August 12, 2026 • 46 mins
Healing culture promises freedom, but a lot of us end up more tense, more self-conscious, and more afraid to live. I am Alexandria Robinson, and I am naming the pattern I see everywhere: we stack up therapy, journaling, prayer, meditation, and “self-work” and still stay triggered by the same people, repeating the same relationship cycles, and carrying the same pain in a new outfit.
We get honest about why it happens. Healing tools are not the problem, but they can become bandages we never change. We talk about the signs of being stuck, the trap of performing growth, and the ways spirituality, religion, and even therapy can turn into symptom management when we will not confront the deeper root. The shift that changes everything is moving from “what happened to me?” to “who am I becoming?”, because awareness without action is just another loop.
I also get personal, walking through a broken engagement, the 40 days I spent trying to "fast" my way to healing before graduation, and the year afterward that I now consider one of my biggest regrets. I break down what I thought was healing at the time (praying, journaling, staying busy, distance) versus what actually ended up helping me, which was confrontation: saying the hard things out loud instead of managing the symptoms while ignoring the root.
If you've done "all the things" and still feel stuck, or if you've ever told yourself you'll be ready once you're finally healed, this conversation is for you.
Important Note Before You Listen: This episode includes a brief reference to a passive suicidal thought experienced during a period of emotional distress, as well as descriptions of anxiety and panic attacks. Listener discretion advised.
Resources mentioned:
Text Me and Share Your Thoughts
Subscribe and let’s continue the work of Renovating the Soul, one tough conversation at a time.
📢 Join the Conversation: Find me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok—@renovatingthesoulpod—and drop your thoughts under the episode post. Let's unpack this together.
📩 Get in Touch: Have a thought, question, or story you'd like to share? Email me at hello@renovatingthesoul.com — I'd love to hear from you.
✍️ Leave a Review: If this show means something to you, leaving a review goes a long way in helping others find it. It takes two minutes and makes a real difference.
🌐 More Resources: For more episodes and ways to connect, visit renovatingthesoul.com.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alexandria (00:00):
Healing is supposed to make you feel free.
It's not to make you feelafraid to live.
At some point, the questionstarts being, what happened to
me?
and starts being, who am Ibecoming?
I was making decisions with thewrong intentions because I
never fully investigated orinterrogated how I was feeling.
If you've been doing them foryears and you're still triggered
(00:20):
by the same people, stillrunning the same pattern, still
feeling like something isn'tquite right, then I want you to
consider that maybe the toolsaren't the problem.
Maybe you've been using them togo around the thing instead of
through it.
Welcome to Renovating the Soul.
I'm your host, AlexandriaRobinson, and this is a podcast
(00:42):
about the real unglamorous workof becoming.
The work that actually requiressomething from you.
Hard questions, honest answers,and the willingness to look at
the foundation you were handedand decide what you want to
build on it.
That's what we do here.
So wherever you're coming fromtoday, I'm glad you're in it
with me.
Let's get into today'sconversation.
(01:03):
Therapy, yoga, meditation,shock recessions, journaling,
prayer, church, all of it.
We live in a culture obsessedwith the healing journey, and
yet so many people are still thesame person they were five
years ago.
And I want y'all to hear me.
(01:24):
This isn't an attack on thetools.
The tools aren't the problem.
The problem is what we're usingthem to avoid.
You can go to therapy everyweek, journal every morning,
pray every night, and still betriggered by the same people,
still running the same pattern,still the same old person.
Because none of that requiresyou to critically look at
(01:45):
yourself.
Welcome to another episode ofRenovating the Soul.
This episode is all aboutalways healing but never healed.
I'm excited to go on thisjourney with you all, and I hope
that you'll stick with me.
In true renovating the soulfashion, we're gonna start with
defining our terms.
So let's start with defininghealing.
Healing is the process ofbecoming sound or healthy again.
(02:08):
It is also to cause anundesirable condition to be
overcome.
In Webster, they had thisexample that I really liked, and
it said the troubles had notbeen forgotten, but they had
been healed.
But the key word that I want usto focus on in that first
definition I gave is process,because a process is a series of
action, steps, or changes takento achieve a particular goal or
(02:32):
result.
And so there's a differencebetween healing things and
healing.
When we're saying healingthings, we're not saying like
healing people or healinganimals.
I'm talking about like doingthe healing things.
And so let's liken this to thehealing process within our
bodies, um, you know, where thatwould look like we're being
free from injury or disease.
So if you get a cut, then itneeds to be treated and bandaged
(02:54):
and it takes time to heal.
But all of this depends on howdeep the cut is, because not all
cuts require the sameattention.
About a year ago, when I got mywisdom teeth removed, my mouth
needed to heal.
I like this example becausewhen my mouth healed, it wasn't
the same.
Something was missing despiteit being healed.
When the doctors went and theylooked inside of my mouth, you
(03:16):
they or the dentist, they canvisibly see that, oh, something
has changed here.
So even though the wisdom teethare no longer there, my mouth
is healed.
It's functionally and visiblynot the same.
And when I got my wisdom teethfulled, there were a set of
instructions, there weremedications, there were
(03:37):
follow-ups, there were thingsthat I needed to do on my end to
aid in the healing process.
I forgot what the specialistsare called to remove your wisdom
teeth, but we'll just usedentist as a general saying.
But the dentist removes thewisdom teeth, but it's not the
dentist's responsibility to helpyou in your healing process.
(03:58):
And now you have to play yourpart.
And so my part was againfollowing those instructions,
making sure that I was icing it,making sure that I was taking
my medication, making sure thatI, you know, was careful with
what I ate and try to rememberall the things that I had to do,
right?
You can't drink out of a straw.
Like I had to be carefulbecause if I didn't follow the
(04:21):
instructions carefully, then Iwould avail myself to infection
or to slowing the healingprocess.
And so, in that same vein, andin preparation for this episode,
I did some research on howwounds heal and my suspicions
were confirmed.
Your skin and anatomy are notthe same after a cut heals.
(04:41):
While the body effectivelyrepairs the damage to restore
protection, the healed area orthe scar tissue is functionally
and structurally different fromthe original uninjured skin.
And there are several elementsthat affect that.
You can Google it.
I'm not a medical professional,but they're just different
things that would affect thathealing process.
But the point is that your bodyis designed to protect you from
(05:04):
infection.
And that's what the scabs arefor, and that's why the healing
process happens the way that itdoes.
And so, although we're talkingabout emotional, mental, and
ultimately soul healing, we cantake cues from how our bodies
heal and the role that we playin that process.
And this healing journey, it'lllook different for each of us
because continuing again, stickwith me with this analogy
(05:28):
because the size and depth ofour individual wounds they vary.
The thing that I want us tobring our attention to is that
we can't ignore the wounds.
It's quite the opposite.
We have to pay close attention,we have to tend to it and take
the proper care in order for itto heal.
The band-aid itself, so if youget a cut, you know, my my kids
(05:49):
think that every time somethinghappens to them, they need a
band-aid.
And I keep trying to tell them,brother, that little scrape,
the band-aid's not gonna doanything.
It's just gonna make you feellike you're something's
happening, but really your skinjust kind of has to repair over
time.
But the band-aid itself is notthe healer, it is a tool, but it
can also become a weapon.
Because if you leave a band-aidon, let's say you are bleeding
(06:12):
and you leave it on too long andyou never change it, then what
happens?
You can get infected, you canget boils, like something
something's going to happen ifyou leave a bandage on that was
not meant to stay on there toolong.
Same thing if we go back to thewisdom tooth analogy.
When I first left, I had gauzein my mouth.
That gauze got super bloody.
I can't leave that gauze in fora long time, or else again, I
(06:32):
open myself up to something moredamaging.
So the same tools that can aidcan also hurt and damage and
lead to infection if not usedproperly.
And that's the same when we usethe healing tools, but never
actually do the work to heal.
So let's talk a little moreabout some signs that, you know,
you may be stuck in thishealing trap, you know, kind of
(06:53):
in this cycle of exactly whatwe're talking about, where, you
know, you're always healing butnever healed, or, you know,
using the tools, but not reallyseeing any progress for them.
So some of them are you'realways learning more, but never
actually changing your actions.
So you're always analyzing butnever applying.
Um, another one is that youthink you need to be fully
healed before you can live orlove or move forward.
(07:16):
So you keep saying, I'm notready yet, but then that becomes
an indefinite saying and itbecomes an identity instead of
just a season.
Um, you may overanalyze everysituation instead of actually
experiencing it.
You can't even be in a momentwithout turning it into a
therapy session, right?
Like instead of just beingthere at the water or being with
(07:37):
family, it's like, oh my gosh,that water, look at me.
No, just sit down and enjoylife, just experience it, right?
Stop overanalyzing things.
Um, another one is you diagnoseeveryone around you, but you
never turn the lens on yourself.
If your healing has led you tobelieve that everyone else is
the problem, then that's also asign.
(07:57):
Another one is that you feelbetter when you're far from the
thing and then you call thathealed.
But proximity and distance fromsomething doesn't mean that
you're better or you're healedfrom it.
It just means that it's notaround you.
You don't have to deal with it.
Healing is supposed to make youfeel free.
(08:18):
It's not to make you feelafraid to live.
It's not to give you anotherreason to look down on others,
and it's not to keep youcircling the same rooms forever.
So we're gonna talk about twotraps.
And I've already listed, youknow, those those other traps,
but we're gonna focus on twotraps that I just wanted to kind
of unravel a little bit more.
So the first one is whenhealing becomes performance.
(08:41):
And this first one is lessabout avoiding growth and more
about performing it.
I'm sure you've seen it, right?
The person who flexes theirtherapy as a reason to look down
on others, the one who thinksthey're the only one who's awake
or progressing, the one whopolices everybody else's growth
like they're a certified expertin someone else's healing.
(09:03):
For this person, or maybe foryou, healing becomes a status
symbol.
It's a way to feel superior.
It's another form of egofeeding, dressed up in the
language of growth.
And the problem is if yourhealing journey has made you
think that you're better thanother people, then you didn't
heal.
You just found a new way to bearrogant.
Because real healing actuallymakes you more compassionate,
(09:26):
not more critical, more humble,not more elevated.
If you're using your growth toshame people who aren't where
you are, that's not healing.
That's just a new wound thatyou're carrying that's wearing
this wellness outfit.
The second trap is more aboutsome of the systems and the
things that we do that have thesame flaw, right?
(09:47):
Let's talk about therapy first.
You can go through therapistafter therapist, spend thousands
of dollars, and still not getto the root, especially if the
therapist is just managingsymptoms or prescribing
medication without doing thedeeper work or even encouraging
you to do the deeper work.
Next is spirituality.
And I separated spiritualityfrom religion.
(10:07):
So, first we're gonna talkabout spirituality and then
we're gonna come to religion.
So, spirituality is more likewhat I mentioned in the
beginning (10:12):
chakras, meditation, energy work.
All of it can come, can becomea way to access the feeling of
peace without doing the actualwork of becoming peaceful.
Spirituality just becomes afeeling more than it actually
helps to get to the roots or towhat's really happening within
you.
You you then you start to cravethe feeling of it, but it
(10:35):
doesn't really lead you anywhereif you don't let it.
The next one, and this is bigfor me, and y'all are gonna be
like, that's a no-brainer, isreligion, church, prayer,
worship.
Okay, as a girl, I I'm a pewbaby.
I've said that to y'all.
Pew baby means that I was bornin church, not like my mom
literally gave birth in thechurch, but like born in church,
when you you come to churchwhen you're what, I don't know
(10:58):
how long they used to keep themback home, but like maybe a
month later, you come to church,and then from there on, you're
in church for all of your life.
Every Sunday, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, right?
So I know this all too well isthat you can go to church and
you can pray, you can worship,you can lead.
You can be the pastor, you canbe the first lady, you can be
the music director, you can readyour Bible, you can shout, you
(11:20):
can do whatever you want.
But none of it actuallyrequires internal
transformation.
You can praise on Sunday and bethe same person Monday through
Saturday.
I know it all too well becauseI was it.
I'm not gonna get too ahead ofmyself, but I also know it all
too well because I've seen it.
And, you know, journaling isgreat, right?
Journaling, venting, crying,screaming, they're cathartic,
(11:40):
yes, but healing like not ontheir own.
And I want to make sure thatyou all hear me.
I'm not knocking these things.
I'm just saying that all ofthese things more so require an
outward expression.
But none of them requires youto become a different person.
And that's the trap.
You can perform healing withoutever actually healing.
I hope that's making sense.
(12:01):
Like, I don't, I'm not sayingdon't do the therapy.
I'm not saying don't go tochurch.
I'm not, I'm not saying youcan't journal or cry or scream.
But if we go back to, and we'regonna keep using this analogy,
when I got my wisdom tea pulled,I needed the dentist.
He's the only one qualifiedthat can do it.
I can't pull out my own wisdomtea.
He's the expert in thissituation who knows how to
(12:23):
remove the tea safely, give methe healing steps that I need.
But when I left and I wenthome, he's not in the house with
me.
Your therapist isn't at homewith you, your pastor's not at
home with you, the journaldoesn't come alive.
Like they're tools, yes,they're experts, yes, they can
help you, yes, but it can't stopthere.
And that's what we're tryingto, well, that's what we're
(12:44):
really trying to address here,right?
And because of this, mosthealing journeys are outward
facing.
I I hear it a lot.
You go to therapy because myparents did this, my spouse or
my ex did that, my childhood wasthis, my pain come from came
from there.
And those things may be true.
People do wound us,circumstances do shape us, but
(13:06):
the healing journey that changesyou is the inward one.
You have to start askingyourself, who am I?
What have I done?
What patterns am I running?
What have I done to myself andto others?
Recognizing a wound is not thesame as healing it.
Talking about it is not thesame as moving beyond it.
The work has to go deeper thanawareness.
(13:26):
You can tell your story overand over again and still not be
healed from it.
At some point, the questionstarts being, what happened to
me, and starts being, who am Ibecoming?
Y'all know your girl doesn'tever come to this podcast
without some sort of experiencein this.
I was praying.
I was in church, as I justmentioned, I was journaling,
kept a diary throughout middleschool to high school, and then
(13:49):
a little bit of college.
And I was processing and I wastrying to grow.
And this specific example thatI'm gonna give y'all, I think
it's more about performinghealing rather than actually
being healed.
And I didn't recognize this atthe time.
So 40 Days with Jesus, thatthis is just one of many
examples of me trying to healwithout actually confronting the
real root issues.
So I mentioned that Quincy hadbroke up with me.
(14:12):
We, and like I said, he has todefend himself from that lingo.
So we're gonna keep calling itbroke up, okay?
Uh he dumped me.
Um, and we were engaged, andyou know, the Clark Atlanta,
like a lot of my friends knew,campus knew because, you know,
Instagram, and I had alwaysshown him on Instagram, and so
people were so excited for me.
And so then he dumped me, and Ihave 40 days left until
graduation.
(14:32):
So I was supposed to go toPortland from Atlanta for a
wedding for Quincy's friend.
And when I was in Atlanta,senior year was one of the best
years.
One of my last year, there waslike one of the best years.
I I formed just relationshipswith people that we just laughed
all the time.
Shout out to Shelby, Daryl,Kirier, Harold.
(14:56):
Like that became my littlecrew.
I did a pageant.
I did a short film with Kirierand Hampton, and I just felt
like, oh my gosh, I'm findingmyself.
And to think about having toleave Atlanta and move to
Portland was daunting.
But on the plane to Portland, Iwas praying and I was coaching
(15:18):
myself through it.
And I'm like, okay, you knowwhat?
This is what you signed up for.
You signed up to be a wife, yousigned up to be with this man,
and you do love him.
So you're gonna have to, youknow, put those feelings to the
side and leave Atlanta whereAtlanta is and kind of move on.
And so I accepted that, right?
Y'all, I land, let me tell you,there's always signs, okay?
(15:39):
I land in Portland.
And this man was acting soweird.
And I was like, no, honey, Iknow I didn't just miss my last
homecoming as a student at ClarkE Land University.
For you to be acting like this,I just knew something was off.
Takes me to my favoriterestaurant and calls off the
engagement.
And y'all wanted to do a moviescene so bad where I ripped the
(16:02):
ring off and I throw it at him.
But I did take the ring off,but I put it on the table.
And I think I walked out.
I didn't even get to finishthat chicken and then that
restaurant closed.
Isn't that so rude?
Oh my gosh.
But I put the ring down.
I think I walked out.
I can't remember if I walkedout or if I cried.
Anyways, I was just, it wasjust a it was just a whirlwind
of emotions, something that Iwasn't expecting.
(16:23):
We hadn't been engaged thatlong, and to me, there seemingly
was no problem.
So it kind of felt like it cameout of left field, and
everything he was telling medidn't make sense.
I didn't, I just didn't believehim.
And I remember we were drivingin what we call his red puppets.
It was a little red car.
I can't even remember, I thinkit was like a little Ford, but
we called it the red puppet.
And we were driving, and I hadthis horrible thought to take,
(16:44):
he was, he was driving, and Iwas sitting in the front seat,
and I had this horrible thoughtto take the wheel and drive us
out the road.
And I knew then that I didn'twant to stay there.
I was like, whoa, that wasscary.
But what I did in response tothat was more like taking a
Tylenol for pain, knowing that Ineed surgery.
I was more so managing thesymptoms while ignoring the
diagnosis.
And so what that looked likefor me was I did not admit that
(17:08):
I was hurt by Quincy.
I was trying to bounce back.
I was worrying more about howpeople perceived me than I
worried about my internalhealth.
Uh, because like I said, I wasa chaplin assistant.
A lot of people knew that I hadgot engaged.
And so I just was like, oh mygosh, what are they gonna think
of me?
Like, I got dumped.
And then there were some peoplethat were, that have been
(17:29):
saying throughout my time when Iwas at Clark Atlanta that,
like, you know, he's up inPortland cheating on you, you
know he's doing this, you knowit's doing this.
I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah,even though that that's not what
happened, it still felt like Iwas going to it's vindicate.
I think, I think vindicate'sthe right word.
Like I was gonna vindicatethem, make them feel like they
were right.
And so I just had all of theseunnecessary things, most of it
focusing on how people perceivedme and what it looked like.
(17:51):
Then it was about Alexandria.
I made up new theories of whyhe broke up with me instead of
just accepting what he said.
So then I started, oh, you youknow how girls do.
I started making up all kindsof stuff.
I had my girlfriends all madover us over some over a theory
that actually never happened.
It didn't even exist, but thatwas how I needed to cope.
And it was also really badbecause I should say, how it
(18:16):
showed up for me was bad becausea lot of my friends, like that
group that I was saying that Iwas hanging out with, those
names I just mentioned, we werevery close.
Like we spent multiple daystogether throughout the week.
And when I got back to campus,that was still the same.
We were together.
I didn't even have the courageto be able to tell them directly
(18:36):
that Quincy and I have brokeup.
What happened was we were, Ithink we were all together at an
event.
And I can't, it's hard toexplain this to you.
If you went to an HBCU, you'llknow what I'm talking about.
If you didn't, I I don'tremember what it's called, but
it's this thing where, becauseyou can't auction people off.
That sounds so bad.
But we would, you would, theywould bring, they would hold a
(18:57):
dessert and you would you wouldauction, like, you know, you
would do the money, and thenyou're buying the dessert, but
you're getting the person.
I know that sounds but that'swhat they did.
Don't come for me.
That's what that's what theschools did.
Oh, and I forget what it'scalled, Pie Walk.
I don't remember, but that'swhat the event was.
And there was this guy that I II remember names so well that I
(19:18):
try so hard not to say theirnames on thing.
But there was this guy, and hewas super cute.
I was the one that got him tocome, and I started bidding on
him.
And well, on the cake, youknow, whatever.
I started bidding, and myfriends were like, they're
looking like, what is this girldoing?
And I kid you not, y'all.
As the bidding is happening andI'm winning, because your
(19:39):
girl's winning, I'm winning,right?
My friends are looking andthey're whispering and they're
going, Oh my gosh, do I have aring on?
Oh my gosh, like I was soembarrassed by having to tell
some of my closest friends thatI didn't.
I just bitted on this man.
They figured out that I likedhim and that I was, I don't
know, I was going cuckoo forcoca puss.
And I go on a date with him,but but it, but I'm just saying,
(20:01):
like, that's how it showed up.
Like this avoidance of what hadactually happened to me showed
up in this ways.
And I want to make thatpractical so y'all can see,
like, yeah, it shows up in veryregular, everyday interactions.
It's not this, I don't know,grand moment, right?
But I was also slapping God onit like it was a rite of
passage.
I was like, oh, God's gonnatake me through.
Oh, God, put me through this,oh God, put me in.
(20:22):
And it's like, well, maybe, butat the same time, that's not an
excuse, and it can't be anexcuse for not facing whatever
you did.
So let's get back to 40 dayswith Jesus.
So for those 40 days, what Idecided to do was a fast of
sorts where I separated fromcertain people, I stopped
listening to any music thatwasn't gospel.
That did help me get rid oflike music that degraded women,
(20:43):
and I still don't have thoseplaylists to this day.
Um, I got off social media, Istopped watching certain TV
shows, all with the hopes ofhearing from God and
understanding what I wassupposed to do.
So this part's a little harderfor me because when I was doing
this preparation and I wasreflecting on that time of my
life, I realized that thefollowing year of doing 40 days
(21:07):
with Jesus was one of the years,probably the only year of my
life that I that I regret.
It was like one of the biggestregrets of my life.
And I and I laugh at that onlybecause of the irony of it all.
Like you go on a 40-day fast,the whole point of it is to hear
from God and get this word orwhatever it is, but you end up
(21:30):
in just like, oh my gosh, just acycle of things.
And again, I've I've mentionedthis to you all and more
recently in this season, too.
That like when I look back onthat, I was making decisions
with the wrong intentionsbecause I never fully
investigated or interrogated howI was feeling.
I journaled, I listened tomusic, I prayed, I went out with
(21:53):
friends, I went on dates, Iwent to parties, I prayed some
more, I wrote daily, I readscriptures, I was just doing All
of these things, but because Ihad given myself the 40 days, I
thought that I should be healedand over the hurt by then.
I thought that an almostfive-year relationship and a
broken engagement should havebeen emotionally resolved in 40
(22:17):
days, which is crazy, right?
40 days to be emotionallyresolved from something that was
that emotionally hard and thatjust like publicly painful,
which is the reality of it.
Because it wasn't just thecampus, it was Facebook too.
I had to take all thosepictures down.
I had to change my Facebookstatus from engaged to something
(22:38):
else.
Remember those little statusesused to pop up?
But it's just like all of thesethings, right?
But when I tell y'all, I'vealready I've already mentioned
getting into the relationship,but it's it's more than that in
that in that year, that thatthat year that I regret.
It's it was bigger than that.
By the end of that year, I washaving anxiety and panic
(22:59):
attacks.
So bad that I had to pull mycar over and sit in parking lots
and wait.
I went to the doctor.
I had to leave work one time togo to the doctor because my
chest was just hurting so bad.
And I actually have a funnystory about that.
I'm gonna tell it really quickbecause it's really funny, and I
don't want to tell it.
But the there was a nurse,there was a male nurse, and he
(23:20):
was super cute and he's superbuff.
And in the functional healthepisode, I told y'all I do not
take medicine and I can'tswallow pills, and I don't like
liquid medicine, so I do notlike the taste.
And this male nurse wasbeautiful, buff.
He was just gorgeous.
And I was like, oh my gosh,well, they needed to give me
this little white thick medicineto see my heart because they
(23:40):
wanted to make sure there wasnothing wrong with my heart.
Do y'all know that your girlchugged that thing down like I
had never chugged anythingbefore?
I said, This man, this fine manis not gonna see me gag on this
medicine.
And I took that medicine like achamp.
He was my guardian angel.
I need to find him again.
No, I'm just kidding, I'm justkidding.
No, but anyway, so so yeah, soin that time, so yes, having the
(24:01):
anxiety attacks, chest pain sobad that I had to go to the
doctor.
I wasn't talking to anyoneabout like what was actually
happening in me.
Some of my most fondrelationships in my family, I
got in this big blow-up argumentbecause I was so emotionally
going through it that I just Iput myself into something that
wasn't necessarily mine to getin.
(24:21):
And that severed therelationship that I had with one
of my favorite aunts.
And then that was just a rippleeffect on relationships at that
time.
So again, it wasn't just beingin a toxic relationship, which
that was enough.
It was that.
It was um the family, it wasthe anxiety attacks, the fear,
the stress, just everything thatwas happening to me.
And then I look back and Iregret that I didn't stay in
(24:45):
Atlanta.
I look back and I regret that Ididn't at least stay in
California, that I'm chasingsomeone, or I'm trying to make,
I'm trying to help heal someoneelse, but I'm not healed.
Like that's crazy to me.
When I say that after 40 dayswith Jesus, that following year
was one of the biggest regretsof my life, that's why.
And I believe, looking backnow, that it all comes from this
(25:06):
idea that I had to hurry up andbe healed.
And much of my understanding ofhealing is from my religion.
You're healed by faith.
If you keep praying, then it'llhappen.
And if it doesn't, then youjust pretend that it worked.
That moments of getting prayeror worship were healing, but
none of it lasted for me.
The 40 days with Jesus wasgreat.
I don't regret it, but itdidn't last for me.
(25:28):
I'm I ended up in a worse placethan where I was because I'm
almost running from myself.
I'm even thinking that Godwants me to be healed in 40
days.
I'm I'm thinking, like, no,he's like, girl, you gotta hurry
this up.
You can't be down forever,right?
That was my mentality, but it'sjust like that was not right.
And I like I was saying, Idon't fault myself for 40 days
(25:50):
with Jesus.
The kicker is that I put it inmy last sermon at Clark Atlanta
University, which is still up onYouTube.
Um, as a student, I that was asa chaplain assistant.
That was my last sermon, andpeople heard it.
I just mentioned that I didthis 40 Days with Jesus like
fasting.
And then people wanted it.
And I made it a an actual PDFand I sent it to over 100
(26:11):
people.
And so I was selling thishealing story, which no, I won't
say selling, I didn't make anymoney off of it.
I was freely giving it topeople, just a little PDF
document.
But I was fully convicted byit.
I believed in it at thatmoment.
But then I would see myself,like I said, getting triggered
by the same people or the samesituations, or just the anxiety
(26:32):
attacks and the panic attacks,the stress, like it just wasn't
making any sense.
If I've made so much progressand if I've gone so far, like
why am I still here?
But now I'm realizing that Iwas never really healed, that a
lot of my growth or my healingwas and sometimes is based on
things that others did or didn'tdo.
(26:54):
But what did I do?
Where's my accountability?
What role did I play?
And then, like I said, part ofmy healing journey or part of
the excuse of why I couldn'theal was because I needed to
help someone else heal.
Or I need to be an anchor forthis other person, but that
wasn't my responsibility either.
I'm my responsibility.
How can I give from an emptyplace?
So now we'll move on.
(27:16):
That's my my little personalstory, but I want to talk about
some of the root causes, and I'msure you could hear some of
mine, but I just want to makethem very clear so that we so
that we can say out loud, likename it out loud, what these
some of these root causes canbe.
Obviously, this is not anexhaustive list by any means,
but it's just a few that may bea little more common.
So, first is unhealed shame.
And I've already suggested thisbook to y'all, but why emotions
(27:38):
matter is such a good book, andthey have a chapter on shame.
I was gonna add it in here, butthis episode would be too long
if I did.
So just read the book on whyemotions matter and read that
chapter on shame.
It's so good.
But the unhealed shame, this isthe belief that something is
fundamentally wrong with you.
And how this shows up isperfectionism, overexplaining,
(28:00):
people pleasing, or shrinking.
The healing activities thatmask it, performing goodness,
spiritual achievement, being thetogether one in the room, so
needing to be bring peopletogether.
The next one is fear ofabandonment.
This is the another root cause.
This is the belief that ifpeople really knew you, they'd
(28:20):
leave.
This shows up as clinginess,again, people pleasing, anger
when needs go unmet,self-sabotaging in
relationships, and the healingactivities that mask this are
seeking constant validation,therapist hopping when things
get too real.
The next one is control andself-protection.
(28:40):
This root cause is the beliefthat vulnerability will get you
hurt.
This shows up as emotionalwalls, criticism of others,
rigidity, inability to receivefeedback, and the healing
activities that mask this oneare intellectualizing your
emotions, staying in your head,or calling detachment peace.
(29:02):
And then I think this is one ofour last ones is that
unprocessed grief.
This is the loss that was neveractually mourned.
This shows up as numbness,depression that comes and goes,
sudden emotional flooding, andthe healing activities that mass
this one are staying busy,reframing everything into a
(29:22):
lesson before filling it.
And I'm I'm not saying thatthese rude things they they go
away or that they even should,but you have to do something
with them.
They're in you, they'rehappening to you, they're
signals, they're manifestingthrough your actions and your
behaviors.
Don't ignore them.
If I want us to go back to someof these body examples because
(29:44):
they're so good and they're justso easy to understand how this
all works.
If you have a broken leg, youcan start to feel better, but
the bone has to fuse.
It has to be strong enough tosupport you again.
Feeling better is not the sameas being whole.
The antibiotic, they alwaystell you to finish the full
course even when you feel fine.
Why?
Because the infection isn'tgone just because the symptoms
(30:08):
are.
And then if we bring it back torenovating, the house under
construction, it looks solidfrom the outside.
You walk up and you see woodframing, uh structure taking
shape.
But when you zoom in, the nailsare faulty, the joints are
weak.
It'll hold for a while, but itwon't last.
And I remember I was onInstagram and there was a
gentleman who was showing, he'sgetting his house built, and he
(30:28):
was showing the work that wasbeing done on his house.
Oh my gosh, it was a nightmare.
The the nails were like not allthe way in, and they were bent
over on the outside of the woodframing.
There were like cords hangingdown, just the actual structure
of what was supposed to be donewas atrocious, right?
And the frame, like, sure, itwould have lasted for a little
(30:51):
while, but the way that theywere doing the work on this
gentleman's house in the nearfuture, we're talking maybe five
so years, which is, you know,that's a short amount of time
when you're building a brand newhouse, right?
In the near future, they wouldhave had to do new work or they
would have seen things happeningwithin their home that they
probably didn't have anexplanation for.
That's how bad the structuraldamage was.
(31:13):
That's how lazy and sloppy thework was, right?
But the man he was showing thisto tell people like me who want
to build a house one day thatyou have to be on site every day
to see and correct the work.
And yeah, because those peopledoing the work, they don't care
what happens to that house afterthey leave.
They're gonna slap paint on it,put the, put the um, the
(31:34):
drywall, they're gonna put thisstuff up on the house and
they're gonna walk away.
They don't have to live in thathome.
They aren't paying for it.
They're they're they're gettingpaid actually.
And why?
It's it's not their job tocare.
It is their job to do the workproperly, but they don't have
the same care for that house asthe man does, as the as the
person whose home it is going tobe.
(31:54):
Because for that man who wasrecording, it's his money.
It's his home, it's his legacyon the line, it's his children
and wife and family that's gonnahave to come and live in this
home.
It's his responsibility tocheck that the folks that are
working on his home are doing itright.
And I wonder if we would takethat same level of ownership
with our own healing, that thishouse, this soul, all of who I
(32:18):
am, I'm responsible for at theend of the day.
I have the therapist, I havethe pastor, I have the friend, I
have the spouse.
They're wonderful.
They give me great advice, butI'm the only one who can really
check on what's happening withinme.
And this might sound kind ofrandom, but I want us to think
about this too, because as aparent, we tell people who have
other children to keep theirchildren home until they're
(32:40):
fully well.
And why?
Because a child who seems finebut isn't can make others sick
too.
And it's the same with unhealedpeople who appear healed.
They become some of the mostdamaging people in the room.
And it's not out of malice, butbecause they're at a war inside
and within themselves.
(33:01):
They're at a war inside andthey're performing peace on the
outside.
And that's the same thing,right?
Again, you are responsible.
That person is responsible forwhat is happening here.
Don't allow this healingprocess or this healing journey
or whatever that looks like foryou to become an excuse to treat
others bad, to become an excuseto be so angry, to become an
(33:23):
excuse to be so upset.
Oh, because they're doing itwrong, right?
Or they're not, or thistherapist, I didn't like this
person, or this person, no, theydidn't say the right thing, or
this.
It's not their responsibilityat the end of the day.
Your therapist is getting paid.
They're getting the money atthe end of the day.
What are you, what are yousupposed to be getting from it,
right?
What's but what responsibilityare you going to take?
Because I'm not sayingtherapists are bad.
(33:44):
I believe they give people realwork.
But I think that sometimespeople stop at therapy because
you've done an hour of cryingand getting it all out on the
table.
But, and that's good.
We're not gonna knock that.
That's good.
It is emotionally damaging.
But when you're rested andyou're well and you're ready,
come back to the work that needsto happen on the inside.
And I want to say this ifyou've been doing all these
(34:07):
things and you're still feelingstuck, right?
I'm not here to take awaywhatever it is you need,
therapist, your meditation,whatever it is.
But if you've been doing themfor years and you're still
triggered by the same people,still running the same pattern,
still feeling like somethingisn't quite right, then I want
you to consider that maybe thetools aren't the problem.
Maybe you've been using them togo around the thing instead of
(34:30):
through it, right?
So let's talk about a fewthings that can help.
Honest self-examination.
I'm always gonna preach this toy'all.
Not just what happened to me,but who have I been and what
have I chosen and what am Istill choosing?
Not what you want to feel,where you want to be, but where
are you right now?
That is such a healthydistinction.
(34:52):
We all have places we want tobe.
I want to be there, but do notpretend like you are there
because that's how that war getscreated.
You start to battle between howI want to appear and who I
really am.
And it's sometimes it's justnot a battle worth fighting.
Sometimes it's better to justsit in the ugliness and the
uncomfortableness of like, I'mnot where I want to be right
now, but I'm still here.
(35:13):
I'm still a person and I'mstill gonna work through it,
right?
Like, don't fight where you arenow just to get to where you
want to be.
Next is character work.
So, and this this isidentifying the specific
patterns and being willing tocall them what they are, not
explain them away.
It's sitting in the discomfortinstead of reaching for a tool
to make it stop.
It's distinguishing betweendistance and healing.
(35:35):
Like I said earlier, justbecause something doesn't bother
you when you're far from itdoesn't mean you've healed it.
And I, to bring it back to meand use myself as an example for
y'all, recently I've seen thathealing for me has not come
through the things.
Like I said, I had the journal,I've used different tools, you
(35:57):
know, whatever that's lookedlike, right?
Running to the Bible or runningto a friend, venting.
Venting's a big one for me.
I'll be thinking that, okay,because I vented to my to my to
my cousin sister, that uh I feeland I feel better that okay, I
got it out until it comes upagain.
And recently I found that myhealing has come through
(36:20):
confrontation, through actuallysaying the things that I've been
holding within to the personthat needed to hear it, and even
the things that I need to sayto myself.
It's through actuallyexpressing myself without
becoming angry or too emotional.
Being able to say what I neededto say and stay in my body
(36:41):
while I said it, that's beenhealing for me.
Not again, this is not justwith other people, but even with
myself.
I ran from confrontation.
I made excuses or evendownplayed my own experiences
just to keep the peace, but thatonly kept me in this kind of
trap that we've been talkingabout, this cycle that we've
been talking about.
And I was just telling one ofmy younger cousins uh yesterday
(37:04):
that when Quincy and I, she wasasking a question about Quincy
and I's marriage if we hadalways had the dynamic that we
have.
And I was like, oh, you know,no, we we've always got along.
We're we're we were naturallyfriends.
That that wasn't the thatwasn't hard.
But when we got married, I wasshut down.
Any little sight of him beingupset or us leaning in to have a
difficult conversation, I wouldgo in the bathroom, I would
(37:26):
lock the door, I would take myring off and be like, Well,
that's it.
It's over.
And he's so patient.
And he's just like, no, it'snot.
But also, it's because he hadgone through conflict in his
life.
So then he became almost likemy teacher.
He became a tool.
So again, the tools aren't bad.
What happened though is that Iwasn't adopting what he was
trying to help me see.
(37:46):
I kept doing it my way,thinking that the way that I was
doing it was better.
But again, it's keeping me inthis cycle until I finally
started saying the hard thingsout loud to myself, to him.
When I'm uncomfortable orsomething's bothering me, he's
gonna know it now.
Ain't no shutting down.
I'm gonna let you know, even ifit's small.
And I found a way to say itthat's not angry or blowing up
(38:09):
or overly emotional, like I justmentioned, but to just say it
calmly and to just say ithonestly, and to also
acknowledge that even though I'mfeeling something, doesn't mean
that it's actually uh comingfrom a legitimate experience
that's really happening, as wetalked about with the spider
example.
I see the spider, I'm scared ofthe spider, but it doesn't mean
that something's gonna happento me if the spider touches me
(38:30):
or, you know, you know, it meansI'm bigger than the spider, I
can kill it.
That's the facts, right?
But it doesn't stop thefeeling.
So I acknowledge the feeling,but I also acknowledge that I
could be wrong in this feeling,but I'm still gonna say it out
loud because saying it out loudfor me again became my healing.
I also I wanted to stoprepeating the same struggles.
That was a big wake-up call forme.
(38:51):
Was I started asking myself,why do you still feel this way?
Why are you still upset withthis person?
Why are you still upset aboutthat?
And in preparation for thisepisode, you know, I have all
these articles and resources foryou guys in the description,
but I found something that Ijust really fell in love with.
(39:13):
And I hope you all fall in lovewith this idea as I did.
It was a blog post by SlagerRedner, and she titled this The
Myth of Being Fully Healed.
Seeing healing in this way ofcoming through something that I
needed confrontation, speakingmy mind, saying the hard parts
(39:35):
out loud.
It this blog post really camefull circle for me.
That though it's taken me along time, you know, part of
that is because I stalled, partof that is because I ignored,
right?
But that healing in and ofitself is a journey.
It really is.
And this is what some of thethings that she says in this
(39:56):
article.
She says, I think we've beenconditioned by many industries
to think we have to be fullyhealed before we can live.
And some of us are chasinghealing for that reason.
It almost feels like you can'tmove on until you're better.
You can't get married, youcan't move states.
But healing is a process, not aconclusion.
(40:18):
She continues in her post bysaying that we want to rush past
the pain, get over the hurtfast, or be ready to move on,
but that's just not life.
Healing doesn't have a finishline, but we've made it a
destination rather than aprocess.
She says it's as if with enoughinsight, therapy, mindfulness,
(40:40):
or even self-work, what we talkabout, we'd eventually arrive at
a stable, unshakable statewhere nothing triggers us
anymore, and life flows smoothlyfrom there.
That expectation quietly turnshealing into another performance
metric, another way to measureourselves, another place where
we're not quite there yet.
(41:02):
Then she says, and I love thisa healed person isn't someone
who never struggles.
It's someone who doesn'tabandon themselves when they do.
It's someone who shows upcompassionately when they're
challenged, someone who can saythis is hard, but I'm still
here.
Someone who allows discomfortwithout interpreting it as
(41:24):
regression, someone who truststheir capacity to meet life even
when it's messy.
And she ends the blog post bysaying this.
There's a particular kind offreedom that comes when you stop
waiting to be finished.
When you allow yourself to lovewhile still learning how to
stay present, when you takerisks while still feeling
afraid, when you make changeswithout needing certainty that
(41:47):
you'll never struggle again.
This doesn't mean ignoring painor bypassing growth.
It means recognizing that lifeisn't something you earn after
healing.
It's the terrain where healingunfolds.
There may be no final versionof you who was done healing, but
there is a version right nowwho is capable of living
honestly and perfectly and withself-respect.
(42:10):
And that might be the point.
Woof.
I mean, let's clap it up forSlotcha.
Hopefully I said her name righttoo.
But my goodness.
The idea is that we don'tignore it, we accept where we're
at.
Because the beauty of beinghuman is being able to learn,
grow, heal, and continuing toheal, continuing to learn,
(42:32):
continuing to question, and tobe open to new or different
answers.
So that when the memories comeback, when emotions resurface,
when something you thought youwere over shows up again, that
it's not regression, that it'snot proof that you haven't done
the work, but that it's just ajourney continuing.
And the only wrong response isto abandon yourself when it
(42:54):
does.
And sometimes, what exactlywhat we've been talking about,
the abandonment comes by takingthe things, taking the tools and
replacing them with actuallyliving, with actually doing,
with actually trying.
And so our blueprint for thisepisode is that a finished house
is not an abandoned house.
(43:14):
You don't complete a renovationand walk away forever.
You move in.
And living in it means thingsshift or change.
A pipe needs attention, a floorneeds refinishing, walls need
new paint, or carpet needs to bereplaced.
That's not the renovationfailing.
You don't look back and say,man, this house.
That's what's actuallyhappening when you lived in a ho
(43:35):
in a house.
When I first when we firstmoved in our home, we had two
little boys.
And y'all, there's so manydents, and they didn't got those
crowns and they stressed me outabout how that house looks.
But at the same time, it's alsoa sign that we've lived there,
that we've done things, that wehave memories.
That though it's kind of, youknow, the dents aren't cute and
(43:58):
the color, the the it's notPicasso, okay?
The little crown marks.
But it shows that look, Iremember that phase of my kids
or that memory or whatever.
And that's the point that I'mtrying to make.
The renovation was neversupposed to just produce a house
that you never touch again.
It was supposed to produce ahouse worth living in, a house
you care for because you lovewhat it's becoming.
(44:20):
We've been treating healinglike a construction project with
a completion date, finished bythis year, finished by those 40
days, done by the time I'm thisage, ready to move in when
everything is perfect.
But a home that is never livedin while it's being built is
just a building.
The living is the point.
And as Slaja said, there is nofinal version of you who was
(44:43):
done healing, but there is aversion right now capable of
living honestly and perfectlywith self-respect who was worth
showing up for.
So stop waiting to be finished.
Move into the life that'salready yours.
Keep tending the house.
That's what it means to makeyour soul a place that you want
to live.
And a couple questions that Iwant you to sit with.
(45:04):
First one is where have I beenwaiting to be fully healed
before I allowed myself to moveforward?
And what does that cost me?
What does healing actually looklike in my real life?
Not the version I imagined oreven what I've been shown or
told.
What has it felt like when it'sgenuinely happened?
When someone resurfaces amemory, an emotion, an old
(45:25):
wound, can I stay with myselfinstead of abandoning myself in
the moment?
I appreciate y'all.
I love y'all.
I thank y'all for being here.
And as always, I hope that youhear my heart, and I hope that
you hear a girl who thought thatshe was healing by doing all of
(45:46):
these things, but was onlykeeping herself stuck and
realized that true healing camefrom doing the things that I
kind of loathed the m the most.
That and and and honestly, Ihad an idea early on, but I ran
from it.
I knew that confrontation couldget me to express myself, but I
(46:07):
ran from it.
I knew what I was feeling.
I even knew sometimes that Iwas valid and feeling that, but
I ran from it.
And I'm just hoping thatsomeone listening to this will
stop running from themselves,but would love themselves where
they're at and understand thatyour healing is a journey.
But it's your journey, it'syour responsibility, it's yours
(46:29):
to take care of.
I hope you all enjoyed thisepisode.
Until next time, let's keepdoing the work to renovate the
soul.
Healing is supposed to make you feel free.
It's not to make you feelafraid to live.
At some point, the questionstarts being, what happened to
me?
and starts being, who am Ibecoming?
I was making decisions with thewrong intentions because I
never fully investigated orinterrogated how I was feeling.
If you've been doing them foryears and you're still triggered
(00:20):
by the same people, stillrunning the same pattern, still
feeling like something isn'tquite right, then I want you to
consider that maybe the toolsaren't the problem.
Maybe you've been using them togo around the thing instead of
through it.
Welcome to Renovating the Soul.
I'm your host, AlexandriaRobinson, and this is a podcast
(00:42):
about the real unglamorous workof becoming.
The work that actually requiressomething from you.
Hard questions, honest answers,and the willingness to look at
the foundation you were handedand decide what you want to
build on it.
That's what we do here.
So wherever you're coming fromtoday, I'm glad you're in it
with me.
Let's get into today'sconversation.
(01:03):
Therapy, yoga, meditation,shock recessions, journaling,
prayer, church, all of it.
We live in a culture obsessedwith the healing journey, and
yet so many people are still thesame person they were five
years ago.
And I want y'all to hear me.
(01:24):
This isn't an attack on thetools.
The tools aren't the problem.
The problem is what we're usingthem to avoid.
You can go to therapy everyweek, journal every morning,
pray every night, and still betriggered by the same people,
still running the same pattern,still the same old person.
Because none of that requiresyou to critically look at
(01:45):
yourself.
Welcome to another episode ofRenovating the Soul.
This episode is all aboutalways healing but never healed.
I'm excited to go on thisjourney with you all, and I hope
that you'll stick with me.
In true renovating the soulfashion, we're gonna start with
defining our terms.
So let's start with defininghealing.
Healing is the process ofbecoming sound or healthy again.
(02:08):
It is also to cause anundesirable condition to be
overcome.
In Webster, they had thisexample that I really liked, and
it said the troubles had notbeen forgotten, but they had
been healed.
But the key word that I want usto focus on in that first
definition I gave is process,because a process is a series of
action, steps, or changes takento achieve a particular goal or
(02:32):
result.
And so there's a differencebetween healing things and
healing.
When we're saying healingthings, we're not saying like
healing people or healinganimals.
I'm talking about like doingthe healing things.
And so let's liken this to thehealing process within our
bodies, um, you know, where thatwould look like we're being
free from injury or disease.
So if you get a cut, then itneeds to be treated and bandaged
(02:54):
and it takes time to heal.
But all of this depends on howdeep the cut is, because not all
cuts require the sameattention.
About a year ago, when I got mywisdom teeth removed, my mouth
needed to heal.
I like this example becausewhen my mouth healed, it wasn't
the same.
Something was missing despiteit being healed.
When the doctors went and theylooked inside of my mouth, you
(03:16):
they or the dentist, they canvisibly see that, oh, something
has changed here.
So even though the wisdom teethare no longer there, my mouth
is healed.
It's functionally and visiblynot the same.
And when I got my wisdom teethfulled, there were a set of
instructions, there weremedications, there were
(03:37):
follow-ups, there were thingsthat I needed to do on my end to
aid in the healing process.
I forgot what the specialistsare called to remove your wisdom
teeth, but we'll just usedentist as a general saying.
But the dentist removes thewisdom teeth, but it's not the
dentist's responsibility to helpyou in your healing process.
(03:58):
And now you have to play yourpart.
And so my part was againfollowing those instructions,
making sure that I was icing it,making sure that I was taking
my medication, making sure thatI, you know, was careful with
what I ate and try to rememberall the things that I had to do,
right?
You can't drink out of a straw.
Like I had to be carefulbecause if I didn't follow the
(04:21):
instructions carefully, then Iwould avail myself to infection
or to slowing the healingprocess.
And so, in that same vein, andin preparation for this episode,
I did some research on howwounds heal and my suspicions
were confirmed.
Your skin and anatomy are notthe same after a cut heals.
(04:41):
While the body effectivelyrepairs the damage to restore
protection, the healed area orthe scar tissue is functionally
and structurally different fromthe original uninjured skin.
And there are several elementsthat affect that.
You can Google it.
I'm not a medical professional,but they're just different
things that would affect thathealing process.
But the point is that your bodyis designed to protect you from
(05:04):
infection.
And that's what the scabs arefor, and that's why the healing
process happens the way that itdoes.
And so, although we're talkingabout emotional, mental, and
ultimately soul healing, we cantake cues from how our bodies
heal and the role that we playin that process.
And this healing journey, it'lllook different for each of us
because continuing again, stickwith me with this analogy
(05:28):
because the size and depth ofour individual wounds they vary.
The thing that I want us tobring our attention to is that
we can't ignore the wounds.
It's quite the opposite.
We have to pay close attention,we have to tend to it and take
the proper care in order for itto heal.
The band-aid itself, so if youget a cut, you know, my my kids
(05:49):
think that every time somethinghappens to them, they need a
band-aid.
And I keep trying to tell them,brother, that little scrape,
the band-aid's not gonna doanything.
It's just gonna make you feellike you're something's
happening, but really your skinjust kind of has to repair over
time.
But the band-aid itself is notthe healer, it is a tool, but it
can also become a weapon.
Because if you leave a band-aidon, let's say you are bleeding
(06:12):
and you leave it on too long andyou never change it, then what
happens?
You can get infected, you canget boils, like something
something's going to happen ifyou leave a bandage on that was
not meant to stay on there toolong.
Same thing if we go back to thewisdom tooth analogy.
When I first left, I had gauzein my mouth.
That gauze got super bloody.
I can't leave that gauze in fora long time, or else again, I
(06:32):
open myself up to something moredamaging.
So the same tools that can aidcan also hurt and damage and
lead to infection if not usedproperly.
And that's the same when we usethe healing tools, but never
actually do the work to heal.
So let's talk a little moreabout some signs that, you know,
you may be stuck in thishealing trap, you know, kind of
(06:53):
in this cycle of exactly whatwe're talking about, where, you
know, you're always healing butnever healed, or, you know,
using the tools, but not reallyseeing any progress for them.
So some of them are you'realways learning more, but never
actually changing your actions.
So you're always analyzing butnever applying.
Um, another one is that youthink you need to be fully
healed before you can live orlove or move forward.
(07:16):
So you keep saying, I'm notready yet, but then that becomes
an indefinite saying and itbecomes an identity instead of
just a season.
Um, you may overanalyze everysituation instead of actually
experiencing it.
You can't even be in a momentwithout turning it into a
therapy session, right?
Like instead of just beingthere at the water or being with
(07:37):
family, it's like, oh my gosh,that water, look at me.
No, just sit down and enjoylife, just experience it, right?
Stop overanalyzing things.
Um, another one is you diagnoseeveryone around you, but you
never turn the lens on yourself.
If your healing has led you tobelieve that everyone else is
the problem, then that's also asign.
(07:57):
Another one is that you feelbetter when you're far from the
thing and then you call thathealed.
But proximity and distance fromsomething doesn't mean that
you're better or you're healedfrom it.
It just means that it's notaround you.
You don't have to deal with it.
Healing is supposed to make youfeel free.
(08:18):
It's not to make you feelafraid to live.
It's not to give you anotherreason to look down on others,
and it's not to keep youcircling the same rooms forever.
So we're gonna talk about twotraps.
And I've already listed, youknow, those those other traps,
but we're gonna focus on twotraps that I just wanted to kind
of unravel a little bit more.
So the first one is whenhealing becomes performance.
(08:41):
And this first one is lessabout avoiding growth and more
about performing it.
I'm sure you've seen it, right?
The person who flexes theirtherapy as a reason to look down
on others, the one who thinksthey're the only one who's awake
or progressing, the one whopolices everybody else's growth
like they're a certified expertin someone else's healing.
(09:03):
For this person, or maybe foryou, healing becomes a status
symbol.
It's a way to feel superior.
It's another form of egofeeding, dressed up in the
language of growth.
And the problem is if yourhealing journey has made you
think that you're better thanother people, then you didn't
heal.
You just found a new way to bearrogant.
Because real healing actuallymakes you more compassionate,
(09:26):
not more critical, more humble,not more elevated.
If you're using your growth toshame people who aren't where
you are, that's not healing.
That's just a new wound thatyou're carrying that's wearing
this wellness outfit.
The second trap is more aboutsome of the systems and the
things that we do that have thesame flaw, right?
(09:47):
Let's talk about therapy first.
You can go through therapistafter therapist, spend thousands
of dollars, and still not getto the root, especially if the
therapist is just managingsymptoms or prescribing
medication without doing thedeeper work or even encouraging
you to do the deeper work.
Next is spirituality.
And I separated spiritualityfrom religion.
(10:07):
So, first we're gonna talkabout spirituality and then
we're gonna come to religion.
So, spirituality is more likewhat I mentioned in the
beginning (10:12):
chakras, meditation, energy work.
All of it can come, can becomea way to access the feeling of
peace without doing the actualwork of becoming peaceful.
Spirituality just becomes afeeling more than it actually
helps to get to the roots or towhat's really happening within
you.
You you then you start to cravethe feeling of it, but it
(10:35):
doesn't really lead you anywhereif you don't let it.
The next one, and this is bigfor me, and y'all are gonna be
like, that's a no-brainer, isreligion, church, prayer,
worship.
Okay, as a girl, I I'm a pewbaby.
I've said that to y'all.
Pew baby means that I was bornin church, not like my mom
literally gave birth in thechurch, but like born in church,
when you you come to churchwhen you're what, I don't know
(10:58):
how long they used to keep themback home, but like maybe a
month later, you come to church,and then from there on, you're
in church for all of your life.
Every Sunday, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, right?
So I know this all too well isthat you can go to church and
you can pray, you can worship,you can lead.
You can be the pastor, you canbe the first lady, you can be
the music director, you can readyour Bible, you can shout, you
(11:20):
can do whatever you want.
But none of it actuallyrequires internal
transformation.
You can praise on Sunday and bethe same person Monday through
Saturday.
I know it all too well becauseI was it.
I'm not gonna get too ahead ofmyself, but I also know it all
too well because I've seen it.
And, you know, journaling isgreat, right?
Journaling, venting, crying,screaming, they're cathartic,
(11:40):
yes, but healing like not ontheir own.
And I want to make sure thatyou all hear me.
I'm not knocking these things.
I'm just saying that all ofthese things more so require an
outward expression.
But none of them requires youto become a different person.
And that's the trap.
You can perform healing withoutever actually healing.
I hope that's making sense.
(12:01):
Like, I don't, I'm not sayingdon't do the therapy.
I'm not saying don't go tochurch.
I'm not, I'm not saying youcan't journal or cry or scream.
But if we go back to, and we'regonna keep using this analogy,
when I got my wisdom tea pulled,I needed the dentist.
He's the only one qualifiedthat can do it.
I can't pull out my own wisdomtea.
He's the expert in thissituation who knows how to
(12:23):
remove the tea safely, give methe healing steps that I need.
But when I left and I wenthome, he's not in the house with
me.
Your therapist isn't at homewith you, your pastor's not at
home with you, the journaldoesn't come alive.
Like they're tools, yes,they're experts, yes, they can
help you, yes, but it can't stopthere.
And that's what we're tryingto, well, that's what we're
(12:44):
really trying to address here,right?
And because of this, mosthealing journeys are outward
facing.
I I hear it a lot.
You go to therapy because myparents did this, my spouse or
my ex did that, my childhood wasthis, my pain come from came
from there.
And those things may be true.
People do wound us,circumstances do shape us, but
(13:06):
the healing journey that changesyou is the inward one.
You have to start askingyourself, who am I?
What have I done?
What patterns am I running?
What have I done to myself andto others?
Recognizing a wound is not thesame as healing it.
Talking about it is not thesame as moving beyond it.
The work has to go deeper thanawareness.
(13:26):
You can tell your story overand over again and still not be
healed from it.
At some point, the questionstarts being, what happened to
me, and starts being, who am Ibecoming?
Y'all know your girl doesn'tever come to this podcast
without some sort of experiencein this.
I was praying.
I was in church, as I justmentioned, I was journaling,
kept a diary throughout middleschool to high school, and then
(13:49):
a little bit of college.
And I was processing and I wastrying to grow.
And this specific example thatI'm gonna give y'all, I think
it's more about performinghealing rather than actually
being healed.
And I didn't recognize this atthe time.
So 40 Days with Jesus, thatthis is just one of many
examples of me trying to healwithout actually confronting the
real root issues.
So I mentioned that Quincy hadbroke up with me.
(14:12):
We, and like I said, he has todefend himself from that lingo.
So we're gonna keep calling itbroke up, okay?
Uh he dumped me.
Um, and we were engaged, andyou know, the Clark Atlanta,
like a lot of my friends knew,campus knew because, you know,
Instagram, and I had alwaysshown him on Instagram, and so
people were so excited for me.
And so then he dumped me, and Ihave 40 days left until
graduation.
(14:32):
So I was supposed to go toPortland from Atlanta for a
wedding for Quincy's friend.
And when I was in Atlanta,senior year was one of the best
years.
One of my last year, there waslike one of the best years.
I I formed just relationshipswith people that we just laughed
all the time.
Shout out to Shelby, Daryl,Kirier, Harold.
(14:56):
Like that became my littlecrew.
I did a pageant.
I did a short film with Kirierand Hampton, and I just felt
like, oh my gosh, I'm findingmyself.
And to think about having toleave Atlanta and move to
Portland was daunting.
But on the plane to Portland, Iwas praying and I was coaching
(15:18):
myself through it.
And I'm like, okay, you knowwhat?
This is what you signed up for.
You signed up to be a wife, yousigned up to be with this man,
and you do love him.
So you're gonna have to, youknow, put those feelings to the
side and leave Atlanta whereAtlanta is and kind of move on.
And so I accepted that, right?
Y'all, I land, let me tell you,there's always signs, okay?
(15:39):
I land in Portland.
And this man was acting soweird.
And I was like, no, honey, Iknow I didn't just miss my last
homecoming as a student at ClarkE Land University.
For you to be acting like this,I just knew something was off.
Takes me to my favoriterestaurant and calls off the
engagement.
And y'all wanted to do a moviescene so bad where I ripped the
(16:02):
ring off and I throw it at him.
But I did take the ring off,but I put it on the table.
And I think I walked out.
I didn't even get to finishthat chicken and then that
restaurant closed.
Isn't that so rude?
Oh my gosh.
But I put the ring down.
I think I walked out.
I can't remember if I walkedout or if I cried.
Anyways, I was just, it wasjust a it was just a whirlwind
of emotions, something that Iwasn't expecting.
(16:23):
We hadn't been engaged thatlong, and to me, there seemingly
was no problem.
So it kind of felt like it cameout of left field, and
everything he was telling medidn't make sense.
I didn't, I just didn't believehim.
And I remember we were drivingin what we call his red puppets.
It was a little red car.
I can't even remember, I thinkit was like a little Ford, but
we called it the red puppet.
And we were driving, and I hadthis horrible thought to take,
(16:44):
he was, he was driving, and Iwas sitting in the front seat,
and I had this horrible thoughtto take the wheel and drive us
out the road.
And I knew then that I didn'twant to stay there.
I was like, whoa, that wasscary.
But what I did in response tothat was more like taking a
Tylenol for pain, knowing that Ineed surgery.
I was more so managing thesymptoms while ignoring the
diagnosis.
And so what that looked likefor me was I did not admit that
(17:08):
I was hurt by Quincy.
I was trying to bounce back.
I was worrying more about howpeople perceived me than I
worried about my internalhealth.
Uh, because like I said, I wasa chaplin assistant.
A lot of people knew that I hadgot engaged.
And so I just was like, oh mygosh, what are they gonna think
of me?
Like, I got dumped.
And then there were some peoplethat were, that have been
(17:29):
saying throughout my time when Iwas at Clark Atlanta that,
like, you know, he's up inPortland cheating on you, you
know he's doing this, you knowit's doing this.
I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah,even though that that's not what
happened, it still felt like Iwas going to it's vindicate.
I think, I think vindicate'sthe right word.
Like I was gonna vindicatethem, make them feel like they
were right.
And so I just had all of theseunnecessary things, most of it
focusing on how people perceivedme and what it looked like.
(17:51):
Then it was about Alexandria.
I made up new theories of whyhe broke up with me instead of
just accepting what he said.
So then I started, oh, you youknow how girls do.
I started making up all kindsof stuff.
I had my girlfriends all madover us over some over a theory
that actually never happened.
It didn't even exist, but thatwas how I needed to cope.
And it was also really badbecause I should say, how it
(18:16):
showed up for me was bad becausea lot of my friends, like that
group that I was saying that Iwas hanging out with, those
names I just mentioned, we werevery close.
Like we spent multiple daystogether throughout the week.
And when I got back to campus,that was still the same.
We were together.
I didn't even have the courageto be able to tell them directly
(18:36):
that Quincy and I have brokeup.
What happened was we were, Ithink we were all together at an
event.
And I can't, it's hard toexplain this to you.
If you went to an HBCU, you'llknow what I'm talking about.
If you didn't, I I don'tremember what it's called, but
it's this thing where, becauseyou can't auction people off.
That sounds so bad.
But we would, you would, theywould bring, they would hold a
(18:57):
dessert and you would you wouldauction, like, you know, you
would do the money, and thenyou're buying the dessert, but
you're getting the person.
I know that sounds but that'swhat they did.
Don't come for me.
That's what that's what theschools did.
Oh, and I forget what it'scalled, Pie Walk.
I don't remember, but that'swhat the event was.
And there was this guy that I II remember names so well that I
(19:18):
try so hard not to say theirnames on thing.
But there was this guy, and hewas super cute.
I was the one that got him tocome, and I started bidding on
him.
And well, on the cake, youknow, whatever.
I started bidding, and myfriends were like, they're
looking like, what is this girldoing?
And I kid you not, y'all.
As the bidding is happening andI'm winning, because your
(19:39):
girl's winning, I'm winning,right?
My friends are looking andthey're whispering and they're
going, Oh my gosh, do I have aring on?
Oh my gosh, like I was soembarrassed by having to tell
some of my closest friends thatI didn't.
I just bitted on this man.
They figured out that I likedhim and that I was, I don't
know, I was going cuckoo forcoca puss.
And I go on a date with him,but but it, but I'm just saying,
(20:01):
like, that's how it showed up.
Like this avoidance of what hadactually happened to me showed
up in this ways.
And I want to make thatpractical so y'all can see,
like, yeah, it shows up in veryregular, everyday interactions.
It's not this, I don't know,grand moment, right?
But I was also slapping God onit like it was a rite of
passage.
I was like, oh, God's gonnatake me through.
Oh, God, put me through this,oh God, put me in.
(20:22):
And it's like, well, maybe, butat the same time, that's not an
excuse, and it can't be anexcuse for not facing whatever
you did.
So let's get back to 40 dayswith Jesus.
So for those 40 days, what Idecided to do was a fast of
sorts where I separated fromcertain people, I stopped
listening to any music thatwasn't gospel.
That did help me get rid oflike music that degraded women,
(20:43):
and I still don't have thoseplaylists to this day.
Um, I got off social media, Istopped watching certain TV
shows, all with the hopes ofhearing from God and
understanding what I wassupposed to do.
So this part's a little harderfor me because when I was doing
this preparation and I wasreflecting on that time of my
life, I realized that thefollowing year of doing 40 days
(21:07):
with Jesus was one of the years,probably the only year of my
life that I that I regret.
It was like one of the biggestregrets of my life.
And I and I laugh at that onlybecause of the irony of it all.
Like you go on a 40-day fast,the whole point of it is to hear
from God and get this word orwhatever it is, but you end up
(21:30):
in just like, oh my gosh, just acycle of things.
And again, I've I've mentionedthis to you all and more
recently in this season, too.
That like when I look back onthat, I was making decisions
with the wrong intentionsbecause I never fully
investigated or interrogated howI was feeling.
I journaled, I listened tomusic, I prayed, I went out with
(21:53):
friends, I went on dates, Iwent to parties, I prayed some
more, I wrote daily, I readscriptures, I was just doing All
of these things, but because Ihad given myself the 40 days, I
thought that I should be healedand over the hurt by then.
I thought that an almostfive-year relationship and a
broken engagement should havebeen emotionally resolved in 40
(22:17):
days, which is crazy, right?
40 days to be emotionallyresolved from something that was
that emotionally hard and thatjust like publicly painful,
which is the reality of it.
Because it wasn't just thecampus, it was Facebook too.
I had to take all thosepictures down.
I had to change my Facebookstatus from engaged to something
(22:38):
else.
Remember those little statusesused to pop up?
But it's just like all of thesethings, right?
But when I tell y'all, I'vealready I've already mentioned
getting into the relationship,but it's it's more than that in
that in that year, that thatthat year that I regret.
It's it was bigger than that.
By the end of that year, I washaving anxiety and panic
(22:59):
attacks.
So bad that I had to pull mycar over and sit in parking lots
and wait.
I went to the doctor.
I had to leave work one time togo to the doctor because my
chest was just hurting so bad.
And I actually have a funnystory about that.
I'm gonna tell it really quickbecause it's really funny, and I
don't want to tell it.
But the there was a nurse,there was a male nurse, and he
(23:20):
was super cute and he's superbuff.
And in the functional healthepisode, I told y'all I do not
take medicine and I can'tswallow pills, and I don't like
liquid medicine, so I do notlike the taste.
And this male nurse wasbeautiful, buff.
He was just gorgeous.
And I was like, oh my gosh,well, they needed to give me
this little white thick medicineto see my heart because they
(23:40):
wanted to make sure there wasnothing wrong with my heart.
Do y'all know that your girlchugged that thing down like I
had never chugged anythingbefore?
I said, This man, this fine manis not gonna see me gag on this
medicine.
And I took that medicine like achamp.
He was my guardian angel.
I need to find him again.
No, I'm just kidding, I'm justkidding.
No, but anyway, so so yeah, soin that time, so yes, having the
(24:01):
anxiety attacks, chest pain sobad that I had to go to the
doctor.
I wasn't talking to anyoneabout like what was actually
happening in me.
Some of my most fondrelationships in my family, I
got in this big blow-up argumentbecause I was so emotionally
going through it that I just Iput myself into something that
wasn't necessarily mine to getin.
(24:21):
And that severed therelationship that I had with one
of my favorite aunts.
And then that was just a rippleeffect on relationships at that
time.
So again, it wasn't just beingin a toxic relationship, which
that was enough.
It was that.
It was um the family, it wasthe anxiety attacks, the fear,
the stress, just everything thatwas happening to me.
And then I look back and Iregret that I didn't stay in
(24:45):
Atlanta.
I look back and I regret that Ididn't at least stay in
California, that I'm chasingsomeone, or I'm trying to make,
I'm trying to help heal someoneelse, but I'm not healed.
Like that's crazy to me.
When I say that after 40 dayswith Jesus, that following year
was one of the biggest regretsof my life, that's why.
And I believe, looking backnow, that it all comes from this
(25:06):
idea that I had to hurry up andbe healed.
And much of my understanding ofhealing is from my religion.
You're healed by faith.
If you keep praying, then it'llhappen.
And if it doesn't, then youjust pretend that it worked.
That moments of getting prayeror worship were healing, but
none of it lasted for me.
The 40 days with Jesus wasgreat.
I don't regret it, but itdidn't last for me.
(25:28):
I'm I ended up in a worse placethan where I was because I'm
almost running from myself.
I'm even thinking that Godwants me to be healed in 40
days.
I'm I'm thinking, like, no,he's like, girl, you gotta hurry
this up.
You can't be down forever,right?
That was my mentality, but it'sjust like that was not right.
And I like I was saying, Idon't fault myself for 40 days
(25:50):
with Jesus.
The kicker is that I put it inmy last sermon at Clark Atlanta
University, which is still up onYouTube.
Um, as a student, I that was asa chaplain assistant.
That was my last sermon, andpeople heard it.
I just mentioned that I didthis 40 Days with Jesus like
fasting.
And then people wanted it.
And I made it a an actual PDFand I sent it to over 100
(26:11):
people.
And so I was selling thishealing story, which no, I won't
say selling, I didn't make anymoney off of it.
I was freely giving it topeople, just a little PDF
document.
But I was fully convicted byit.
I believed in it at thatmoment.
But then I would see myself,like I said, getting triggered
by the same people or the samesituations, or just the anxiety
(26:32):
attacks and the panic attacks,the stress, like it just wasn't
making any sense.
If I've made so much progressand if I've gone so far, like
why am I still here?
But now I'm realizing that Iwas never really healed, that a
lot of my growth or my healingwas and sometimes is based on
things that others did or didn'tdo.
(26:54):
But what did I do?
Where's my accountability?
What role did I play?
And then, like I said, part ofmy healing journey or part of
the excuse of why I couldn'theal was because I needed to
help someone else heal.
Or I need to be an anchor forthis other person, but that
wasn't my responsibility either.
I'm my responsibility.
How can I give from an emptyplace?
So now we'll move on.
(27:16):
That's my my little personalstory, but I want to talk about
some of the root causes, and I'msure you could hear some of
mine, but I just want to makethem very clear so that we so
that we can say out loud, likename it out loud, what these
some of these root causes canbe.
Obviously, this is not anexhaustive list by any means,
but it's just a few that may bea little more common.
So, first is unhealed shame.
And I've already suggested thisbook to y'all, but why emotions
(27:38):
matter is such a good book, andthey have a chapter on shame.
I was gonna add it in here, butthis episode would be too long
if I did.
So just read the book on whyemotions matter and read that
chapter on shame.
It's so good.
But the unhealed shame, this isthe belief that something is
fundamentally wrong with you.
And how this shows up isperfectionism, overexplaining,
(28:00):
people pleasing, or shrinking.
The healing activities thatmask it, performing goodness,
spiritual achievement, being thetogether one in the room, so
needing to be bring peopletogether.
The next one is fear ofabandonment.
This is the another root cause.
This is the belief that ifpeople really knew you, they'd
(28:20):
leave.
This shows up as clinginess,again, people pleasing, anger
when needs go unmet,self-sabotaging in
relationships, and the healingactivities that mask this are
seeking constant validation,therapist hopping when things
get too real.
The next one is control andself-protection.
(28:40):
This root cause is the beliefthat vulnerability will get you
hurt.
This shows up as emotionalwalls, criticism of others,
rigidity, inability to receivefeedback, and the healing
activities that mask this oneare intellectualizing your
emotions, staying in your head,or calling detachment peace.
(29:02):
And then I think this is one ofour last ones is that
unprocessed grief.
This is the loss that was neveractually mourned.
This shows up as numbness,depression that comes and goes,
sudden emotional flooding, andthe healing activities that mass
this one are staying busy,reframing everything into a
(29:22):
lesson before filling it.
And I'm I'm not saying thatthese rude things they they go
away or that they even should,but you have to do something
with them.
They're in you, they'rehappening to you, they're
signals, they're manifestingthrough your actions and your
behaviors.
Don't ignore them.
If I want us to go back to someof these body examples because
(29:44):
they're so good and they're justso easy to understand how this
all works.
If you have a broken leg, youcan start to feel better, but
the bone has to fuse.
It has to be strong enough tosupport you again.
Feeling better is not the sameas being whole.
The antibiotic, they alwaystell you to finish the full
course even when you feel fine.
Why?
Because the infection isn'tgone just because the symptoms
(30:08):
are.
And then if we bring it back torenovating, the house under
construction, it looks solidfrom the outside.
You walk up and you see woodframing, uh structure taking
shape.
But when you zoom in, the nailsare faulty, the joints are
weak.
It'll hold for a while, but itwon't last.
And I remember I was onInstagram and there was a
gentleman who was showing, he'sgetting his house built, and he
(30:28):
was showing the work that wasbeing done on his house.
Oh my gosh, it was a nightmare.
The the nails were like not allthe way in, and they were bent
over on the outside of the woodframing.
There were like cords hangingdown, just the actual structure
of what was supposed to be donewas atrocious, right?
And the frame, like, sure, itwould have lasted for a little
(30:51):
while, but the way that theywere doing the work on this
gentleman's house in the nearfuture, we're talking maybe five
so years, which is, you know,that's a short amount of time
when you're building a brand newhouse, right?
In the near future, they wouldhave had to do new work or they
would have seen things happeningwithin their home that they
probably didn't have anexplanation for.
That's how bad the structuraldamage was.
(31:13):
That's how lazy and sloppy thework was, right?
But the man he was showing thisto tell people like me who want
to build a house one day thatyou have to be on site every day
to see and correct the work.
And yeah, because those peopledoing the work, they don't care
what happens to that house afterthey leave.
They're gonna slap paint on it,put the, put the um, the
(31:34):
drywall, they're gonna put thisstuff up on the house and
they're gonna walk away.
They don't have to live in thathome.
They aren't paying for it.
They're they're they're gettingpaid actually.
And why?
It's it's not their job tocare.
It is their job to do the workproperly, but they don't have
the same care for that house asthe man does, as the as the
person whose home it is going tobe.
(31:54):
Because for that man who wasrecording, it's his money.
It's his home, it's his legacyon the line, it's his children
and wife and family that's gonnahave to come and live in this
home.
It's his responsibility tocheck that the folks that are
working on his home are doing itright.
And I wonder if we would takethat same level of ownership
with our own healing, that thishouse, this soul, all of who I
(32:18):
am, I'm responsible for at theend of the day.
I have the therapist, I havethe pastor, I have the friend, I
have the spouse.
They're wonderful.
They give me great advice, butI'm the only one who can really
check on what's happening withinme.
And this might sound kind ofrandom, but I want us to think
about this too, because as aparent, we tell people who have
other children to keep theirchildren home until they're
(32:40):
fully well.
And why?
Because a child who seems finebut isn't can make others sick
too.
And it's the same with unhealedpeople who appear healed.
They become some of the mostdamaging people in the room.
And it's not out of malice, butbecause they're at a war inside
and within themselves.
(33:01):
They're at a war inside andthey're performing peace on the
outside.
And that's the same thing,right?
Again, you are responsible.
That person is responsible forwhat is happening here.
Don't allow this healingprocess or this healing journey
or whatever that looks like foryou to become an excuse to treat
others bad, to become an excuseto be so angry, to become an
(33:23):
excuse to be so upset.
Oh, because they're doing itwrong, right?
Or they're not, or thistherapist, I didn't like this
person, or this person, no, theydidn't say the right thing, or
this.
It's not their responsibilityat the end of the day.
Your therapist is getting paid.
They're getting the money atthe end of the day.
What are you, what are yousupposed to be getting from it,
right?
What's but what responsibilityare you going to take?
Because I'm not sayingtherapists are bad.
(33:44):
I believe they give people realwork.
But I think that sometimespeople stop at therapy because
you've done an hour of cryingand getting it all out on the
table.
But, and that's good.
We're not gonna knock that.
That's good.
It is emotionally damaging.
But when you're rested andyou're well and you're ready,
come back to the work that needsto happen on the inside.
And I want to say this ifyou've been doing all these
(34:07):
things and you're still feelingstuck, right?
I'm not here to take awaywhatever it is you need,
therapist, your meditation,whatever it is.
But if you've been doing themfor years and you're still
triggered by the same people,still running the same pattern,
still feeling like somethingisn't quite right, then I want
you to consider that maybe thetools aren't the problem.
Maybe you've been using them togo around the thing instead of
(34:30):
through it, right?
So let's talk about a fewthings that can help.
Honest self-examination.
I'm always gonna preach this toy'all.
Not just what happened to me,but who have I been and what
have I chosen and what am Istill choosing?
Not what you want to feel,where you want to be, but where
are you right now?
That is such a healthydistinction.
(34:52):
We all have places we want tobe.
I want to be there, but do notpretend like you are there
because that's how that war getscreated.
You start to battle between howI want to appear and who I
really am.
And it's sometimes it's justnot a battle worth fighting.
Sometimes it's better to justsit in the ugliness and the
uncomfortableness of like, I'mnot where I want to be right
now, but I'm still here.
(35:13):
I'm still a person and I'mstill gonna work through it,
right?
Like, don't fight where you arenow just to get to where you
want to be.
Next is character work.
So, and this this isidentifying the specific
patterns and being willing tocall them what they are, not
explain them away.
It's sitting in the discomfortinstead of reaching for a tool
to make it stop.
It's distinguishing betweendistance and healing.
(35:35):
Like I said earlier, justbecause something doesn't bother
you when you're far from itdoesn't mean you've healed it.
And I, to bring it back to meand use myself as an example for
y'all, recently I've seen thathealing for me has not come
through the things.
Like I said, I had the journal,I've used different tools, you
(35:57):
know, whatever that's lookedlike, right?
Running to the Bible or runningto a friend, venting.
Venting's a big one for me.
I'll be thinking that, okay,because I vented to my to my to
my cousin sister, that uh I feeland I feel better that okay, I
got it out until it comes upagain.
And recently I found that myhealing has come through
(36:20):
confrontation, through actuallysaying the things that I've been
holding within to the personthat needed to hear it, and even
the things that I need to sayto myself.
It's through actuallyexpressing myself without
becoming angry or too emotional.
Being able to say what I neededto say and stay in my body
(36:41):
while I said it, that's beenhealing for me.
Not again, this is not justwith other people, but even with
myself.
I ran from confrontation.
I made excuses or evendownplayed my own experiences
just to keep the peace, but thatonly kept me in this kind of
trap that we've been talkingabout, this cycle that we've
been talking about.
And I was just telling one ofmy younger cousins uh yesterday
(37:04):
that when Quincy and I, she wasasking a question about Quincy
and I's marriage if we hadalways had the dynamic that we
have.
And I was like, oh, you know,no, we we've always got along.
We're we're we were naturallyfriends.
That that wasn't the thatwasn't hard.
But when we got married, I wasshut down.
Any little sight of him beingupset or us leaning in to have a
difficult conversation, I wouldgo in the bathroom, I would
(37:26):
lock the door, I would take myring off and be like, Well,
that's it.
It's over.
And he's so patient.
And he's just like, no, it'snot.
But also, it's because he hadgone through conflict in his
life.
So then he became almost likemy teacher.
He became a tool.
So again, the tools aren't bad.
What happened though is that Iwasn't adopting what he was
trying to help me see.
(37:46):
I kept doing it my way,thinking that the way that I was
doing it was better.
But again, it's keeping me inthis cycle until I finally
started saying the hard thingsout loud to myself, to him.
When I'm uncomfortable orsomething's bothering me, he's
gonna know it now.
Ain't no shutting down.
I'm gonna let you know, even ifit's small.
And I found a way to say itthat's not angry or blowing up
(38:09):
or overly emotional, like I justmentioned, but to just say it
calmly and to just say ithonestly, and to also
acknowledge that even though I'mfeeling something, doesn't mean
that it's actually uh comingfrom a legitimate experience
that's really happening, as wetalked about with the spider
example.
I see the spider, I'm scared ofthe spider, but it doesn't mean
that something's gonna happento me if the spider touches me
(38:30):
or, you know, you know, it meansI'm bigger than the spider, I
can kill it.
That's the facts, right?
But it doesn't stop thefeeling.
So I acknowledge the feeling,but I also acknowledge that I
could be wrong in this feeling,but I'm still gonna say it out
loud because saying it out loudfor me again became my healing.
I also I wanted to stoprepeating the same struggles.
That was a big wake-up call forme.
(38:51):
Was I started asking myself,why do you still feel this way?
Why are you still upset withthis person?
Why are you still upset aboutthat?
And in preparation for thisepisode, you know, I have all
these articles and resources foryou guys in the description,
but I found something that Ijust really fell in love with.
(39:13):
And I hope you all fall in lovewith this idea as I did.
It was a blog post by SlagerRedner, and she titled this The
Myth of Being Fully Healed.
Seeing healing in this way ofcoming through something that I
needed confrontation, speakingmy mind, saying the hard parts
(39:35):
out loud.
It this blog post really camefull circle for me.
That though it's taken me along time, you know, part of
that is because I stalled, partof that is because I ignored,
right?
But that healing in and ofitself is a journey.
It really is.
And this is what some of thethings that she says in this
(39:56):
article.
She says, I think we've beenconditioned by many industries
to think we have to be fullyhealed before we can live.
And some of us are chasinghealing for that reason.
It almost feels like you can'tmove on until you're better.
You can't get married, youcan't move states.
But healing is a process, not aconclusion.
(40:18):
She continues in her post bysaying that we want to rush past
the pain, get over the hurtfast, or be ready to move on,
but that's just not life.
Healing doesn't have a finishline, but we've made it a
destination rather than aprocess.
She says it's as if with enoughinsight, therapy, mindfulness,
(40:40):
or even self-work, what we talkabout, we'd eventually arrive at
a stable, unshakable statewhere nothing triggers us
anymore, and life flows smoothlyfrom there.
That expectation quietly turnshealing into another performance
metric, another way to measureourselves, another place where
we're not quite there yet.
(41:02):
Then she says, and I love thisa healed person isn't someone
who never struggles.
It's someone who doesn'tabandon themselves when they do.
It's someone who shows upcompassionately when they're
challenged, someone who can saythis is hard, but I'm still
here.
Someone who allows discomfortwithout interpreting it as
(41:24):
regression, someone who truststheir capacity to meet life even
when it's messy.
And she ends the blog post bysaying this.
There's a particular kind offreedom that comes when you stop
waiting to be finished.
When you allow yourself to lovewhile still learning how to
stay present, when you takerisks while still feeling
afraid, when you make changeswithout needing certainty that
(41:47):
you'll never struggle again.
This doesn't mean ignoring painor bypassing growth.
It means recognizing that lifeisn't something you earn after
healing.
It's the terrain where healingunfolds.
There may be no final versionof you who was done healing, but
there is a version right nowwho is capable of living
honestly and perfectly and withself-respect.
(42:10):
And that might be the point.
Woof.
I mean, let's clap it up forSlotcha.
Hopefully I said her name righttoo.
But my goodness.
The idea is that we don'tignore it, we accept where we're
at.
Because the beauty of beinghuman is being able to learn,
grow, heal, and continuing toheal, continuing to learn,
(42:32):
continuing to question, and tobe open to new or different
answers.
So that when the memories comeback, when emotions resurface,
when something you thought youwere over shows up again, that
it's not regression, that it'snot proof that you haven't done
the work, but that it's just ajourney continuing.
And the only wrong response isto abandon yourself when it
(42:54):
does.
And sometimes, what exactlywhat we've been talking about,
the abandonment comes by takingthe things, taking the tools and
replacing them with actuallyliving, with actually doing,
with actually trying.
And so our blueprint for thisepisode is that a finished house
is not an abandoned house.
(43:14):
You don't complete a renovationand walk away forever.
You move in.
And living in it means thingsshift or change.
A pipe needs attention, a floorneeds refinishing, walls need
new paint, or carpet needs to bereplaced.
That's not the renovationfailing.
You don't look back and say,man, this house.
That's what's actuallyhappening when you lived in a ho
(43:35):
in a house.
When I first when we firstmoved in our home, we had two
little boys.
And y'all, there's so manydents, and they didn't got those
crowns and they stressed me outabout how that house looks.
But at the same time, it's alsoa sign that we've lived there,
that we've done things, that wehave memories.
That though it's kind of, youknow, the dents aren't cute and
(43:58):
the color, the the it's notPicasso, okay?
The little crown marks.
But it shows that look, Iremember that phase of my kids
or that memory or whatever.
And that's the point that I'mtrying to make.
The renovation was neversupposed to just produce a house
that you never touch again.
It was supposed to produce ahouse worth living in, a house
you care for because you lovewhat it's becoming.
(44:20):
We've been treating healinglike a construction project with
a completion date, finished bythis year, finished by those 40
days, done by the time I'm thisage, ready to move in when
everything is perfect.
But a home that is never livedin while it's being built is
just a building.
The living is the point.
And as Slaja said, there is nofinal version of you who was
(44:43):
done healing, but there is aversion right now capable of
living honestly and perfectlywith self-respect who was worth
showing up for.
So stop waiting to be finished.
Move into the life that'salready yours.
Keep tending the house.
That's what it means to makeyour soul a place that you want
to live.
And a couple questions that Iwant you to sit with.
(45:04):
First one is where have I beenwaiting to be fully healed
before I allowed myself to moveforward?
And what does that cost me?
What does healing actually looklike in my real life?
Not the version I imagined oreven what I've been shown or
told.
What has it felt like when it'sgenuinely happened?
When someone resurfaces amemory, an emotion, an old
(45:25):
wound, can I stay with myselfinstead of abandoning myself in
the moment?
I appreciate y'all.
I love y'all.
I thank y'all for being here.
And as always, I hope that youhear my heart, and I hope that
you hear a girl who thought thatshe was healing by doing all of
(45:46):
these things, but was onlykeeping herself stuck and
realized that true healing camefrom doing the things that I
kind of loathed the m the most.
That and and and honestly, Ihad an idea early on, but I ran
from it.
I knew that confrontation couldget me to express myself, but I
(46:07):
ran from it.
I knew what I was feeling.
I even knew sometimes that Iwas valid and feeling that, but
I ran from it.
And I'm just hoping thatsomeone listening to this will
stop running from themselves,but would love themselves where
they're at and understand thatyour healing is a journey.
But it's your journey, it'syour responsibility, it's yours
(46:29):
to take care of.
I hope you all enjoyed thisepisode.
Until next time, let's keepdoing the work to renovate the
soul.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
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
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.