July 8, 2026 • 25 mins
Alexandria comes back to the mic for Season 3 with something she hasn't fully said yet: the last year was hard, and she's still in the very messy middle of it:
You can be hurting and still not be lost. That’s the line we keep coming back to as I tell the truth about a year that did not go to plan: leaving ministry and watching friendships go silent, losing my job, applying and hearing nothing back, getting rejected from schools after putting in the work, then landing in a role I didn’t expect again, a stay-at-home mom of four boys, staring at the sink and wondering what comes next.
What changed wasn’t a sudden “happy ending”. It was one question that stopped the spiral: what if I’m not lost at all? From there, we talk about reframing, not as denial, but as a grounded mental health practice. I share how shame and self-blame creep in when you treat a brutal job market, competitive admissions, or other people’s choices as a verdict on your worth, and how naming the grief of lost community helps you stop carrying what was never yours.
We also get practical with a framework I love: investigating and interrogating your emotions. Think of it as emotional inspection and deeper questioning. The spider analogy makes it simple: the fear is real, but the interpretation may be wrong. When you balance emotion with reason, emotions become data, not a sentence you hand to yourself.
If you’re in a life transition, the renovation metaphor will land: a gutted house looks like failure without context, but mid-demo is often where the real work begins. Subscribe to Renovating the Soul, share this with someone in the messy middle, and leave a review with the question you’re choosing to ask yourself next.
Important Note! Instead of the Roots episode, this episode below is actually the next best resource to check out! ⬇️⬇️
For more on emotions and how to understand what they're actually telling you, check out Broken Souls, Broken Bodies: When Emotional Pain Becomes Physical | Ep. 13
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
It's embarrassing to have to say, like, I lost my
job.
And not only did I lose my job,but as I've been applying for
roles throughout this year, Ihaven't gotten anything.
I didn't expect to see myselfback, being a stay-at-home mom.
All of these things are leadingup to this moment of standing
there in the kitchen and beinglike, I have I have something
(00:20):
has to give.
I'm not here with a packagestory.
I'm like here in this messymiddle.
And so I knew that I needed tobe showing up better for myself,
for Quincy, for my kids, insteadof wallowing in this why me.
I can take the rejections, I cantake the loss, I can take the
lack.
And I can see it all as harmful.
(00:40):
Or I can say, this world is somuch for me that it gave me back
time with my kids.
I am and you are mid-renovation.
(01:02):
Welcome to a new season ofRenovating the Soul.
I am your host, Alexandria, andI'm so excited that you have
joined me today.
In the season three trailer, Imentioned that this season is
going to be very personalstarting out.
I'm gonna go back over the lastyear of my life and my family's
life, and then we'll get intosome other topics.
But today's episode, What IfYou're Not Lost at All, really
(01:23):
starts with my personal journeyof coming back to this podcast
and what the last year haslooked like.
And in different seasons of mylife, I've told myself that I
was lost, and that would usuallybe when I lost a job or broke
off a relationship or somethinghappened in my life, and I would
be like, I'm lost, I don't knowwhere to go, I don't know what
(01:45):
to do.
And recently I found myselfsaying it again.
I was spiraling, to be honestwith y'all.
And I was standing at thekitchen sink, I was washing
dishes, and I was thinking in mymind, where am I supposed to go
from here?
What is supposed to be next?
What am I supposed to do?
And it wasn't just about thosequestions, it was about the
(02:07):
feeling inside, the feeling thatbeing lost gives you.
And it's almost like I feltnumb.
I felt kind of just like aghost, like a shell of who I was
in in those moments.
And that a lot of that lostnesscame from this gap between where
I thought I'd be and where Iactually am.
(02:29):
You get this plan, this visionfor your life, and then when
things don't start to pan out,it becomes you're lost.
And in that moment, when I feltmyself spiraling and I felt all
of that numbness, and I justfelt myself digging a deeper and
deeper hole emotionally.
Just ask myself, what if you'renot lost at all?
(02:50):
That question alone kept me fromspiraling.
It kept me from waking up sad,it kept me from falling into
depression because I had to givemyself a different way of seeing
it.
I've been very honest with youall throughout these seasons of
the podcast and you know, comingin with these real time like
(03:12):
episodes.
And I say that because in seasontwo, we talked about Predators
in the Pulpit.
And in that episode, I sharedabout my church journey and
recently like leaving thechurches that we left and
leaving ministry.
And when I was coming to sitdown and tell you guys about,
you know, the these things thathave led up to this feeling of
(03:35):
being lost, I was thinking aboutthis idea of like I left
ministry, it's this coreidentity, but really it's bigger
than that.
It's not about the preaching andthe teaching.
It's not.
It was actually about losingfriendships, about the trust
that was broken, about losing anentire community.
And that was the hard part thatI didn't want to admit out loud.
(03:57):
For whatever reason, in my mind,sometimes I think if I admit
that someone hurt me, that meansthey have power over me.
But that's just not true.
It's just not true.
It's reality.
If someone claims to have beenyour friend, we're talking about
people that sat in my home.
We're talking about people whoseproblems they freely texted or
called or brought to me with nocare in the world that they were
(04:19):
dumping on me while I had kidsand marriage and other things
going on, rarely asking how I'mdoing.
You're talking about people thatate dinner in my home, that
watched my children, I watchedtheir children.
You're talking about people thatyou expected really got to know
you over that time who nevercalled after you left a church,
who never called to ask, what isyour side?
(04:41):
What happened?
And I'm talking about nevercalled, never text.
That is pain.
That's painful.
There's no power in that.
I don't give them any power overme by admitting that out loud.
And yet, keeping that within isall part of leading up to this
idea of feeling lost.
So more than the ministry, morethan just preaching and
(05:03):
teaching, it was losing thepeople, losing a whole community
of people.
Then after that happens, I losemy job.
And here you go.
These are just the thoughts thatkeep me trapped in my mind.
(05:24):
But it's just like, it'sembarrassing to have to say,
like, I lost my job.
And not only did I lose my job,but as I've been applying for
roles throughout this year, Ihaven't gotten, I haven't gotten
anything.
I haven't gotten anything with aresume like mine, and as much as
I've done in two degrees, Ihaven't gotten anything, not
even an interview.
It's kind of embarrassing.
(05:44):
And I thought that I was gonnabe at this job or have this
career for five to 10 years.
Again, I've said this.
I thought I was gonna get thosestudent loans paid off, and now
I have to pay those myself,which is frustrating, right?
And so it's like, yeah, so youhave, okay, the ministry, you
have, okay, the job.
Again, things that I've beenvery honest with you all about.
And then in um episode 19 aswell, I also mentioned that I
(06:04):
was gonna go back to school.
So I went all in on school lastyear.
I spent a year plus doing this,still kind of in it, because I
still haven't heard from all theschools.
And I'm just thinking, like, Ihave nothing to lose.
And then I get rejectedeverywhere after a year of hard
work.
And so now I'm back to being astay-at-home mom.
I'm, you know, when I did thisand when I was a stay-at-home
(06:27):
mom before, I only had one son.
I had my oldest son, and I and Ididn't like it.
Uh it's not something that howcan I say this in a kind way?
I've always wanted to be a mom.
I've always wanted to be a wife.
I've just never saw myself beinglike a stay-at-home mom or a
wife.
I always wanted to work, I'vealways wanted to start a
nonprofit or do something.
Like I'm always going to have aproject, hence this podcast,
(06:49):
right?
Like I'm always going to bedoing something.
I didn't expect to see myselfback being a stay-at-home mom,
you know, this time with fourboys, right?
And so all of these things areleading up to this moment of
standing there in the kitchenand being like, I have, I have
something has to give.
Because if I keep letting allthis stuff pile up, because I
(07:12):
don't know if you guys have thismoment where you're sad about
one thing, and then all of asudden you're sad about
everything.
You start, I mean you startgoing back to college, you start
going back to mistakes you made,you start going back to past
relationships, you know, yourmind just starts going, and
that's kind of what washappening to me.
And not knowing the other sideof it is hard.
And that's what this episode isabout, is that when I'm asking
(07:34):
myself, what if you're not lostat all?
It's just a starting point toget me to movement because I
don't know what's on the otherside.
I'm not here with a packagestory.
I don't have the friendshipsthat I want.
I obviously don't have the joband I didn't get into school.
So I'm not here to tell youguys, yeah, I made it on the
other side.
I'm like here in this messymiddle, which is the theme of uh
(07:55):
season three of the podcast.
And so there was a couple ofturning points for me, one of
them being I saw this Instagramvideo and the guy, I don't know
who this gentleman is.
He it's, you know, Instagram,they're just throwing things at
you.
And then he's on a podcast andhe says, Nothing bad has ever
happened to me.
And I'm listening to this andI'm like, what?
He's like, nothing bad has everhappened to me.
(08:17):
And then he goes on to list likeseemingly bad things.
He lost a loved one, he gotsick, he's lost like contracts
and opportunities.
I realized through him sayingit, he's saying, like, it's
about your mentality thateverything that happened to him
led to something else.
So yeah, I lost, you know, thisloved one, but I think it was
(08:39):
like his grandma.
But he's like, but I had allthese amazing years with her.
Like, yeah, I got sick, but itled to this.
Like, yeah, I lost thisopportunity, but another door
opened.
And when I was watching thatvideo, I said out loud, heck
yeah.
Like that's that's the mentalitythat I wanted to have because I
wanted to stop saying things outloud that were keeping me
mentally trapped.
(08:59):
And so I knew that I needed tobe showing up better for myself,
for Quincy, for my kids, insteadof wallowing in this, why me?
I can take the rejections, I cantake the loss, I can take the
lack.
And I can see it all as harmful,or I can say, this world is so
much for me that it gave me backtime with my kids.
(09:20):
That while I'm at that nine tofive that I grumbled about, you
know, almost every day becauseyou're dealing with people,
right?
And, you know, you're, you're,you're having to get up and
you're you're working hard forsomeone else.
But it's like this, I can, I canlook at all that and say, I
didn't get my student loans paidfor.
These people walked out, right?
Or I can look at it and say, ifthose people walked out, they
(09:43):
were clearly meant to do that.
Like then those clearly werenever friends.
It's a hard reality, but that isthe reality.
And I can say, you know what?
I have so much more time now.
And it's not a pity party.
Like, I don't want it to soundlike, oh, yeah, so many time
doing what it no, it's it's thereality.
I get to spend time with mychildren, I get to read.
I kind of get to be free of evenhaving to be around fake people.
(10:06):
How what do you want?
To be around a bunch of peoplewho actually really don't care
about you and only have theirinterest at heart, or to be with
like, you know, a few people,which is how it is, who you know
really care for you.
Even if it's just my children,they love me, they don't care,
they they they shower me withlove.
So, anyways, I'm just saying,like, it's it's all about
(10:30):
reframing.
It's all about reframing andseeing things from a different
angle and asking myselfdifferent questions.
And so as I started doing that,I recognize what I've been
overlooking is that I have beenworking since I was 17 or 18.
My first job was at McDonald's.
I and when you really thinkabout this, you go from daycare
(10:50):
to preschool to elementaryschool to middle school to high
school to working to college toworking in the summer to college
to working in the summer to likethat's been my trajectory.
Even though I came out ofcollege and I didn't have the
dream job that I wanted, I wasstill working.
When I was in graduate school, Iwent from undergrad, then I went
(11:12):
to graduate school.
I went to graduate school, andthen I was working when I was
finishing graduate schoolonline.
So I've never really had a realbreak.
I've and that's by choice too.
It's not again, it's not a pityparty.
This is by choice.
I've never had a break.
I've never stopped moving.
And then in between that, I'malways picking up a project.
I had a blog, I had myphotography company, I'm trying
(11:33):
to create a conference, I'm I'mpulling different friends
together.
Like I'm, I was, I'm alwaysmoving.
And the blessing now that I wasminimizing, honestly, not even
recognizing, was that I'm in aplace now where my husband's
income covers our household.
I'm in a place where I get I gotto watch him finish his master's
in math and now finish his PhDand being able to support him
(11:57):
through the years when he wasdoing that with my work at GSA,
but now he it flips.
He gets to support us.
And so I was about to sendmyself from years of nonstop
working straight into threeyears of school with no pause
while my my kids are little,seven, five, three, and two.
They're little guys.
Like they need me kind of themost right now.
(12:18):
And if I'm able to be there forthem, I don't think that's a bad
thing.
So this season is rest, it'srecalibration, and it's choosing
not to call it failure.
I can see this season as, youknow, why is all of this
happening to me?
Or I can see it as not beinglost.
So let's talk a little moreabout this idea of being lost,
(12:39):
because you know, at Renovatingthe Soul, we are going to
confront these ideas, thesementalities that we've hold on
to without ever checking them.
And so there's a differencebetween lost versus in between,
and they're not the same thing.
Lost means no movement at all.
But if you're breathing, ifyou're hurting, if you're
trying, if you're questioning,then you're not lost.
(13:01):
Being in the middle of somethingand being lost are two different
things.
And I've been conflating the twofor almost my entire life.
Like I said, it's always, oh mygosh, he broke up with me, I'm
lost, and I know what to do.
When Quincy and I, we which thiswill have to, you guys will have
to get the full story of thislater, but when Quincy and I got
engaged, I had 40 days left ofcollege when he called off the
(13:24):
engagement.
And I that was another seasonwhere I was like, I'm lost, I
don't know what to do.
I I had this plan that I wasgonna leave Clark Atlanta and I
was gonna go back, I was gonnamove to Portland.
I had everything set.
And then when he, I always sayhe dumped me, so which is true.
So he'll have to defend himselfwhen he comes on the pod.
But when when he called off theengagement, then it was like I'm
(13:45):
lost.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know where to go.
I don't know my next steps.
And I'm gonna tell you guys, Idid not check in with myself and
check that mentality and say,you're not lost.
I made decisions out of thislostness because then I felt
insecure about not knowing.
Then I felt the pressure of likethe whole campus knew I got
engaged.
(14:05):
Now I gotta chin up and act likeeverything's okay.
So then I get in a relationshipwith someone else who is like
cool.
And so I'm like, yeah, look atme.
You know, I'm not not wanted andall of these things, right?
Because I didn't just sit downand have this conversation with
myself and be like, girl, you'renot, you like it hurts, and
(14:26):
that's okay.
No, I wanted to put on the armorand say, it's okay.
I got dumped, but I'm still thatgirl and I'm still desirable.
And look at me, I'm gonna bounceon to the next thing.
But bouncing on to the nextthing damaged me emotionally
because then I got into a toxicrelationship.
So then I spent a year plus ofmy life wasting it on some
(14:47):
no-good dude.
You see what I'm saying?
So it's like we have to startinvestigating and interrogating,
which are my two favorite terms.
You guys are gonna hear me saythis a lot this season, but I
just love this, right?
Like investigating andinterrogating our emotions.
Because when we are doing that,when you are sitting down and
you're investigating and you'reinterrogating your emotions,
(15:07):
your motives, your experiences,that is forward movement.
It's not about literally pickingup and saying, all right, I'm
gonna go from just this job tothis job, or this man to this
man, to this woman to thiswoman, or this church, this
church.
No, it's about sitting down,actually making sure you
understanding what's happeninghappening to you.
Because there's a differencebetween noticing what you're
(15:30):
feeling and then actuallyquestioning it.
And if we can put it back intothis idea of renovating,
investigating is like theinspection phase.
You walk through the house andyou document what's there, you
acknowledge I feel disoriented,I feel like I don't know what's
next.
That's real and it matters.
This idea of interrogating itgoes deeper.
(15:52):
It's pulling back the layers,it's asking, is this feeling
telling me the truth?
Or is it just the first storythat came up?
And so let's think about it thisway.
Many of us are afraid ofspiders.
But if you jump when you see aspider, that fear is real.
So that's the part where we'resaying, okay, your nervous
(16:14):
system had actually fired.
There's really something there.
That's the investigation partwhere you're going, okay,
there's a there's somethinghere.
What is happening?
I'm scared.
Okay, that's the investigation.
We we're acknowledging I'mscared.
We see it.
It's plain.
We can't, we can't almostcontrol it sometimes.
You jump, right?
And you're like, okay, I gotscared.
But then when you interrogateit, right?
(16:34):
You say, okay, my body drew thisconclusion that I'm in danger.
Uh-huh.
But that's not necessarilyaccurate.
The spider is smaller and mostlikely not poisonous for many of
us, but it's smaller than ourhand.
You could smash it in a second.
You have so many things biggerthan this spider.
(16:55):
Your shoe, a piece of tissue,you know, you do whatever is
closest to you is likely biggerthan this spider.
So the emotion was real, but theinterpretation was not.
And that's why you have tointerrogate it.
It's not saying that we shelter,because you guys know if you've
been listening to the episodes,I'm not telling you to hide from
your emotions.
I'm telling you to lean intothem because they're signals,
(17:17):
right?
But you have to balance theemotions with reason.
So you investigate, you see thatfear, you feel the fear.
That's very real.
But you interrogate, you godeeper and say, but was that
fear actually valid?
And that's what we do with beinglost, right?
The disorientation is real.
How I felt was real.
The numbness was real.
(17:37):
I'm not taking away the pain.
The pain I felt, the sadness Ifelt, that's very real.
The conclusion that I am lost,that I don't know where I'm
going, that something is wrongwith me, that's the part worth
interrogating.
Being lost is a verdict you gaveyourself, but probably without a
full investigation.
(17:58):
And when I was having thesemoments, y'all, like of feeling
lost and seeing that video andcoming up out of it and just
making day-to-day decisions, Ireally I didn't, I didn't know I
was investigating orinterrogating.
I didn't have these terms to putto it.
I just read this in a grief bookthat I was reading the other
day, and it's a philosophicalbook on grief, and it gave me
(18:19):
terms to what I was doingwithout me fully knowing that I
was doing it.
But now I'm giving it to you interms and ideas that you can
actually take and understand,investigate and interrogate
what's happening to us.
And so at the end of ourepisodes, I'm gonna be given
this like blueprint, make giventhis renovation theme.
(18:41):
And so if you think about itthis way, a gutted house, it
looks like something went wrong.
If you walked into a renovationmid-demo with no context, you're
gonna think it was a disaster.
But the exposure is the process.
The mess doesn't mean theproject failed, it means real
work is underway.
(19:01):
So you weren't lost.
I wasn't, and I'm not lost.
I am and you are mid-renovation.
And that's so different thantelling yourself that you're
lost, you don't know whereyou're going, you don't
understand.
You do understand.
You understand that I'll put itback to me, but you can use your
own examples.
You do understand that humansare humans.
(19:23):
They're complicated.
People hurt you without knowingthey hurt you.
Even though they never calledand they never text, they
trusted the people who weregiving them information.
You know what I did on my end?
I never went out and blastedpeople because, and let me
explain why I'm about to saythis.
In my mind, I was thinking graceand mercy, grace and mercy.
I have to give grace and mercy,right?
(19:44):
And then I was beating myself upthinking that by by feeling hurt
or pained by the fact thatso-called friends never reached
out or people again that Iprayed for, sat with for hours.
My lord, all the dinners, Ican't even tell you guys, I'm so
happy I don't have to do thatanymore.
But like all these things that Iwas doing, right?
I could be so hurt and I waslike, well, you have to give
grace and mercy.
But when I was telling myselfgrace and mercy, it felt like I
(20:06):
had to push those feelingsaside.
And then I realized, oh, I gavegrace when I didn't really tell
the truth of the things thatwere done.
Oh, I gave mercy and the factthat I'm still kind to you, even
though I have every right to notbe kind to you.
As I started to do this processof like, and again, without the
terms, but as I've started to dothis process of really
(20:27):
investigating and interrogatingand being honest, right?
Saying these things out loud andnot making myself feel small,
then I'm realizing I was not theproblem.
You're spiraling out of controlwith all these thoughts about
you're not a good friend, youmust be a bad person, because
why would why would peoplerespond to you if you weren't
the problem?
(20:47):
But I'm not.
I can sit here with integrityand say, I'm not, right?
But that's that process.
Same thing with with my job.
Yeah, you got fired, you gotlaid off, but that was not, it
wasn't like the government waslooking at Alexandria Robinson
and saying, you are not goodenough.
When you're going into themarket, the job market is crazy
right now.
(21:08):
The school world is competitiveright now.
Like those are real realitiesthat I started taking on and
adding them and making it seemlike there's something wrong
with me.
So I'm lost.
I'm I'm uh don't know where togo.
This isn't what I wanted.
All these emotions and thingsthat I was taking on that were
so unnecessary, but that camefrom one idea, telling myself
(21:29):
that I was lost.
So I'm inviting you all to stopperforming lostness.
Stop rehearsing it out loud.
Every time you're saying thatyou're lost, you're almost
training yourself to stay there.
But instead, you should askquestions.
Don't just accept what you'refeeling without understanding
why you're feeling it.
Think about that spider example.
Yes, I feel something that isvery real, but why I feel it may
(21:53):
actually be an illusion.
Emotions are data, but they arenot verdicts.
And we talk about emotions inthe roots episode.
So if you want more on that andwhat emotions are and what
they're not, check out the rootsepisode.
We are rational beings.
I I just again, I lovephilosophy and I love the fact
(22:15):
that we are rational beings.
That's what makes us human.
And that's not something to takelightly.
That means that we can come togood conclusions and we can use
the information that we have,use the data that you have about
your life, your accomplishments,your decisions, who you are, to
(22:36):
make a rational conclusion.
And that goes either way.
We're not all good.
We have done things that havehurt other people.
We have done things to sabotageeven why we're even feeling
lost.
That's very real.
But that doesn't mean you haveto stay where you are.
And you'll find a lot in thisseason that I don't have any
(22:58):
tidy endings, and that's thepoint, right?
I'm still in this.
I don't have all the answers.
I'm just choosing to look atthis differently.
Honestly, you guys, I'm justchoosing to ask different
questions because, like I said,I've been saying that I was lost
for years.
And this time at 34, I decidedto ask, what if I'm not lost at
(23:19):
all?
I wonder if you would thinkabout that same thing and ask
yourself that same question.
So, next episode, and you guysheard me mention that I got
rejected from school.
And the next episode, I'm goingto talk about that more in
depth.
So you have to come back andhear that story.
It's not, again, it's not a tidyending.
It's not a cute story at all,but it's gonna help you all
(23:42):
understand why I just felt sodown and why I had to pull
myself up out of that hole.
But y'all, I hope that you hearmy heart as always, and
understand that part of mecoming to tell these stories in
this season was that I didn'twant to have to pretend like
everything was okay when itwasn't.
(24:03):
I wanted to be the person thatyounger me needed when I needed
to hear stories of people whenthey were in the middle, in the
messy middle of what they weregoing through and not on the
beautiful ending.
No, I want to know what was itlike when you were so sad you
barely could pull yourself outof bed.
I wanted to know what got youout of that hole.
(24:24):
I I want to know when you wereput back in a position that you
didn't think you were gonna bein, how did you, how did you
keep moving forward?
And I do not know what the otherside looks like, y'all.
I just know what I'm doing dayto day.
So we're gonna talk about thatmore in the next episode.
So I hope you'll join us.
But until next time, thank youfor being here and let's keep
doing the work to renovate thecell.
It's embarrassing to have to say, like, I lost my
job.
And not only did I lose my job,but as I've been applying for
roles throughout this year, Ihaven't gotten anything.
I didn't expect to see myselfback, being a stay-at-home mom.
All of these things are leadingup to this moment of standing
there in the kitchen and beinglike, I have I have something
(00:20):
has to give.
I'm not here with a packagestory.
I'm like here in this messymiddle.
And so I knew that I needed tobe showing up better for myself,
for Quincy, for my kids, insteadof wallowing in this why me.
I can take the rejections, I cantake the loss, I can take the
lack.
And I can see it all as harmful.
(00:40):
Or I can say, this world is somuch for me that it gave me back
time with my kids.
I am and you are mid-renovation.
(01:02):
Welcome to a new season ofRenovating the Soul.
I am your host, Alexandria, andI'm so excited that you have
joined me today.
In the season three trailer, Imentioned that this season is
going to be very personalstarting out.
I'm gonna go back over the lastyear of my life and my family's
life, and then we'll get intosome other topics.
But today's episode, What IfYou're Not Lost at All, really
(01:23):
starts with my personal journeyof coming back to this podcast
and what the last year haslooked like.
And in different seasons of mylife, I've told myself that I
was lost, and that would usuallybe when I lost a job or broke
off a relationship or somethinghappened in my life, and I would
be like, I'm lost, I don't knowwhere to go, I don't know what
(01:45):
to do.
And recently I found myselfsaying it again.
I was spiraling, to be honestwith y'all.
And I was standing at thekitchen sink, I was washing
dishes, and I was thinking in mymind, where am I supposed to go
from here?
What is supposed to be next?
What am I supposed to do?
And it wasn't just about thosequestions, it was about the
(02:07):
feeling inside, the feeling thatbeing lost gives you.
And it's almost like I feltnumb.
I felt kind of just like aghost, like a shell of who I was
in in those moments.
And that a lot of that lostnesscame from this gap between where
I thought I'd be and where Iactually am.
(02:29):
You get this plan, this visionfor your life, and then when
things don't start to pan out,it becomes you're lost.
And in that moment, when I feltmyself spiraling and I felt all
of that numbness, and I justfelt myself digging a deeper and
deeper hole emotionally.
Just ask myself, what if you'renot lost at all?
(02:50):
That question alone kept me fromspiraling.
It kept me from waking up sad,it kept me from falling into
depression because I had to givemyself a different way of seeing
it.
I've been very honest with youall throughout these seasons of
the podcast and you know, comingin with these real time like
(03:12):
episodes.
And I say that because in seasontwo, we talked about Predators
in the Pulpit.
And in that episode, I sharedabout my church journey and
recently like leaving thechurches that we left and
leaving ministry.
And when I was coming to sitdown and tell you guys about,
you know, the these things thathave led up to this feeling of
(03:35):
being lost, I was thinking aboutthis idea of like I left
ministry, it's this coreidentity, but really it's bigger
than that.
It's not about the preaching andthe teaching.
It's not.
It was actually about losingfriendships, about the trust
that was broken, about losing anentire community.
And that was the hard part thatI didn't want to admit out loud.
(03:57):
For whatever reason, in my mind,sometimes I think if I admit
that someone hurt me, that meansthey have power over me.
But that's just not true.
It's just not true.
It's reality.
If someone claims to have beenyour friend, we're talking about
people that sat in my home.
We're talking about people whoseproblems they freely texted or
called or brought to me with nocare in the world that they were
(04:19):
dumping on me while I had kidsand marriage and other things
going on, rarely asking how I'mdoing.
You're talking about people thatate dinner in my home, that
watched my children, I watchedtheir children.
You're talking about people thatyou expected really got to know
you over that time who nevercalled after you left a church,
who never called to ask, what isyour side?
(04:41):
What happened?
And I'm talking about nevercalled, never text.
That is pain.
That's painful.
There's no power in that.
I don't give them any power overme by admitting that out loud.
And yet, keeping that within isall part of leading up to this
idea of feeling lost.
So more than the ministry, morethan just preaching and
(05:03):
teaching, it was losing thepeople, losing a whole community
of people.
Then after that happens, I losemy job.
And here you go.
These are just the thoughts thatkeep me trapped in my mind.
(05:24):
But it's just like, it'sembarrassing to have to say,
like, I lost my job.
And not only did I lose my job,but as I've been applying for
roles throughout this year, Ihaven't gotten, I haven't gotten
anything.
I haven't gotten anything with aresume like mine, and as much as
I've done in two degrees, Ihaven't gotten anything, not
even an interview.
It's kind of embarrassing.
(05:44):
And I thought that I was gonnabe at this job or have this
career for five to 10 years.
Again, I've said this.
I thought I was gonna get thosestudent loans paid off, and now
I have to pay those myself,which is frustrating, right?
And so it's like, yeah, so youhave, okay, the ministry, you
have, okay, the job.
Again, things that I've beenvery honest with you all about.
And then in um episode 19 aswell, I also mentioned that I
(06:04):
was gonna go back to school.
So I went all in on school lastyear.
I spent a year plus doing this,still kind of in it, because I
still haven't heard from all theschools.
And I'm just thinking, like, Ihave nothing to lose.
And then I get rejectedeverywhere after a year of hard
work.
And so now I'm back to being astay-at-home mom.
I'm, you know, when I did thisand when I was a stay-at-home
(06:27):
mom before, I only had one son.
I had my oldest son, and I and Ididn't like it.
Uh it's not something that howcan I say this in a kind way?
I've always wanted to be a mom.
I've always wanted to be a wife.
I've just never saw myself beinglike a stay-at-home mom or a
wife.
I always wanted to work, I'vealways wanted to start a
nonprofit or do something.
Like I'm always going to have aproject, hence this podcast,
(06:49):
right?
Like I'm always going to bedoing something.
I didn't expect to see myselfback being a stay-at-home mom,
you know, this time with fourboys, right?
And so all of these things areleading up to this moment of
standing there in the kitchenand being like, I have, I have
something has to give.
Because if I keep letting allthis stuff pile up, because I
(07:12):
don't know if you guys have thismoment where you're sad about
one thing, and then all of asudden you're sad about
everything.
You start, I mean you startgoing back to college, you start
going back to mistakes you made,you start going back to past
relationships, you know, yourmind just starts going, and
that's kind of what washappening to me.
And not knowing the other sideof it is hard.
And that's what this episode isabout, is that when I'm asking
(07:34):
myself, what if you're not lostat all?
It's just a starting point toget me to movement because I
don't know what's on the otherside.
I'm not here with a packagestory.
I don't have the friendshipsthat I want.
I obviously don't have the joband I didn't get into school.
So I'm not here to tell youguys, yeah, I made it on the
other side.
I'm like here in this messymiddle, which is the theme of uh
(07:55):
season three of the podcast.
And so there was a couple ofturning points for me, one of
them being I saw this Instagramvideo and the guy, I don't know
who this gentleman is.
He it's, you know, Instagram,they're just throwing things at
you.
And then he's on a podcast andhe says, Nothing bad has ever
happened to me.
And I'm listening to this andI'm like, what?
He's like, nothing bad has everhappened to me.
(08:17):
And then he goes on to list likeseemingly bad things.
He lost a loved one, he gotsick, he's lost like contracts
and opportunities.
I realized through him sayingit, he's saying, like, it's
about your mentality thateverything that happened to him
led to something else.
So yeah, I lost, you know, thisloved one, but I think it was
(08:39):
like his grandma.
But he's like, but I had allthese amazing years with her.
Like, yeah, I got sick, but itled to this.
Like, yeah, I lost thisopportunity, but another door
opened.
And when I was watching thatvideo, I said out loud, heck
yeah.
Like that's that's the mentalitythat I wanted to have because I
wanted to stop saying things outloud that were keeping me
mentally trapped.
(08:59):
And so I knew that I needed tobe showing up better for myself,
for Quincy, for my kids, insteadof wallowing in this, why me?
I can take the rejections, I cantake the loss, I can take the
lack.
And I can see it all as harmful,or I can say, this world is so
much for me that it gave me backtime with my kids.
(09:20):
That while I'm at that nine tofive that I grumbled about, you
know, almost every day becauseyou're dealing with people,
right?
And, you know, you're, you're,you're having to get up and
you're you're working hard forsomeone else.
But it's like this, I can, I canlook at all that and say, I
didn't get my student loans paidfor.
These people walked out, right?
Or I can look at it and say, ifthose people walked out, they
(09:43):
were clearly meant to do that.
Like then those clearly werenever friends.
It's a hard reality, but that isthe reality.
And I can say, you know what?
I have so much more time now.
And it's not a pity party.
Like, I don't want it to soundlike, oh, yeah, so many time
doing what it no, it's it's thereality.
I get to spend time with mychildren, I get to read.
I kind of get to be free of evenhaving to be around fake people.
(10:06):
How what do you want?
To be around a bunch of peoplewho actually really don't care
about you and only have theirinterest at heart, or to be with
like, you know, a few people,which is how it is, who you know
really care for you.
Even if it's just my children,they love me, they don't care,
they they they shower me withlove.
So, anyways, I'm just saying,like, it's it's all about
(10:30):
reframing.
It's all about reframing andseeing things from a different
angle and asking myselfdifferent questions.
And so as I started doing that,I recognize what I've been
overlooking is that I have beenworking since I was 17 or 18.
My first job was at McDonald's.
I and when you really thinkabout this, you go from daycare
(10:50):
to preschool to elementaryschool to middle school to high
school to working to college toworking in the summer to college
to working in the summer to likethat's been my trajectory.
Even though I came out ofcollege and I didn't have the
dream job that I wanted, I wasstill working.
When I was in graduate school, Iwent from undergrad, then I went
(11:12):
to graduate school.
I went to graduate school, andthen I was working when I was
finishing graduate schoolonline.
So I've never really had a realbreak.
I've and that's by choice too.
It's not again, it's not a pityparty.
This is by choice.
I've never had a break.
I've never stopped moving.
And then in between that, I'malways picking up a project.
I had a blog, I had myphotography company, I'm trying
(11:33):
to create a conference, I'm I'mpulling different friends
together.
Like I'm, I was, I'm alwaysmoving.
And the blessing now that I wasminimizing, honestly, not even
recognizing, was that I'm in aplace now where my husband's
income covers our household.
I'm in a place where I get I gotto watch him finish his master's
in math and now finish his PhDand being able to support him
(11:57):
through the years when he wasdoing that with my work at GSA,
but now he it flips.
He gets to support us.
And so I was about to sendmyself from years of nonstop
working straight into threeyears of school with no pause
while my my kids are little,seven, five, three, and two.
They're little guys.
Like they need me kind of themost right now.
(12:18):
And if I'm able to be there forthem, I don't think that's a bad
thing.
So this season is rest, it'srecalibration, and it's choosing
not to call it failure.
I can see this season as, youknow, why is all of this
happening to me?
Or I can see it as not beinglost.
So let's talk a little moreabout this idea of being lost,
(12:39):
because you know, at Renovatingthe Soul, we are going to
confront these ideas, thesementalities that we've hold on
to without ever checking them.
And so there's a differencebetween lost versus in between,
and they're not the same thing.
Lost means no movement at all.
But if you're breathing, ifyou're hurting, if you're
trying, if you're questioning,then you're not lost.
(13:01):
Being in the middle of somethingand being lost are two different
things.
And I've been conflating the twofor almost my entire life.
Like I said, it's always, oh mygosh, he broke up with me, I'm
lost, and I know what to do.
When Quincy and I, we which thiswill have to, you guys will have
to get the full story of thislater, but when Quincy and I got
engaged, I had 40 days left ofcollege when he called off the
(13:24):
engagement.
And I that was another seasonwhere I was like, I'm lost, I
don't know what to do.
I I had this plan that I wasgonna leave Clark Atlanta and I
was gonna go back, I was gonnamove to Portland.
I had everything set.
And then when he, I always sayhe dumped me, so which is true.
So he'll have to defend himselfwhen he comes on the pod.
But when when he called off theengagement, then it was like I'm
(13:45):
lost.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know where to go.
I don't know my next steps.
And I'm gonna tell you guys, Idid not check in with myself and
check that mentality and say,you're not lost.
I made decisions out of thislostness because then I felt
insecure about not knowing.
Then I felt the pressure of likethe whole campus knew I got
engaged.
(14:05):
Now I gotta chin up and act likeeverything's okay.
So then I get in a relationshipwith someone else who is like
cool.
And so I'm like, yeah, look atme.
You know, I'm not not wanted andall of these things, right?
Because I didn't just sit downand have this conversation with
myself and be like, girl, you'renot, you like it hurts, and
(14:26):
that's okay.
No, I wanted to put on the armorand say, it's okay.
I got dumped, but I'm still thatgirl and I'm still desirable.
And look at me, I'm gonna bounceon to the next thing.
But bouncing on to the nextthing damaged me emotionally
because then I got into a toxicrelationship.
So then I spent a year plus ofmy life wasting it on some
(14:47):
no-good dude.
You see what I'm saying?
So it's like we have to startinvestigating and interrogating,
which are my two favorite terms.
You guys are gonna hear me saythis a lot this season, but I
just love this, right?
Like investigating andinterrogating our emotions.
Because when we are doing that,when you are sitting down and
you're investigating and you'reinterrogating your emotions,
(15:07):
your motives, your experiences,that is forward movement.
It's not about literally pickingup and saying, all right, I'm
gonna go from just this job tothis job, or this man to this
man, to this woman to thiswoman, or this church, this
church.
No, it's about sitting down,actually making sure you
understanding what's happeninghappening to you.
Because there's a differencebetween noticing what you're
(15:30):
feeling and then actuallyquestioning it.
And if we can put it back intothis idea of renovating,
investigating is like theinspection phase.
You walk through the house andyou document what's there, you
acknowledge I feel disoriented,I feel like I don't know what's
next.
That's real and it matters.
This idea of interrogating itgoes deeper.
(15:52):
It's pulling back the layers,it's asking, is this feeling
telling me the truth?
Or is it just the first storythat came up?
And so let's think about it thisway.
Many of us are afraid ofspiders.
But if you jump when you see aspider, that fear is real.
So that's the part where we'resaying, okay, your nervous
(16:14):
system had actually fired.
There's really something there.
That's the investigation partwhere you're going, okay,
there's a there's somethinghere.
What is happening?
I'm scared.
Okay, that's the investigation.
We we're acknowledging I'mscared.
We see it.
It's plain.
We can't, we can't almostcontrol it sometimes.
You jump, right?
And you're like, okay, I gotscared.
But then when you interrogateit, right?
(16:34):
You say, okay, my body drew thisconclusion that I'm in danger.
Uh-huh.
But that's not necessarilyaccurate.
The spider is smaller and mostlikely not poisonous for many of
us, but it's smaller than ourhand.
You could smash it in a second.
You have so many things biggerthan this spider.
(16:55):
Your shoe, a piece of tissue,you know, you do whatever is
closest to you is likely biggerthan this spider.
So the emotion was real, but theinterpretation was not.
And that's why you have tointerrogate it.
It's not saying that we shelter,because you guys know if you've
been listening to the episodes,I'm not telling you to hide from
your emotions.
I'm telling you to lean intothem because they're signals,
(17:17):
right?
But you have to balance theemotions with reason.
So you investigate, you see thatfear, you feel the fear.
That's very real.
But you interrogate, you godeeper and say, but was that
fear actually valid?
And that's what we do with beinglost, right?
The disorientation is real.
How I felt was real.
The numbness was real.
(17:37):
I'm not taking away the pain.
The pain I felt, the sadness Ifelt, that's very real.
The conclusion that I am lost,that I don't know where I'm
going, that something is wrongwith me, that's the part worth
interrogating.
Being lost is a verdict you gaveyourself, but probably without a
full investigation.
(17:58):
And when I was having thesemoments, y'all, like of feeling
lost and seeing that video andcoming up out of it and just
making day-to-day decisions, Ireally I didn't, I didn't know I
was investigating orinterrogating.
I didn't have these terms to putto it.
I just read this in a grief bookthat I was reading the other
day, and it's a philosophicalbook on grief, and it gave me
(18:19):
terms to what I was doingwithout me fully knowing that I
was doing it.
But now I'm giving it to you interms and ideas that you can
actually take and understand,investigate and interrogate
what's happening to us.
And so at the end of ourepisodes, I'm gonna be given
this like blueprint, make giventhis renovation theme.
(18:41):
And so if you think about itthis way, a gutted house, it
looks like something went wrong.
If you walked into a renovationmid-demo with no context, you're
gonna think it was a disaster.
But the exposure is the process.
The mess doesn't mean theproject failed, it means real
work is underway.
(19:01):
So you weren't lost.
I wasn't, and I'm not lost.
I am and you are mid-renovation.
And that's so different thantelling yourself that you're
lost, you don't know whereyou're going, you don't
understand.
You do understand.
You understand that I'll put itback to me, but you can use your
own examples.
You do understand that humansare humans.
(19:23):
They're complicated.
People hurt you without knowingthey hurt you.
Even though they never calledand they never text, they
trusted the people who weregiving them information.
You know what I did on my end?
I never went out and blastedpeople because, and let me
explain why I'm about to saythis.
In my mind, I was thinking graceand mercy, grace and mercy.
I have to give grace and mercy,right?
(19:44):
And then I was beating myself upthinking that by by feeling hurt
or pained by the fact thatso-called friends never reached
out or people again that Iprayed for, sat with for hours.
My lord, all the dinners, Ican't even tell you guys, I'm so
happy I don't have to do thatanymore.
But like all these things that Iwas doing, right?
I could be so hurt and I waslike, well, you have to give
grace and mercy.
But when I was telling myselfgrace and mercy, it felt like I
(20:06):
had to push those feelingsaside.
And then I realized, oh, I gavegrace when I didn't really tell
the truth of the things thatwere done.
Oh, I gave mercy and the factthat I'm still kind to you, even
though I have every right to notbe kind to you.
As I started to do this processof like, and again, without the
terms, but as I've started to dothis process of really
(20:27):
investigating and interrogatingand being honest, right?
Saying these things out loud andnot making myself feel small,
then I'm realizing I was not theproblem.
You're spiraling out of controlwith all these thoughts about
you're not a good friend, youmust be a bad person, because
why would why would peoplerespond to you if you weren't
the problem?
(20:47):
But I'm not.
I can sit here with integrityand say, I'm not, right?
But that's that process.
Same thing with with my job.
Yeah, you got fired, you gotlaid off, but that was not, it
wasn't like the government waslooking at Alexandria Robinson
and saying, you are not goodenough.
When you're going into themarket, the job market is crazy
right now.
(21:08):
The school world is competitiveright now.
Like those are real realitiesthat I started taking on and
adding them and making it seemlike there's something wrong
with me.
So I'm lost.
I'm I'm uh don't know where togo.
This isn't what I wanted.
All these emotions and thingsthat I was taking on that were
so unnecessary, but that camefrom one idea, telling myself
(21:29):
that I was lost.
So I'm inviting you all to stopperforming lostness.
Stop rehearsing it out loud.
Every time you're saying thatyou're lost, you're almost
training yourself to stay there.
But instead, you should askquestions.
Don't just accept what you'refeeling without understanding
why you're feeling it.
Think about that spider example.
Yes, I feel something that isvery real, but why I feel it may
(21:53):
actually be an illusion.
Emotions are data, but they arenot verdicts.
And we talk about emotions inthe roots episode.
So if you want more on that andwhat emotions are and what
they're not, check out the rootsepisode.
We are rational beings.
I I just again, I lovephilosophy and I love the fact
(22:15):
that we are rational beings.
That's what makes us human.
And that's not something to takelightly.
That means that we can come togood conclusions and we can use
the information that we have,use the data that you have about
your life, your accomplishments,your decisions, who you are, to
(22:36):
make a rational conclusion.
And that goes either way.
We're not all good.
We have done things that havehurt other people.
We have done things to sabotageeven why we're even feeling
lost.
That's very real.
But that doesn't mean you haveto stay where you are.
And you'll find a lot in thisseason that I don't have any
(22:58):
tidy endings, and that's thepoint, right?
I'm still in this.
I don't have all the answers.
I'm just choosing to look atthis differently.
Honestly, you guys, I'm justchoosing to ask different
questions because, like I said,I've been saying that I was lost
for years.
And this time at 34, I decidedto ask, what if I'm not lost at
(23:19):
all?
I wonder if you would thinkabout that same thing and ask
yourself that same question.
So, next episode, and you guysheard me mention that I got
rejected from school.
And the next episode, I'm goingto talk about that more in
depth.
So you have to come back andhear that story.
It's not, again, it's not a tidyending.
It's not a cute story at all,but it's gonna help you all
(23:42):
understand why I just felt sodown and why I had to pull
myself up out of that hole.
But y'all, I hope that you hearmy heart as always, and
understand that part of mecoming to tell these stories in
this season was that I didn'twant to have to pretend like
everything was okay when itwasn't.
(24:03):
I wanted to be the person thatyounger me needed when I needed
to hear stories of people whenthey were in the middle, in the
messy middle of what they weregoing through and not on the
beautiful ending.
No, I want to know what was itlike when you were so sad you
barely could pull yourself outof bed.
I wanted to know what got youout of that hole.
(24:24):
I I want to know when you wereput back in a position that you
didn't think you were gonna bein, how did you, how did you
keep moving forward?
And I do not know what the otherside looks like, y'all.
I just know what I'm doing dayto day.
So we're gonna talk about thatmore in the next episode.
So I hope you'll join us.
But until next time, thank youfor being here and let's keep
doing the work to renovate thecell.
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