Everyday Peace: A Path to Wholeness with Dr. Dravon James

What if you had the tools to craft a life filled with peace and intentionality every day? An inspiring transformation leadership coach and the Everyday Peace Lady, Dr. Dravon James, joins us to shed light on this very possibility. Driven by her interpretation of peace as wholeness, completeness, and the absence of anything missing or broken, Dr. James shares her journey of becoming a coach, ignited by The Power of Positive Thinking. Through her unique philosophy of Everyday Peace, she coaches individuals to utilize every aspect of their lives, both good and bad, to shape the life they desire. 

Delving deeper, Dr. James provides practical methods to cultivate a more mindful self-care routine. She explores the potent role of imagination in fostering a positive self-image. Wrapping up with an exploration of the transformative power of intention, Dr. James leaves us with a bounty of wisdom to help us shine our own light and live our best lives. So sit back, tune in, and let's get started on this journey of Everyday Peace.

Supporting you through all of life's obstacles and challenges is The Soul Quake Survival Guide: Reviving Your Connection to Spirit in Earth-Shaking Times.

Purchase Teresa’s Book at:

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Tune in as Dr. Dravon talks about:

• Why we need to complement ourselves more
• How to become your own superhero
• Why gratitude should be an essential part of your morning routine.

Connect with Dr. Dravon James:

• Website = https://drdravonjames.com/
• Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/drdravonjames/
• Facebook =

Enjoy the first chapter of The Soul Quake Survival Guide here!

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Transcript

People will start complimenting you where you start complimenting yourself. And I'm not talking about ego this being ego practice. I'm talking about this being true self awareness of your authentic greatness. It exists within all of us. We really are designed to become the person that we're most most passionate assigned to be. 

00:25 

Whether you are a seasoned spiritual seeker or just starting out on your spiritual path, this podcast has something for everyone. The mission is to inspire enthusiasm for the spiritual part of your journey through unique perspectives around mind, body and spirit. Join me and other enthusiastic souls as we share weekly episodes of how amazing life is when you embrace the spiritual parts of your journey. This and all episodes can be found on my website, TNT spirit works.com. And if you'd like to watch the episodes, please check out TNT Spirit works YouTube channel. So grab your favorite drink, sit back and relax because another enthusiastic episode starts now. Welcome back to another exciting episode of enthusiastic Lee spiritual. I'm your host Teresa. So listeners if you need some inspiration if you need to gather some peace in your life. My guest today is going to help you with that. Her name is Dr. Dre Vaughn James. Welcome Dr. Dre. Vaughn James, 

01:27 

thank you. I'm so glad that you had me on your show him super excited to be here. 

01:32 

I am super excited you're here to and I would love for you to share with the listeners a little bit about who you are. Your journey to where you've come to right now. And what do you do in the world? Wonderful. 

01:42

Thank you for allowing me to share. So as you mentioned, I'm Dr. Dre Vaughn James, I think I am affectionately known as the everyday peace lady. That's the philosophy that I put forth in the world. And when you hear the word peace, you may think of a zen like lifestyle, I would love it to mean that. But I use the word peace. And I define it. Not my definition. But I use the definition of pieces, wholeness, completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken totality. So everyday peace is the philosophy that I put forth through my next step Leadership Academy for women where I teach leadership skills, but I'm also a life coach. And I love helping people figure out their path to their next level of greatness using get this everything that has shown up in their life, the good, the bad, and everything in between. 

02:42 

Oh, I love that. Because because it's all everything right? Like, it's not just the good, it's everything. So 

02:47 

that's what I mean by piece, right is that everything, the whole enchilada, if you will, which is utterly to us when I was growing up, but the whole lot, everything that you have experienced everything that you are currently experiencing, we're gonna use that like jumbles of steel, or 

something that you will, and we're gonna make the life that you want. I'm gonna show you how to create that. So that is my specialty as a transformation, leadership coach. 

03:15 

When as you're talking about that, all I saw was a cauldron full of beautiful herbs and spices that you're mixing them together to help them and each person is different. So I love that. So I like that 

03:24 

vision. Oh my god. 

03:29 

So Dr. Ahn, what inspired you to go down this path has was there like a life event that happened that you're like, I need to shift? 

03:35 

Well, you know, I've always wanted to help people. That's my path. So I thought I was gonna go to medical school. I ended up going to pharmacy school to get my doctorate degree in pharmacy. But it was actually the year I graduated from high school. That summer before I left for college, my brother gave me a book called The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman

Vincent Peale. Everybody knows that little bitty book. And who would have known here I am a 17 year old kid, I read that book. And the impact that it had on me was that I knew that I wanted to do for others. What Norman Vincent Peale did for me, was to show me that whatever I desired I could create and that I could create it with the things that I currently have. Now, that was amazing to me. i My mom had always taught us, you know, spirituality, religion. And I knew being a preacher or being a teacher, but I never knew anything about being a motivational speaker or anything of that nature. So I didn't have that. That mindset in me, but I knew I wanted to do that. And so I started studying everything that I could, that resonated with me is what I now call peace. Right? And I gotta tell you a funny story. When I was 17 years old, what I thought I was going to do was figure out how to never have a problem in my life. Hahaha. Right? What I tell people is I never figured that out. But what I've figured out what to do with all those problems and how to turn them into something miraculous and create the life that I want. Hmm, 

05:17 

you know what, as you're speaking about your path, it's interesting because, um, you said how you didn't have the mindset of being a coach. But I tell you, we do have you have the energy, like your enthusiasm and your passion for what you're doing it like it just coming out, I can feel it. I can feel it in Iowa, and you're over and Baltimore, I 

05:34 

think, and I didn't know, who knew all those years ago, if you would have said to be a motivational speaker, I'd never heard of that. But so I went on and pursued the path, but I knew pursue the path to becoming a doctor of pharmacy, which I did. But I started in my lectures, because I lectures and I taught it, healthcare facilities at the end of my talk, so about health care issues, and pharmaceutical issues, I will always infuse a little bit about everyday peace. And that's how I started doing it, you know, speaking and coaching on it, cuz people said, Just come and talk about this comment. Because it really was inspiring people. And every time I talked about it, I was inspiring myself. I was creating more belief in myself. And I'm happy to say that I've been able to help people over stumbling blocks in their life to turn things into stepping stones. 

06:23 

Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about that. Because the word first the word peace. So I know, there's a lot of people that, you know, it's hard to get that in their life, it's hard to actually go out, you know, I am peaceful. And then we have these stumbling blocks, which you know, are to me are just like, you know, little roadblocks in the way along our path. So how do you assist people with gathering what they have inside of them and moving past and really turning those into stepping stone? Oh, 

06:47 

my God. So Perception is everything, right? How we frame everything is so very important. And it sounds easy, because we're all comfortable and cozy having this conversation, but in our

it sounds easy, because we're all comfortable and cozy having this conversation, but in our dark spaces, you know, whenever no one's around, and the lights are out, and we're lying in bed, and we're tossing and turning and replaying that day, there are techniques, and I'll talk to those in just a moment. But I would say this, the number one thing is to reframe how we define peace, yes, I would love it to be just lying in the lilies in the field lilies, I would love that. It is totality. So whatever is going on right now, whether you're lying in a field of lilies, or whether you feel like you're in a storm, you're gonna be able to use that. So get jazzed and excited about that, because that's gonna be part of the stepping stones to get you where you want to go. So a couple of things that I tell people to do, in order to be able to get to where you want to go, reframing your mindset is to have be intentional with your time, and to times of your day, especially when you wake up. And when you go to bed. Those are very, very powerful parts of your day, how to book in your day. So what I call it right, so you start your day with gratitude, always intentional gratitude, right? And I use up I want to bring junk over, but I have. So in the morning, first thing in the morning, I do a little index card, as opposed to the index card shows. up please don't have an index card. And you'll see it's got something on the side got something on the side. So the background that card I write down yesterday, three things that I'm grateful for that happened yesterday, right? They could be really small things because just like you I've had a full life. And sometimes I look at yesterday, and I really am like well, I survived one thing, right? So just I don't care how silly you got to be about it. In fact, if you need to be silly about it, it's good because you get a nice giggle, right? A good boy becomes a laugh, and laugh becomes happiness, right? So you get three things in that car, you don't stop it, you get three things on that card that you're grateful for for yesterday. And then you flip the card over. And this is where we get intentional about today. It hasn't even happened because you haven't even gotten to bed yet. But you're gonna frame it, right? And you're gonna say, Okay, here's what I'm grateful for today. Right? This is what I'm grateful for today. Now, here's where I want you to start. Right? I don't want you to be grateful for winning the lottery. 

09:30 

I want you to be grateful about something that you can control that something that you are going to do today and be easy and gentle with yourself. Maybe you I don't know where you are in your journey. You could just be grateful for getting up and brushing your hair today. That's okay. Write it down. Make it happen. You are a creator. There's a lot here. And you know if you have more time I can tell you why this is so important. People ask me all the time. Can I write can I just think about it, you must write it and you know how you want to write long as okay with me, index card works here. Now, that's how we started is to intentional parts of our data book. And on the flip side of that, at the end of the day, very, very, very important. A lot of us have this tendency whether we know it or not, we end our day by criticizing ourselves. Right? I should have done this better. I shouldn't have eaten this. I shouldn't have said that. Boy, I'm such a loser. Good night. 

10:35 

Often turn toss and turn, toss and turn, right? 

10:37 

Why? Why do I can't sleep, I wonder why my stomach is upset. Look at the bedtime story. Look at how you're, you're the last voice the last person to communicate with yourself before you fall

at how you're, you're the last voice the last person to communicate with yourself before you fall off to sleep. Let's be intentional about that. And so I do this process called ending my day as a superhero. I don't care what happened that day. Right? You become the superhero of that day, you figure out how to retell that story, as you is the superhero. So you burned all of the food, right? I am consistent. Right? I love that way to tell you as a superhero, because your brain needs to hear that. It needs to rest in that your subconscious believes everything. It does not have a filter that says oh, he or she was just kidding. They don't believe I'm an idiot. No, you said it. They believe it. Right? So you got it in your day as a superhero. I am consistent. I am consistently getting better. Tell yourself that there was a story that I read, I want to say it was Brian Tracy, I believe he wrote the story. But about a kid that was out in the backyard, and he was trying to hit a baseball. And he missed the baseball over and over and over again. And he kept saying I'm the world's greatest pitcher batteries to tell I know nothing about sports. I'm the world. After he did not hit any of those, he said Who knew? I'm the world's greatest catcher. Oh, shifted it. That was a little kid. Ah, 

12:18 

I love that so much 

12:20 

now, that just no one taught that kid that that hadn't been strangled out of him by by the journey called life, right? So I want to go back to that and teach our adult audience and our adult listeners how to be that childlike believer again, in ourselves, we are tremendous. We really have a track record of success. I know that because everything that has come against you has failed or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast right now. You have survived it all. So you are 100% successful, right? Tell yourself that story every Everyday everyday. So you change your perception of you. That's how you become. That's how you change a stumbling block into a stepping stone. 

13:08 

That is wonderful. What I love about that, too, is the practicality of what you mentioned of you know, writing in the morning and at the in the afternoon. Like that's it's doable. It's not like you have the it's so doable. Which is so wonderful. And what what I see about that too, because I call that regrouping for the especially in the arm that afternoon like regrouping what happened today, but I love your superhero. Oh my gosh, I'm going there with that. That's awesome. And that to me also would help someone really start changing that mindset, like what you talk about, you know, and the fact that you know, like, we are so hard on ourselves. We're the hardest on ourselves. So it's shifting that to be like, yeah, oh my god, I did get I got out of bed today. Hello. got out of bed. I was good at getting out of bed today or whatever it is. 

13:53 

Right? Right. You used to find reasons to applaud for you. Right, somewhere along our path. And I'm sure it was not to it was not intentionally to harm us. But we were taught and we believe that we can criticize ourselves to success, right? If I tell myself 1000 times that

chocolate cake is horrible. And I'm a horrible person for eating. I'll stop eating. Well, that doesn't work. No, no, I'm gonna figure out a way to talk good and nice to myself. Because then I my inner self starts to believe me, so as to trust me, so as to like me starts to fall in love with me and starts to pair up with where I want to go. I now can hear intuitively here, because the voice is there. All along. Right? All those answers are inside of us. We're just clouded by all this nonsense and all this self criticism and all this fear. And the best way to combat all that is to change the narrative. We had to do that. It takes a little while to do it takes consistent practice. But as you mentioned, this is fun, small practical stuff stuff in the more you can laugh at it, don't make it hard, but be consistent. And when you're not consistent, because you won't always be, laugh, laugh it off and start over. 

15:10 

And that also builds a trust in yourself going, Yeah, I got this and also seeing how things can be shifted. So really have kind of quickly. I mean, like I said, it will take time, but even the little bitty things can shift, you're like, oh my gosh, I don't say that I'm stupid anymore. Or I don't say that I'm, you know, I'm fat. And the more because I'm beautiful in my body, or whatever it's going to be for each person, right? And what 

15:29 

and here's a, here's a added bonus. And the more that you start participating in this, you'll notice that people around you will also stop saying those things. The added bonus, right? Just pay attention to that. People will start complimenting you where you start complimenting yourself. And I'm not talking about ego, this being ego practice I'm talking about this being true self awareness of your authentic greatness. It exists within all of us, we really are designed to become the person that we're most, most passionate inside to be. We're designed to be that person. A quick, another quick stories, I have a friend who always wanted to be a pilot, always his entire life, a pilot, right, we met each other and in college, and I have never wanted to be a pilot. Right? I never wanted to be a pilot. And I love that story. He became a pilot, he's no longer a pharmacist, he is a pilot. And I love that story. Because it shows that the dreams and passions that are for me, that are inside of me, are for me, and the dreams and the passion that are inside of you or for you. It is meant for you to pursue them. So could you imagine if he had waited for me to validate his desire to be a pilot? Yeah, dude, I don't. Okay. Never. So you didn't wait for that, you know, as far as like, yeah, that's, that's lovely. I don't know what it feels like to want to be a pilot. But I do know what it feels like to have a passion and I can support your you having a passion. But the point here is that whatever passion you have inside of you, doing these doing, the slight exercises that we talked about today will help you to hear that passion more clearly. And we'll start to wipe away the cobwebs. So you can see a pathway to it. Hmm, 

17:32 

I love that so much. And so let's talk a little bit about your leadership academy. And what how that rolls because that sounds pretty exciting.

17:41 

I love the Leadership Academy. Because first when people first come to me, and I get all kinds of people, I do have CEOs and I have moms and grandmas. Right? Because when I talked about being a leader, first and foremost, right, as being a leader of one, the most important person on your planet, you right? Your planet wouldn't exist if you weren't rolling it, right. So learning, learning how to be a leader of one will help you to be a leader in any other industry. So we work on that. And by default, we get to leadership, and I've been in leadership for many over 30 years in healthcare. So we talk about, you know, strategies that you can use in business. But ultimately, we always come back to self. Because it is you that will you know, I've worn many hats in my lifetime, but I've still always been me. And understanding how to lead me is the magical key to it all. 

18:40 

Absolutely. And I think that's the thing a lot of people do they compare themselves to people outside of them and what other people are doing, and I've done that before, too, because you look around, you're like oh my gosh, people are doing amazing things. But you know, they might be a little in a different other obviously a different place than I am and the listeners is like, you know, not comparing yourself to anyone else's journey. And just knowing that I've got this in what I need to be doing for myself in my journey. That's what I use. Absolutely. 

19:06 

Absolutely. And there is that tendency, right to look to the left and look to the right, and then say, Oh, my goodness, I'm not doing well, right. But when you look to left and you look to the right, start just applauding loudly like, oh my goodness, you're doing great as though you were receiving those, whatever it is yourself. Right. So start applauding loudly and that will take out that desire to compete to supply loudly. Right. Oh, 

19:35 

that's awesome. So let's talk a little bit about your you've also got a podcast I'd like you to do you know share a little about your podcast because it sounds like it's an awesome when also 

19:43 

Yeah, so my podcast is Dr. Dre Vaughn James everyday piece with you down. And so it's on the mind body spirit network, and we we focus on women, helping women so over the years, I Gosh, I've been with that producer for so many years, but over the years, we had different focuses every year. And this year, we picked Women Helping Women. And I think I feel in my soul that this will be the focus to the end of time because I'm very, very passionate about this because I believe when a woman helps a woman, be help a family, a community, a city, a state, a country, the world at large, right? So much happens when a woman stands up in herself and starts to believe in herself as the nurturer. Right. We are the CEO of nurturing a whole family.

That's, that's amazing, right? And when, when when women who are nurtured nurture children. Wow. Right. So I am passionate about this, because we've had some amazing shows, and this year, so I'm thinking that this is just going to be our, our vibe for the rest of our existence. 

20:54 

Or to me they're fighting about that is that it's the building the community. Yeah. And that is where we're at, especially with we all we just came through with COVID. In the last couple years. It's like, now it's all about community. It's about relationships. It's about really those connections. So going in and understanding yourself. So I love what you're doing. So Oh, I'm so excited. I want to thank you so much, Dr. Ahn for coming on today. And sharing. It's been so much fun. You're such an inspiration. 

21:19 

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I've had a great time. Well, listeners, 

21:23 

I hope you enjoyed that mini morsel episode with Dr. Dre Vaughn James I thank her again for coming on today and sharing her inspiration, her enthusiasm and her love for helping you really gather your gifts and know what your purpose is and really just shine your light. So what a beautiful gift she is. And again, all of her information will be in the show notes so please make sure that you check it out. And until next week, please remember that life is too short to not be enthusiastic about your unique journey.