that you have
to make yourself available.
I know when you get tired and you might feel like, I just want to crawl up into
a ball and never date again.
It's funny, but not. My friend had texted me like, oh, I'm traumatized.
(21:01):
I don't ever want to date again.
But she kind of wants someone. and I told her like, don't let that man, don't, what is it?
Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
Don't let these men get to you so bad to where you just stop going out.
You stop saying yes to dates.
You stop responding just because you met.
(21:24):
And I'll be saying it. My first one, you call everybody demonic because that's what it is.
Why are you acting, how you come, how you come off from a fast with God mad
that somebody didn't want to have sex with you? What do you call that?
I call it demon possessed. I don't, what do y'all call it? Maybe,
I don't know. Let me know what you call it. I call it demon possessed.
But anyway, don't let a demon man, a demon possessed man stop you from allowing
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your husband to find you.
You have to say yes to go out on dates in order to find your husband. been.
And although it is tiring, I'm telling you, if you pray before the date,
go on the date and enjoy yourself, pray after the date, within a two-week span,
you'll know if that man here for stay or here for not, like, or if he's gone.
(22:07):
And you can literally ask God to remove him fast, expeditiously.
I literally use the word expeditiously in my prayer, swift, fast,
as quick as humanly possible.
I mean, I don't want the man to ever text me again if he is not the one for me.
Now, when you are saying those things, though, y'all, you have to prepare to
get your feelings hurt, but you have to continue to remind yourself.
(22:29):
I don't care if you have to remind yourself before every date or before every
time a man asks you out these things, so be it.
Because with practice makes perfect.
As soon as you remind yourself, you keep reminding yourself,
the less you're going to be phased by the things that some of these men do.
It's not about you. Keep it moving, right? Right.
(22:52):
And so especially when men say certain things on dates, I have wrote a blog
post about being mysterious.
Honestly, you don't have to ask a ton of questions on some of these days.
If you really just listen to what these men say, they really will dig themselves in a hole.
Yes, create conversation, but you don't have to like ask, okay,
I'm going to ask him this. I'm going to ask him this.
I'm going to ask him this because that's when some people like rehearse certain
(23:15):
answers just so they can give you those answers.
Like, okay, she's going to, yeah, yeah, she looks like the type of woman who likes men who fast.
So I'm going to tell her that I fast every month, or I'm going to tell her that I fast twice a year.
It's like, just listen to them.
Talk about music and culture and what they like to do for fun,
(23:38):
because really those lighthearted things will kind of give you a glimpse into who you're dating.
If you look at somebody's Spotify of fire rap and they have like no christian
music i mean no gospel they can't name four gospel songs babes.
It's a wrap. If you dating somebody and all he do is like watching the exorcist,
he don't have no spiritual discernment. It's a wrap.
(24:00):
Like you get what I'm saying? It's certain things that people will just tell
you and you will learn this is not the guy for me.
Like for an example, when the guy said, oh, nobody holds these women accountable.
I knew off the bat from that one statement, this is not the guy for me.
I knew what this was going to turn into.
If he's listening to other men on podcasts, if he's in group chats and stuff,
(24:21):
love talking about certain things.
And I know someone had said this to me, and I'm going to almost let y'all go with this.
There are so many good men out
there, just like there are so many demon-possessed men out there as well.
But I will say the demon-possessed ones seem to be a lot louder because the
good men aren't in group chats talking about women all the time.
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They're talking about sports. They're talking about business.
They're talking about other things. The good men Men aren't on podcasts talking bad about women.
The good men aren't doing certain things. So they are not as loud.
That does not mean that they do not exist.
They're just not as loud. So don't get caught up on the content and the stuff that you see.
And yes, that plays a role in sometimes how we think because that is content that we are consuming.
(25:07):
And do your best to get away from it. Do your best to unfollow certain things,
unfollow certain pages.
I stopped following the shade room. i started to
notice that they would like certain pages now earn your
leisure i had mentioned that are like posting this like outrage
marketing of like attacking women saying things to put down women saying things
like pushing the rhetoric just to get views and conversations and that's what
(25:30):
people do so do not get lumped into all of that delete it block it filter it as much as you can,
and when you see stuff that makes you upset don't interact with it because if
you do it's going to to show you more things that's going to make you upset.
That's just how the algorithm works.
But the loud ones are typically not the good ones.
(25:51):
Allow a man to show you and tell you who he is because I promise you he will on these dates.
Send the HR message, invite God into every date, pray before and after every
date, still allow yourself to be available because your husband's not gonna
break through your apartment, your wall, your window and say that he's here.
(26:12):
Allow God to cultivate things. Meet men in different places, in different groups.
You never know how you might end up and
stumble upon somebody like I've met men in different settings though I try not
to meet them in nightlife and I'm not saying that this person's bad if they're
(26:32):
in nightlife but honestly going to hot girl walk I got a ton of dates while
in Atlanta going on hot girl walks the more I started walking the more I was meeting these men,
I was just meeting them just everywhere I met a man I was walking over by the
Supreme Court Lord met a man.
Yeah, he wasn't for me, but he wasn't terrible. He just wasn't for me.
So, and there's also understanding the difference between a God thing and a good thing.
(26:57):
There are men, and this is, ooh, this is the best part of the message.
If you don't listen to anything else besides pray before and after your dates, take heed to this.
You can have a good thing with somebody, but that does not mean that it's a God thing.
That does not mean that that man is for you. At the end of the day,
marriage is supposed to be like a one-time thing, right?
(27:17):
And that's not reality sometimes, which is okay.
Life is life. Marriage is supposed to be a one-time thing.
Just because a man is good, he has manners, he doesn't seem to be demon possessed
or have have spiritual strongholds on him or disrespectful or over-sexualize you.
Because I feel like we are so used to the radical, what they call it, the radical left.
(27:43):
I don't know. Because we're so used to somebody on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
I think when some women date someone that gives them a breath of fresh air,
they think, hey, this is my person.
Somebody can in fact be a good person and not your person.
And I was telling this to my friend when I was telling her about my ex.
I was like I really appreciate the years I was with that man because it taught
(28:04):
me a lot and looking back like I've grown so much So much since then and I can
honestly say in this day if I were to like bump into him And like it would be
no beef. It was no beef with him.
No beef with his family They were the sweetest people like just because he is
not my person does not make him a terrible person But you have to be careful
(28:26):
just because somebody is good does not mean that they're for you you.
So you still have to ask God, hey, is this the one?
So go out and grace my feminine butterflies, child.
Don't let these men stop you, girl. And also, don't let no gossiping man try to put you down, okay?
(28:49):
One thing I can't stand is a gossiping man because like, why are you gossiping?
Anyway, share this podcast episode with a friend and I'll see you on the next one.
This episode is dedicated to all my single women out there. Share this with
a friend before we even start the episode if she is single.
And this is the best pit talk, y'all.
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, it girls. I hope you all are doing amazing.
Welcome to Faithfully Feminine Podcast, where I, your host, Imani Bailey,
(00:21):
shares all things faith, all things feminine, and practical ways to transform
yourself through navigating womanhood. while sharing lessons God has taught me along the way.
Sit back, relax, and let's get into some things.
Hey girl. Hey, I know I'm late. I've been literally going through it,
but whenever I am late, I do come bearing gifts.
(00:41):
It's kind of like when you go to someone's house and you never show up empty handed.
Y'all know y'all missed the episode. Well, I missed recording and releasing an episode on Monday.
And I highly, and I know I say it every podcast episode, but I do highly encourage
you all to follow me on TikTok because I really feel like my TikTok, I just go live.
(01:02):
And you are more prone to understanding what is going on in my life and why I just, I slip.
And I was so used to it. We've been doing this for two seasons now of me uploading
on Wednesdays. So me changing to Mondays has been been very, very hard for me.
So I just want to thank you all so much for your patience. Please have grace with me.
(01:23):
I just have to be better at procrastination.
So God is still working on me. And honestly, God really helped me throughout
this entire week or really this past two weeks in my dating life.
Like I said, this episode is dedicated to every single woman in out there.
And it's so interesting that my platform has really changed into this because
(01:48):
if you followed me for a while,
you know that I started off doing makeup on YouTube and then it got into hair
and then it kind of morphed into this personal development and refinement and
femininity and my walk with Christ.
So you see the as wretched videos as they could be still still on my social
(02:08):
media platform because like, why not? That's yeah, that's life.
But and throughout my relationship, and I was in a pretty long relationship,
and that was with someone who I thought I would marry, honestly.
And looking back, I know God always has a plan.
And I am glad that that did not come to fruition. prohibition.
(02:32):
I do aspire to be married. I do believe, and it says in the Bible that the reason
why Adam, well, God created Eve is because Adam needed a helper and it's not good for men to be alone.
You will see the Bible verses in the description of this episode.
But I, for the first time in my life, actually, I'm on season two of Bachelorette on TikTok.
(02:58):
And if you are new here, Here, Bachelorette or Bachelife on TikTok is a series
in which I navigate single life, womanhood, and dating in D.C.
Now since I was in Atlanta.
And my last relationship, we just were not equally yoked.
I'm so glad that, you know, we broke up right before I moved here and I had
(03:20):
sat down, I prayed, and I told God, like, hey, look, I know you have a plan,
but this is my last single season.
And so I've been single since, when did I move here? I moved here April.
So April, 2023, we're coming up on a year.
Actually, yeah, no, yeah, we're coming up on a year now. So 12 months of me
(03:42):
being single, but enough about me.
I invited God into my dating life. And when you invite God into your dating life,
like jot this down as a single woman, I highly recommend you sit down,
pray, Pray and write out the type of man that you want. Pray over it.
Tell God you invite him into your dating life and be prepared for it to be a total mess.
(04:11):
And I'm not joking when I say that. And when I say mess, I mean a beautiful
mess because God will hurt your feelings.
Not intentionally, but your feelings will be hurt by God's actions whenever
you invite him into your dating life.
And I've soon come to find out that, wow, God is moving.
(04:33):
I had cheers to me finding my husband this year, like literally New Year's.
And my friends looked at me like I was straight crazy. And I was like,
we cheers into this, babe.
I believe it. There's a life of death and a power of the tongue.
I'm speaking in fruition.
I cheers to me and my husband on my birthday too. I was like,
yep, cheers to me, you know, my husband finding me. Cheers to more life.
(04:53):
Cheers to, I mean, I cheers to more than that.
But I included that into it. My friends looked at me again, like,
girl, this girl is, and I said, no, I'm serious.
I was at a point where I'm just so tired.
And I think we, We, or you listening to this, probably have had this realization
at some point or another, and especially in the space that I'm in,
(05:15):
I feel like there's no getting away from certain content.
You can block, you can unfollow, you can delete or whatever.
I even started blocking keywords.
And it's just like, it's no getting away from the woman bashing content.
I don't know what it is. My heart goes out to teenage girls and younger women,
(05:35):
like younger girls, because there's no getting away from it.
I can imagine like opening up my phone as a teenage girl every day and listening
to men bash women, listening to men say things like, we got to hold these women
accountable and listening to just the rhetoric.
And I'm so tired of it. And the bullying that I was getting online from on TikTok,
(05:58):
now it doesn't really hurt my feelings as much or doesn't bother bother me as
much, but it would just make me so angry. And I had this bitterness.
I don't want to say against every man because I love men, but the things that
I was just exposed to every day on a constant basis,
(06:18):
it just made me feel so disgusted and it made my stomach hurt.
And I was like, God, I'm so over this.
I'm so over Satan because that's really what it is.
I'm so over Satan trying to distract me by sending these hooligans, sending these people.
(06:39):
And I'm just kind of getting caught up in the web of it, right?
Whether it's for a couple of months or a couple of days. And so y'all,
I sat down and I want you to do this.
Not only invite God into your dating life, not only do I want you to sit down
and write down the type of godly man that you want,
but well before you even do that you have to study
(07:00):
the bible to understand who and what a godly man is because when it comes to
the bible it either is or it isn't child it's no in between and yeah people
are not perfect please watch out for the man that says but i'm not perfect because
those usually the ones i just want to say that in my experience those be the ones.
(07:21):
But you have to watch out for people and for counterfeits because just like
God hears our prayers, Satan knows too.
The devil is here to steal, kill, and destroy. He knows his ending and misery loves company.
He want to drag as much people as he can to hell with him.
So you have to be steadfast.
(07:45):
You have to keep your head on a swivel.
And I say this so many many times I said this in my last blog post,
you have to keep your head on a swivel because the enemy is always here to still kill and destroy.
And I realized, and I want you all to know that within dating,
I know we talk about a lot of things that are physical just because in day-to-day
(08:08):
life, we go on dates, we're having conversations with men, we're getting to
know them because that's what dating is. You're collecting data.
Can I be with this person? And no, you're not supposed to know if you could
be with this person on the first date. Like that is not your husband.
You're still still getting to know him?
Is the shoe the right fit? Do y'all vibe together? Do y'all have kind of common
interests or are y'all complete opposites and do y'all not mesh or whatever?
(08:30):
There's stages to getting to know people just like you get to know friends.
I don't expect you to be like, oh, this is the one the first week.
And if you are feeling like that, then that's another issue and another topic
for another episode and another podcast.
But in the physical realm, I had a kind of traumatic experience on a date.
And I don't even want to say kind of traumatic. It actually was traumatic for me.
(08:55):
And it put me in a place of panic, anger, frustration.
And I remember feeling like multiple feelings that night on that date.
And I shared the date on my TikTok.
Hell, the link will be in the description box at this point.
And I remember praying to God like, oh, my gosh,
(09:17):
please remove any man expeditiously who is not from you and who is not meant to be my husband.
I literally that was my prayer. That was my literal prayer. Prayer,
y'all. Word for word, bar for bar.
You know, it's like, oh, we want to see your prayer. That was the Imani prayer. prayer.
(09:38):
And ever since I prayed that prayer to God, y'all, these men have been showing
the end. And I also said, and God, let it be known that it is you who is removing them.
I need to know clear as day because I know you are not the author of confusion.
(09:59):
I prayed that prayer.
I want to say I prayed that prayer on a Monday. One guy was dating Wednesday
at 5 a.m. He texted me some BS talking about how he was so confused.
I knew that was God. Okay. He was gone.
I met another guy. I followed up with God. I'm inviting you throughout this whole season.
(10:21):
By the third date, no, actually second date, he ended up exuding some red flags.
First date, he said something that was a bit interesting to me about he had
brought up God. And I said, OK, OK, this is great.
Again, I like to listen more than I speak, contrary to y'all hear my mouth.
Y'all hear me chitter chatter all the time.
(10:44):
But he had brought up something very interesting and it just had my ears on alert. alert.
By the second date, I was like, this is very interesting. He had complained
about me not helping him plan dates. A man is supposed to be a leader.
He can't even lead. If a man can't lead you on a date, he don't need to be leading
your household, which means you don't need to be dating him.
The point blank period, end of discussion. So I was like, okay,
(11:06):
that's really interesting.
And then by the third date was the traumatic experience that I had.
And God was like, okay, clearly you didn't pick up on the first two.
So we're going to click in as a high gear. and with everything, I'm like, I know.
It goes against word for word, bar for bar for what God says how a man is supposed
to treat a woman and how a godly man is supposed to act.
(11:29):
And I've never had men remove themselves that fast or me having to remove them
that fast ever in my dating life.
Like usually it's like, I'm like four or five dates in or maybe sometimes I
meet somebody and I'm just like, ah, okay, no.
Know but it's been like crazy stuff
y'all hasn't even been no like no everyday stuff it's
(11:50):
been like insane stuff to where
I'm like I know this is God because I even asked
him but what happens when you invite
God in the physical realm stuff starts act
like these men start acting crazy you realize okay this is this is not him what
happens is like when you get your feelings hurt and I remember after that traumatic
(12:12):
date and the man started doing all this stuff and you can go on my TikTok and
listen to it. I talked about it on TikTok live.
He started doing all this stuff and saying all this stuff about me.
And it kind of hurt my feelings because I was like, wow, I thought we had a conversation.
I wasn't going to date him again. But like to hear someone being so mean spirited,
(12:33):
I mean, opposite of fruits of the spirit, ain't no fruit of the spirit showing
in sight. Like the tree was not bearing no type of fruit, okay?
It was just planted. Was it even planted? I don't even know.
But to hear all of this, it hurt my feelings. And I was like, God, like.
This hurts. I'm tired. I actually want to give up.
(12:55):
I will be okay with not being married.
I remember like literally saying that I'm okay with not being married if it
means for the sake of peace, because if it means that I have to attach myself
to some demonic entity disguised as some man who is presenting himself as not being that,
I would rather just be alone.
(13:16):
And God had reminded me that one
he is always here so if you're in
the season if you're in this season and you are tired like
I mean more tired than Kelly Price I am here
to remind you you have stumbled across this podcast episode for a reason and
I'm here to remind you that God is with you every step of the way he is protecting
(13:39):
you from both seen and unseen there are a lot of unseen forces forces, that we can't even,
it just, it dawns on me, like, when you hear, say, when I just speak something,
and like, you see in someone's spirit, how they respond, and how they get so upset,
and how they're me-spirited, and how they start spewing lies,
(14:00):
and you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't do anything to him, but in reality,
I didn't, I didn't sleep with him, so now it's not what he presented to be is
a demonic force that is trying to get.
And I started thinking, I said, oh my gosh, what if I slept with this man,
which was not even what I was thinking about, but what if I slept with this man?
(14:21):
What type of strongholds and spirits does this man have attached to him to be
going so hard for somebody he just met?
Like, it's just when you start Start unraveling these things outside of thinking
about the physical actions that people are doing, but the type of fruit that they are bearing.
(14:45):
God reminded me in that moment when I told him, I'd rather be alone.
Hey, I created Adam and help her for a reason. It's not good for you to be alone.
It's not good. It wasn't good for Adam to be alone. It's not good for you to be alone.
The enemy is out here to steal, kill, and destroy, regardless if you're single,
(15:05):
if you're in a relationship, hell, when you're married, especially the enemy
can't stay in a covenant. it.
So it's like you have to be steadfast now because when you get into a marriage,
it might not look the same as far as like dealing with demonic men going on
dates and all this stuff.
But the enemy still will very well and can very well attack your marriage.
(15:30):
And how you go into a marriage and how you practice going into battle spiritually
while you are single will help you when you aren't married.
I've talked about this in my spiritual warfare episode, but it's so important
every day to put on the full armor of God because you do not know what awaits you.
(15:52):
Satan hears your prayers, single woman. He knows a counterfeit.
He will send a good counterfeit.
Before you get the real thing, you get a counterfeit that appears to be,
be, oh, this is kind of what I pray to God about.
Okay. He does X, Y, and Z. He has this.
He can be a provider. He's exuding great behaviors. He's talking about God.
(16:16):
Like one guy that I was dating, he was very generous because I had generosity.
Of course, I need me a generous man. Can't be dating a stingy man now.
He was so generous when I first started dating him. He was just like.
I don't even know if it was love bombing. I don't know what,
I don't think it was love bombing. I think he's just a genuinely generous man.
(16:39):
And turned out that that was the one that was confused, right?
He didn't know what he wanted, but he would love to have played house, right?
Because that definitely makes sense in a selfish form. You see how that goes?
And another thing is that as a single woman, in,
(16:59):
I've realized that some of us would rather dwindle and whether or not communicate
how we feel than send that HR text message, breaking it off.
And I kind of struggle with the HR text message. I don't know why.
I have no issue saying how I feel, but cutting someone loose and thanking them
(17:20):
for their services, to me, it's just kind of like, oh, I'll just keep dating him.
Maybe we'll see how it goes or maybe you know I don't
something about the HR message I had this fear deep down
inside if I sent the HR message to the wrong guy cutting it
off then maybe he will like get upset and do something terrible to me and I
think pretty sure the fear comes from me being in high school dealing with a
(17:44):
stalker and everything y'all know this story I had to get a restraining order
at 16 on the next boyfriend.
And so dealing with all of that and the trauma of like not feeling safe within
my parents' house, not feeling safe at school, not feeling safe at work,
like always having to have my head on a sliver, always feeling like this man
was going to pop up somewhere, which he literally did.
(18:06):
And it was just like, I would rather let things kind of simmer down or like
go ghost or have them go ghost or just keep dating them until they realize I'm
not going to sleep with them and then they'll leave anyway,
then literally tell them, hey, this is not working.
So that's my own trauma. But I noticed a lot of us are kind of like that.
(18:30):
I'm talking to my other friends. We all kind of do the same thing.
And that could be because men don't really see women women as a physical threat.
So when it comes to women and how some men take rejection, again,
it's not necessarily their physical being, but the spirit that they have in them.
The reason why people do and say the things that they do,
(18:52):
and act the way that they act is because the spirits that they have attached to them.
It's not necessarily just them or what you did.
And the sooner you grasp this concept while being single, the easier it will be.
And I'm not saying that you're not going to have days to break down because
at the end of the day, being a woman in this world is very hard.
(19:12):
It's like you get made fun of for being small. You get made fun of for being
big. You get made fun of for having a child young.
God forbid you have a child too old. God forbid you be single.
And then somebody's like, Like, why are you single?
Something's wrong with you. God forbid you want to have a job.
God forbid you want to be a stay-at-home mom. Like, honestly,
there's no winning. There's no winning.
As a woman in this world, there's no winning. You got to be held accountable
(19:32):
for men's action, child.
They love to say who's, I went on a date, first and last, this man never seeing me again.
And he was like, oh my gosh, who's going to hold these women accountable?
And I'm like, women have been held accountable for men's actions for years.
What are you talking about?
I was like, this man sounds crazy. Yeah, he's never going to see me again.
(19:54):
And so the sooner you grasp as a single woman, it's not about the things that
you have done or the things that you've said or the fact that you didn't sleep with him.
It's about the spirits that he has attached to him, the strongholds that he
has to break off of, right? And that's not your battle to fight.
That's not you to explain.
(20:15):
Sometimes you take off that cape and you exit stage left and you go where you
are loved and you go where you're appreciated.
And if you're not appreciated where you are, then it's time for you to leave.
They have to get the HR message.
And I think I'm actually gonna start putting examples of some like break off
messages in my blog. So look out for that and sign up for blog email updates
(20:39):
because you're really missing out if you don't.
Switching gears, as a single woman, another thing I've learned is that you have
to make yourself available.
I know when you get tired and you might feel like, I just want to crawl up into
a ball and never date again.
It's funny, but not. My friend had texted me like, oh, I'm traumatized.
(21:01):
I don't ever want to date again.
But she kind of wants someone. and I told her like, don't let that man, don't, what is it?
Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
Don't let these men get to you so bad to where you just stop going out.
You stop saying yes to dates.
You stop responding just because you met.
(21:24):
And I'll be saying it. My first one, you call everybody demonic because that's what it is.
Why are you acting, how you come, how you come off from a fast with God mad
that somebody didn't want to have sex with you? What do you call that?
I call it demon possessed. I don't, what do y'all call it? Maybe,
I don't know. Let me know what you call it. I call it demon possessed.
But anyway, don't let a demon man, a demon possessed man stop you from allowing
(21:47):
your husband to find you.
You have to say yes to go out on dates in order to find your husband. been.
And although it is tiring, I'm telling you, if you pray before the date,
go on the date and enjoy yourself, pray after the date, within a two-week span,
you'll know if that man here for stay or here for not, like, or if he's gone.
(22:07):
And you can literally ask God to remove him fast, expeditiously.
I literally use the word expeditiously in my prayer, swift, fast,
as quick as humanly possible.
I mean, I don't want the man to ever text me again if he is not the one for me.
Now, when you are saying those things, though, y'all, you have to prepare to
get your feelings hurt, but you have to continue to remind yourself.
(22:29):
I don't care if you have to remind yourself before every date or before every
time a man asks you out these things, so be it.
Because with practice makes perfect.
As soon as you remind yourself, you keep reminding yourself,
the less you're going to be phased by the things that some of these men do.
It's not about you. Keep it moving, right? Right.
(22:52):
And so especially when men say certain things on dates, I have wrote a blog
post about being mysterious.
Honestly, you don't have to ask a ton of questions on some of these days.
If you really just listen to what these men say, they really will dig themselves in a hole.
Yes, create conversation, but you don't have to like ask, okay,
I'm going to ask him this. I'm going to ask him this.
I'm going to ask him this because that's when some people like rehearse certain
(23:15):
answers just so they can give you those answers.
Like, okay, she's going to, yeah, yeah, she looks like the type of woman who likes men who fast.
So I'm going to tell her that I fast every month, or I'm going to tell her that I fast twice a year.
It's like, just listen to them.
Talk about music and culture and what they like to do for fun,
(23:38):
because really those lighthearted things will kind of give you a glimpse into who you're dating.
If you look at somebody's Spotify of fire rap and they have like no christian
music i mean no gospel they can't name four gospel songs babes.
It's a wrap. If you dating somebody and all he do is like watching the exorcist,
he don't have no spiritual discernment. It's a wrap.
(24:00):
Like you get what I'm saying? It's certain things that people will just tell
you and you will learn this is not the guy for me.
Like for an example, when the guy said, oh, nobody holds these women accountable.
I knew off the bat from that one statement, this is not the guy for me.
I knew what this was going to turn into.
If he's listening to other men on podcasts, if he's in group chats and stuff,
(24:21):
love talking about certain things.
And I know someone had said this to me, and I'm going to almost let y'all go with this.
There are so many good men out
there, just like there are so many demon-possessed men out there as well.
But I will say the demon-possessed ones seem to be a lot louder because the
good men aren't in group chats talking about women all the time.
(24:42):
They're talking about sports. They're talking about business.
They're talking about other things. The good men Men aren't on podcasts talking bad about women.
The good men aren't doing certain things. So they are not as loud.
That does not mean that they do not exist.
They're just not as loud. So don't get caught up on the content and the stuff that you see.
And yes, that plays a role in sometimes how we think because that is content that we are consuming.
(25:07):
And do your best to get away from it. Do your best to unfollow certain things,
unfollow certain pages.
I stopped following the shade room. i started to
notice that they would like certain pages now earn your
leisure i had mentioned that are like posting this like outrage
marketing of like attacking women saying things to put down women saying things
like pushing the rhetoric just to get views and conversations and that's what
(25:30):
people do so do not get lumped into all of that delete it block it filter it as much as you can,
and when you see stuff that makes you upset don't interact with it because if
you do it's going to to show you more things that's going to make you upset.
That's just how the algorithm works.
But the loud ones are typically not the good ones.
(25:51):
Allow a man to show you and tell you who he is because I promise you he will on these dates.
Send the HR message, invite God into every date, pray before and after every
date, still allow yourself to be available because your husband's not gonna
break through your apartment, your wall, your window and say that he's here.
(26:12):
Allow God to cultivate things. Meet men in different places, in different groups.
You never know how you might end up and
stumble upon somebody like I've met men in different settings though I try not
to meet them in nightlife and I'm not saying that this person's bad if they're
(26:32):
in nightlife but honestly going to hot girl walk I got a ton of dates while
in Atlanta going on hot girl walks the more I started walking the more I was meeting these men,
I was just meeting them just everywhere I met a man I was walking over by the
Supreme Court Lord met a man.
Yeah, he wasn't for me, but he wasn't terrible. He just wasn't for me.
So, and there's also understanding the difference between a God thing and a good thing.
(26:57):
There are men, and this is, ooh, this is the best part of the message.
If you don't listen to anything else besides pray before and after your dates, take heed to this.
You can have a good thing with somebody, but that does not mean that it's a God thing.
That does not mean that that man is for you. At the end of the day,
marriage is supposed to be like a one-time thing, right?
(27:17):
And that's not reality sometimes, which is okay.
Life is life. Marriage is supposed to be a one-time thing.
Just because a man is good, he has manners, he doesn't seem to be demon possessed
or have have spiritual strongholds on him or disrespectful or over-sexualize you.
Because I feel like we are so used to the radical, what they call it, the radical left.
(27:43):
I don't know. Because we're so used to somebody on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
I think when some women date someone that gives them a breath of fresh air,
they think, hey, this is my person.
Somebody can in fact be a good person and not your person.
And I was telling this to my friend when I was telling her about my ex.
I was like I really appreciate the years I was with that man because it taught
(28:04):
me a lot and looking back like I've grown so much So much since then and I can
honestly say in this day if I were to like bump into him And like it would be
no beef. It was no beef with him.
No beef with his family They were the sweetest people like just because he is
not my person does not make him a terrible person But you have to be careful
(28:26):
just because somebody is good does not mean that they're for you you.
So you still have to ask God, hey, is this the one?
So go out and grace my feminine butterflies, child.
Don't let these men stop you, girl. And also, don't let no gossiping man try to put you down, okay?
(28:49):
One thing I can't stand is a gossiping man because like, why are you gossiping?
Anyway, share this podcast episode with a friend and I'll see you on the next one.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com