Stop Forcing, Start Flowing: Letting Go & Relaxing Into Life

We spend so much energy trying to control outcomes, timing, how people see us, and how life unfolds. We hustle, push, and strive to make things happen, believing that effort equals worth or results. But the truth is, that kind of control only creates tension, exhaustion, and disconnection from flow.

The secret key is surrender — not giving up, but giving over. When you release the grip and allow life to move through you instead of against you, something shifts. Ease returns. Alignment replaces struggle. And what shows up is often EVEN BETTER than anything you could have forced into being.

This talk is an invitation to stop resisting and start receiving — to trust that what’s meant for you doesn’t require strain, only openness. My hope after listening is you leave inspired and ready to stop pushing for outcomes and allow Universe to work with you. That's when the magic happens. ✨

For FREE Resources, Quizzes, Book Link, 1:1 Mentoring, KB’s Self-Love Merch Shop and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

As usual, I don't choose the topics to my talks most of the time, 99% of the time, until about probably 30 to 45 minutes before my talks. And what I do is I just sit and I could just get quiet and I say, show me what's a great topic for today. And these words just came into my head, relaxing into life. So I sat with it and I said, Yeah, relaxing into life. How many of us really push against life and struggle and grind and hustle and fear and live in anxiety and try to make things happen that perhaps it's just not time for those things yet? But there's something about relaxing into life that is really purposeful and meaningful. And I remember 15 years ago or so when I first learned the concept of surrender, which means basically letting go, letting universe, God, source, whatever, whatever your term is for that energy, to guide me, to take me, to help me to flow. And I imagined myself in other times during life where I was in a river and I was kicking and efforting and pushing and trying to go upstream or trying to get to a certain place. And I was just getting exhausted. And I thought, what would happen if I just laid on my back and I just floated? Floated with the river, with the current. What type of landscapes would I see? What type of opportunities would I see? What would be presented to me? I have learned on my own journey in this life that when I efforted, I was actually pushing against the grain. I was trying to make things happen that oftentimes were not the next best step. That they weren't in alignment with where I wanted to go or where I wanted to be. But I didn't know that because I thought I had to really work hard at everything. Now, this doesn't mean that I don't effort. I want to make that blatantly clear. I absolutely do effort in areas in my life that I want to have a particular awesome outcome, like raising good kids, like becoming a good speaker, like making my body healthy, creating health within my body. It's not that I sit still and I do nothing. It's that I do those things with the idea and the feeling that as I'm moving forward on my path, that things will be presented to me. And this has happened time and time and time again. What's even funnier is I don't know if this happens to you guys with iPhones, but sometimes when I'm trying to swipe through things quickly or something, this thing pops up on my phone where I can choose different backgrounds. So it's like gives me the background options. I don't know how this happens, it just happens all the time. And then I always click the same background. Well, today on the treadmill, I was I saw this really bright pink background. I said, What is this? And so I scrolled over to it and I clicked it, and I can't remember what it said. Sorry, I didn't know I was gonna tell this story. But I read it, I can kind of remember what it said, but it it said, nah, girl, you don't have to work that hard, something something. It was about leaning into life. And I clicked it and I said, Yeah, that's gonna be my background right now. I don't remember what it was exactly. Sorry, you guys. I don't even know if I can find it while I'm on here talking to you. Maybe I can. Hold on, let me see if I can darken my screen. Ah, yep, here it is. Nah, girl, you have what it takes. Stand in that, own that, believe that, trust that, lean into that. And what that was was a, now that I see, it was a screenshot from something that I saw on probably Instagram. Couldn't read it because it was so small, but at the bottom it had the author of it. And I thought, yeah, lean into that. The power of leaning in, not leaning out, not leaning back, but leaning in and allowing things to present and to be open. It's crazy to me how many times that we hear often that our devices are listening, and they probably are. And so we'll we'll talk about something to somebody, and next thing you know, that thing's on our Facebook feed or Instagram feed, or we get an email or something, right? But this has happened to me when I've thought things. I didn't speak them out loud. It's just me in my head, do-do-do-do, going through life, and all of a sudden I have this thought, and I sit with that thought for a little bit. Next thing you know, maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a how do I do this? Or what would be a great recipe? I don't know. Whatever it is, next thing you know, I see something on the Instagram feed. I see something on the Facebook feed. And I just sat there and scratched my head the other day. I said to my husband, I thought this. I didn't say it out loud, and I'm certain my iPhone is not reading my mind. And this is because universe will match what we're thinking and what we're believing, and what what is a true thought, what is a true place to be, rather than the hustle and the grind and the kicking and screaming, trying to get to whatever place that we're trying to get to. It will all present to us. But what is the effort? The effort is I want this thing, I want to aim towards this thing. But when we have this deep willingness, like deep, like it's it's unequivocal, it is zero sum, it is one hundred percent something that we want, and there's no resistance added to it, those things will present. And oftentimes life, and especially with all this manifesting talk in the world, which I'm all about, it's not presenting what we want because we're uptight and we're struggling and we're pushing. We're not relaxed, we're not in a space that we can actually be guided and receive information because we're working too hard. As I've gotten older, because I feel like literally, you guys, I feel like I jumped from 42 to 58 years old. Like, where was all those years? It's like it's amazing to me because so much has happened in all those years. Turning 58, well, I thought I was 58 last year. For those of you who know, you know. Then my son said, no, mom, you were 58, 57 all last year. I guess I did my math wrong, or I forgot, or I didn't care. But I think about 58, and I'm mind blown. Just what? And then my little ego goes, You're running out of time. You're running out of time, you're getting old. And so the body follows the mind. And if that's a thought that I've not questioned, which it wasn't, guess what happened? I started rushing. I want this to happen fast. I want that to happen fast. We got to go here, we got to do this, we have to do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just went on and on all within my subconscious. And I felt myself rushing. And it's not, you wouldn't see it on my physical body. It's not like I'm running from room to room. It was just this, what I call panting energy inside of me. Keep going. I got to get there. Time is running out. And this talk is not about this. This is just an example of me not relaxing into life. And if anybody knows, it's this girl that that panting energy is resistant energy to the universe. What it's saying is, I don't have enough time. Universe says, here you go, you don't have enough time. What it's really saying is, I will never get there, I will never achieve it, whatever the thing might be. I have to rush, I have to hurry, I have to force, I have to effort to exhaustion. Again, if anybody knows the truth that that doesn't work, it is this girl. So I have to remind myself to relax into life, to let go, to flow, to enjoy now. I just answered a couple questions here on the app. You know, people send you the questions. Sometimes it's Wisdom Wednesday, Mindful Monday, but also other people send questions as well. Most of the time it's anonymous. And someone asked me a question. And I said, Oh, they said, What would be, if you could title this chapter of your life right now, what would it be called? This is just funny how all this is coming together all in the same day within, yeah, within the same day, really, within probably hours. No, no, no, no, that's incorrect because I was talking to my husband about this last night. So I thought about it. Because I said to my husband last night, I said, this is the strangest period that I've been in my life. Because everything is groovy. Everything is set. There's nothing that, you know, materialistically that I want. Of course, there's always more travel. More travel. I'm a wonder girl. But you see what I'm saying is that all the needs are met. My heart needs are met, my relationship needs are met, my physical needs are met, my health needs are met, my financial needs are met. And I'm just looking around my life going, what is this? It's extremely strange to me. It's very, very, very awkward. Because I have gone through a lot in my life, thing after thing after thing after thing after thing after thing. And some of those things lasted for years. They were things that required a lot of my time and attention. And I'm looking around my life right now and I'm like, hmm, there's nothing that's really super pressing right now. I'm in what I'm terming, and this is not a negative phrase, okay? But I feel like I'm in the desert. Just walking, walking, walking, walking. There's really no fires to put out. There's, of course, day-to-day things. My daughter had strep the other day. We had to go to the doctor. You know, she doesn't like taking pills past a certain size. So, you know, there's things, there's things. My dog got up 14 times last night at the door, you know, barking and whining, and kept trying to go outside and go to the bathroom. And this guy has amazing digestion. I'm very weird about that. I look at his dookie, because that's how I judge, you know, human human too. I always asking my kids, how's your sleep? How's your poop? It's just part of me. But you know, these things come up. They, and you know, you name it. You guys know. But there's no big, gnarly thing happening right now. And I feel myself pushing against it in some capacity. Like, this can't be right. There's gotta be something. What am I missing? What am I missing? Which has been par for the course for this girl's personality. I gotta check those boxes, I gotta get things right. I have one chance at this life. I gotta, uh, ha, right? And I've done a great job. So I'm really proud of myself. Huge pat on the back. I'm gonna do it. Other side too. Huge pat on the back. Because I've kicked some boot in this life. I have. I efforted, I did the things, and I'm I'm proud of myself for that. But right now, all is well. And here I am. What do I need to be doing? What do I have to do? What if, Kristen Brown? You can just relax. So back to the question that the person asked me. I said I would title this section of my life, this chapter of my life, Sacred Restoration, which means truly relaxing, truly just allowing all these weird empty spaces, all of these feelings that I have of just, yeah. I even asked myself if I was depressed. Because it's so bland right now. It's like nothing's really happening. I'm like, are you depressed? Like, what's going on? Why don't you feel like doing this, that, and the other thing? No, I'm just in a new chapter, and I believe this is a chapter of rest for me. But that's not what this talk is about. This talk is about learning to relax into life every day. There's no need for the fight. We are held, we are guided, and that's a truth that I know in my deepest of knowings, in every cell, all the way down to the quark level of my body. I know these things. And yet still, I have a brain, I have an ego, and it chatters in the background because that's its job to keep me safe and protected, and it chatters, and it chatters, and I have gone in and out of deep moments of surrender, letting go, allowing flow, all is well, and I have watched with my mouth agape, my eyes wide open, watching stuff fall into place. Again, showing up for it. We can't be armchair quarterbacks, can't be lazy, it's not that, but I've watched things present and show up in such a way that there is no human words to tell you the mind-blown feeling of it. And those things happened in the relaxing into life space. Where I just didn't fight life anymore. Where I said everything is okay. So there's several ways that we can relax into life, but before I get started on those, I want to invite anybody to come up to the stage and to share whatever comes up for you. Nothing you can say is wrong when it comes from your heart. We want to hear from your heart. That's why I retitled this Empower Hour Talk Show. So if anything I even said so far resonates with you or inspires you or makes you think, wow, I could use more of that too, or I really needed to hear this today, or here's what I've done, or the wisdom that I've acquired, come up and share by clicking that circle button right next to my profile picture that says join. It has a little microphone in it for you guys. That puts you in the queue. You come on up, share your piece with me. It's a safe place. I love to hear from you. I love people. I love other minds. I love listening to other minds. How your thoughts work, how you put things together. Because we're all the same on that core, core, core level, but yet we're all different on the personality level. And the words that you may use will be different than mine or anybody else's, and it will click with me andor someone else as well. So be willing to come up and share at any point, all right? So we can relax into life on an emotional level. And this means to soften the constant vigilance, raising my hand here, you guys. Oh the vigilance that I've had on my children, on my relationships, on my, like again, it's not just, it wasn't at it is now, but it wasn't back in the day a just a passing by, taking a look, weighing in, seeing how things were doing. It was literally all day long my brain would go, Sydney Brody, Remy, Remy, Brody, Sydney, Sydney Brody, Remy, Remy, Brody, Sydney. Where are they? What are they doing? What do they need? Are they okay? Do they need to talk to me? What it was like all day long. And I've only recently broken that, but I've had to effort towards that. Or am I relaxing and relaxing? They're okay, everything's okay. They're they're grown. They come to me now if they need me. When my husband and I went to Georgia, I don't know, it was two years or time pat flies to me, so it could be three years ago. I don't even know. A couple years ago, we were, we took my youngest daughter to see her father, and I didn't want her to fly by herself. So we made a trip out of it. And she was old enough to do so. But I was like, Nope, not with all this trafficking stuff that goes on. And she doesn't know the first thing about all that. So we just took a trip. We dropped her off. Well, he met us at the airport. She went with him. And I'm texting her, I'm like, if you need anything, if you know, because this is there's a story here, there's a story here. And I said, if you need anything, this and that. And then we get in the car and we're driving. And my brain is scanning. Because now I'm away from home. Now I'm away from my kids. Now I'm away from my pets. All the things that I quote unquote control. And my husband's talking and chatting and doing his thing. And I at one point looked at him and I said, Honey, I need about 15 minutes because right now my brain is scanning. And I explained to him what I just explained to you. I don't know if anybody else has had that experience. But I had trained myself being basically the only parent for so long, single parenting with all three of them, that that's what it did all day long. Of course, I'm when I was doing hair, I was doing hair. But then in free moments, hey, does someone need me? What's going on? Are they okay at school? Did that test go okay? Gotta get them to this event. Whatever. You guys know it was just scan, scan, scan, scan, scan. And it was such a habit for me. Let me drink some water, y'all. It was such a habit for me that here they are grown and I was still doing it. And they didn't, two, two of them didn't even live with me anymore, and I was still doing it. And this doesn't mean I was up in their business, by the way. It's just my brain, my mommy brain, was constantly doing that. So I told my husband, I said, I need about 15 minutes because I'm I am in stuck in a loop right now. He goes, okay, he understood, because I'd talked to him about it before. And that was the start because I couldn't enjoy our trip. That was the start of me really grasping the idea that I could relax. And I could have relaxed more than I was relaxing with that hyper-vigilance earlier. But yet I'm okay that I didn't because my kids turned out the way they did and all is well. But my point is, is that what are you being hyper-vigilant on? And is there a possibility that everything is okay? Because I do believe a lot of that was tied to my nervous system and events that had happened in our life and emotional things. And so a lot of that was nervous system tried uh tied, trying to get ahead of the game. That's how it felt to me. Like I was trying to get ahead of the game, making sure that nothing went wrong. So sometimes we have this thought in our head, I have to be okay, or I'm not going to be okay, or everything is messed up, it's not gonna work out. What if we switched that to I'm gonna be okay no matter what? Or we're gonna be okay no matter what. This was huge to me on my journey. I've had to tell myself that many times. You're gonna be okay. Especially in times that I was fearing or was afraid of something. Kristen, you're gonna be okay. You're always okay. It always works out. And I'm gonna take a little break and bring up our sister Amani. Thank you, Amani, for joining. Welcome.

Imani: 23:17

Thank you so much. I can relate to what you're saying about being hyper-vigilant. I did that after both of my car accidents. Because I was supposed to die. Yes. And and to be able to walk away relatively unscathed was a blessing in itself. But in both accidents, I was hit from behind. So anytime a car gets too close to me, I start freaking out. Get out of my trunk, please. Get your face off the phone.

Kristen: 23:52

Yes, my goodness.

Imani: 23:54

And in my second car accident, since my whole front end was sheared off the car and was in median for six months. When I'd had to come by that median and I'd have to see my front bumper still there, I would have a flashback.

Kristen: 24:08

The bumper was still on the median?

Imani: 24:10

Yep, it was still sitting in the median.

Kristen: 24:12

They never picked it up? Not until six months later.

Imani: 24:16

Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow. So it was like being re-triggered every single time we drove by it. Every time we drove by it. But I'm thankful that that guardrail was there to take off the front end of my car because it was like a ravine. So it was like you, if you didn't have that guardrail, you would have fallen into the traffic going the opposite direction. Oh. So I'm thankful for the guardrail. Did it feel good hitting the guardrail at 90 miles an hour? No, it did not. And I was the first one.

Kristen: 24:47

Were you on a freeway?

Imani: 24:48

Yeah, we were on I-24, right outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Um, my ex, we were on our way to Nashville because he gets treated up here once a month for his sickle cell, and that's what we were doing. We was taking that five-hour trip from Georgia to Nashville for one of his appointments. And we always 90 miles an hour.

Kristen: 25:06

You're lucky you're still here.

Imani: 25:08

Exactly. He had really bad road rage, and I'd always be sitting there with my hand on the on the car door just in case I need to tuck and dive out of it. Because I'd be like, I I want us to get there in one piece, sir. But he was a speed demon, and then he didn't like people driving slow in front of him, and that's what happened. And I remember the speedometer before the crash was 90 miles an hour, and we were going into a curve. That player is mountainous right there in Chattanooga, and we're going into a curve on the mountainside. And he was of the car, and it felt like slow motion as it went from the left to the right to back to the left again, and we went head first straight into the guardrail. It took off my front and it spun several times until we faced the tracker behind us. And I'm like, is this real? If you wanted me to come home, you could have done that with me the first car accident 20 years ago, thank you. Not this time. I thought I was getting my life together. And the semi was coming straight for us, and so I was sitting there like final destination. I was like, really? This is how I'm gonna die? Like that one scene of final destination with the semi? Oh, jeez, thanks. This is great. But surprisingly, my car still worked, even though the full front end came off. And we were trying to turn the car around to get over into the shore to check everything and the damage, but two cars hit us full speed from behind and on the on the driver's side. So now my front end was gone and my backing was gone. Great. All the airbags came out on his side because he was driving, they didn't come out on my side.

Kristen: 26:45

Oh my gosh.

Imani: 26:46

So I was trapped in the car. He was able to jump out the car and he was running around the car all upset. I was in shock and I couldn't get out the car. And all the semis that were trying to go through through the shoulder around my car, their wheels kept hitting the car, so that was additional trauma for me. Oh my gosh. I couldn't get out of the car. And it would hit the car as they were trying to get by so they could do what they need to do, and I understood that. But when I once they finally got me out the car, and I saw my car, I was like, God, there's no way.

Kristen: 27:19

Power by walking away.

Imani: 27:21

Power by walking away. You know, it was all soft tissue injury, thank God. But when I looked at my car and I saw how damaged it was, the middle part of the car where we were sitting was unscathed. None of the glass broke, nothing. It was like as if two angels were holding that part of the car together. Yep, that's what I was thinking. And it took me a while to get okay with driving again. And now that I'm in infancy, I still avoid I-24 because I still get those flashbacks on I-24, so I avoid as much as I can. But I've given myself permission to grieve that, and I've given myself permission to process it to be able to be where I'm at now that I can drive again.

Kristen: 28:04

Well done, sister. Well done to you. Yeah, whoo, that is true, that is traumatizing. My goodness. And I think that type of hypervigilance is warranted because that is a traumatic experience, and of course, the brain records that. Totally understandable, totally understandable. And there are some times that we are being hyper-vigilant where we really don't need to be, just because we're trying to control, just because we want to, we're feared, we're afraid. And by the way, you guys, we're all afraid. We're all afraid about something that's we're wired that way. So, you know, and I know so many men don't want to say they're afraid. I see this a lot with my coaching clients when I'm coaching males. I have to be very delicate about how I present that to them because if I just straight ask, what are you afraid of happening? I'm not afraid. It's like the first thing out of their mouth, almost nothing. I don't know. I'm good. I'm like, okay, let me rephrase that. And I'll rephrase it to them. Or I'll soften it by saying, hey, we all have fears, and this is the way your brain is wired, and there's something that's driving this train right now. So let's let's access that. And then I'll then I'll give them some ideas. Are you afraid that this might happen or that might happen? And then in that context, they're able to reluctantly, but usually they will admit, and then we can get the balls moving in the right direction. But you know, we need to understand that that that's part of how we are designed and wired. It really is, because that's the part of our brain that keeps us alive. And then there are times when, again, it's recorded and the brain keeps a lookout for that consistently. Um, they make the scanning to see, ooh, ooh, ooh, right? Totally cool. But how often are we just in control mode? I gotta control everything everybody is doing. I gotta control everything I'm dirt doing. I have to be in this hyper-vigilant lookout, look at my cat every single day to make sure the cat's not sick, even though the cat has never been sick. You see what I'm saying? Like it's above and beyond, it's not healthy. It's it's keeping us in a state of nervous system arousal that we really don't need to be in. All right, the next way that we can relax into life would be energetically. And this is one of my favorites, because when you relax, when we relax, our energy opens. That's when inspiration, intuition, creativity, and even love flows more freely. Because when we're tense, or we're trying to force outcomes, or we're trying to work the what Mike Dooley calls the cursed hows, H-O-W-S. We're trying to how our way through life. This is how I have to make this thing happen. That energy gets blocked. Like I mentioned this earlier in this conversation, the energy gets blocked. We're actually coming from a place of fear, which is I think one of the lowest. Yep, it is number 22 on Abraham Hicks's emotional guidance scale. 22, fear, grief, depression, despair, and powerlessness. That is as far away as you can be from number one, which is joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love, appreciation, and gratitude. But to be in joy, love, empowerment, freedom, appreciation, love, and gratitude does require us to let go of control. There's many things we have to think about it. We're in a state of gratitude, we're just so immersed in what we have now that we're not thinking about what we don't have. We're not in fear, we're not in disp um despair, we're not in powerlessness. So that fear space, this is sort of I'm not sure of the right word right here. Oxymoronic, paradoxical, or ironic. That the very way that we're wired is the very thing, I say paradoxical, that we need to let go of and relax into in order for life to present the goodies to us. Crazy. I'm gonna go with paradox. I think that's a paradox. If you guys have any other words for that, you can share it with me. When we relax into life in this regard, we're actually shifting from a doing frequency to a being frequency where we're allowing us to just be. And from the state of being, everything that we do has more ease and clarity wrapped up in it. Amani's getting it. I see all her love coming up on that screen. Yes. So, like I mentioned, this era that I'm in right now is a more of a being era, like a full being area era. And it feels awkward, and I'm not sure I'm doing a great job, but I'm doing my best. Amani, thanks for coming.

Imani: 33:38

We all are doing our best, and I know for me, I didn't I didn't allow myself to be joyful because I was so focused on all the bad things that happened to my life. And it's like, but what if it's better? What if it's what you cut out? What if it's better? Oh, yes. Yes. Because the we have such a fear of the unknown, right? And of course, our mind wants to protect us, and so it will constantly try and sabotage us, even though it thinks it's doing a good job of protecting us. But then we don't know what we like and what we don't like. We don't know what are our values, what are our morals, what are our goals, what's our gifts, what's our passions, because we are so much on the hamster wheel of where we are at that moment. And we're afraid to jump off because it's comfortable to us. We become products of our environment. And since my example was always negative trauma, I just expected more negative and trauma to come. And someone asked me, Well, don't you remember anything good in your life? And I hesitated, not one moment. I said, No. I used to say every time I went to work, on this episode of As the Negro Terence, featuring a money here, I felt my life was a soap on. I live if it was a soap problem, but I'm like, you it cannot believe what just happened today or what just happened yesterday. And one of my co-works is like, don't you think about anything nice? And I was like, No, for what? But as I've healed and I'm still in the process of healing, as I've learned more about who I am, as I learned more about where I came from and how I came to be, I'm okay with that now, especially being alone, because you feel so isolated when people don't understand what you're going through, or they don't have the capacity to understand it because they have their own stuff going on. You don't want to be by yourself. You you you want to be tied to something, someone, something, because that's what you're looking for when some when it's really from within. Our joy, our peace of mind, our happiness, it comes from within. Don't know that yet or haven't tapped into it. You're looking for every external source available: job, you know, work, coworkers, friends, you know, going to shopping, you know, all of those things is because you're trying to fill the void that's got going with temporary things. We're filling the void with temporary things. And then once the high ends, we're right back at square one. It's true.

Kristen: 36:25

I have a question for you, real quick, Amani, before we get too far from that. You had mentioned this time and a couple other times before that you were really, really focused on the drama. So when you relaxed into life and continued on your healing path, did you notice that you didn't even want to talk about the drama anymore? Yes. Yeah, that was my experience too. I was like, I don't, I used to be like, oh, okay, this is what I gotta tell you all these things. And I had a little list of sharing to people. Now it's like I people are like, how are you doing? I'm like, great. Like, I just don't attach to that anymore.

Imani: 37:04

And I think too, is like we're preserving our peace. We extend the control and power back to our from our circumstances. I I get to choose if I'm gonna be peaceful today. I I get to choose if I'm gonna be angry. I'm gonna each we have a choice. And so I think we don't. We think that power isn't everything else, that we're just defenseless. But I learned that as I have evolved into this new era of myself, and I I would say too, giving myself symmetry, have the balance of more good, but yes, I am still have reality of the bad things. But I don't want to focus on those because that takes us back to catastrophizing, and I did that for 44 years. I don't need to teach people that anymore. But when I focus more on the positive, I notice I'm giving other people permission to focus on positive too because they're looking at me like, wait a minute, you have all this stuff going on and you're smiling, you have all this going on and you're happy. I said, Yeah, I had to make a choice. I said, either I'm gonna allow life to live me, or I'm going to live life.

Kristen: 38:16

It's a choice, and it's all about what is better. I got a question for you. Says, can you pop back up? Do you have time?

Imani: 38:23

Yes, I do.

Kristen: 38:25

Okay. All right, pop back up. I have a I have a question. These questions come in feels, they come in a feeling to me, and then I have to word them. So I'm gonna try to do my best to. I'm not gonna try anything. I'm going to do my best to word this correctly, but I know, Amani, you you speak Kristen pretty well. So I think you'll understand what I'm saying. So when you were back in the time of catastrophizing everything, yes. Do you uh realize, know, understand? I'm sure you do, that your brain was wired that way based on all the stuff that you had been through. And so at some point, did you decide to stop doing that? Like, did you give yourself grace to like, wow, I I just have this pattern of thinking this way because these things always happened. Am I making sense? Where did that fit for you? How did that kind of come to pass?

Imani: 39:23

Um, how that came to pass was leaving the last situation relationship I was in and coming up here to Tennessee from that. And I had to really think about well, what is the common denominator? All the things that's happened to me. Me, it's me. But I was never never able or willing to look at me as part of the problem. I was so focused on everyone else is the issue, everything else is the issue. I am just an innocent bystander that just happens to be in the crosshairs, right? And God was like, mm mm, girl, mm mm, no, no, no, bueno, stop it, you know. Do you have an active role in everything that you have experienced? But you have to give yourself permission to understand what was the lesson you needed to learn in all those experiences. They all shape you to who you are now. And I also had to grieve who I used to be. I was looking at myself before the first car accident where I thought everything was gravy when it really wasn't. And I wasn't the best person either. And to look back and then come fast forward to all of these years in these two decades, it's like, wow, I am greater than I realize. I am more resilient than I give myself credit for. I have overcome a lot, and I'm still here. Yeah. It's better.

Kristen: 40:56

Isn't that kind of a, I don't know, for me, that moment when I had that reality or realization, I just kind of sat there and thought, how much time did I spend worrying, fighting, whatever it might be? Because it all just came and it went. Did you ever feel something akin to that?

Imani: 41:22

Yeah, because I wasn't giving myself permission. I wasn't holding space for myself. I was so used to just stuffing all my emotions down because I was so focused on pleasing everybody else, because I thought my joy came from all the external sources. But it wasn't until God had to kind of sit me down, like, girl, girl, you're extra. I created you, but it's time to put your big girl panties on and let's let's do some work.

Kristen: 41:52

You know, when God calls you extra, that's like the only time we listen to that. That was a joke.

Imani: 42:00

And the thing is, I know that. I know I'm extra, but now I'm okay in realizing I'm extra and I'm a certain kind of special. Okay. I am a certain kind of special. But if I go ahead and allow the light from within to shine through, it's going to impact other people's lives because they're going to see the example from me and how I'm living my life. I'm giving them an example also of how to treat me in my life. If I'm constantly negative and dissing myself and pointing out all my flaws, everyone else is going to do it too, because like you do. We're not going to do anything different than what we're seeing. And when I actually took the active role in my own rescue, I started to realize that. And I became an active participant, not just a bystander, like, okay, guys, you know, once you bring it, I'll do it, but you got to, you know, flip the light switch three times. You know, no. I became an active participant. And I can say now, because of all that, I have more peace. Even if there's chaos going on around me, I have more peace because I preserve that. That is a sanctification for me. Is I need peace of mind. I need peace. I need calm. I want tranquility. I want to be on an even keel. And so, in order to preserve that, I have to protect it. I have to set the standard and I have to set the example. And I know it's still an ever-evolving process, but man.

Kristen: 43:34

It's an amazing one, isn't it, Amani? Thank you so much for being willing to come up a second time. I really appreciate that. And like Amani said, that joy, peace, and happiness come from within. And when we start to realize that they aren't things that we chase and they're just simply states that we return to, then we can stop resisting so much in our life. That's where that resistance happens. One of my favorite things that I learned from Byron Cady, she's an amazing author and teacher in the world. She does the work. She has a book called Loving What Is. And what this book teaches us is that many times we are resisting what is. And a lot of our personal, emotional, and mental struggle in life is because we are fighting what is. And she has a quote that's one of my favorites. You've heard me say it before, and that is when you fight, no, when you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time. So what does that mean? It means we're arguing with a state of some the way something is right now. Let's say your partner left you for another person. And you can kick and scream and fight and argue with that and be in denial and not want it to be true and to be mad and to be bitter, or you can sit in the reality of that this is just happening. And I can make up stories about it, I can form narratives about it, I can choose my state, or I can just accept the reality as it is instead of fighting against it. When you argue with reality, you lose. But only, just only 100% of the time. One of my all-time favorite quotes. I just absolutely adore that woman. She is the cutest little sprite. She's darling. Love her. All right, so we're gonna move on to another way that we can relax into life. And I mentioned this already briefly, but that is about surrender. That is about letting go. That is about releasing your desires, your needs, your dreams, your goals, your outcomes to the superpower of the universe. The superpower of a universe. Surrender is knowing we must have this first to me to be able to surrender is a deep and profound inner knowing that life has an intelligence to it, and that I am part of that intelligence. And that I can give things up and give things over. And that intelligence can step in and take care of things and shift the pieces. I call it move the chess pieces on the board, that I can't move. Because if you think about infinite intelligence, we need to think about that infinite, meaning there is no end. It goes on and on and on. It's not finite. Now we are finite in our thinking, our humanness. We are. So we'll we'll see things. Sometimes we will see the superpower of the universe through our projection of finiteness. Is that a word? It is now. Okay. We'll see it through our projection because we're finite. We're gonna we we don't sometimes we can't possibly even wrap our head around the fact that there is an infinite intelligence. God, source, universe, I am, all that is, whatever you want to call it. Infinite. When I truly wrapped my head around the idea of infinite intelligence that knows everything there is possibly to know, it knows where the tiniest spider is right now on Earth. It knows everything, it knows what's happening in galaxies far and away. Then why do I think that in my teeny tiny little minuscule compared to, right, brain, that I can figure everything out. That I know always the next best step. I don't. And this is why I am a person that will say, I don't know. If I don't know, I just don't know. And there was a time in my life where I felt like I had to know. I just always had to have an answer for everybody. That was me and my little immaturity. I didn't know. I thought I had to have an answer. I thought I had to know everything. I thought it made me valuable. I thought, whatever. And then I rested in the I don't know. Because the more that I started to know, the more that I started to unravel, the greater my awareness became, the more I realized what I really don't know. And that was a relief because there is something that does. And so, in some of the hardest, most traumatic and dramatic experiences of my life that I did not know which way to turn, I didn't know what to do. I remember having driving to go have a really difficult conversation with somebody. And I was scared to death about what this person was doing and involved in all these things. And the whole drive there, I said, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to say, tell me what to say, tell me what to do, tell me what to do. In 10-minute drive there, I was like on repeat, like a broken record. And when I got in that situation, the words flew out of me like I wasn't even in charge. My countenance, my affect, my voice tone of voice, everything just was so quote unquote perfect that this person that was in this really rough space in their life, it clicked. And to this day, that person says to me, you know, if it wasn't for that conversation, that conversation wasn't Kristen Brown. I was the conduit, I was the channel. It makes me tear up. It was that powerful. And this is what surrender looks like because I could have been in my Kristen brain, how it needs to go, what I think needs to be said, how I think it has to happen, how I blah blah blah blah blah, all the things. No, because I didn't know. And I knew I didn't know. And this was something I had never dealt with before. And I had no idea that it was gonna happen and go down the way that it went down. And even with this person sobbing in front of me and me thinking, you know, old, you know, like me not in that space would have been very affected by the sobbing. It was legit sobbing, it wasn't um manipulation. I would have been very affected by that. And I wasn't. Something took over because I was open. I surrendered. I surrendered outcome, I surrendered words, I surrendered everything. I just said I don't know. So consider this in your life that even if you're someone who who this is why I term this superpower of the universe so many things, because I don't believe it's one thing. And I don't believe, I believe there's many, many paths to this energy. So even if you're a person who might be thinking, well, because a lot of people call it religious. I'm not religious, I don't call it religious either. I call it energy, I call it spirituality. I mean, I have all kinds of, I have a very mixed bag of my view, but it doesn't, I don't care. It's the fact that I know true, time and time and time again, tested and proved to me when I let go, when I took my grubby little hands off control, when I stopped white knuckling and I let go, things fell into place. And this is an aspect of relaxing into life. I have a message that I want to read. Um God is omnisci omniscient. I don't know if I could say that omniscient. Did I get it? Omniscient, but God is also omnipotent too. Yes, that's it. Same, same idea, different words, 100%. Okay, we're gonna bring up our sister Jennifer. Something ignited her to pop on the stage. So I'm curious to hear what Jennifer has to share. Hey, welcome.

Jennifer: 53:14

Hey, what struck me was um surrender, because I always looked at surrender as losing or failure, or I I didn't try hard enough, or I didn't say the right words, find them, you know, figure it out. And when you're running into a brick wall and you keep trying to figure it out, maybe there's just not figuring it out. When I finally accepted that I could surrender and it could be okay, my goodness, Kristen, it was a weight that was lifted from my shoulders. I could I could stop battling with myself. I could stop battling with my mind, with these ideas, with these concepts that weren't serving me. That does and and I had to understand that surrender is not giving up. I'm still responsible for doing the right thing. I am just not responsible for all of the outcomes in life. I can do my best and do my best, and yet some things might work out and some might not, and that's okay. And in doing that, I realized it is always okay. It really is. It is always okay because I don't know how to say this the right way, but because I'll make it okay. It'll be okay because I decide it's okay. You know? It'll it will be okay because I have the ability to handle things when they're not, and that makes it okay. So it's it may sound like a kind of a simple redefining, but for me, it was a a weight from my shoulders that I felt. It was a weight off of my chest.

Kristen: 55:18

But here's the thing, Jennifer, I do think it's it is it is very simple and practical. I think we make things very complicated. Yes, but I was. Yeah.

Jennifer: 55:32

Yeah. Oh, I'm great at complic complicating things.

Kristen: 55:38

Most of us are.

Jennifer: 55:40

Yeah. I wish that. I mean, I don't wish I would have learned it earlier. It is what it is. I learned it when I did. Um but man, I I wish others could kind of grasp it and you know have the confidence to know it really will be okay. We all have tools, we all have places to turn. And it really will be okay. We don't have to control everything.

Kristen: 56:10

One of my favorite sentences is everything is going to be okay. Because it always is. And I noticed that that it always is. It's always is. It doesn't feel like it in the moment, but it always ends up being okay.

Jennifer: 56:25

Oh yeah. The struggle that Ben had, you know, shortly into his freshman year at college. And and he's completely happy now. It's he's a new roommate situation, it's better. He thought it would be terrible. He likes the location better. I was not happy with it. In fact, I went to the meeting and I said, I'm confident that this will work because you will stay in the place that you are. And that was my end goal. And you know what? That wasn't the decision. And it really was okay. You know, I hoped that he had the awareness and the tools to deal with that at 18. Turns out he did.

Kristen: 57:09

Sweet.

Jennifer: 57:11

Yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna let people know it really we're still responsible. It's not giving up. But it's doing your best, being your best. And then saying, hi. Let's keep moving.

Kristen: 57:24

And Amani said, Jennifer, yes, with an exclamation point. Surrendering is life on a whole different level. I am shouting from the back for you. Yep. So she's in the back of the room shouting, going, Woo-woot.

Jennifer: 57:38

Awesome. I'm gonna hang up and I'll talk to you later. I'm gonna listen.

Kristen: 57:42

Thanks, Jennifer. See you. Okay, Jennifer, that was great. One of the things that I learned too and I experienced firsthand is that I'm glad Jennifer brought up the giving up portion because a lot of us feel like we're throwing in the towel and we're giving up. That's not what surrender is. Because they're yes, in the case of war, all right, where somebody white flags and they surrender and they throw it. Okay, right, they gave up. But that's not what spiritual surrender is. Spiritual surrender is not giving up. It is giving over. It is saying, this is too big for me, but it's not too big for you. And then it's not that we again stop doing anything. I surrendered that 10-minute drive to that conversation, but I showed up for a two-hour conversation. See what I'm saying? I didn't just give up and say, oh, well, it's it's a done deal, it ain't gonna work out, whatever. Mm-mm. I surrendered outcome. I surrendered the how. And then it was it moved through me. That's the that's the coolest thing about surrender. All right, right on. We got truth coming up. Thank you, Truth, for joining. Um, hi.

Truth: 58:52

Hi. I've only heard part of your talk today, but pieces that I've heard, I feel like it's relevant. Um, and you know, part of why I haven't been able to be fully present is I had to shift my work schedule today because of this morning. Um it was one of those situations where I woke up to a voicemail and a text message from a former partner. Um I was 19 and he was 32 when we started dating. And it lasted for about 10 years. And it was a kind message, like he wasn't being rude or mean or anything. Um, he was just like, oh, I was just thinking about you and remembered your number randomly and blah, blah, blah. And I got up to do my morning routine, and I was just not okay. And I couldn't identify exactly why I wasn't okay at first. And then all of a sudden, I'm like talking to my inner child in the mirror, and tears just start pouring down my face. And you know, my first instinct is to fight it. Oh, I have to be like I have to work at a certain time. Like, I don't have time for this right now. Like, I don't even know what this is about right now. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Just all those things of like trying to regulate or control, not regulate, but like control my feelings and control when they happen and how they happen and all that stuff. Um, all that stuff of my past that still comes up sometimes today. And this morning it was coming up. Um, and then at a certain point, as the tears were pouring down my face, I just released the controls. And I was like, you know what? Like, I don't know what's going on, but I'm feeling something and I'm just gonna feel it. And it took me a while to even realize that it was the messages from him that upset me. Um, because like when I look back on it, like I was 19, I was a consenting adult, blah, blah, blah, all those things. But in the reality, when you look at it, like 13 years isn't much for my 40s. But I was 19, broken with daddy issues and all kinds of stuff. And when I really took a deep look at it, like there was definitely some grooming going on. When I take a deep look at it, there was definitely some predatory behavior going on. It was not healthy. And I don't know that I've ever even been willing to look back at that piece of my life as something that caused me trauma because there's so many other like big T traumas that I can identify, like this was a traumatic, this was traumatic, this was traumatic. And this one was like never one that I identified in that way. But then when all those things came up this morning and I just let myself feel into it and I did my somatic movement and felt into it more and just let it process. And I took a quick break at one point and I wrote him a message back thanking him for reaching out to me because it showed me an area that I still need to grow. And I let him know that my nervous system was triggered and that I wasn't okay. And that if he wanted to have a conversation taking responsibility and accountability for what wasn't okay about that situation, then I'm more than happy to talk to him about it. And I also said that like I was an adult, I take responsibility for that part of it. However, like I see these ways that your actions were inappropriate. If you want to have a conversation taking responsibility for it, then I'm more than happy to talk to you. If that's not on your agenda, then there's no reason for us to have any contact. And then I ended it with the loving-kindness meditation of may you be safe, maybe you be healthy, may you be happy.

Kristen: 1:03:07

And oh, it felt so good. Oh my god, somebody reclaimed her power. Yeah.

Truth: 1:03:19

And it was just like, I don't know, like, and I leaned into it. I literally, and this may not be what you were talking about, relaxing into life, but I literally relaxed and let it flow. Damn.

Kristen: 1:03:33

Thank you. I am blown away. I think we need to hire truth to how to construct return text messages to people, because that was beautifully worded and full, chalk full from top to bottom of her personal power. And I'm like full body chills right now. And I also see how how divinely timed that was. It came at just the right time where she had all the information that she needed, the tools, this type of thing is what I'm meaning, where she learned she knew how to meet it and she met it and she relaxed into it, and then she responded. Wow. I'm really blown away right now, if you could see my expression. Beautiful job, Truth. That was that was a fantastic share. Thank you so much. And yes, it's all relevant to this entire conversation, and I appreciate you coming up and sharing that. So, with that being said, you guys, let's take some pauses. Let's let things unfold before we rush in to fix or to make a decision. Let's notice the body signals, truth. Let's notice the body tells. The tightening of the shoulders, of the jaw, perhaps tears that come. What is it? What's happening right now? What is my body telling me? Maybe at times asking yourself questions. Like, what if I don't need to control this? Or what if this doesn't need to be so hard? Or what if I can just, what if I just let go? What if everything is always working out for me? What if everything is always okay? And you can even take the what are what ifs off of those and make those just statements. Everything is okay. Everything is always working out for me. It is safe to let go. Maybe it's about relaxing into life, is about replacing how do I make this happen with what wants to happen here? What is trying to come forth here? Do you see the relaxation and the slowing down in all of this? What about if you're relaxing by trusting divine timing? Because I do believe everything is purposeful. I do believe that text message came from her former partner, truth's former partner, at the time that it was supposed to come for whatever that next best step in her evolution looked like. Because it might be different if a former ex-partner messages me. Mine would look different. I did get a couple messages here. Let me read this before I jump off. I think also okay to not be okay and surrendering it. That's a big one, Paula. Yes. Sometimes we're just not okay. Sometimes like I'm just really not okay right now. And just being okay with being not okay. Remember the loving what is stop fighting against reality, stop pushing to be somewhere or someone or something, and just being. Just relaxing into just being, slowing down the whole row. Your life is not behind schedule. Everything is as it should be. I want to circle back to talking about divine timing because sometimes people thwart their own progress and sabotage things because something will present, and then their head and their fear says, Oh, it's just not time. I'm waiting for the right time. Oftentimes the right time presents over and over and over again, and we keep just pushing it away. We just keep pushing it away. Paula said, Thanks for deciphering my awful text today. They're not awful, Paula. Hey, you guys speak Kristen and I speak you. Thanks for no, no worries, Paula. They weren't, they were perfect. They made perfect sense to me and everybody else, too. All right. Thanks so much for being here, everybody. I love you. I appreciate you. It doesn't go unnoticed that you take the time to join me on these conversations live. I know everybody has busy schedules, and some people are even tuning in while at work or on their lunch hour. And I appreciate you, but mostly I appreciate your energy being here, your emojis that come up on the screen, your messaging, and you coming up and sharing your truth, experience, and wisdom with us. Because you matter. Never forget that you matter. You're not above or below anybody else. We're all the same. And I feel completely blessed and honored to walk arm in arm with you Monday through Friday on Noon Vibe. I'll see you tomorrow, everyone. Much love.