Speaker 1: Today's guest what I called myself. I am a spiritual technician,
Speaker 1: anything that has to do with your spirit, your soul,
Speaker 1: in your mind. Is there a secret in your opinion
Speaker 1: to overcoming hardships and coming out on the other side. Well,
Speaker 1: the first secret is don't call them hardships. My grandmother
Speaker 1: told me when I started talking about spirit and meditating,
Speaker 1: she said, oh, you're going straight down. So you know
Speaker 1: what I did. I went out and bought a beautiful dress,
Speaker 1: so when I get there, I'll be flying. Hi. Everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Cheeks and Chill. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Cheeky's and today's episode is about something I'm very passionate about,
Speaker 1: spirituality and self help. And our guest today is someone
Speaker 1: who has been working in the space and helping people
Speaker 1: for a very long time. So let's jump right into
Speaker 1: this episode of Cheeks and Chow. Sitting right in front
Speaker 1: of me today is even Vat. She's incredible. She has
Speaker 1: a really interesting story, which we'll hear more about in
Speaker 1: just a second, But first starter, she's a spiritual life coach,
Speaker 1: host of the hit show Illanla Fixed My Life, which
Speaker 1: I love. She's a New York Times bestselling author, and
Speaker 1: she even has her own podcast, it's called The Our Spot. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you so much, thank you for
Speaker 1: your time for being here. I'm so excited. I have
Speaker 1: to start off by saying that I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 1: I have your apps, I have The Awakening, I have
Speaker 1: mine matters. I'm a huge, huge fan. So thank you.
Speaker 1: It means a lot to me that you're here. Um, So,
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's start off with with your life.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that I didn't know about you.
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up. I grew up in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: I hailed from the Nation of Brooklyn, and I am
Speaker 1: a New Yorker forever. I will always be a New Yorker.
Speaker 1: I had an older brother, I had an older sister,
Speaker 1: was a baby of a family, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: classic poor black folk upbringing in New York. My grandmother,
Speaker 1: who raised me from the time I was five until
Speaker 1: I was eleven, was a Native American to slakey Cherokee,
Speaker 1: who was passing as black because it was easier for
Speaker 1: her to be black than it was for her to
Speaker 1: be a Native American in the late forties early fifties,
Speaker 1: and so she really kind of hid her her heritage
Speaker 1: and her culture from the world. She hid it in
Speaker 1: the church, she hit it in the way she presented
Speaker 1: herself in the world. But at home, you know, she
Speaker 1: taught me so many things about my culture as a
Speaker 1: woman of color, Native culture, indigenous culture. She told us
Speaker 1: that she couldn't read. She never went to school, but
Speaker 1: she read the Bible, and she would read the newspaper.
Speaker 1: And I would say to her, well, if you can't read,
Speaker 1: how are you what are you doing? She if somebody
Speaker 1: told it to her, she remembered it, and that's how
Speaker 1: she began to put words together and could do simple sentences,
Speaker 1: very articulate. She would never know she was a woman
Speaker 1: who couldn't actually well, she says, she couldn't read, but
Speaker 1: she could put simple sentences together. And and it was
Speaker 1: not too long ago. I never saw my grandmother write
Speaker 1: anything other than numbers. And she knew how to sign
Speaker 1: her name, but I never saw her write anything other
Speaker 1: than numbers. She never wrote anything down. And she used
Speaker 1: to say, you gotta have a good memory. I don't
Speaker 1: have to write things down. I got a good memory.
Speaker 1: You know that's actually better probably having a better memory.
Speaker 1: Good memory. Yeah, yeah, when did you know that this
Speaker 1: was your calling, Like, was that you think through your grandmother,
Speaker 1: like having those conversations with her. Absolutely not, I'm a
Speaker 1: criminal defensive attorney. That's high school early childhood education. I
Speaker 1: spent two weeks in the classroom with about kindergarteners and
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, just cut my throat right now, let
Speaker 1: me die. Not for me. Early childhood psychology and education
Speaker 1: is my undergraduate degree. And then I went to law school.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a nurse all my life. I
Speaker 1: wanted to wear the white uniform. Years ago, nurses wore
Speaker 1: white uniforms and they had little hats. But um, one
Speaker 1: day in nursing school let me know that I was
Speaker 1: going to have to dissect the pig. And I left.
Speaker 1: That was he said, No, I got through the frog
Speaker 1: in high school. I did. God, I don't know how
Speaker 1: I got through that. I remember gagging and wretching over
Speaker 1: the frog. But I was not gonna stick my hand
Speaker 1: down in a jar from Aldehad and put out a
Speaker 1: baby pig. That wasn't ever gonna happen in this life time.
Speaker 1: So I left and I went to law school. When
Speaker 1: I was thirty two, I graduated from college and I
Speaker 1: went to law school, and I really thought I was
Speaker 1: going to be a lawyer, and um, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be the black female Perry Mason get all my clients off.
Speaker 1: And as a criminal defense attorney, you spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in jail, so because that's where your clients are.
Speaker 1: And since I had never been arrested, I'm thinking, why
Speaker 1: am I in jail every year? And so I left
Speaker 1: and I had no clue what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1: It just kind of unfolded. As I was collecting unemployment
Speaker 1: and a friend of mine asked me to come in.
Speaker 1: Would I be willing to teach life school skills life
Speaker 1: skills to women who were being transitioned off of public assistance,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what happened to me. So I went
Speaker 1: in and I started teaching life skills and my first book,
Speaker 1: Tapping the Power Within, is the workbook that I wrote
Speaker 1: for the women that I was teaching life skills too.
Speaker 1: And one step at a time, it just kind of unfolded.
Speaker 1: I mean, what what do I do? What do I call?
Speaker 1: What I do I do? I what do I do
Speaker 1: that I would have to look forward at a career
Speaker 1: fair I don't know, you know, I wasn't. I'm an author.
Speaker 1: I'm a I am a spiritual life coach trained. I
Speaker 1: am a minister, you know, seminary trained and ordained. What
Speaker 1: I called myself um because I think it's always best
Speaker 1: to define yourself and not to try to fit into
Speaker 1: the boxes that people want to stick you in. I
Speaker 1: am a spiritual technician. If it has anything to do
Speaker 1: with the human spirit, the human soul and connection to consciousness,
Speaker 1: I'm a technician. I have a technology that's going to
Speaker 1: support you and and fixing, healing, repairing, aligning, expanding, growing, healing,
Speaker 1: anything that has to do with your spirit, your soul
Speaker 1: and your mind. Just right up my alley. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what I love. You've been through so much since you
Speaker 1: were nine years old, you know, And did you ever
Speaker 1: question maybe God or the higher power of the universe,
Speaker 1: like why did this happen to me? Did you ever
Speaker 1: have that moment? No, that's great. I didn't even know
Speaker 1: I was raped at nine. I didn't know it was
Speaker 1: called rape until I was thirty. Oh, I didn't even know.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I mean, it had never happened.
Speaker 1: I had never seen it. Nobody ever talked about it,
Speaker 1: you know. As an indigenous culture, you don't talk about
Speaker 1: things like that. And in the black culture too, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't talk about it. That's why so many girls
Speaker 1: and boys, or young women and young men suffer because
Speaker 1: this thing has happened and it's horrible, and they don't
Speaker 1: feel free to talk about it, so it becomes repetitive.
Speaker 1: That wasn't my case. It happened one time I told
Speaker 1: and the results of me telling about it were almost
Speaker 1: worse than if I hadn't said anything, because the results
Speaker 1: were he called me a liar, and nothing else was
Speaker 1: ever done. Nothing. So I grew up believing that it's
Speaker 1: okay for people to treat me badly. What happens to
Speaker 1: me doesn't matter. I'm not important. And so those were
Speaker 1: lessons that I, you know, had to unlearn in my life.
Speaker 1: And I didn't even because nothing was ever said, and
Speaker 1: they don't do in my era, they didn't do sex education.
Speaker 1: So that was like thirty years old looking at a
Speaker 1: TV show and I said, well that happened to me,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I was raped. I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that's what you called it. So as I said,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a nurse, Nursing is a healing profession.
Speaker 1: Nurses take care of you when you're sick and you're
Speaker 1: not well. Uh, And that's what I do. I just
Speaker 1: instead of doing it to your body, I do it
Speaker 1: for your soul in your mind. That's what I love.
Speaker 1: And you never held any resentment or anything like did
Speaker 1: you ever feel you had to forgive that person or
Speaker 1: it was just kind of like an out of sight,
Speaker 1: out of mine situation. But the time I realized that
Speaker 1: that was not a normal thing to happen, I had
Speaker 1: to forgive myself for everything that I told myself about it.
Speaker 1: I'm not important. What happens to me doesn't matter. It's
Speaker 1: okay for people to treat me badly. I can't talk
Speaker 1: about the things that hurt me. I mean, I did
Speaker 1: that to myself. Nobody told me anything. So by the
Speaker 1: time I understood the power of forgiveness and what forgiveness
Speaker 1: was all about, it wasn't even about forgiving him. Plus
Speaker 1: he was dead. I was alive and I was suffering,
Speaker 1: and that's what I wanted to heal up. That's what
Speaker 1: I always say. Forgiveness is a gift for yourself. It
Speaker 1: gives you, you know, like the wings to fly into
Speaker 1: sore is how I feel. I was actually sexually abused
Speaker 1: by my father. My dad never admitted to it, we
Speaker 1: never asked for forgiveness. For a long time, I wanted
Speaker 1: to hear it, you know, I wanted to hear, yes,
Speaker 1: I did it, You're not a liar. I'm sorry. He's
Speaker 1: in jail. He's going to be there for another I
Speaker 1: don't know, seventeen years or something like that. But now
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, I because of that, the
Speaker 1: same thing I would think I was. I was dirty,
Speaker 1: I'm not worthy. I I so many things that happened
Speaker 1: and I thought and yeah, I mean, at the end
Speaker 1: of the say, I'm gonna forgive you, and I'm also
Speaker 1: forgive myself for thinking those things and thinking that the
Speaker 1: things that you said were correct, that I was a liar.
Speaker 1: You know. So anyhow do you feel that everything happens
Speaker 1: for a reason? Oh? Absolutely, I don't feel that that's
Speaker 1: universal law cause and effect. Yeah. I think one of
Speaker 1: the hardest concepts for people to get is that you know,
Speaker 1: we come here and that part of us that is alive,
Speaker 1: that soul, knows what you need to learn, unlearn, what
Speaker 1: you need to do, not do knows your purpose, knows
Speaker 1: your everything, and we're so busy out in the world
Speaker 1: till we don't go in UM. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: I can work with almost anybody around anything is because
Speaker 1: I've been through most of it. So I'm not teaching
Speaker 1: you from theory and pragmatism. I'm teaching you from experience,
Speaker 1: and I continue to take it deeper and deeper. Everything
Speaker 1: is exactly as it needs to be. Of course, the
Speaker 1: miracles UH teaches that all things are lessons that God
Speaker 1: would have us learned. So we're always learning, always learning.
Speaker 1: Once you get back it gets exciting. Well, my husband
Speaker 1: left me. Well what am I learning today? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: fell out? Oh what am I learning about this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's what I always tell people, Like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're in a tight situation. You can't see the light
Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel. But it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like exactly that, like they're you're going through that
Speaker 1: to learn something about yourself about the situation. So okay,
Speaker 1: I'm good. I think I'm on the right track. I
Speaker 1: have a very odd question, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: answer it if you don't want to, obviously, But do
Speaker 1: you drink alcohol? By any chance. I absolutely don't. But
Speaker 1: let me tell you why. My mother was an alcoholic. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I think I drank so much looking the wound,
Speaker 1: I didn't have to have no more when I got
Speaker 1: into physical body. Really, I never, I have never, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, of course, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: goes out and you're drinking. We used to drink uh
Speaker 1: saying grea with fruit in it. That was yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So but I've never. I've never. No, it's not my thing.
Speaker 1: And I smoked a lot of happy flowers. I love
Speaker 1: happy flower baby. I have smoked. I'm happy hours. When
Speaker 1: I had my last child, I was twenty one years old,
Speaker 1: it just, you know, it's like it just went away
Speaker 1: and I've never. I never touched it again. Now it's legal.
Speaker 1: You know, back then we were buying a nickel bag
Speaker 1: and hiding it in fifty two shopping bags under the bed.
Speaker 1: And you, I mean, you fix so many people like
Speaker 1: do you have a life coach, do you have a
Speaker 1: mentor or something that someone that helps you out? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, let me just say, I don't know
Speaker 1: what anybody else says. I haven't helped anybody. What I've
Speaker 1: done it's given people information and support so that they
Speaker 1: can help themselves. I don't help you. I'm too busy
Speaker 1: trying to help my own self, and you get helped
Speaker 1: in the process of my healing. Go for you. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying. What has happened is throughout my my healing process.
Speaker 1: I've taken copious notes, really taking copy. I have notebooks
Speaker 1: and revelations and understandings. But I do I have a coach.
Speaker 1: I have two coaches. I also have of what I
Speaker 1: call a prayer partner UM, and I have UM. I
Speaker 1: don't know what Peter is. Peter is a coach. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a clinical psychologist, but I don't go to him
Speaker 1: for therapy. We do coaching together. And then my greatest
Speaker 1: coaches are those people that I've taught and trained because
Speaker 1: they keep me sharp when I'm going off the deep end,
Speaker 1: they say, wait a minute, didn't you teach us? Or
Speaker 1: don't you know? And when they repeat back to me
Speaker 1: stuff that I taught them, I just want to punch
Speaker 1: him in the throat, right in the throat. That's terrible
Speaker 1: when your students are teaching you with what you taught them.
Speaker 1: So didn't you say this right? Uh? No, this is
Speaker 1: how they usually said. They said, somebody once told me,
Speaker 1: and then I know I'm getting ready for the SmackDown.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I do have two coaches and a
Speaker 1: prayer partner. I am to find myself a prayer partner.
Speaker 1: That's what I need. Yeah, always say this, I'm not
Speaker 1: a religious woman. I'm very spiritual. I have a connection
Speaker 1: with God. I like to meditate and I feel like
Speaker 1: that's like my main coach. But I do. That is
Speaker 1: your religion if that's what you do. You know, religion
Speaker 1: is people's beliefs and opinions about God's source, creator, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. That's all religion is. It's
Speaker 1: people's opinions and the dogma or the theology that's set
Speaker 1: up based on the faith path that you walk is
Speaker 1: what you do based on that theology. All religion is
Speaker 1: about how to get us in relationship with the God
Speaker 1: of our understanding. So of meditation, yoga, you know, some
Speaker 1: for some people it's tai chi. If that is what
Speaker 1: gets you in connection with the creative, your understanding, then
Speaker 1: that is your religion. I want people to really get
Speaker 1: clear about that and stop saying I'm not religious, but
Speaker 1: I'm spiritual I meditate. Well, then you're religious, but I'm religious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: My religion is called love and faith, right, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: in love the great religion that there is. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to teach a class. I have a
Speaker 1: community I call the Spiritual Study Sanctuary, and I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to teach a class on how to love the
Speaker 1: Bible from a metaphysical perspective, not a religious perspective, because
Speaker 1: it is one of the most powerful treatise on human development,
Speaker 1: character development, spiritual development. But because of the way it's
Speaker 1: been used and weaponized or diminished or just pigeonhole to
Speaker 1: be about Christianity, people miss the wisdom that is in there,
Speaker 1: and there's so much wisdom in the scriptures. I want
Speaker 1: to see if you can help me break something down
Speaker 1: because I've I've tried to put it into words, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I know what this means, but I
Speaker 1: want to see if you can break it down for
Speaker 1: for our listeners. Actually, I think I heard Beyonce say it.
Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty sure it was her. What she said,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of God in all of us.
Speaker 1: God lives in me as me, and I try to
Speaker 1: tell my grandmother that, and she's a very she's a
Speaker 1: Christian woman, and she didn't understand. She didn't really like it.
Speaker 1: She was like, no, how can you compare yourself to that?
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I didn't know how to explain it.
Speaker 1: So I want to see if you can help me. Well,
Speaker 1: Grandma's never gonna understand that unless she wants to. Okay,
Speaker 1: my grandmother told me forever when I started talking about
Speaker 1: spirit and meditating, she said, oh, you're going straight to hell.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm going straight to hell. And so you
Speaker 1: know what I did. I went out and bought a
Speaker 1: beautiful dress. So when I get there, I'll be flying.
Speaker 1: I just decided I'm not gonna be afraid of hell.
Speaker 1: You see, I was married to a man who beat
Speaker 1: me every day for nine years. That's hell. Leaving him
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the morning with three babies and
Speaker 1: three shopping bags, that's hell. So wherever I'm going when
Speaker 1: I leave this body, wherever I'm supposed to rest, I
Speaker 1: want the party. So I got little dress. I'm going
Speaker 1: to Hell. Okay, I'm a little good. So the thing is,
Speaker 1: And that is part of the challenge with religiosity and
Speaker 1: church unity. Religiosity says that somebody else tells you about
Speaker 1: your relationship with the God of your understanding. Most of
Speaker 1: us inherited the God we believe in. We didn't find
Speaker 1: it on our own. And then church yanity where you've
Speaker 1: gotta go and have somebody else tell you how to
Speaker 1: be in relationship with the God of your understanding. All
Speaker 1: of that teaches us to pray to an external god.
Speaker 1: God is out there, you know. In the Christian faith,
Speaker 1: that's Jesus. He's on the cross, and you know he's
Speaker 1: all He's going to do it for us. And it's
Speaker 1: such a dysfunctional level of codependence when we're relying on
Speaker 1: Jesus to help us treat each other nice. We don't
Speaker 1: do it because it's in we grow the quality and
Speaker 1: a heart kindness, loving, kindness, compassion. We don't grow this
Speaker 1: in a heart. We do it because we're trying to
Speaker 1: please Jesus. That's a little off, I think to me anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't have no problem with Jesus. Me and j
Speaker 1: C are cool. But when you understand what he said,
Speaker 1: these things I have done, you should do this and
Speaker 1: even greater, Well, how how how am I gonna do that?
Speaker 1: When he said, it is not I, but the spirit
Speaker 1: of the Father within me that does the word. When
Speaker 1: he said I come that you may have life and
Speaker 1: have it more abundantly, not by waiting for me to
Speaker 1: do it for you, but by you learning how to
Speaker 1: do what I did. What did he do? He prayed
Speaker 1: a lot. He went away a lot every now and
Speaker 1: then you read in the Bible and said Jesus went away.
Speaker 1: I wonder if he was in a vacation club or something,
Speaker 1: because he was always going. He was always going on
Speaker 1: Why he went into silence, he went into stillness. He
Speaker 1: developed his relationship with the God within. It's not me,
Speaker 1: it's the Father within me that does the where he
Speaker 1: said it so, God is not external, whether it's God,
Speaker 1: divine Mind, divine Mother, whatever it is, that is of
Speaker 1: your understanding, because the creator wants you to understand what
Speaker 1: it is and where it is, who it is, how
Speaker 1: it is. But Grandma, like my grandma, you know, they've
Speaker 1: been indoctrinated in the matrix of Churchianity and religiosity, and
Speaker 1: they don't have to take responsibility for their salvation. It's
Speaker 1: on Jesus. If I do what Jesus says, If I
Speaker 1: do it what Jesus wants then. But now in this
Speaker 1: new age, this new millennium, the Aquarian age, we're taken
Speaker 1: responsibility for ourselves. Are I am ness our souls and
Speaker 1: we don't want to pray to an outside God. That's
Speaker 1: not satisfying us anymore because we're a different breed in
Speaker 1: this era. So yes, this spirit of God is within me.
Speaker 1: And those who worship God must worship God in spirit
Speaker 1: and in truth. In spirit, so we have to understand
Speaker 1: what spirit is. There's only one spirit. God is spirit Spirit,
Speaker 1: not a man out there or you know. And it's
Speaker 1: so funny that all of us walking around with breast
Speaker 1: and vaginas and we're looking at a man and say,
Speaker 1: I'm made any image and the likeness of Gay, well
Speaker 1: is he trans What? How did I get this? Because
Speaker 1: the domma doesn't tell us about the feminine energy and
Speaker 1: expression of the Creator. So if I had to explain
Speaker 1: it to somebody, this is what I would say. Take
Speaker 1: a breath, focus within, and ask God to reveal itself
Speaker 1: to you. I'm not gonna try to explain the unexplainable. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: what's the secret or is there a secret? In your
Speaker 1: opinion to over overcoming hardships and and coming out on
Speaker 1: the other side. Well, the first secret is don't call
Speaker 1: them hardships. Go back to what we were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: which is, Okay, what am I learning here? You know? Recently,
Speaker 1: I have you know, all these modern fend angle dulies.
Speaker 1: So I have a geo thermal heating system so that
Speaker 1: my house is heated from the warmth of the earth,
Speaker 1: not from oil or electricity or whatever. And my geo
Speaker 1: thermal heating system went out, the coils went out and whatever.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about digging down twenty ft in the earth,
Speaker 1: and that's quite expensive. Well, the day after the geo
Speaker 1: thermal system went out, my stovetop cook thing went out.
Speaker 1: My stove just wouldn't cook. It just it wouldn't. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't do nothing. So it's one thing right after the
Speaker 1: one thing right after the other. And the good news
Speaker 1: is I can buy a stove top, and I can
Speaker 1: put the deal thermal system on a payment plan, you know,
Speaker 1: and pay it off, you know, and whatever. But not
Speaker 1: to look at that as childs and difficulties and and
Speaker 1: to say, okay, God, how are we gonna get this done?
Speaker 1: This is quite interested. So what am I learning. I'm
Speaker 1: learning trust, I'm learning patients. Because at the same time,
Speaker 1: I went to Chipotle to get my grandson some tacos,
Speaker 1: and I'm standing in the line and I get to
Speaker 1: the cash register and the lady says, he paid for
Speaker 1: your food. I go to the supermarket, I mean, and
Speaker 1: to the Starbucks, and I'm standing in line. I get
Speaker 1: to the register and she says, you're good. I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean you're good? She said, the lady
Speaker 1: back there paid for your drink. I went to the
Speaker 1: market yesterday and I'm standing in line and the gentleman
Speaker 1: in front of me, he says, can I pay for
Speaker 1: it what you're getting? I was buying a pretzel from
Speaker 1: the Amish market and I said, but I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I'm in And yet he said, that's okay.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm gonna give her twenty dollars. Get what
Speaker 1: you want, and he says to the woman, you keep
Speaker 1: whatever's left. I was getting a three dollar pretzel and
Speaker 1: you got a seventeen dollar tip from him buying near pretzel.
Speaker 1: You know. So, yeah, the the seeting systems broke and
Speaker 1: the I don't have a stove, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: very annoying and blah blah blah. But somebody I don't
Speaker 1: know bought me a pretzel, uh Starbucks and pay for
Speaker 1: my tacos into pola. You know. Okay, okay, I got
Speaker 1: your back. I got your back, bull I got your back,
Speaker 1: we got your we got this. Let me handle this.
Speaker 1: But if we go into break down and hysteria and
Speaker 1: whining and complaining, that energy in and of itself creates
Speaker 1: more problems than the original problem. Here's what they taught me.
Speaker 1: When I say they, I did my master's degree rein
Speaker 1: spiritual psychology at the University of Santa Monica and I
Speaker 1: was taught this. How you handle the issue is the issue.
Speaker 1: But here's the real thing. How you handle yourself as
Speaker 1: you handle the issue is the real issue. How you know,
Speaker 1: how am I being with myself? How am I speaking
Speaker 1: to myself? How am I talking to myself? What am
Speaker 1: I thinking about myself? What am I telling myself? How
Speaker 1: I handle myself as I handle the issue is the
Speaker 1: real issue. So yeah, it's important. Well, I feel like
Speaker 1: I've learned so much. I'm assuming the listeners as well.
Speaker 1: But is there any are there any tips that you
Speaker 1: have that can I don't know. I mean, you've given
Speaker 1: us so many, but something, something that you feel in
Speaker 1: your heart right now to tell the listeners something that
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it's going to help them. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that the universe is saying it to us.
Speaker 1: It said it to us in one Go home, Go home,
Speaker 1: Be still. We are so busy, so busy between the
Speaker 1: technology and running up and down the roads, running out,
Speaker 1: and be still, go home. And home is where the
Speaker 1: heart is. And for me, that says what brings you joy.
Speaker 1: One of my coaches said something to me about two
Speaker 1: weeks ago that I'm still working on. I had to
Speaker 1: clutch my pearls. I clutched my prols so tied, almost
Speaker 1: choked myself to death. He said. He said, Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're doing all of that for my ministry. You're teaching this,
Speaker 1: and you're doing this, and what is the ministry doing
Speaker 1: for you? What? So I would say to people to
Speaker 1: be real clear about what you're giving out and what
Speaker 1: you're getting back. Oh, because we all spend so much
Speaker 1: time preoccupying ourselves, but what we have to do for
Speaker 1: the job and the this and the that, But what
Speaker 1: is that thing bringing back to you is it bringing
Speaker 1: anything home to you, because home is where the heart is.
Speaker 1: Corona said, go home, go home, and get still. So
Speaker 1: if you want to, you want to know what all
Speaker 1: of this giving out you're doing, get still and see
Speaker 1: what you're getting back. And when I realized was my
Speaker 1: ministry wasn't doing nothing for me but giving me some
Speaker 1: more work to do. So I have to stay. Wait
Speaker 1: a minute, hold up, let me reach. I got to
Speaker 1: restructure this because I have to get something back from
Speaker 1: all the giving that I'm doing. That's why those people
Speaker 1: in the stores well buying everything for giving me back.
Speaker 1: So that's what I got back from my ministry. I
Speaker 1: got a caramel ribbon crunch and I got three tacos,
Speaker 1: and then I got a presser from now can we
Speaker 1: get bigger? Can we get some more? The other thing
Speaker 1: I think people need to know is look around in
Speaker 1: the world right now, whether you're looking at the political
Speaker 1: scene or you're looking at the economic scene, whether you're
Speaker 1: looking at you know, just at the level of against
Speaker 1: nous and meanness is just amazing to me. But whatever
Speaker 1: you see out there, ask yourself, how do I do this?
Speaker 1: How do I lie? How do I bully people? How
Speaker 1: do I shut people down? How do I take and
Speaker 1: not give back? How do I push my way? How
Speaker 1: do I co opt people? I mean, because this is
Speaker 1: what we see out of there? Where is my against nous?
Speaker 1: Where am I dug in? What's my position? Because whatever
Speaker 1: your position is, that determines how you're going to see
Speaker 1: a particular thing. Your position determines your perspective. So if
Speaker 1: your position is this is wrong, you're gonna see it
Speaker 1: all is wrong. If your position is this is right,
Speaker 1: you're not going to see what is wrong or what
Speaker 1: could be improved. If your position is I'm right there wrong,
Speaker 1: then you're not going to be even able to see
Speaker 1: their perspective. So what is your position on anything? Gets
Speaker 1: still and get clear about that. The other thing I
Speaker 1: would say is anything that you're against, anything you don't like,
Speaker 1: anything you don't want, anything you complain about, whine about.
Speaker 1: Invite that thing to tea and let it talk to
Speaker 1: you and find out what's really really going on. Just
Speaker 1: let me sit let me sit down with my pro
Speaker 1: life philosophy, my uh you know, uh, anti abortion philosophy.
Speaker 1: Let me sit down with my democratic philosophy and let
Speaker 1: me have some tea with it, and let me see
Speaker 1: what it's really giving to me. Let's giving to me,
Speaker 1: and what is my position on it. It's exciting to me.
Speaker 1: It's so much work that we need to do on
Speaker 1: ourselves as individuals to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: Then we don't have time for all of the wahala
Speaker 1: and conflomeration. If you just then sometime with you, you
Speaker 1: don't have time to be on Facebook canceling people canceling
Speaker 1: and black on TikTok, dancing on the poles. Set yourself
Speaker 1: down somewhere. Look at you. You're speaking to me. You're
Speaker 1: speaking to me because I feel like my soul has
Speaker 1: been telling me to just sit down and be still.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna take a few weeks off because I've
Speaker 1: been feeling a little depleted. I really have with with
Speaker 1: work and I feel like I've been giving so much
Speaker 1: it's crazy. I'm like, you're you are got is speaking
Speaker 1: to me through you right now? Now before I forget
Speaker 1: the the our Spot, talk to me about it. That's
Speaker 1: your podcast. Oh yes, listen. I used to do the
Speaker 1: Our Spot every Tuesday on YouTube where I would go
Speaker 1: in and answer people's questions about relationships because the truth is,
Speaker 1: relationships are our salvation. We're in relationship with everything. You're
Speaker 1: in relationship with people, your relationship with work, your relationship
Speaker 1: with the Ironman, you're in relationship with money. You are
Speaker 1: in relationship with everything. And a lot of the challenges
Speaker 1: that I see or have encountered in my work with
Speaker 1: people over these thirty five years is that we have
Speaker 1: very dysfunctional relationships. We have dysfunctional relationships with people, with
Speaker 1: our lovers, with our kids, with our money, with the world,
Speaker 1: with God. We have dysfunctional relationships. So the our spot
Speaker 1: is that place where we come to talk about relationships,
Speaker 1: all kinds of relationships. I don't care what it is
Speaker 1: so because what I learned for myself in my own
Speaker 1: dysfunction was it I meant good, but I simply didn't
Speaker 1: have tools and skills. I didn't, you know, I watched
Speaker 1: a womanizing father and an emotionally unavailable father and a broken,
Speaker 1: wounded grandmother raised me, you know, with with no I
Speaker 1: don't even know what I think. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: I was the healthiest one in the house. And then
Speaker 1: I went into uh family environment with a domestic violence
Speaker 1: and alcoholic uncle that's the one who raped me, and
Speaker 1: silent dysfunctional onto it was. You know, I could go
Speaker 1: on and on, but I didn't know anything about relationships
Speaker 1: other than they were supposed to make me feel good.
Speaker 1: I like you, you like me. We do the wild thing,
Speaker 1: We smoke a lot happy flowers, and then we pay
Speaker 1: the rent. Okay, you're gonna pay the light bill. Know,
Speaker 1: we just talked about happy flowers and we didn't talk
Speaker 1: about raising kids and light bill and spiritually all of them.
Speaker 1: It's just crazy. So my intention, because I think intention
Speaker 1: is the greatest tool we can have, is to support
Speaker 1: people in developing the skills and the tools required to
Speaker 1: build healthy, fulfilling, lasting, loving relationships in every area of
Speaker 1: their life. Somebody accused me of something the other day.
Speaker 1: They said, will you call so and so will be?
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, not me. You will never hear
Speaker 1: out of these mouth this mouth right here. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you think you heard, but I would never
Speaker 1: call another sister a be never. I would never do
Speaker 1: that unless we're using it in a context of healing
Speaker 1: and growing, because that word has a different context for me.
Speaker 1: But in anger to say that to her, said I
Speaker 1: would never say that. I want women to have a
Speaker 1: better relationship with each other. I want women to have
Speaker 1: a better relationship with men. I want men brothers, brothers.
Speaker 1: You are my sister. You are my sister. So come
Speaker 1: to the our spot. Let's talk about your relationship with
Speaker 1: each other, with people with money, with your pets. Now,
Speaker 1: how can people treat their pets better than they treat
Speaker 1: other people? It's that's so true. We got I don't
Speaker 1: know how many children hungry in the world, and people
Speaker 1: are walking around pushing their dogs in a in a stoller.
Speaker 1: You could have take that stroll of money and fed
Speaker 1: some hungry children somewhere with all of the level of
Speaker 1: food insecurity that we have here. That's just my perspective.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to shift my position. So you guys heard
Speaker 1: it here. You guys have to listen to the our
Speaker 1: I definitely am. It sounds right like exactly what I
Speaker 1: need in my life. Where can they find you? Share
Speaker 1: your social media, your website. Please Yama dot com. Particularly
Speaker 1: if you want to do to how to love the
Speaker 1: Bible a metaphysical interpretation, I'd love to have you Yama
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find out about all my classes
Speaker 1: and everything. Then I have Masterpiece Body Therapy, which is
Speaker 1: a line of natural body products made with herbs oils
Speaker 1: and African black soap so that as you clean your body,
Speaker 1: you clear your energy because everything is energy and you
Speaker 1: can hear. They are spot on, I Heart Radio, Shondaland Media, Spotify,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcast, just put my name and
Speaker 1: spell it right I Y A N l A, because
Speaker 1: if not, you're gonna get Isaac. When people spell my name,
Speaker 1: what comes up is Isaac. Yes. Yeah, but any place
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts you can get the RSPO. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm excited, I really am. Thanks again, and you
Speaker 1: guys know we always finished the episode of Chickens and
Speaker 1: Chill with a motivational quote. Today's quote is you can't
Speaker 1: go back and change the beginning, but you can start
Speaker 1: where you are and change the ending. That is my
Speaker 1: quote for you. Thank you so much for staying for
Speaker 1: listening Chickens and Chill. Do you need advice on love, relationships, health, emas.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to share with you that my Cheekies
Speaker 1: and Chill podcast will have an extra episode drop each week.
Speaker 1: I'll be answering all your questions. Just leave me a
Speaker 1: voice message. All you have to do is go to
Speaker 1: speak pipe dot com slash Cheeks and Chill podcast and
Speaker 1: record your questions. I can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 1: This is a production of I Heart Radio and the
Speaker 1: Michael Dura podcast Network. Follow us on Instagram at Michael
Speaker 1: Dura Podcasts and follow me checks that's c h i
Speaker 1: q u i s. For more podcasts from my heart,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite podcasts.