Out Here Tryna Survive
This podcast is a trauma-informed, hope-oriented, safe space. It is a warm hug of solidarity for Black women 35+. It is a celebration of our resilience thus far & our determination to not only survive but THRIVE.
Join me, Grace Sandra, a Mama, author, advocate/activist, storyteller, for some good ole self-love shenanigans.
We are braver than we believe✨
Out Here Tryna Survive
Ep 25: From Falling Asleep to Finding Myself: A Black Woman's Meditation Journey
The journey to inner peace often begins in unexpected ways. For me, it started with a desperate search for financial independence while trapped in an abusive marriage. In 2018, I turned to meditation not for spiritual enlightenment but because successful people in an MLM claimed it helped them make money. What began as a practical pursuit transformed into the cornerstone of my healing journey.
That first 45-minute guided meditation sent me into the deepest, most cathartic sleep I'd ever experienced—so profound that concerned colleagues and my then-husband couldn't reach me for hours. My traumatized body had finally found permission to truly rest. This moment marked the beginning of a practice that would eventually guide me through leaving my abuser, navigating single motherhood, and managing increasingly complex mental health challenges.
From falling asleep during every attempt to gradually building my practice minute by minute, my relationship with meditation evolved alongside my understanding of myself. Walking meditations during work breaks became sacred moments of reprieve from anxiety. Silent morning sessions on my patio became conversations with my inner child and shadow self. This practice—now spanning nearly nine years and hundreds of logged hours—became especially crucial when perimenopause amplified my depression, anxiety, and ADHD symptoms to debilitating levels.
As Black women, we inherit expectations of unwavering strength that can make the vulnerability of stillness feel counterintuitive or even frightening. Yet I've found that teaching my nervous system to calm down, becoming attuned to my body's signals, and creating space for quiet introspection are revolutionary acts of self-care. In my darkest moments of 2023, when poverty and hormonal fluctuations led to serious suicidal ideation, meditation remained my pathway to moments of peace.
Whether you're struggling with trauma, mental health challenges, or simply the overwhelming nature of modern life, I encourage you to begin with just one minute of stillness daily. You deserve peace. You deserve a calm nervous system. You are worthy of creating moments of stillness in your life—and you may be surprised by how profoundly they transform everything else.
📚MY BOOK📚
Grace, Actually: Faith, Love, Loss & Black Womanhood
💌SIGN UP FOR MY SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER! 💌
https://outheretrynasurvive.substack.com/
📧 BUSINESS INQUIRIES📧
⚡️CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL⚡️
📲INSTAGRAM -https://www.instagram.com/grace_sandra_
📲TIK-TOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@OutHereTrynaSurvive
📲FACEBOOK -https://www.facebook.com/gracesandrawrites
🖇AFFILIATE INFO🖇
Affiliate Links included. I only recommend products & services I use myself & love. Using affiliate links helps me & is no extra cost to you.
🎗SUPPORT🎗
💐Support here: https://www.patreon.com/GraceSandra
🎶MUSIC🎶
All music & permissions provided by: Epidemic Sound.
Can a few moments of stillness every day really impact your life profoundly? The answer is yes. So in 2018, I decided to embark on a meditation journey and I'll be honest with you. The reason why I was doing it was for money, and I'll tell you a little bit about that later. I really thought that meditation was the be-all end-all for me to get money, because at that time I was in an abusive marriage. I wasn't working. Actually, was I working? No, I was working. I was working, but I knew I didn't have enough to survive on my own, and so I started a side hustle and that side hustle led me to meditation, because a lot of the people who were doing it were like Okay, well, if you want more money, you got to start meditating. So I can't even tell y'all my journey to meditation was like on some oh, I'm just trying to pursue hope and healing shit. It really wasn't. It was on some like can y'all just give me the coins? But this practice has profoundly shifted the entire landscape of my life and changed my life and been so good for me, and I want to tell y'all what these last like eight years or so of meditation have done for me.
Speaker 1:First, let me introduce myself. My name is Grace Sander. I'm an actor? No, I'm not an actor. I'm not an actor at all. I'm an activist and a mental health advocate, a survivor advocate, a writer, a podcaster and a mom. And this podcast is a hope-oriented storytelling space. It is a warm hug of solidarity for me to you and a celebration of our resilience thus far and our desire to not only survive but to thrive.
Speaker 1:Welcome to episode 25. First of all, can y'all even believe it? It's the 25th episode. Like I read the other day that, like, a large percentage of podcasts never get past the third episode, and I was like that, like a large percentage of podcasts never get past the third episode, and I was like not to brag, but I want episode 25. I'm serious, y'all Like it feels like such a big accomplishment for me because this podcast doesn't pay me. I'm still just doing this in the hopes and with the dream that this will be my full time career, but right now it's not paying me. Right now I pay to do the podcast, actually upwards of 100 and something dollars a month, which, by the way, if you want to support me, if you love this podcast and you want to help me continue to do it. Please sponsor me on Patreon. I don't really do anything on Patreon, but it is a place where you can sponsor the podcast and I also do Substack, so you can follow me on Substack. Get out hereving.
Speaker 1:But anyway, let's go on and talk about something that has changed my life, and I wanted to do this topic today because it's the 25th episode and I'm like what has? What could I impart? That is like such an important part of my journey and it's really, honestly, meditation, and it's something that I think is not talked about enough in the black community and for the black community. I feel like we're always kind of left out and left behind in conversations that are like really, really important. So I want to talk about this. Okay, so back to the story. So, yeah, I was doing an MLM, and in the MLM, a few of the leaders were talking about how they came to make a lot of money, and one of the things that a lot of them said they started doing was meditating, and so I was like, well, I should just start meditating then, and so, literally, it was about money, it wasn't about anything else. Now I should also say at the time I was in a very abusive marriage and it was, I was it was 2018. When I first started the meditation that I want to tell you about Okay, let me just pause I know y'all heard that little chirp.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, the fire alarm in my room needs a battery, but, in my defense, I can't change the battery myself. It's not like a normal AAA, aa or whatever. It's a funny, funky battery that only maintenance can do, and I just haven't called them yet because it's like another step, okay. So I'm sorry if the chirping bothers you. I've kind of tuned it out because it's been a week now, but I will call. Y'all know I got ADHD, okay, y'all know I got ADHD. I be trying, okay. So, anyway, back to my story.
Speaker 1:At the time, I was in a lot of trauma. In 2018 in particular, I think I had literally just been diagnosed with acute stress disorder in the in the fall of 2017. And then I was upgraded to complex PTSD diagnosis in December of 2017. So in 2018, I had just started a new job. It was really hard. I had a stress disorder, I had acute anxiety disorder. I had a young kid my daughter at that was born in 2016. So I was still not sleeping through the night I was still chronically underslept and then I was being abused. So I want you to have that as a backdrop to me starting meditation and me thinking, oh, this is just this cute little thing I'm going to do so that I can make more money. Ok, I decided to get on.
Speaker 1:I had an app that I found through something, because I've always been kind of like a self-development junkie. I was following somebody who was like get this app called Omvana. Omvana had a lot of meditations on it, so I found one that was like 45 minutes. This is my first time ever trying to actually sit down and meditate. So I remember, I literally remember the day I was sitting in my living room. I remember the house we lived in. Then I we had like a big, a really big couch and I was kind of like half laying down, half, you know like this, laid back on a couch, and I remember the meditation was imagining myself like going through this dark, almost like a castle, where the stairs spun around and you know you're picturing. It's like nighttime, it's a soft rain, it's like a lighthouse outside an ocean, and I just remember feeling really, really relaxed At the time.
Speaker 1:My job was remote and I had to clock in at 11 to start the workday and I think I might have started this at like 930 or something, 930 in the morning. So I dropped my daughter off at daycare and I had come back and I was like, oh well, let me try this meditation thing. So I'm imagining I'm in this lighthouse, there's a light, rain, there's you know, and basically, once you get that, once you get up to the top of the lighthouse, there's levers. There was three levers and each lever represented like what you wanted in your life, like risk high, risk low, for I want the best life possible. You could put it at zero or put it at 10.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what happened in that first meditation. All I know is that I fell into a deep comatose sleep, and I mean a deep comatose sleep. I had never in my life felt my body feel like that and honestly, I don't know if I've ever felt it again, ever again. It was the deepest, soundest, fullest, most cathartic sleep I've ever had in my life, so much, y'all, that I remember it to tell y'all. Like this, at 11, when I was supposed to log in, my boss Ben had been texting me and calling me and because I was supposed to meet him, like on a Zoom or a Slack or whatever. I wasn't there and I had my phone on me, y'all the ringer was probably on. I was so deep in sleep. My husband at the time had texted me. I was just out and I think I slept for like five hours and to the point that people were worried about me.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think what happened was in hindsight is that I was going through so much trauma at that time. My body was so traumatized at the time. I really can't even underscore the kind of pain I was feeling at that point in my life. I think it was like the first time that I had allowed my body to truly rest in so long that it was just like nothing will interrupt this sleep, like nothing.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, what I decided to do, because I slept so soundly that first day was just do that same meditation over and over and over again. I probably did that same one, I think, maybe for like three, four, five, six months where and it wasn't every day it was when I would get the chance, because I knew it would put me out, and it continued to put me out every time. But like every time, I would hear a little bit more of it and basically those three levers imagining myself with those three levers became really, really instrumental in me deciding that I was going to leave my abusive husband, because I was really back and forth. He was trying to change and even though everybody was like he's not going to change, I really felt like I want to give him a chance. And I was very, very, very trauma bonded, like in the real way, not in the way people use it incorrectly, but like I was addicted. I had an addiction to my abuser and to the abuse cycles.
Speaker 1:But those levers represented whether or not you were going to take the risk to make your life better. I forgot what the other two were. I think it was how satisfied you wanted to feel in your life. And I think when I started it I had the lever of like how satisfied I wanted to feel with my life at like a three or a four, because I was just honestly kind of just hoping to survive at that point. Just not end up dead is really where I was at at that point, and then I forgot what the third lever was. But that really where I was at at that point, and then I forgot what the third lever was, but that lever thing made me think I need to change. So very, very instrumental. That's how meditation started for me.
Speaker 1:But as time went on, I started doing other meditations in Amvana, in the Amvana app, and then I started doing walking meditations because I just could not keep my ass awake during a meditation. Like my body was like, if you're gonna do this, I will sleep. It didn't matter if I was standing up, sitting up leaning against the wall, it really didn't matter. I'm also, I feel like I'm kind of narcoleptic. So you know, take heart, if you're someone who's tried meditation, you're like Grace, I just can't stay awake. Look, I'm basically a narcoleptic. Like I can't even really drive at night because I will fall asleep driving. I have held money cash out the window probably like 30 times in my life to try to keep myself awake driving just like I've never been able to study for classes without falling asleep in the library, at Starbucks, at McDonald's, wherever I am. So y'all, I'm a sleeper. Okay, your girl is a sleeper, I'm a napper, I can sleep anywhere. So meditation has become a real problem for me because my body, just it just goes into shutdown mode. So if, if you're thinking I can't do this, grace, I, I'm too sleepy, baby, you are not sleepier than me. You are not sleepier, no one can out sleep me, no one can out sleep me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I will come back to my story with meditation Because, like I said it's, I've been on a eight year, damn near nine year, journey with this and I absolutely love meditation. But I want to just list a few things, just a few things that y'all have probably heard about, but it's still good to say. Meditation, number one, helps calm your nervous system and if you've ever heard anything about healing, for those of us out there I know this podcast is for people who are in a healing, a place of healing OK, we out here trying to survive and heal, healing your nervous system is like one of the most important parts about healing, particularly if you've been through trauma, on trauma, on trauma, on trauma. Meditation helps calm the nervous system by activating the parasympathetic response and when you do it regularly, it can lower cortisol, which is your stress response. When you do it regularly, it can reduce anxiety symptoms and regularly can improve your emotional regulation, also by training your mind and your brain to like stay in one place at one time, like focusing on the breath, for example. That's one modality of meditation that can help you concentrate in other areas of your life and resist distractions and that can lead to improved focus better, you know, being better at work, just regular shmegular life in general but it encourages introspection and non-judgmental observation of your thoughts, without judging them, just learning to let them go by and also realizing that not everything that you think, even when you're meditating, is true and it just needs to scoot on by, just keep going. Meditation can also be really helpful in identifying your patterns and your triggers, figuring out your inner workings, your shadow self, and it also helps grow emotional intelligence, which I feel like just is something we all need anyway, and that allows us to be more thoughtful people in general and more empathetic people in general, which I love for me and I love for you. Meditation also reduces your mental clutter, so if you're someone who tends to overthink, meditation can help with that. It doesn't fix it all. This isn't going to fix. It's not a fix. It's not a be all, end all, but it helps a lot and it certainly doesn't hurt. I have found, and many people find, that when you practice meditation you have a greater just sense of connection to yourself and the world around you in general, and I love that aspect of it as well. If you think you can't meditate or if you just want to know where to start, just keep listening.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people feel like when they start meditating that they'll be too tired, like I was too distracted, which I have ADHD too worried about your to do list, etc. Etc. We're all inundated with social media. We're all inundated with the news. We all know the country's falling apart. It's like really hard to just sit and be like trust me, y'all, I get it, I get it. That's why I want to talk about this today. I know there might be a fear of failure and just a fear of like oh my God, why even start something I know I can't do, or start a practice I know I can't finish? It's just very easy to be like this doesn't work for me. Don't give up, I promise. Okay, I'm going to give you some tips.
Speaker 1:I also think that the societal expectations put on black women to be really strong, to be the strong black woman, to not need therapy, to never need antidepressants, to allow ourselves to just like sit and become very quiet, can be very vulnerable. That can be really scary, even for someone like me who actually is pretty good at sitting in my vulnerability. But I know I have a lot of friends that they fear that. You know that will be like I just need a drink because I don't want to hear it, or I just need to. I just need to smoke because my mind is too chaotic. I'll be honest with y'all I have at times I'm not diagnosed, but I have at times wondered if I'm actually borderline because of how much my emotions are so big and so overwhelming. And meditation has really really helped me with that. I realized that allowing yourself to be just quiet and super vulnerable can also be really scary and counterintuitive at times. Because it's scary. I know that's a challenge. You might be wondering does this even really work? And you know what. You'll have to find out for yourself. But I want to share with you my story Because the truth is meditation has really saved my whole life.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, I don't know, I don't know if I'd be here. I mean I have several. If you've watched any of my other YouTube videos, I have several self love, self care practices that I started as a result of going through a domestic violence situation, because I was very aware that I was not going to survive, that I was going to end up unaliving myself with the rate I was going. So there's so many things I did along the way, but I would really name this as one of the top, if not the top two, things that I did that has significantly helped me to get through it, to heal and continue to live, even thrive, post separation, post divorce, post abuse, because I've had so many challenges in the last, basically since I started meditating I mean even before that but I've had my fair share. I just don't know if I could have gotten through it without the practice of meditation.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of focus, here is one thing I would say. I would say start with a minute, every day one minute. So once I started that long video and I realized I was falling asleep every time, I was like I just need something shorter. So I downloaded I want to say it was the Headspace app. It was one of those apps, although there's so many out there I don't even want to name any of them because you can probably find all this on YouTube, but there's at least you know, probably five to 10 really good meditation apps. I still use Amvana and I will link that for you guys if you want it, and Headspace just had one was one of those ones where you like watch the circle go in and out and you just breathe with it for a minute, and I just tried to do one minute every day and I found myself doing that like I think that was like the fall of that same year. I just started with one minute and then I gradually went up to three, and then seven, and then 10, I think, and then 20. It took a long time before I could do 20 without falling asleep, and these were just silent, breathing meditations that were just focused on the breath. I actually really, really like that because I'm someone who has complex PTSD.
Speaker 1:So if you're someone who deals with heightened, heightened anxiety or you've been diagnosed with PTSD or complex PTSD, as you know, it can be really hard to not be anxious Once you get a little bit quiet. I find this actually sometimes in bed, when I'm falling asleep or when I'm. If I wake up in the middle of the night or I've had a bad dream, it's really hard for me to quiet my mind again. So what I'll have to do is a little hack that this can be meditative too is start saying a color and a shape, because your brain has a hard time going back to the worrying if you're giving it something kind of concrete to focus on. So let me give you an example. So if I'm starting to feel anxious, I'll start thinking like red heart, red heart with a two in it. Yellow triangle with a five in it. Green square with a six in it. Gray box with a nine in it. And then I'll just say that in my head over and over and over again. If you do that for like five minutes while taking deep breaths, your brain it really can't worry about what it's trying to worry about when you talk about red circles with fives and sevens in it, and red hearts and yellow triangles, it really can't. I really suggest if you're ever struggling with a panic attack, just start doing that in a repetitive kind of way and your body will actually calm down.
Speaker 1:There's lots of techniques for using meditation for calming anxiety, which I have done, which is one of the ways this has changed my life, but that's one of the ones I do, particularly at night, particularly if I've had a bad dream is the colors, shapes and numbers. There's three things for your brain to focus on. I would be impressed if you're someone who can think about a color, shape and a number and still worried about what you're worried about, because that's a lot to be going on in your brain, but anyway. So once I got to the point where I was doing breath work and all of that somewhere around there, I forgot, when I think it might have been the fall of 2018. Yeah, I'm losing time now. My memory is bad, but somewhere around there I got a different job, working full time for a library, and while I was at the library, I would was able to take 15 minute breaks.
Speaker 1:So I started listening to a podcast. I feel like the name of the podcast is called the Daily Meditation Podcast, but I'm going to find the real name and I'll put it on the screen and I would take a 15 minute break in the morning and in the afternoon and I would listen to one episode, because every episode was either 10 or 15 minutes. I was doing walking meditation, y'all. Those were like the best. Those were the best 15 minutes of my day by far. I love that podcast. The guy's voice on it for some reason, his voice was like so soothing to me, like just really really soothing. I love his voice so much. I haven't heard that one in a really long time. It makes me want to go back to it.
Speaker 1:Guided walking meditations were so great for me and I did that so many times because when I was working for the library, you know, sometimes during the day I had kind of a lot of idle time and you know, if you're worried that your boss is cheating on you, you're starting to be inspector gadget plus just interacting and dealing with him. In general, like I said, it was a hard time. I was anxious a lot. I was having anxiety attacks and panic attacks a lot and those 15 minutes, like I really look forward to it, like no matter what the weather was, if it was snowinging, y'all, if it was raining cold, but when it was, obviously when the sun was out, it was just. It was such a time if I felt like it healed me a little bit every day that I was doing it and all I was doing was walking and listening and just taking deep breaths and that got me out of so many panic attacks. That and doing the deep breathing techniques throughout the day. That was kind of like my entry into it.
Speaker 1:And then I started using this other app and I don't remember the name of the app because the library provided it for us for free. I think around COVID time I don't even remember y'all, the time is all just there was a white woman and a black man who you could choose from to lead the meditations. The black man I think his name was Osifwe or something. He had the sexiest voice ever. Y'all I was listening to that podcast, or not, wasn't a podcast? I was using that app to meditate so often just to hear Osifwe or whatever the hell his name was.
Speaker 1:I think I got up to like 400 and something hours of on just that app and I actually just opened up my Umbana app. I'm not sure if this reset, because I feel like this doesn't. This doesn't sound high enough. Y'all logged in with a different password, but like you can't see this. But it basically says, just for proof, it says 581 times, 581 hours meditated on this app and 127 sessions completed. Now I know I've done way more than that. I've probably done 2000 hours with this app and probably like 500 sessions.
Speaker 1:But you know, whatever my whole point in telling y'all that is that when I started this whole journey I was laying down, I was falling asleep, I was doing walking meditations. I spent three months doing one, one minute to three minutes, a five minute daily minute trying to do daily, probably wasn't even doing every day. Then I was using the app just because the nigga had a sexy voice okay, and the daily meditation podcast. It's a dude, but his voice was just so soothing to me like I just felt like we were best friends, like that's how much I love doing that app. I've continued to use Umbana and then once I got into Bob Proctor, once I learned who he is, I started doing a Bob Proctor meditation. I've probably done that one I'm not even kidding like 100 times. It's an abundance meditation that Bob Proctor does.
Speaker 1:Over the last, like I would say, probably four years or so, my meditation has become more in depth as I've learned from more teachers and how to do new things. So I've done body scan meditations and then mindset meditations and just all, all different kinds. And then in the last few years I got into Joe Dispenza meditations and started doing those because his is more kind of, not more, but his is very science backed and I've bought meditations because I wanted the more bougie tailored meditations. A lot of times when I do meditation now, I do it in the morning. A lot of people say you should meditate in the morning or at night, when your brain is more receptive to taking in the truth of what you're hearing. And so a lot of times in the morning when I wake up and I realize I'm sort of awake, but not already awake, I just grab my phone, I turn on one and I set my phone down, put it under the pillow, so it's like projecting through the pillow, and sometimes I do fall back asleep and that's fine. And then sometimes I go sit on my patio when it's warmer. So now it's spring, it's about to be, it's starting to get warm in Michigan, so I'll probably sit out there and I'll do just 15 minute silent meditations, nothing, just focusing on my breath, and I'd like to actually build that up. I probably could do higher. Now what I want you to know over these last like seven or eight years of this is that over time, meditation has constantly been there to heal me. Over time, meditation has constantly been there to get me through whatever trauma I was facing, and meditation has been what's helped me to calm down, like learning how to do deep breathing, like real diaphragmatic deep breathing, learning how to go inward, learning what was was particularly hurting me so much, has been so invaluable. And so, when I look at these last I would say five years, because 2020 was the year that I would identify that I started perimenopause.
Speaker 1:And for those of you who don't know, perimenopause really can affect your brain. It really affects pre-existing conditions. If you have depression, chances are your depression is going to be worse If you're someone who struggles with anxiety, if you have PTSD or complex PTSD, which could be controversial but low-key, I think all Black Americans have, and to some extent In perimenopause it gets worse. If you have ADHD, to some extent In perimenopause it gets worse. If you have ADHD in perimenopause it gets so much worse. Anything that affects your brain already having estrogen spikes and depletions fucks with your brain. That has altered my life so significantly, like the combination of having severe depression that got worse, severe anxiety that got worse, like ADHD. That was manageable for me.
Speaker 1:My whole life became completely unmanageable since, I would say, 2020 or so, 2019, 2020. I haven't even been able to since 2022, to hold down a full time job. Like it's been bad. Y'all. It's been really bad and I'm like thinking back like what if? What if?
Speaker 1:In 2019, 2018, 2019, 2020, I had not started a meditation practice right as I was heading into perimenopause, I did not know how bad it was going to get. I had no idea how bad my anxiety could get that much worse. I had no idea that my depression could get that much worse. I had no idea that I would become almost incapable of like doing a basic to do list, which, honestly, is really what happened in 2020 or 2019, 2020 ish. When I started perimenopause my ADHD I realized this is not manageable anymore. I've had this my whole life but I've been cool. Now I can't.
Speaker 1:And meditation is what has continued to be the foundational bedrock of me just being able to survive at a basic level, which really sounds really sad, but y'all, it's true. So I mentioned this a few episodes ago, but in 2023, a couple years ago, right around this time I had extreme, unaliving ideations and some of it was situational, because I was going through pretty, pretty extreme and dire poverty and I just didn't know how to get myself out of it and I felt like I couldn't work at all, even part time, like that's how bad my depression and anxiety were. I think perimenopause was messing with my brain, but every month around my cycle I really wanted to unalive myself, but there was a triggering event. And I won't go into all of that. But what I can say is that the only times that I knew peace is when I would just sit down and kind of like fall into a meditative state and just let myself experience the peace of that moment. And that's why now, when I look back, I'm like what if I hadn't had that?
Speaker 1:Now I will say, as someone who used to be a very gung-ho evangelical Christian, I used to pray a lot and I used to actually practice something called practicing the presence of God, which was basically meditation. So sitting quietly and silently is something I have done since I converted to Christianity when I was 19, and praying for long periods of time, like literally telling God here is what I praise you for, here is what I confess to you as my sins, here is what I'm thankful for and here is what I'm asking you for. That was something I had already been used to doing and I could do that for I mean, when I was in college I would pray for like 45 minutes to two hours at a time, because I was just that much of a little gung ho evangelical and I'm not laughing at myself. I actually love that. I built a really strong prayer practice. I actually consider myself to be a strong prayer.
Speaker 1:And then I don't even remember what years, but like between the 2010, 20, 2017 ish years, I had a spiritual director for a little while and we would actually sit in silence together. I did silent retreats. So I just want you to know that meditation as a kind of as a secular practice outside of like my faith and something else was, it felt really different to me than when I used to be praying and and I, like I said, I had done some silent retreats. I did a retreat once where I didn't speak for a whole weekend. I went off to like a silent retreat center to literally not speak. We literally sat down and ate meals together and didn't say anything to each other. This was like. This was like 2012. And I had kind of gotten away from that.
Speaker 1:When I went through a divorce, my first divorce I was still praying, but not like nearly as long as I used to before, and it just felt really different. So I just want you to know, like I did have some practice with silence, with mindfulness, with, you know, pursuing serenity through connection to a higher being, which I had done before in prayer. And then these past I would say past eight or nine years this has been more about connecting to myself, connecting to my body, and I really think there is a difference, because when I was praying, it was more like a longing for something. I'm asking for something. It's about this relationship between me and God and I feel like meditation right now is really for me. Now is really for me now is really about the relationship with myself and learning to listen to myself, learning to hear my inner voice, learning to listen to my inner child, learning to identify my shadow self and what's you know subterranean thoughts behind the actions that I'm doing every day, and it really is about connecting with myself and also teaching my body to calm down and that feels like a very strong, stated goal, like this is a goal of what I'm doing is teaching my body that has PTSD and that is freaked out so frequently For those of you who don't know me like I am freaked out so frequently, so often, so powerfully, I really can't.
Speaker 1:I don't watch anything that has any tiny little bit of violence in it at all. If you walk by me and flick me, I'm going to jump and scream. I'm just like one of the biggest scaredy cats you'll ever meet, but I'm also very resilient, whatever the case may be. Meditation has taught me how to calm this all down once it gets started. That's why I would never say like, yeah, this is completely fully healed me, but it's also taught me a lot about calming my nervous system down. I think the biggest thing I want you to see is that meditation for me hasn't just been this dramatic earth shattering one moment. I mean I think outside of that first time that I fell asleep on the couch for, like you know, five hours in a cathartic state. I do think that was healing for my body in a big earth shattering way. But other than that, it's been a thousand little steps on a long ass journey of healing my body and teaching my body like you're okay and you're safe and there is there is not a bear around every corner.
Speaker 1:I am so much more attuned to my body now. My body signals. One thing that my ex-therapist my last therapist, used to say to me all the time is like what is your body doing? Become aware of your body at all times every day, when you're on a date, when you're having sex, when you're brushing your teeth, when you're having breakfast, like, what is your body telling you? And I feel like the practice of meditation helped me to really like hone in on that and really have a big understanding of, like, my body's warning signals that I've been ignoring all along. So that's been a huge, which is a big self-awareness thing, you know, and self-awareness leads to healing. So it's kind of like all on this journey.
Speaker 1:So for my, for my sisters out here, y'all, I just really believe that meditation is a really powerful tool. I think it's one that's underutilized in the black community, particularly for women, because we have these hormonal changes that are affecting our mood every month, and why not use every tool in the toolbox to try to help us to get through it? You know what I'm saying. So I'm wondering what are your thoughts on meditation? Have you ever tried it before? What are your fears? You know, drop it in the comments, let me know. Do you have any specific questions? This is just kind of like a big overview on meditation and how it's changed my life, but I would love to actually at some point get trained on how to lead meditation. I want to do meditation retreats like I really want to go ham on helping other experience like the kind of like peace and freedom that I've experienced from it.
Speaker 1:Meditation is really a journey of self discovery and I really pray that you go on it. This is one of the most important things. I really hope, like my podcast does, is to help women, particularly black women, because that's just where my heart is at. To help us really learn how to discover ourselves and heal from within and realize, like we are the woman that we've been waiting for. We are the person that we've been waiting for and, honestly, that you really are worthy of peace. You're really worthy of a peaceful nervous system, a calm nervous system, and we're deserving of cultivating moments of peace in our life.
Speaker 1:And that's just not something that's like celebrated or shouted from the rooftops as much as it is like go live your best life, go party, go, get, dig go. You know all those things are fun too. You know I also occasionally go party, occasionally go get the. You know the dangling, but I can't believe. I just said that y'all know what I'm saying like, yes, but it's just not as encouraged. Like go sit your ass down and be quiet and go calm your nervous system, because that is beneficial as well. You know what I mean. Finding your rhythm, the rhythm of life, is also beneficial. It's as beneficial as going out for walks and getting vitamin D, you know, via the sunshine. It's as beneficial as, like working out, working your muscles. It's as beneficial as doing all of these things that are really good for us. It's just one of the things that I feel like it's just not encouraged enough. So, please, let me encourage you.
Speaker 1:There are so many apps. There's so many guided meditations on YouTube that are free. Me encourage you. There are so many apps. There's so many guided meditations on YouTube that are free. There's so many resources for this. I will list below, like my top favorite resources that I use pretty much every day, but none of these are special. None of these are sponsors, none of these are affiliate links. It's just there's so many. Choose any and get started. Whatever makes you feel the most comfortable and works the best for you, do it. A quick little message from our sponsor, grace.
Speaker 1:Actually, stories of love, faith loss and black womanhood. And yes, this is written by me, grace, sandra. If you like my stories and the kind of things I share, I actually write about it, and these are stories and blog posts that I wrote in the last 10 years or so on love, faith loss and black womanhood. You can pick it up from Amazon on a Kindle digital copy or you can get a hard copy just like this. I've got all five-star reviews. People seem to love it, and this is just really the beginning of my writing career, so go check it out.
Speaker 1:Like I said before, I have a sub-site called Out here Thriving, so please sign up for that If you really enjoyed this podcast. I'm really trying to grow and that's one major way a podcast can grow. Also, subscribe here on YouTube and boopity boop that like button for me. If you love me. Leave me a comment. Let me know what's your favorite episode, what you want to hear about more, just anything. I want to really grow this into a community of women who look out for each other and who are trying to learn and grow together. You can follow me on all my socials I'm at out here trying to survive on both TikTok and Instagram and finally, join my newsletter list on Substack. You can also support the podcast there if you want to leave me a tip in the tip jar. Thank you so much for being here. You could be anywhere else and you're here, and I do not take that lightly. I appreciate y'all and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Bye.
