How to Know When “I’m Not Ready” Is Keeping You Stuck

… and more Lessons from Walk Through Fire by Sheila Johnson 

Book: Walk Through Fire by Sheila Johnson

Happy Women’s History Month! This month is an extension of Black History Month for me - we continue celebrating the lives, legacies, contributions, and stories of Black women. In this special episode, I’m sharing lessons I took from Sheila Johnson’s memoir Walk Through Fire - the story of America’s first Black female billionaire and co-founder of BET.

This isn’t a typical episode, but I wanted stay in your ear and share some powerful insights from a Black woman’s story. Sheila Johnson’s journey - from a traumatic 35-year marriage to building a new life as a hospitality industry titan - offers so much wisdom about healing, identity-making, and becoming.

Key Lessons Shared:
1.The power of a measured response - How to respond to provocations and insecurities without losing your dignity

2.Use your single years wisely - Single seasons are for exploring your childhood stories, clarifying your identity and needs, and learning to love your own company - not just healing from the last relationship

3.Be discerning about whose advice you take - Some people will advise you out of their own spiritual deficit and unhealed experiences

4.Honor your journey, even as you take it - Accept your story for what it is, own it, but also recognize when “I’m not ready” becomes the thing keeping you stuck in trauma

5.Life is sometimes a matter of inches - Celebrate your process and growth as it happens, don’t despise small steps and small wins

6.The power of creating something - How creation becomes part of healing and identity-making. We don’t have to wait on God to perform miracles when the revelation is in what we create one step at a time

Plus: Updates on upcoming events including the Skylark documentary screening with Dr. Yanique Redwood (March 22, Atlanta), Seven Last Words service at Ebenezer Baptist Church (Good Friday), and the Greater Allen Cathedral Women’s Conference (April 9-11, Brooklyn).

Connect With Me

Want to go deeper? Visit www.revneichelle.com to explore my work, my ministry, and how we can grow together.

Let’s stay connected! Follow me on Instagram and Substack for more inspiration and continued conversation.

Ready to transform? Apply for coaching - I work with ambitious Black women who are ready to partner with God to create lives they love.

Questions? Feedback? Just want to say hello? Drop me a line - I’d love to hear how this podcast is landing in your life!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to a wide open space. Here, our focus is strengthening our faith, cultivating ourselves, and creating lives that we love. I'm your host, Reverend Dr. Nichelle Gidry Stewart. Well, hello, hello, hello, my sisters, and welcome back to another episode of A Wide Open Space. Here we are all about our spiritual growth, personal development, and walking into the flourishing lives that we have been divinely promised. This is a womanist space where black women are unapologetically centered. And once again, I'm so grateful that you are spending another Saturday morning with me here in this wide open space. It is March, sisters. And let me just say to you, happy women's hersary month. And for me, I have always conceptualized March as being sort of an extension of Black History Month where we just continue the celebration of the lives, the legacies, the contributions, the stories, um, the voices, the bodies, the ministry, the work of Black women. Not that this is any different from the rest of the year, but just kind of like our love for our community and our people and ourselves goes on tilt in February. I think the tilt just sort of continues in March. And it has been a full month. I think part of what it means to be um here immersed in this month is that there's so many amazing things happening just in terms of programming and gatherings that are an acknowledgement and celebration of black women's history and story. And um, yes, it has been a full month already. I was really, really blessed to be on a panel at Gammon Theological Seminary last week and um just attending a couple of really cool, I went to a wine tasting um and a book launch by a black woman salmonier this week and kind of got my life. Um, and there's a bunch of other things that are coming up. And so before we launch into today's um conversation, I do want to give you an invitation. If you are in the Atlanta area, on Sunday, March 22nd at 3 o'clock, um, I will be moderating a conversation with the wonderful Yannick Redwood, um, who is the author of White Women Cry and Call Me Angry. She has um released a documentary that is all about sort of the ways that black women have been sort of sequestered into this lifestyle of weathering. And the website for the for the documentary reads, weathering is the silent toll of racism-related stress on the body. And it talks about Dr. Yannick's journey of leaving behind her high-profile positions in the United States. And now, through this documentary, holding up a mirror to the harms that black women face at work and embarking on a radical path towards healing. This documentary is all about how black women can rest, play, find pleasure, and heal from the racism and misogynoir that we experience at work and in life. Um, I was connected to Yannick through the wonderful, though absolutely wonderful and amazing Melinda Weeks Late Low. I had a chance to connect with Melinda at the Proctor conference in Chicago two weeks ago. Um, and y'all, I just think this is gonna be a magical gathering. First of all, yes, I mean, we know that these systems and these spaces that we move and that we work in um can be very detrimental to our health and our wellness and our wholeness holistically. And I'm so excited to see how Dr. Yannick um went about reclaiming her time, reclaiming, reclaiming her body, and reclaiming her health and wellness um through rest and play. Um, and I'm just honored that I get to be able to moderate this conversation with um some really, really incredible women. So I'll be sharing some information around the documentary screening. If you're in Atlanta, um, you are invited to join us. I'm really, really excited about that March 22nd. Um, another piece that is coming up here in Atlanta is on Good Friday. I will be preaching the Seven Last Word Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church. And once again, you are invited to join there. And then if you are in the New York area, the weekend of April 9th through the 11th, I am the opening preacher for the women's conference at the Greater Allen Cathedral. Um, that is going to be taking place in Brooklyn. And so um, if you're interested in learning more information about these and other dates that I have coming up, um, would love to connect with you. Um, my website and my Instagram are going to be updated with more information as it becomes available. And yes, God is good. I'm excited to be able to get my work and my voice out there. And I'm also grateful that I get to do the work my soul must have. Tonight I get to um I'm starting the um Rise Women and Ministry Mentorship Network annual conference um here in Atlanta. Also, my mentor, the Reverend Dr. Lisa Diane Rhodes, is the conference founder and convener. And this is just an amazing gathering of black women who are called to ministry um in so many different ways in so many different spaces. And this is just a really refreshing gathering that really does a great job of integrating um the life of the mind with the life of the body and the heart and the spirit for those of us who have been called into this field and to this work. And tomorrow I'm excited. I get to be on a panel with Reverend Tracy Blackman and my sister, Reverend Britney Palmer, and Reverend Natasha Reed Rice. And we are going to be talking about black women rising and unleashing our power, what that means and what it requires in these crazy days that we are living in. And then in the afternoon, I get to lead a workshop with, I think I they said I have like 60 or 70 people registered for my workshop, um, which is a workshop that was derived from a sermon that I preached last year on Mary and Martha called Sit Down, sis, um, establishing sustainable rhythms for black women in ministry. So um, listen, I love to do, I love to do my thing. You know, the work is is is the work because we're able to share it and we're able to live in it together and to converse and to get together around it. And um, it is just always so much fun to be in community with my sisters who serve. And so um, if you're coming to Rise, I look forward to seeing you there. I posted something on my Instagram story about one of my um workshop materials. And a woman slid in my DMs and was like, it's gonna be my first rise. I'm so excited. And I'm excited for you too, sis. This is gonna be a great, great, great gathering. It always, always, always is. And so, y'all, today is gonna be a little bit non-traditional because as I said, March has been so full. Um, and I'm still working on building my, you know, my scaffolding for the podcast. Um, and the plan that I had for today had to be put off for a couple of weeks due to a scheduling, um, I don't want to say issue, but a misalignment of schedules with the person that I wanted to talk to for today. But we're gonna get there. We are going to get there. But I thought what I could do in the meantime, because I want to stay consistent and I want to stay in your ear, hello, is um share some of my notes from a book that I just finished. And yes, this is what I would consider a page turner. I could not put the book down. And the book is Walk Through Fire by the one and only Sheila Johnson. And I'll tell you what led me to the book when I got the book. Um, I actually got it at a book swap, a black women's book swap with this mom group that I'm in. And first of all, Sheila Johnson, as you know, she is the co-founder of BET. Um, and you know, high level, you know, if your ears are even somewhat in the streets, like that Miss Sheila kind of went through it. Um, and you know, her marriage to her co-founder, ex-husband Bob Johnson was a tumultuous train wreck. And, you know, I've always honored, you know, when black women come around to this place where they can tell their stories. Um man, it's just so powerful to hear a black woman in her own words share her experience. Um, especially when you're thinking about like how high profile someone like Sheila Johnson's story is and was. Um, this is her taking back her story. And so I I've wanted to read it for a long time. Time and space just sort of got away from me. Um, but I was, I got this at the book swap. I thought it was um, yeah, this was it was time. And there's, you know, when you get the book, you will see like at the top, underneath her name, it says in beautiful red letters, America's first black female billionaire. Now, you might have your feelings about billionaires, as do I, um as we are living in this time of um just billionaire wantonness. Um, but as you read through Sheila Johnson's story, first of all, she earned every one of those dollars that she uh acquired and accumulated and that she made. She earned every one of those dollars. Every last one of them was hard-earned. Um but also it's just it was amazing to see this woman. Um, obviously, her journey um into this wealth was very non-traditional, but also like the sort of inner workings uh around how she decided what she was gonna do with her wealth and how she um put her wealth to work, uh, not just for her own sort of healing and pleasure, although that's something that I want to talk about, but she put her wealth to work to um, you know, really bring some new life to the community that she was living in. Um and also to do so much good, to do so much good. Now, I I have to just be honest. Like there is a part of me that while I just don't, my mind cannot compute the wide chasm and expanse between the wealth of the billionaire and the wealth of the everyday person and the wealth of the person who's scraping by. I can say that if I were ever in that seat or had proximity to that seat, I my mind just goes wild thinking about all the good that I could do in the world. And so reading this story was just so powerful because she was able to utilize her wealth and her philanthropy as expressions of and vehicles for her inner healing, um, and to bring some closure to some aspects of her life and her story by giving somebody else, by giving other populations the opportunities that she did not have. Um and yeah, I loved it. But I just wanted to share some of my notes. And these are just a couple of what I would consider just life lessons that I took away from her story, um, both that were just sort of reiterated from my own lived experience and other things that I've had the opportunity to do and to view, um, but also just some things that I thought were really powerful and unique in her story. It is actually one way that I have decided to observe Women's Hursty Month is really taking in some stories by black women. And so Michila's the was the first book that I read. And um, I actually also just started Jamila Lemieuse, Black Single Mother. Hey, Jamila, I'm sorry if I mispronounced your last name. We have yet to meet in person, but I love you, I adore you. And um, thank you for sending me that copy of your book. And I am diving in and I'm just like, ooh, black women's memoirs are just so life-giving. Like, there's so much to learn just by reading the story of another sister. And if you're really, really wise, you will be the kind of woman who does not have to learn the hard way. If you can learn from the stories of your sisters and learn from the stories of the people who came before you. Um, in fact, I'll just go ahead and jump into my notes that I wanted to share. I had a chance to implement something that I learned from Sheila's book just this morning at the gym when um somebody almost tried to play in my face. And I decided um, you know, there's just a certain sort of way that a measured response to other people's provocations and insecurities is going to um ensure that you are able to continue to hold on to your dignity in the process. Most of the time, when people want to bring their drama to your footstep or to your doorstep, it's not because of you. It it nine and a half out of 10 times, it has nothing to do with you. It is people and their unresolved stories, their unresolved issues. And the natural way that it seems like humans are just drawn to drama and how people commune around it. And if you are a person who does not thrive in that, you can sometimes risk feeling and experiencing isolation because you just are not with it. Um, and it's not that you don't respond, it's not that you um, you know, do this sort of white evangelical interpretation of turning the other cheek and just let people play in your face. It is that you offer a measured response that ensures that it is very, very clear that you are not the one, you are not the two. And um I've always struggled, like kind of I've always wanted to be that person. Um, but I am a work in progress in that regard. And so this morning when an incident sort of happened at the gym, I was able to think about Miss Sheila um when her name was drugged through the mud, um, you know, through all of Washington, DC, through the streets, through the press, through her social circles. And she was very methodical and very um thoughtful and intentional about what she did respond to, what she simply did not respond to, and how she responded when she deemed it necessary. Um and so uh take note. A measured response is always going to get you further, and it will leave you in a place where you are not at odds with yourself for how you respond to the insecurities and the projections of others. So that was note number, it was actually note number four, but it came up so organically, I had to take it. So back to note number one. Here is where I feel like I'm gonna have a little bit of trouble not like giving you any spoiler alerts with the book because I think context is important. So I'm gonna try to toe the line as carefully as possible. But there is um this really interesting portion of the book, a portion of her life where she's become very reflective of um, you know, her journey and her process of becoming um, at that point, a divorced woman who's, you know, trying to figure out where she went wrong and where her life took a left turn. And um one of the notes that I took was about, you know, how our single years as black women, as high-achieving women, um, are meant for us not to just go and like date indiscriminately and like jump inside of these, you know, relationship sequences and situationship sequences. The single years are really, really powerful time, a powerful time to really sit with the stories of our childhood, the stories of our lived experiences, um, what kind of experiences have influenced our values and our belief systems and how we show up in our relationships and partnerships, the kinds of expectations we have, whether knowingly or unknowingly. And also to clarify our needs. Um, the book begins with um a couple of really, really, really um just startling stories that happened uh in her her younger years. And these would be go on to become her formative narratives. Um, and this the stories and the memories that she would constantly be trying to outlive um throughout her adult life and well into her 50s. And um I I one day I'm gonna meet Miss Sheila Johnson. I'm gonna have a conversation with her and I'm gonna ask her like if you had a chance to do it all over again, would you have spent some more time being single? And what would you have utilized that season to do? Um, and I say that because she met Bob Johnson um as a college student and you know, didn't really waste much time marrying him. And I just wonder if she had more time to get with herself and to enjoy single years, um, what that would have meant for the trajectory of her life, uh, because she went on to spend, I think, 35 years in this extremely, extremely traumatic marriage. And then um, you know, I think by virtue of like maybe, and again, I'm I'm not a therapist, I don't know this woman personally, but I do know that um there comes a point where you're just used to being with someone and you're used to um existing in partnership and living in partnership. And from what I read in the book, there just wasn't much of a buffer between the first marriage and her second marriage. Now, there were some like, you know, conversations between her and her new husband that I thought were really powerful and some choices and decisions that she made. Um, but I do wonder if she had a chance to do it all over again. Um, if she would have spent some more time on her own. Um I think we really undervalue the season of singleness um in our community. And I think um we need to just do some more reconstructing around public discourse, around what it means to be single, even by choice. Um, because I'm privy to a lot of conversations. And even in my own experience, a lot of us choose to be single out of, you know, just not wanting to be heard again. And it's less about, I just want to experience life and I want to get to know who I am, and I want to be able to establish my standards and get to know and love myself and have some experiences as a single woman. Um, and and it's more about I just don't want to be heard again. Um, and I wonder if we really took the time to embrace singlehood, singleness as. As obviously, yes, a time to heal our childhood stories or to begin the heal healing of our childhood stories and our childhood memories. Um, and also to just get to know and embrace and love ourselves, like what kind of difference that would make in the quality of our relationships and partnerships. Um, and again, as a married person, um I had to get to the place where I did not despise being single. Um, I had to get to the place where I loved being single before I, you know, felt like I could join my life to someone else's again. Um, and I feel like not, you know, in hindsight, that was a huge part of, you know, that season in between my first marriage and my second one is yes, to heal, but also like I don't think healing is the purpose of our lives. I think enjoying our lives, embracing our lives, learning to love our own company and coming into some kind of clarity and faith about what we're put in this earth to do is also what those seasons are for. So um, that was lesson number two. Take some time in your single years to explore your stories and to clarify your identity and needs. Number three, be discerning about who you seek out for advice. Be discerning about who you listen to, because some people will advise you out of their own spiritual deficit and unhealed experiences. I think that sort of speaks for itself. Um, I think it's when it comes to advisement and it comes to insight. I think it's really important to be mindful about who you ask, not just because of the spiritual deficit piece, but because you have to be able to ask and seek out counsel from those who are or who have been in the place where you're trying to go. Um, there was one um moment in the book in particular that was really, really resonant to me. And it was in a season where, you know, she's still married to her crazy ex-husband, who's such an abuser, such a manipulator, such a liar. And, you know, it's gotten to the point where she's really, you know, she's deteriorating from the inside out. And she seeks out, you know, some advice, some counsel from different women in her life. And one person in particular told her to stay because she and her husband were the model couple for the black community. Now, yes, from the outside, it definitely looked like the Johnsons have it going on. But I do not see how one in their right mind could know what this woman was experiencing behind closed doors and still say you all are the model couple. And we do live in a world that is obsessed with optics. We live in a culture and in a community that would easily trade in this, the, the, the spiritual value of peace and uh mutual love and respect and admiration in marriage for the social cachet of what it means to be a power couple. I hate this language so much. Um, and and and you know, I'm really sad to say that she took that person's advice for some time. Um, but that does lead to the fourth piece, is like you really do have to honor and respect your own journey, even as you take your own journey. I don't think that um Sheila Johnson stayed in that marriage because she wanted to. I mean, she was very clear that she was tore up and that her husband was a joke. But I think she was fearful of what life on the other side of that marriage would look like and how she would be able to sustain herself. And from my own lived experience, I've been there. I have been there, like knowing good and well, this is not the marriage for you. Knowing good and well, this is not the life for you, but being really, really fearful of what life on the other side would be like, and really, really fearful of taking the steps to get there because it's also unknown. And I think we can all empathize whether it has had to do with a love partnership or a job or a house or a living situation or a city that you lived in, or even your family. Like sometimes the hell that we know is easier to live in than the possibility of the future that we are praying for. And we sort of talk ourselves out of pursuing it because it is unfamiliar. And anytime unfamiliarity is in the picture, so is fear. And so I think part of what it means to be a woman, living in your skin, living in your truth, living in the integrity of your story is that for better, for worse, for high, for low, you accept your story for what it is and you own it. And you honor the journey that you have taken. And I really, really, really want to be able to do this and to be this woman as I live into my future. But what's more challenging is honoring the journey right now. And it's one of the things that I admire the most about the book and about Ms. Johnson, is she was very honest with herself throughout her struggles about not being ready to leave him. I'm just not ready, just not ready, just not ready. And it wasn't that she needed more proof that he was a jerk. It wasn't that she needed to go through more awful and dehumanizing, quite frankly, experiences with him. She had every receipt that she needed, but she had not gotten to that point within herself where she was ready to make that move. And it's actually, again, something that I really respect about her is that she moved when she was ready. And there's a flip side of that coin, and that is note number four, and that some and that is that sometimes, you know, ready is a fleeting idea. Ready is the myth that will keep you stuck. Sometimes ready is the hindrance, it is the it is this idea that you have to have an understanding of what's coming next in order to take that next move. And sometimes ready is the thing that will keep you moving and um existing in a state of trauma and dehumanization. Um, I think this is a as I read the book, I think by virtue of her, her, just her life and how it unfolded, I think that she underestimated her own ability to make something out of nothing. Um, and it took her having to get literally to a breaking point to be able to see it and to be convinced of it. But I wonder like what would have happened if she would have moved even though she wasn't ready. Like to look at the receipts, the stack of receipts, the ever-growing stack of receipts and being able to say, how I feel doesn't matter. What I see, what I know is that this is not good for me. It's time to get the hell up out of here. I mean, I think that there's something really, really womanish, right? To use Alice Walker's language about when we decide to enhance the quality of our lives, regardless of whether or not we are ready. And I'm thinking about stories of, I mean, even I think about Harriet Tubman. We might as well go there. It's women's Hursty Month. And I know this might seem like a stretch, but hang in there with me, like knowing every threat, every um, you know, you know, understanding that at any moment on those journeys to freedom, she could get caught, she could be violently mutilated, she could be litigated, she could just be killed on the spot, knowing that um those folks that she had, um, you know, those passengers on that, on that freedom train that took that, that took those trips with her, were vulnerable to all kinds of of dangers. Um But being ready, being ready, it was not a luxury in those in those situations. Like I think the thing that one of the things about Harriet Tubman's story that will always just blow my mind is her her synchronicity with the spirit was such that I will go when you say go, whether I'm ready or not. And it is, I think, one of the most incredible life-saving and survival strategies that I think black women have employed over time is I'm not going to wait until I'm ready to get out of a situation that is death dealing and killing me softly and slowly, or maybe killing me quick and hard. I don't know. Ready has just not always been a luxury for us. And I know like it takes a great deal of inner resolve and deep spiritual reserves to be able to make moves, whether you're ready or not. But I think sometimes we hold on to I'm just not ready. Um, and it keeps us from moving forward. And we know that we deserve more. And so I just want to caution us like to really think through like how how many times have we played or are we playing the I'm not ready card at our own detriment, to our own detriment. All right, so next lesson. Um gosh, I just loved this quote. Um, it was on page 148. She was talking about um here she is in this meaning-making season. She's processing, she's moving on, she's becoming this um hospitality industry titan. She's um falling in love with this new man, um, who's not actually a new man. Uh, you have to read the book. It's so good. Um, but she writes, Life is sometimes a matter of inches. And she was talking about just like sort of how her she was seeing and experiencing her growth so slowly and slow gradually. And I just love, I love the image of the inch, inch by inch. Life is sometimes a matter of inches. And it's just a powerful, lovely reminder to celebrate our process, celebrate our growth as it is happening. And um don't despise, you know, the small steps that we take and the small wins that that that God allows us to have. Finally, I think we underestimate the power of creating something in our processes of healing and identity making and becoming. Um, she um obviously I am so I just find it fascinating that this woman has lived in so many very, very distinct chapters. And this latest chapter of her life is a chapter that she created. She created this beautiful life. Um, and as you read through this chapter, this iteration, you will see that it's very, very intuitive. And so something I really appreciated was just how intuitive her creation chapter was. You know, she was ready to relocate from the sort of gossip-saturated streets of DC. She wanted a peaceful place, and so she purposed purchased property in the horse country of Virginia and spent more time with her kids riding horses, eventually moved her mother in with them, um, you know, and wanted to um start to develop and create economic opportunity in that area. And so she launched herself into the hospitality industry. She was mindful that she didn't know anything about it. She was mindful that she was a novice, but it's um what her soul craved. And so, you know, when you're a billionaire, I think you can do just about anything you want. Um, because she just started purchasing things and renovating and hiring people and recreating, you know, just extravagant spaces and hosting super elaborate gatherings at her farm estate property. I mean, it really was inspiring to read. And I don't think that you have to be a billionaire to create something that brings your soul back to life after you have experienced some form of spiritual um death or trauma. And so I think what for for you, what what are you creating? And what kind of new life are you experiencing through it? Um this is a very, very, very relevant topic for me right now because um I think I've been pretty honest since the beginning of this podcast that I am in deep experimentation about what the next phase of my ministry is going to look like because I know how I wanted to feel and I know what I um have to give. Um, and I think reading this story at this time of deep discernment um and prayerfulness just reminded me that sometimes we wait on God to perform some miraculous work of transformation or make some miraculous revelation when the revelation really is in what we put one foot in front of the other to create. Um, I think we have to sort of relinquish the hold that we have on certainty, because most people who create have no idea when they start a thing where it is going to end up. And I think this is where it's important to remember that life happens in inches. And um we take one step and put one foot in front of the other, not in certainty, but in faith. And if that is not the story of how black women have gotten over, I don't know what is. And so I'm gonna go ahead and end there. I know this is very abbreviated, but these are some things that I've been um thinking about and some notes from the book that have blessed me. What about you? Did you read the book? Have you read the book? Might this inspire you to read the book? I cannot recommend it enough. Um, and so to anyone that has a connection to Miss Sheila that might be listening to this, please let her know. She blessed this preacher woman down in Atlanta. And I hope one day to meet her and to have a real heart-to-heart. Um and just, yes, just grateful that we have the these sorts of records of black women's lives to lean on and to learn from. So, on that note, happy women's Hursty Month. We're gonna do another episode this month. And um thank you for tuning in. I hope that you have a fantastic rest of your day, and maybe I'll see you on the road sometime soon. Blessings. Thank you for joining me in this wide open space. If this episode blessed you, please share it with the sister who needs it. Subscribe, rate, and review to help other listeners find us. And as you go, may you walk boldly in your calling and flourish in the wide open space God has prepared just for you. Be blessed, be bold, and be beautifully you.