growing pains and new pathways

Hiii Divine Intervention Family! Even though I said I would take a summer break, it didn’t feel right being away from the microphone for too long. In this short and quick episode, I discuss a few new life updates and navigating a few changes. 

Stay tuned and I hope you have a great day!

Transcript

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Hey, how y'all doing? This is your girl Brianna, and this is the Divine Intervention Podcast, where I try my best to make space and learn how to take up that space. Now I know that I said I was taking a good little summer break, but it didn't feel right letting the month of June pass without saying hey to y'all or giving y'all a little check-in. Since the last time we talked, I actually moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. I started grad school in the fall. Um, and I've been navigating a new job opportunity and honestly just living life, trying to make sense of everything and getting my footing under me. I probably recorded this probably two, three, four times, struggling to figure out what to say, what to share.

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And I think that I finally landed on speaking freely.

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I've never considered myself to really be the motivational speaker type of person. But lately I have had it on my heart to just share that I was talking to an older woman that's part of a women's group, a black women's group that I'm a part of. And honestly, when I reflect, I feel blessed to have had so many people pour into me and notice me and take me in as their own. Because I think one of the biggest things I've been learning lately is, in addition to me discussing in other episodes, how hard it was for me to see myself. I was talking to her about how for so long I feel like I was allowing my identity as being a black woman from the Mississippi Dale to be at the forefront and center of who I am, so much so that I wasn't seeing the woman that I've been growing into over the past few years. And I'll always have a special place in my heart for the little black girl from the Mississippi Delta, but I think even the longer I've been sitting with myself, I had to even clock myself with the way that I refer to myself being a young woman from the Mississippi Delta. I noticed that even when I would get opportunities or I would be in certain spaces, I still found myself feeling like that little girl who was timid and shy and didn't really like talking to people and kind of preferred for everybody to just leave her alone. And one day I woke up here in Little Rock and I almost felt like, oh my gosh, how did you get here? I think that it really showed me how I was allowing the past to steal my present from me. How there are so many things that if I'm not even gonna say if I was to go back and do it again, because I'm not the type of person that believes in regrets. I believe that everything happens for a reason. I think that every space that you walk into, every person that you meet, every word that you hear, all of it is for a reason. You're living in your own karma loop of the last decisions that you made. And I feel like I realized even the way that I would talk about being a black girl from the Mississippi Delta, I woke up one day and I thought about it, and I was like, some of the most successful people I'm friends with are from the Mississippi Delta, and it really shifted my image and my perspective and my perception of what it even meant, and I think that for one, younger me would have never imagined the woman that I've grown into, but for two, I really just wish that more young people from where I'm from got to meet a lot of the lovely people that I know who where we're from with pride, I think in our in rooms not only making decisions but just being amazing people with genuine hearts for service. When I made one of my draft episodes, one of the things I talked about was the new space that I'm navigating. I told someone recently that sometimes you have to be careful about what you ask God for. Because when you're giving it, then you have to show up as what you asked for. You can't really just ask for things and not think that it's not gonna require a lot of uncomfort out of you. And the first episode I recorded, I talked a lot about dressing professionally. Um, and I actually talked to my therapist about it. I was telling her, I was like, this may sound childish, but the the hardest thing that I have to wrap my head around is slacks. Y'all, I don't like slags. I really don't, I don't blazers, like I really I just it's it's so hard. It's it's so hard for me, and I think that some days it's laughable, other days I'm frustrated. I don't even know how to describe um my relationship with dressing like business, professional business, casual. Because anybody that knows me, y'all, I love a good pair of baggy pants. I have I found the perfect pair of gray sweatpants that are like the perfect size of overly baggy, but they actually fit around my waist. Y'all, those things I love them so much, like the amount of times I wear them a week is honestly sad. Like, if I'm in my house, I'm probably in them sweatpants, and I think for me, it's been a really hard switch just because I've always viewed like the way that I present myself as a form of like my creative expression, like an extension of myself. That's why I talk to people so much about my hair. Speaking of which, I chopped it all off again, literally yesterday, because I looked in the mirror and was like, mmm, too salon, and you know, did that end up with hair on the floor, a clipper in my hands, and then a box of hair dye. Yes, but I wouldn't be me if it didn't end up like that. And afterwards, I looked in the mirror and I smiled and I was like, there she is. I feel like myself again, just like that. Um, but yeah, I've always viewed the way that I present myself as a very big part of like identity expression. So for me, it's just been a very hard thing to navigate because it's really hard for me to see myself in a pair of slacks. Like I just I can't, I can't get over it. It feels like it's so unserious. But when I when I wear them, I just look in the mirror and I'm just like, okay, I guess this is what we're doing now. Like, you have to be like an adult. Um lately, I've been really having to register. It's been having to register for me that I'm an adult now. Um like a beginnerslash intermediate adult. Because I feel like it's levels to adulthood. And it's also hard for me to wrap my head around because I to know me and to know like my thought process, I'm really big on not judging people by their appearance. That's just like a very, very large core thing that I keep in my mind. Just you know, the way people look doesn't determine who you're finna who you're finna speak to. You can always be surprised by who you meet, and I just I always told myself that the way that someone self-presents doesn't dictate the individual or the personality or the heart of the person because everybody has their own style. So the business professional things it's been a very hard thing for me to wrap my head around. I'm gonna circle back. Honestly, I hope I listen to this episode again when I'm much, much older. Because I genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, want to know whether or not older me is gonna be like, girl, you was just a 20, you was just a stubborn 23-year-old. Like, that's all it was. I I'm I'm I'm eager to see like what that's gonna look like. But other than that, I feel like adjusting has just been mainly me versus me, calming my mind, getting control of things. I've always struggled with like anxiety and my mind racing and having to calm myself down, slow myself down, remind myself that the things that I'm allowing to rob me of my peace aren't even worth the price of it. So it's been a lot of taking things day by day, sitting with myself, trying to actively make better decisions. I think that in May I actually finished the book Sula. And I'm actually super excited to get into the book analysis part of the podcast because I have a couple of books that I'm eager. I've been talking to some people who are willing to hop on and discuss them with me. But I really wanted to mention Sula in this episode because I don't know. The book really I've been sitting on it since I finished it in May. It's been taking me longer to read books lately because I used to be one of those kids who could like read through books like snap your fingers. I was reading three, four books every other week, like it was it was it was crazy, and now I've gotten to this place where I I don't know if it's because I'm I'm a writer, but I try to pay a lot of attention to structure and how the writer sets the story up and the character development, and I really loved Tony Morrison's setup of not only the bottom but the character Sula and Nail. If you haven't, I definitely recommend reading the book. But the main thing I'll pull from it today is that I was really inspired by I guess Sula's authenticity and how she was unapologetically herself even if her decision were decisions weren't always what one would mark as the right thing or the best thing, she kind of defined the world for herself and she navigated it the way that she knew best. And it's something I really admired about her character, how she had this strong willingness to just be and do. But also I found it fascinating how the other characters interacted with her because of this, how it pulled the story along. With that being said, I don't really have much for this episode, really just wanted to do a brief check-in. But I guess it's just a gentle reminder to be unapologetically yourself. Don't be afraid to ask for more or to axe for exactly what you want. But also being willing to step up to the plate when it's time for you to receive, but also when it's time for you to show up as the person you have to grow into in order to be able to receive. If you made it this far, drink some water, buy a plant, drink some tea, go sit and get some sunlight and thank y'all for joining me. I'll see you in the next one.