Speaker 1: The Our Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to the Our Spot.
Speaker 1: I am Yngla, your host for what I intend to
Speaker 1: be an exciting, formative, and transformative journey through the world
Speaker 1: of relationships. This is the place where we will examine, explore, dissect,
Speaker 1: and investigate issues related to relationships, all types of relationships.
Speaker 1: I want to begin by voicing my gratitude to Shondaland
Speaker 1: and I Heart Media for providing me, providing us with
Speaker 1: this platform to explore and discuss what I believe is
Speaker 1: one of the most pressing issues in the world today,
Speaker 1: the issues that arise um and surround relationships. Now. My
Speaker 1: vision for offering the Our Spot is to support and
Speaker 1: facilitate discussions and conversations in which we all learn and
Speaker 1: develop the skills and tools required to make our relationships work.
Speaker 1: And you are going to be able to call me
Speaker 1: and talk to me live. I'll be taking live listener
Speaker 1: calls and sharing the real, raw experiences with you each week.
Speaker 1: And I want you to understand a few things about me.
Speaker 1: I was a hopeless love a hall like I love
Speaker 1: being in love, but just could not get my love
Speaker 1: to work or pay off in my relationships. Then, after
Speaker 1: a series of heartbreaks and deep heartache, I finally got
Speaker 1: clear about what love is and what it is not.
Speaker 1: That's when I learned how to love me more than
Speaker 1: I was willing to chase after the people's loves, and
Speaker 1: that's when my relationships became healthy, fulfilling, fun and loving.
Speaker 1: I want to share some of that, some of what
Speaker 1: I've learned about love aholism, just in case there are
Speaker 1: any love aholics out there who may need some recovery
Speaker 1: skills and tools. Because relationships are in the central part
Speaker 1: of our lives. Relationships are the places we grow, the
Speaker 1: places we experience love. Yet for some reason, surely it
Speaker 1: escapes me. Making relationships work productively, making them fulfilling, and
Speaker 1: making relationships meaningful is something that many of us struggle with.
Speaker 1: We simply don't have the tools, and I believe many
Speaker 1: of us have the wrong idea about what a relationship is,
Speaker 1: what they do, and why they even exist. We don't
Speaker 1: always realize that relationships are classrooms, they are laboratories of healing.
Speaker 1: And because we have the wrong idea about what relationships
Speaker 1: are and the purposes they serve, we look for the
Speaker 1: wrong things in the wrong ways and make an absolute
Speaker 1: mass of our relationships, whether it's your mother, your sister,
Speaker 1: your cousin, your co worker, or your boot, every relationship
Speaker 1: you have or have had as a purpose. And here
Speaker 1: at the our spot, we are going to get clear
Speaker 1: as a ding dong bell about the purpose of every
Speaker 1: relationship we are having, because the truth is, the only
Speaker 1: relationship you are ever having with anyone is a reflection
Speaker 1: of the relationship you are having with yourself. Oh or
Speaker 1: that that's a mouthful. I learned that until I got
Speaker 1: right with me, until I totally and unconditionally accepted and
Speaker 1: loved myself, my relationships were hard, confusing, chaotic, disappointing, disfunctional,
Speaker 1: and downright exhausting. In other words, they weren't working. OHI baby,
Speaker 1: that's where we're going here on the art spot, So
Speaker 1: let's get started. The greatest love of all is the
Speaker 1: love you have for yourself. One of the first letters
Speaker 1: I received when we announced that I was doing the
Speaker 1: art spot came from a woman named Maddie Blanchard. Miss
Speaker 1: Maddie asked me straight, no chaser, missy Omla, how did
Speaker 1: you fall in love with yourself? Well? Thank you miss
Speaker 1: Maddie for that beautiful setup for this our first show
Speaker 1: here on the art spot. I really have a special
Speaker 1: special place in heart and much gratitude for my coller
Speaker 1: today because she raises an issue that I know millions
Speaker 1: of women around the world face every single day as
Speaker 1: a result of post cancer surgery and the way it
Speaker 1: changes our body and our sense of self and our
Speaker 1: body image. And my collar today is dealing with it
Speaker 1: with such courage and her question, well, seemingly simple and
Speaker 1: maybe to some insignificant, just nails the issue. Nails it.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, beloved, How are you? Oh my god, I'm wonderful.
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm blessed. Thank you well, you sound excited.
Speaker 1: You didn't know you were going to talk to me.
Speaker 1: This is a dream come true. I love you so much.
Speaker 1: Love is good and it's free. So I thank you
Speaker 1: for calling in And how can I support you today?
Speaker 1: What is your question? Concern? Own, issue, challenge, difficulty problem?
Speaker 1: I was really trying to figure out what would be
Speaker 1: the best topic for you today, and I think the
Speaker 1: biggest one for me. It's been a challenge of mine
Speaker 1: for going on almost eight years now. Um, I'm forty
Speaker 1: years old and seven, almost eight years ago, I had
Speaker 1: a mess ectomy with chess will reconstruction. So my body
Speaker 1: is altered and it's just it's different. And so I've
Speaker 1: been on this emotional and physical healing journey, and so
Speaker 1: my love life, my dating life has just been uh
Speaker 1: well non existent, and um, it's been very difficult. And
Speaker 1: so I guess today I wanted to kind of talk
Speaker 1: about how I can share my story with someone when
Speaker 1: I meet someone new, UM, because it's still to stay
Speaker 1: very frightening for me. UM. I want to learn how
Speaker 1: to share my story with someone in a way that
Speaker 1: still honors my story and also like braces them for
Speaker 1: the reality that my body is is just different. I
Speaker 1: have this initial kind of gut reaction when I go
Speaker 1: into it, almost like I'm I'm preparing myself for rejection.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's I guess that's world story. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful question. Thank you so much for your courage. Thank
Speaker 1: you because there are hundreds of thousands of sister women
Speaker 1: who are struggling with this, and I have to tell you,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard of discussed out loud,
Speaker 1: So thank you. So two things I would like to
Speaker 1: ask you, and if they feel too private, you don't
Speaker 1: have to respond. I'm going to call you miss e
Speaker 1: so that you could be anybody in the universe. But
Speaker 1: he also stands for excellence, so I'm gonna call you
Speaker 1: miss excellence. Did you have reconstructive surgery? No? I did not?
Speaker 1: Good Okay, no, No, that's enough. No, I did not period.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a full answer. What I hear and
Speaker 1: what I would like to explore with you is the
Speaker 1: story you're telling yourself about your body number one. And
Speaker 1: the story you're telling yourself about what somebody else may
Speaker 1: think about your body. That's number two, because the only
Speaker 1: thing that you're going to get back is the story
Speaker 1: you're telling yourself. So I heard you say you're bracing
Speaker 1: yourself for rejection. I heard you say, and correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, a lack of acceptance of who you
Speaker 1: are because your body is different. Mm hmm okay, So
Speaker 1: what's the story you're telling yourself about the fact that
Speaker 1: you have no breast or one breast? Which is it?
Speaker 1: One on my left side? One very small one. Hey,
Speaker 1: it only takes a mouthful, darling. So you need people
Speaker 1: have to stay in their life on a mouthful of breast.
Speaker 1: That's all you need, just one low mouthful. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a good way to think about it. Listen, you only
Speaker 1: need one mouthful and you you only got one mouth
Speaker 1: Here you go. How about that? As we embark on
Speaker 1: this journey together, this Our Spot journey, the thing I
Speaker 1: want to share is how to fall in love with yourself.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the Our Spot. I'm Ymlin. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about falling in love with yourself and we're looking at
Speaker 1: the breakdown that leads to the breakthrough. Okay, so let
Speaker 1: me hear you say this. I want to hear you
Speaker 1: say this. Okay, I have one breast. I have one breast. Okay,
Speaker 1: take a breath. Where do you feel that in your body?
Speaker 1: Where do you feel that I have one breast? Where
Speaker 1: do you feel that in your body? I feel it
Speaker 1: in in my chest, and I feel it in my stomach. Okay, stomach,
Speaker 1: that's your power center. So I have one breast because
Speaker 1: I have one breast because I had to sacrifice the
Speaker 1: other one in order to save my life. Now, where
Speaker 1: do you feel that in your body? I fill that
Speaker 1: in my in my throat, and in my chest. M
Speaker 1: what is the film of stomach though? Okay, let's let's
Speaker 1: go to the next level. Okay. I have one breast
Speaker 1: because I had to sacrifice the other one to save
Speaker 1: my life. And that makes me feel and that makes
Speaker 1: me feel sad. It makes me feel sad because it
Speaker 1: makes me feel sad. I didn't ask for this. Take
Speaker 1: a breath. Let it all come up. That's just the story.
Speaker 1: Let it all come up. I have one breath because
Speaker 1: I had to sacrifice the other one to save my life,
Speaker 1: and that makes me feel sad because I didn't ask
Speaker 1: for this. Where do you feel that in your body? Ah?
Speaker 1: I feel that in my heart, my heart. Yeah, take
Speaker 1: a breath. You're not breathing. You're holding your breath waiting
Speaker 1: for that rejection. When you meet someone and for the
Speaker 1: first time you unbutton your blouse and exposed to them,
Speaker 1: and you've set it up in your mind where they're
Speaker 1: just gonna, I don't know what they're gonna do, fall
Speaker 1: on the floor and scream or run, screw even from
Speaker 1: the room. Which one are you waiting for? Because you've
Speaker 1: set it up in your I want you to hear
Speaker 1: your story this far, So here comes Danny Nice, forty
Speaker 1: seven years old. It's got on a blue shirt and
Speaker 1: some jeans, looking real sexy, but it's tight butt. And
Speaker 1: you'll sit down and you have a nice you have
Speaker 1: a nice dinner together, you know, and he's liking you,
Speaker 1: and you're liking him, and you feel it in your
Speaker 1: stomach and in your chest and in your heart, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, Danny, I have to tell you something
Speaker 1: before we go any further. We're gonna say, Danny, I
Speaker 1: want you to know that I have one breath left. One.
Speaker 1: It's little, but it's a mouthful, and that's really all
Speaker 1: you need. You have one breath because I had to
Speaker 1: sacrifice the other one to save my life. And that
Speaker 1: makes me feel sad because I didn't ask for this.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad to be alive and I'm glad to
Speaker 1: have met you today, but I wanted you to know
Speaker 1: my story. Take a breath, jure putting the emphasis on
Speaker 1: the missing breast and not on the fact that you
Speaker 1: are alive and can still have the opportunity to date
Speaker 1: Danny or Bruce Fred or somebody. And it's okay to
Speaker 1: be sad, and don't read his face, let him take
Speaker 1: it in. He's only got one mouth and you've got
Speaker 1: a mouthful of breast, and you'll work it out if
Speaker 1: it gets that far. Ah, come on, tell me what
Speaker 1: you're thinking right there? What was that right there? Um?
Speaker 1: That hearing you say it, it just feels like it's
Speaker 1: something that is just so real and that I I
Speaker 1: feel like I could do that and um, okay, so
Speaker 1: let's do it. You tell me your story. My name
Speaker 1: is Danny. Hi. You want some more guacamole? Here, have
Speaker 1: a little more guacamole. Is this pineapple margharita just the best?
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of pineapple margaart Rey just but
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, this is really the best. Thank you
Speaker 1: for recommending this place. It's really good. Danny. Um, I
Speaker 1: really need to share um something with you. I need
Speaker 1: to share my story with you before we have another margharita. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: because then I'll be too drunk and I'll be talking
Speaker 1: out my head. Ahead, Um, Danny, I only have I
Speaker 1: only have one breast, and it's because I had to
Speaker 1: sacrifice the other way in order to save my life.
Speaker 1: And it makes me really sad because it's not something
Speaker 1: that that I wanted. It's not something that I I
Speaker 1: chose for myself. But I still have one. I had
Speaker 1: tell him the rest, tell him the rest. I only
Speaker 1: have one. And and it's abouthful, ye say, And that's
Speaker 1: all you need, Danny. So how does it feel? Where
Speaker 1: do you feel it in your body? To speak it
Speaker 1: that way? Where do you feel that in your body?
Speaker 1: I feel it. It's why it's in my chest a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um. It's weird. It's also I feel it
Speaker 1: kind of on my shoulders too. It's like I'm just
Speaker 1: carrying it differently. It took a lot of the weight
Speaker 1: off of off of my story. It just it feels
Speaker 1: lighter when I say it like that. I want to
Speaker 1: invite you to transform this from my story into my experience.
Speaker 1: I want to share my experience because your story is
Speaker 1: really what you're telling yourself that people will do when
Speaker 1: you share your experience. And very often we get S
Speaker 1: O S which is stuck on story, which makes us
Speaker 1: stuck on stupid. But I want to tell you what.
Speaker 1: It's so brilliant, brilliant about what you've shared. You didn't
Speaker 1: go into the drama of almost that. You were very
Speaker 1: clear that I had to sacrifice my brass to save
Speaker 1: my life. That beloved is a conscious choice. That's a
Speaker 1: conscious choice, and your choice is your power. So you
Speaker 1: made a powerful choice to save your life. And if
Speaker 1: that meant you had to sacrifice your right breast, so
Speaker 1: be it. So be it. But I want you to
Speaker 1: get up underneath that story you're telling yourself about your
Speaker 1: body being different. Yeah, it's different. So it's mine because
Speaker 1: at my age, a lot of different things have happened
Speaker 1: to my body. There are things in places that they
Speaker 1: weren't things before, and things that are not in place
Speaker 1: that they were. It's a mass, trust me. And the
Speaker 1: good news is I have too breaths want They both
Speaker 1: fell down, So now when you get to be my age,
Speaker 1: you only have one to fall down. That'll be that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Let's to pick up. I want you to get under
Speaker 1: that story of what you're telling yourself about your body
Speaker 1: being different, and we'll do that right after the break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. I am y Len. This is the our spot,
Speaker 1: and we're talking today about how do you fall in
Speaker 1: love with yourself? I want you to get under that
Speaker 1: story of what you're telling yourself, and the way that
Speaker 1: you're gonna get on to that story is to write
Speaker 1: that story out. I've got one breast. I did, but damn,
Speaker 1: people gonna see me. They're gonna run screaming from the room,
Speaker 1: or nobody want me to bootle bo. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of women with two breasts and still nobody
Speaker 1: wants them, so you ain't good company. It's the story, beloved.
Speaker 1: It is not the fact that you made a powerful
Speaker 1: choice to sacrifice your right breast in order to stay alive.
Speaker 1: Is the experience that you had and the choice that
Speaker 1: you make, and I want you to honor and celebrate
Speaker 1: yourself for that. You take a breath, tell me what
Speaker 1: you hear me saying. You don't have to repeat my words,
Speaker 1: but I want to get in that story. I want
Speaker 1: to hear what you heard me say about you. I
Speaker 1: heard you say that this is my experience and that
Speaker 1: it goes from just the story that I'm telling myself
Speaker 1: to this experience that I have, I have lived, and
Speaker 1: and that I made the choice to sacrifice my breast,
Speaker 1: and that was that was a conscious voice that I
Speaker 1: made in order to to live. Yes, and drink Margarita's,
Speaker 1: and drink margarita I again applaud your courage. I want
Speaker 1: to tell you something, and I promise you this is
Speaker 1: the absolute truth. My mother had breast cancer. She discovered
Speaker 1: she had breast cancer when she was pregnant with me.
Speaker 1: This was way back in the fifties and she was
Speaker 1: a poor woman of color, and back then, the only
Speaker 1: treatment for many women with breast cancer was a mastectomy.
Speaker 1: And I don't remember my mother because I was too
Speaker 1: when this happened. They wanted to do a mastectomy and
Speaker 1: my mother refused. She wouldn't sacrifice her breast. So when
Speaker 1: I was too years and six months, my mother died.
Speaker 1: She surrendered her life to breast cancer rather than lose
Speaker 1: her breast. And you sacrifice your right breast in order
Speaker 1: to stay alive. What a powerful choice, because my mother
Speaker 1: went to her grave rather than to make that sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Oh my God, take a breath. I also want you
Speaker 1: to learn how to breathe because you don't do that.
Speaker 1: Stop holding your breath. You're gonna meet Danny at the restaurant.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a margarite and some guacamole, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna be just fine. I love you. Okay, get under
Speaker 1: that story, baby, Please go into that story. Right it out.
Speaker 1: And every time you hit the point where it hits
Speaker 1: your stomach or your chest or your throat. You say,
Speaker 1: I have one breast because I chose to sacrifice the
Speaker 1: other to save my life. And I want you to
Speaker 1: take off that part of this. And I didn't ask
Speaker 1: for this, or if you leave it on, I didn't
Speaker 1: ask for this, but I am woman enough to handle it.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, and woman enough to handle it.
Speaker 1: And there'll be a man who's man enough to handle me.
Speaker 1: And the mouthful that I got to offer yes, yes,
Speaker 1: just like yeah, put your big girl panties on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lovely story. You could tell anybody. He might
Speaker 1: just stand up in applause. Who knows. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for sharing your courageous story with me, And if
Speaker 1: you meet Danny or Bruce or Fred or whoever, please
Speaker 1: write me and let me know how they responded. I
Speaker 1: really do thank you, because I know there are hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of other sister women who needed to hear this.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for you, and please continue to listen to
Speaker 1: our spot. We think people come into our life and
Speaker 1: love us and that we love them back, but the
Speaker 1: truth is that people come into our life. We have
Speaker 1: relationships with other people to demonstrate to ourselves the depth
Speaker 1: of love we are capable of. Now, Unfortunately, we are
Speaker 1: much better at pouring that love on other people than
Speaker 1: we are about giving it to ourselves. How do you
Speaker 1: fall in love with yourself? One day at a time,
Speaker 1: one kind gesture at a time, one card wasn't bouquet
Speaker 1: of flowers, one box of candy at a time that
Speaker 1: you give to yourself. It takes time, and there'll be
Speaker 1: some days you don't like you, and that's okay. It
Speaker 1: takes patients. It takes patience. You gotta be patient with
Speaker 1: yourself when you see how ridiculous you are as a
Speaker 1: human being. Well, since this is our first time together,
Speaker 1: I don't want to overwhelm you, but I want to
Speaker 1: start right here. You want to love yourself, find some
Speaker 1: time each day to spend with you. Every relationship starts
Speaker 1: by spending time with the other person, whether it's online
Speaker 1: or on the phone or in person. And since you
Speaker 1: don't have to call yourself, you could start just spending
Speaker 1: time with you, quiet time with yourself. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to interrogate yourself, but I do want you
Speaker 1: to make some deep inquiries of yourself about what is
Speaker 1: the story you're telling yourself about yourself and what you
Speaker 1: think other people will tell themselves about you. It's important
Speaker 1: that you understand that because what you tell yourself about
Speaker 1: yourself will determine the foundation of your relationship with everyone.
Speaker 1: What is the story you're telling yourself about yourself? And
Speaker 1: is it a love story or is it a horror
Speaker 1: story that recounts every single thing that you think is
Speaker 1: wrong with you? Now I can imagine that you may
Speaker 1: be asking yourself, well, who are you at? What can
Speaker 1: you tell me about relationships that I don't already know?
Speaker 1: And I think that's a fair question. So let me
Speaker 1: give you a little background on me so that you'll
Speaker 1: understand how I learn the skills to step all up
Speaker 1: in your relationship business. I am a La no Nasy
Speaker 1: on the van ZANDT. While some of you may know
Speaker 1: about me and my climb from the basement of life
Speaker 1: to become a lawyer, a minister, a spiritual life coach,
Speaker 1: and the host of Illan La Fixed My Life on
Speaker 1: the Oprah Winfrey Network, others may be new to the
Speaker 1: world and persona of Illan La van zand So allow
Speaker 1: me to introduce myself. I am yam La born Rhonda
Speaker 1: Eva Harris in a year I won't bother to mention
Speaker 1: out loud. I was born to an alcoholic mother and
Speaker 1: a womanizing father. My father was a married man and
Speaker 1: my mother was the other woman. I was the second
Speaker 1: child of three born in that relationship. My birth mother,
Speaker 1: Sahara Elizabeth, died when I was about two and a
Speaker 1: half almost three. Unfortunately, growing up, I didn't remember that,
Speaker 1: and the big people in my life, the adults, well
Speaker 1: they decided that it would be better for me if
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, so they just never mentioned that
Speaker 1: my mother was dead. So I was taught and raised
Speaker 1: to believe that my father's wife, my stepmother, was my mother.
Speaker 1: My stepmother, who in the end turned out to be
Speaker 1: a living angel in my life, was part Cuban and
Speaker 1: part Jamaican, which man, I didn't look anything like her that.
Speaker 1: She was fair skinned, I was not. The texture of
Speaker 1: her hair was soft and fine. Mine was not. She
Speaker 1: was delicate, almost fragile, and very demera. I was anything
Speaker 1: but that, and so that's how it began for me.
Speaker 1: I looked different, I felt different. I was different from
Speaker 1: my mother and no one can tell me why. I
Speaker 1: tell you this not for the shock value, but to
Speaker 1: emphasize that what we experienced to his children, what we
Speaker 1: are taught, and what we are exposed to in our
Speaker 1: formative years becomes the foundation of our relationship with ourselves,
Speaker 1: but also the structure and template we used to build
Speaker 1: all of our relationships. It's called a bonding pattern. I
Speaker 1: was raised by my Native American grandmother until I was
Speaker 1: five years old. Now she favored my brother, who was
Speaker 1: a severe asthmatic, watching my father move in and out
Speaker 1: of my life, going with him when he visited his girlfriends,
Speaker 1: being bribed into silence with candy and ice cream, meeting
Speaker 1: a woman and then another woman, and then the woman
Speaker 1: I was told was my mother when I was about four,
Speaker 1: a woman who looked nothing like me, and then being
Speaker 1: shuttled around among family members because my father was financially
Speaker 1: unstable and my mother's stepmother could not care for me
Speaker 1: and my brother. Let me just say that my beginnings
Speaker 1: were rough, and by the time I was thirteen, I
Speaker 1: really did not like myself. I had a dark complexion,
Speaker 1: which at the time was not fashionable. I was fat,
Speaker 1: or at least that's what they told me I was also,
Speaker 1: according to my brother, ugly. Then you add to that
Speaker 1: my feelings, my emotions. I felt bad, wrong, ugly, abandoned, unwanted,
Speaker 1: and unloved. Those feelings grew infested until I was about
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, when in the midst of postpartum depression,
Speaker 1: I attempted to take my own life. Well, I'm here today,
Speaker 1: so I guess you know. I failed. But that was
Speaker 1: my first wake up call that something had to change.
Speaker 1: I muddled along for another six or seven years, dragging
Speaker 1: my three children with me, until the internal pain and
Speaker 1: external chaos became so excruciating that I was forced to
Speaker 1: look at myself. I had to look at myself because
Speaker 1: everyone else was gone. I had left my physically abusive husband,
Speaker 1: the fathers of my first two children had left me.
Speaker 1: Most of my friends were in the same or worse
Speaker 1: situations than I was. My father and I were barely
Speaker 1: on speaking terms. I had not seen nor heard from
Speaker 1: my brother in almost three years. I had refused to
Speaker 1: speak to my grandmother for seven years, and my stepmother
Speaker 1: had passed on. I was broke and sad and confused
Speaker 1: and mad as hell. So how did I fall in
Speaker 1: love with myself. Well, for me, it started with a book.
Speaker 1: I was in Borders bookstore. You remember Borders books, right,
Speaker 1: That's when we got books that had covers and pages,
Speaker 1: not that we could scroll through. I don't remember what
Speaker 1: I was looking for, but I was standing in front
Speaker 1: of a shelf when a book literally literally fell off
Speaker 1: the shelf and hit me on the head. That book
Speaker 1: was entitled This Thing Called You by Ernest Holmes. It
Speaker 1: was a small book, almost like a pamphlet. So I
Speaker 1: sat down and started reading it. Now I did buy
Speaker 1: the book, and by the time I got to the
Speaker 1: end of the book, the thing that I understood was
Speaker 1: that I had to change my mind. I had to
Speaker 1: change my way of thinking about who I was, who
Speaker 1: I was not, how I saw myself, how I treated myself,
Speaker 1: what I expected of myself, and what I expected from myself.
Speaker 1: As a result of reading that book and understanding, really
Speaker 1: understanding what the author was trying to convey, I spent
Speaker 1: the next three or four years reading, praying, searching, researching,
Speaker 1: trying to understand who I was and who I was
Speaker 1: choosing to be. It was excruciating because I felt so
Speaker 1: alone and confused and doomed to a life of sadness,
Speaker 1: a loneness and pain. This thing called me was a mess.
Speaker 1: But then I remembered something. See, I grew up in
Speaker 1: the church. My Native American grandmother, who passed as an
Speaker 1: African American, raised me in the church, and if she
Speaker 1: didn't do anything else, she taught me how to pray.
Speaker 1: So in the pitch black darkness of my life, I
Speaker 1: started praying, and that led me to want to create
Speaker 1: a relationship with something greater than me. For me, that
Speaker 1: greater thing was God. But I had to find another
Speaker 1: kind of God because the one I had been taught
Speaker 1: to worship was mean and moody and very far away.
Speaker 1: I had to find a God who knew me and
Speaker 1: loved me and cared about me with all of my
Speaker 1: flaws and pimples and weaknesses and human frailties. Now, for
Speaker 1: some God may not be the route they take into love,
Speaker 1: and that's okay for now. But here's the truth I
Speaker 1: had to consider and you may want to consider. When
Speaker 1: it comes to dealing with human beings. It takes a
Speaker 1: little more than human skill and human know how to
Speaker 1: deal with other human beings. But that's just life. According
Speaker 1: to Iyamlah, you feel totally free to ignore that juicy
Speaker 1: little tidbit. So how did I fall in love with myself?
Speaker 1: It took me quite a while, but for me, it
Speaker 1: started with forgiveness. I started forgiving all of the people
Speaker 1: that had taught me that I was unlovable, all of
Speaker 1: the people who had abused me, abandoned me, neglecting and
Speaker 1: rejected me. All of the people who had lied to me. Now,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of incidents and experiences along the way,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna give you that. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: give you the top line. Once I started forgiving them,
Speaker 1: I had to. I didn't want to, but I had
Speaker 1: to look at my own behavior, how I had participated
Speaker 1: in my own pain. I had to look at the
Speaker 1: lies I had told myself and those I had told
Speaker 1: other people, which gave them the right to treat me poorly.
Speaker 1: Let me be very very clear, I had a myriad
Speaker 1: of disfunctional relationships in my life, but none of them
Speaker 1: was more dysfunctional than my relationship with myself. I had
Speaker 1: rejected myself, I had abandoned myself, I had neglected myself.
Speaker 1: I had lied to myself. And that is exactly what
Speaker 1: I experienced in every relationship I was having with every
Speaker 1: person in my life, particularly men. Uh. As we embark
Speaker 1: on this our spot journey together, I will tell you
Speaker 1: more one. We have so much to explore and discuss
Speaker 1: together here on the art Spot. In the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: we are going to look at some really juicy, tasty
Speaker 1: relationship issues, things like what is a healthy relationship? I
Speaker 1: am astonished at the number of people who don't know
Speaker 1: what a healthy relationship is. We're gonna look at how
Speaker 1: do you know when it's time to let go, because
Speaker 1: we will hold on and squeeze the last breath out
Speaker 1: of a dying relationship. How do you love again after
Speaker 1: being laughed or losing a loved one? That's an important issue,
Speaker 1: particularly at this time. How do you identify abuse in
Speaker 1: a relationship, because there are all kinds of abuse, some
Speaker 1: of which go completely unnoticed and unhealed. I want to
Speaker 1: look at the changing definition of marriage because people are
Speaker 1: doing some stuff out there. Just I'm old school. Some
Speaker 1: of this stuff I don't understand. I heard about a
Speaker 1: thing called a thrumble. Somebody helped me, and it's not
Speaker 1: all gonna be heavy and deep and healing. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about sex and how to keep the love
Speaker 1: like burning when you old and the hair has fallen
Speaker 1: off your private parts. How does a relationship survive when
Speaker 1: you have different political or religious views? Because that's a
Speaker 1: hot topic right now. And what about this one? Can
Speaker 1: you love two people at the same time? Yeah, baby,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about that, So I hope you will
Speaker 1: come back and tune in as we explore how to
Speaker 1: navigate the often rough but absolutely exciting to rains of relationships. Now,
Speaker 1: even though you're just listening to me talk, I want
Speaker 1: you to participate. I want you to be an active
Speaker 1: participant in this conversation. Not only can you talk to me,
Speaker 1: you can talk to me live. Just give me a
Speaker 1: call at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven
Speaker 1: six eight. That's seven seven five three zero seven seven
Speaker 1: seven six eight. Now, be sure to follow me on
Speaker 1: social media for all of the calling times. But I
Speaker 1: want to leave you with this today. Relationships are an
Speaker 1: essential part of our lives. What we want to do
Speaker 1: is we want to learn how to make them work.
Speaker 1: We want to learn how to make them productive and fulfilling,
Speaker 1: and we want to do it without struggle and suffering.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about that right here on the our Spot,
Speaker 1: I Mean Yamla and I'll see you next time. The
Speaker 1: r Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.