Liberation is Lit Podcast

Divinely Inspired Work (with EbonyJanice)

• Tayler Simon • Episode 19

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In this episode, EbonyJanice shares her personal journey of embracing softness and redefining work-life balance as an entrepreneur. She challenges the traditional hustle culture, emphasizing the importance of rest, self-care, and inspired work. Through her experiences, EbonyJanice illustrates the power of setting personal boundaries and following a spiritually aligned path. The discussion also highlights the importance of healing and becoming one's true self to positively impact communities and inspire future generations. EbonyJanice stays slaying the sermons! Make sure you go back to listen to part 1!


00:00 Starting the Journey of Softness

01:32 Early Entrepreneurial Experiences

03:31 The Turning Point: Embracing Entrepreneurship

04:31 Manifesting Success: The Erykah Badu Story

06:39 The Power of Rest and Inspired Work

09:02 Balancing Work and Personal Life

12:10 Making a Positive Impact in the Community

18:08 Final Thoughts and Where to Find More

EbonyJanice’s Books:

All the Black Girls Are Activists: A Fourth Wave Womanist Pursuit of Dreams as Radical Resistance

Sacred Text for Black Folks Soul: A Book You Should Leave on Your Altar


Where to Find EbonyJanice

ebonyjanice.com

@ebonyjanice on Instagram and Threads

Thank you for being part of the Liberation is Lit podcast! If you have stories to share, want to suggest topics, or just want to connect, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @liberationislit or visit our website at liberationislit.com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review! Remember, your voice matters, and together, through the lens of stories, we're making a difference in the world.

Tayler Simon:

I feel like I'm on my own journey of leaning into softness and I've been thinking about just how I'm actively trying to build the life that I want to live and I was at a entrepreneur networking thing this morning and somebody was oh yeah entrepreneurship you're gonna You work, you go from working in full time for somebody else to working for yourself and you're working the by 40 hour weeks, you're working 60, 70, 80 hours. And I'm like, I'm not, I don't do that. I take naps. I took a nap yesterday. I told my sister, like after this interview, I get to have the rest of my day to do whatever. She's just like, must be nice. And I internalized that as well, just in general, me being a cancer and feeling like sensitive and having a lot of feelings, I'm like, don't fit in this world. And it's because I'm not supposed to, and I'm, I'm supposed to like you said, Sit all the way back in my seat and watch other people watch me, especially in my family. I'm going through that too and watch them learn to sit back in their own seats and that's that's my role in

EbonyJanice:

for for you to put into your testimony bank so that the next time you feel like, am I doing this wrong? Am I not doing enough? Here's here's an example of. What the seat itself can create so we think because I've been I have I have maybe had 2 fingers real jobs in my life, but I've been on my entrepreneurial journey. Forever to the point that I remember I had a, I had a job for 2 weeks when I was a teenager. It's the same job that all my siblings, all my cousins got. I'm from Ohio. There's an amusement park there. And there's like, major hotel chain surrounding going over to amusement park. So best. Western was one of those hotels and you either and either all my cousins went and worked at the hotel as To clean up or went and worked at the what was it called? I can't think of the name of the restaurant right there I think it's perkins pancake house actually connected to best western And so went to you either went to work at best western on the hotel side or you went to work in the restaurant side So I went to work on the hotel side, maybe two weeks. I feel like i'm stretching it My mom probably would tell tell a different story and i'm two weeks in max and And I come home one day from work just sobbing and I'm just like, please don't make me go back there. It's horrible. Mind you, I'm the youngest of my siblings. I'm on the lower end, of all my cousins before me. There there may be like 13 before me and maybe five after me. So I'm, I'm one of the younger ones. All these folk done worked at Best Western or Perkins Pancake House. And now here I am telling, trying to convince my mother, That is horrible. It's slavery. It's not, it's not livable mom. And, but at the time my mom had a home daycare. And so I'm like, I will come and I will work at your home daycare. She had three infants. I like, I'll get them babies in the morning when they get dropped off. I will help potty train. I will do whatever. Just please don't make me go back to this place. So my mom agrees and she really made me work too. When I say I potty trained babies by the age of 15, 16 years old, I was out here in these streets getting these children together. Them kids are grown now. It's crazy. But so what that really revealed to me is. I love making my own schedule. That was the beginning of the end for me ever having a nine to five. That, that being able to still go out and play or, still, I would wake up really early to get the kid, the babies in, take their snow coats off and put them in, get them back to sleep, whatever, whatever. And then once these kids went back to sleep, then me too. Or, you know, then I got to whatever, whatever, but I wasn't, I wasn't doing work that I despised and so years in a game, you know, I may be as an adult had to, so called real jobs, but it has historically been entrepreneurship, which is, which was difficult. It was not easy, but my wins were my wins and my losses or my losses. And so I would not change it for anything in the world. I highly recommend it as an earth sign. I highly, I highly recommend it because, I had. The ability just to create strategy for myself and discipline for myself, and to just focus in that way. And so, but all those words to say, so I'm, several years ago I had this, product, is this bodysuit that said, whoa, Erykah Badu and I have maybe like a thousand followers on Instagram, which was a lot at the time. Girl, I was, I was an influencer. I was not, and . And so this, this is maybe like eight years ago at this point, 8, 7, 8 years ago at this point. So I have this bodysuit, I make it from some stencils from Walmart, and I put it on pre sale. And, for like a month. And I have maybe like 8 pre orders. Of which I'm happy about, you know. I got my 8 pre orders. But also, I'm a master manifester. So I think to myself one day, I just need to get Erykah Badu to repost this bodysuit. I think this bodysuit. I post this actually on Facebook that morning back here, Erykah Badu, to just repost this body suit. It's over for you, hoes I didn't say that, but that's basically what I said. So that night I wake up at, over in the middle of the night, like three o'clock in the morning. I have all these notifications and I'm like, wow. It's, it's my picture. I'm like, wow. Where I get all these notifications from. So I, I go to the restroom, I go back to sleep. I wake up in the morning and I realize it wasn't my page that I was viewing those notifications from Ery Badu had reposted the body suit. All these people, I, I wake up to. Thousands of dollars worth of orders, hundreds of orders overnight, all these, these are all pre orders. So, so I stress out because I'm like, now I got to actually do this. So, I'll start, I buy, I take the money from the pre sales. I buy the products that I need to make it. I ordered the, instead of doing the stencils from Walmart, I ordered the designs directly from this. person, this, this place that makes the designs for you. And I start making them. I'm following the exact direction. I put my bodysuit on, I put my letters on, I pull the heat press down. Honey, the letters wouldn't stay on the bodysuit. I was like, they're about to call me a scammer. They're about to, they're going to destroy me. Me and my thousand followers. They're going to destroy me. So, but I have this, I'm at the beginning of my wellness journey. I'm at the beginning of my, really without the language at the time of my softness journey. And so I know that me as the manifestation of God, that I have the answer to this. So I go take a nap. I need to get these orders out in the next few days, but I'm going to go take a nap. And as I'm laying down. I'm meditating and visualizing myself being successful. That I get all these orders out, everything's fine. So I'm laying down, close my eyes, about to fall asleep, and I see myself put the bodysuit on the heat press, put the letters on. I pull the heat press down, and then in my mind, I see myself turn the heat up. I take my nap, wake up, I go do this, it works perfectly. Of note, I was following the exact instructions from the retailer. Like, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, but in my spirit, as I go to rest, I know that I need to not follow these instructions. I need to turn the heat up and it, it works perfectly the whole long tale to say there is more work done in your rest. Because I would have just been hustling trying to figure this out. I would have been wasting money, more supplies, everything. So when we think, oh, you're an entrepreneur, you're going to go from working 40 hours a week for somebody else to working 80 hours a week for yourself. No, no, no. If you really learn how to get in your seat itself, to really pursue your own spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, Healing right doing the work of actual meditation visualization of actually, you know, speaking over your work and what you've been called to. I can, I can accomplish more in a 2 hour workday now than I used to in a 12 hour workday because I'm doing inspired work. Versus the work that I've been trained to do, which is to stretch out as someone who has employees. Now, we think about, we talk about this on an ongoing basis because I, I, I pay them, they get paid hourly. But basically, they're on a full time schedule, but they get paid hourly. So here's the thing. I'm not paying you for an hour that you was looking at the computer. So. I teach and support the people that are doing work with me, how to do divinely inspired work, how to create an actual priority flow, how to show up to the work in a time, you know, at the time of day that it makes most sense for you to write. If you are not a morning person, my director of operations is a morning person. But she has a full blown garden in her backyard. So she don't start her day responding to emails, which is perfectly fine with me. She start her day in the garden and then after the garden, she go homeschool her little baby for a couple hours. And then she show up and replies to all the emails, does all the things. So, What does it look like as we pursue softness as we deepen into that in every area of our life, including our work, including entrepreneurship, including the things that have historically been labeled and build and we've been socialized into the idea that this has to be our work. This is grueling work. This is time consuming work. What if you could imagine? A divinely inspired response to everything you do versus I'm a show up and I'm gonna just put some, I'm gonna put some grit into this. Now, does that mean that there's never times when I don't have to sit down and do tedious work and it don't feel like, Oh, flowers. I love doing this. No, I had to like, dust my whole house the other day. And I'm walking from room to room. Like this is what I'm doing today. What kind of poverty is this? I'm really over here dusting the house. But, That's a, even that I'm creating a priority flow for myself. Like, I know that on Wednesdays, I'm more likely to be able to, I'm in the week. Now, my mind is focused. I can do this more labored work than me acting like on Saturday morning. I'm about to get up and do this when I know on Saturday mornings. I love to just lay on the couch and read. Right? So it doesn't have to be hard, but that is a part of our socialization. And, if we could the way that I. I really am done with this sermon, but the way that I'm really teaching that to my friends and family without even, you know, making a workshop around it is right. Like a boundary. Like, one of my boundaries is I don't talk before 11 a. m. My family feels a way about that. You know, my mama, who's eight minutes around the corner from me, feels a way about the idea that I don't talk before 11 a. m. Because who are you? Me? So there's, there's messaging in that, right? They finally, after a few years of that reality, are, are much more respectful, not 100%, but much more respectful of that boundary. I have to do a better job, of being more respectful of that boundary, because there are times when I'm not respectful of that boundary, and I'll still answer the phone knowing that this is a bad idea, you know, before 11 a. m. And then, so now that translates to, I have a sister that has a, a time of the day boundary for herself, and I'm like, Okay, excuse me, call me. I'm sorry. Right? And so there's, there's something very profound and doing the work for ourselves, trusting spirit in the divine, and then watching all of those around us really just unfurl and become as a result of seeing the way that we're becoming as well.

Tayler Simon:

this. I am, I just feel so aligned with this conversation and it was just such divine timing for me. I love this. And I always ask everybody this question, but, and we talked about it a lot, but what is some advice that you offer listeners who want to make a positive impact in their communities?

EbonyJanice:

Well, yeah, I feel like the easy. Answer is, you know, become yourself, do your healing work, be on your journey, you know, pursue yourself, read my book, but I think, you know, I'm, I'm trying to reach for something else. And honestly, Tayler, I can't think of anything that could actually be more profound than, looking for beautiful things every single day in your life. And then, cataloging it so that you can return to it, you know, as often as possible. And the way that, you know, this could even manifest externally is like, I know the things that bring my dad joy, that makes my dad laugh. That if I talk to my dad later today and I could tell that he's tired or he's having a, a heavy day, whatever, like, I'm so busy looking for the love and the joy and the sweetness and the ease and the, that I have a, an arsenal from which to pull a reservoir. Excuse me, a reservoir from which to pool to be like, Oh, I know how to bring joy and love and sweetness into my dad's day today. And so I, I, I know that when we think about impact, we're always thinking about, you know, going to phone bank or sign petitions or to March. And again, this is not me minimizing all of those things actually just posted in my story on Instagram this morning, this picture of me, I'm like 1819 years old marching in the pouring down rain in Washington DC. With this organization called by any means necessary, bam, for affirmative action. This is where, protesting and getting petitions signed and, appealing the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision around from the out of University of Michigan around affirmative action. And so I've been. On the battlefield for my Lord. This isn't somebody who, who believes that none of that is effective or impactful. I've seen it with my eyeballs. I am, from the lineage of those who have done all that for sure. 1000 percent my grandmother's from Talladega, Alabama. I grew up deeply invested in and meshed in a, in an activism and a civil rights, movement work. That is basically that. March petition, you talk to your local legislators, et cetera, et cetera. I believe in all that. And I believe that the best version of me that shows up at that work is the version of me who is so deeply seated that, you could show up to the march and think you're going to cause harm to me today. And I'm so, I have something, I have something unique that is, that is, I keep saying seated, you know, but that is seating me to the point that I shall not. I shall not be moved. And, and that really, that really is. So yeah, so I, I do feel like that really is the answer that I have for how do you make an impact or how, where, where even do you begin? And I genuinely and sincerely believe that it, that it begins with us. This is the last thing I want to say about that. I'm thinking I was talking about this the other day. About who would I be? I think I mentioned this in a book as well. Who would I be if I wasn't a grown person before I saw that picture from the archives of Rosa Parks doing yoga? Who, who would we be if we were not like in the last four or five years before that came out of the archives? Because the only picture that we, or pictures that we've historically seen of Rosa Parks is her sitting there with her young self. Looking like a little old lady, on that bus, looking tired, weary, weak, and heavy laden. And, not that she wasn't. But she was a, she was a, a being a whole being she was, you know, there, she had some love and she had a, she has a love story and she has, so much more complexity to who it is that she was instead of being reduced to this, you know, little portion of herself and her story, which is thrust upon her by, And so I think about that, who would I be? And so I'm asking that question for my nephews, for my nieces, for my little cousins in particular, because I don't have children out of my body yet. I'm asking that, like, who will they get to be? Because they've seen ATF or, you know, cousin EbonyJanice be bald headed. They've seen me have nappy hair. They've seen me, you know, love Black men. Down to the ground, get back up and work it on down. They see me travel. They see me, be giggly and giddy. They see me in therapy, heard me talk about it. Right. Who will they get to be that I never got to be because, or I didn't get to be until I was grown because they have been seeing since they were children. My nephew told me, recently, there's a situation where people's getting turned up in my family about something and somebody tried to bring me into it. And I was just like, I don't know and that's where I left it. And the teenager, 17 years old said to me later that day, man, I want to be like you when I grew up because you just be chilling. He said, it'd be chaos. And you just be chilling. And I said to him, it's not that I'm not impacted by the chaos that happens is that I have made a conscious decision that number 1. None of my business. It's none of my business. That's, sometimes that, that be the case. We'd be inserting ourselves, particularly as Black women. We insert ourselves to try to heal, to, you know, fix the situation. And I am, I am certainly guilty of that in the past. So that's number one, but number two, I don't like how it feels when I get up out of my seat. I don't feel good physically. I'm not just talking about a spiritual woo woo kind of reality. When I get up out of my seat and start turning up. It's bad for all parties involved, especially me. So it's best for me first and everybody else that I stay in my seat. And then I, and then I learned the wisdom to, choose myself, to choose my ease, to choose my softness, to choose my regulating nervous system. And, and that solves more, problems to anything. So, yeah. So a lot of words to say.

Tayler Simon:

it. We love it. And I just really enjoy following you and reading your book. And, um, I know you have another book too, um, that came out before all the Black girls are activists and I need to get that one as well. And I just want you to let people know where they can keep up with you and your work.

EbonyJanice:

EbonyJanice Everywhere, E B O N Y J A N I C E. So everyone on social media and this is Ebonyjanice. com. Probably maybe like two lifetimes ago, which is funny. So in my late 20s, early 30s, I did ghost writing for authors and publishing for several other authors and, and for myself. So I have, I have many books. Only two of them are publicly available because I do not stand by the first several. I do stand by some iteration of it, but We just doing something different right now. So those books are not available. My last book is called, or my most recent book that was self published, was called sacred text for Black folks. So, a book, you should leave a book that you should live on your altar. Something like that. It's up there. I can't reach it. But, Sacred Text for Black Folk Soul. And it's a book, it's a book that you should leave on your altar. And it literally is exactly, it's just profound sacred text that was downloaded to me. So, it's the last book that I published. And I, I recommend it. Honestly, I recommend it more than all the Black girls are activists, even though all the Black girls are activists. I think it's gang gang is such an important work to me, but sacred text for Black folks. So literally was like me sitting at the altar going through something and spirit was like, got it here, write this down right now. So I can't, I reread it sometimes and be like, did you plagiarize this? This is good. So like it's so spirit inspired. So, and it's the last book that I self published. So I definitely recommend it.

Tayler Simon:

Done. Already bought. Already bought everybody yet, but it's it's already bought. Thank you so much for being in this conversation. Like I said, me, personally, this felt so align and divine, conversation because I'm going through a lot of learning. What we talked about today, and just using your story, your testimony to inspire other people to sit down. So, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and thank you listeners for being a part of the Liberation is Lit podcast. If you have any stories to share, or want to suggest topics, or just want to connect, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook. And tiktok at Liberation is Lit or visit our website Liberation is Lit. com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review and remember your voice matters. And together through the lens of stories, we're going to make a difference in the world until next time.