Speaker 1: How do I consistently be who I was when I
Speaker 1: was at the top of my game instead of allowing
Speaker 1: the game to adjust to where we are today. Child
Speaker 1: Travis Kelsey was yelling at the coach man, It's like.
Speaker 2: A really genuine, unconditional love and relationship I.
Speaker 3: Think everybody should have that. They sound about the same, Ela,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they sound.
Speaker 4: About this, NA.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of the Woman Evolved podcast.
Speaker 1: We are seven episodes in to our relationship with the
Speaker 1: Black Effect Network, and I am enjoying the feedback that
Speaker 1: we are getting from so many of you. It seems
Speaker 1: like this new format is truly resonating, and for that,
Speaker 1: I say thank you, Thank you all, Thank you all,
Speaker 1: and thank you to Charlemagne and the incredible team that
Speaker 1: has made sure that we have this opportunity.
Speaker 3: It truly means the world to me.
Speaker 1: On the high key, I really feel like I'm coming
Speaker 1: down with a little bit of something, So y'all be
Speaker 1: in prayer for the kid. Hey, has anyone else noticed
Speaker 1: that these new colds are not like regular colds? Like
Speaker 1: there is a special, a special bacteria lingering on these
Speaker 1: colds and I needed to get up off of me
Speaker 1: and leave me alone. I was just ill during I'm
Speaker 1: So Classy Ill. I was just ill during the Christmas holiday.
Speaker 1: And usually the antibodies they be doing more than this,
Speaker 1: but it's seeming like they're not trying to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. And other updates. Let me see Power Moves
Speaker 1: the book tour. I just announced that last week I
Speaker 1: will be going on the road with the book that
Speaker 1: comes out April thirtieth. My book is called Power Moves,
Speaker 1: Ignite Your Confidence and Become a Force. We are going
Speaker 1: to be in five cities. Technically we're gonna be in six,
Speaker 1: but it's a surprise pop up city, so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say which one that it is. But we're
Speaker 1: going to be and this is in no particular order,
Speaker 1: so y'all, y'all hold me to this, but we're going
Speaker 1: to be in Sugarland, Texas, which is very close to Houston.
Speaker 1: We are going to be in the DMV area, that's
Speaker 1: DC Maryland Virginia area. We are going to be in Chicago.
Speaker 1: We are coming to Brooklyn, New York. I will be
Speaker 1: there on April thirtieth when my book actually drops. And
Speaker 1: we are going to be in Shytown, baby. So if
Speaker 1: you are in any of those areas, or you feel
Speaker 1: like taking a little summer trip in the spring, I
Speaker 1: highly encourage you to come out. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you have ever been to a book tour stop from
Speaker 1: any other authors, but I'm really excited about this because
Speaker 1: God's given me an idea that's definitely going to stretch me.
Speaker 1: It's going to be new, but I have to be
Speaker 1: obedient to what God's telling me to do with this tour.
Speaker 1: For this tour, we're going to cycle through three different stages.
Speaker 3: Of the way that Power moves.
Speaker 1: It's going to be interactive, We're going to have special guests,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to close it out with connection
Speaker 1: in the presence of God, because we know that we
Speaker 1: cannot expect to have power unless we are connected to
Speaker 1: the all Powerful. So I'm excited about that.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 1: Next week, I am going to respond to so many
Speaker 1: of your questions. We have been getting many of them
Speaker 1: and it's getting too hard to keep up. But for now,
Speaker 1: we're just going to do one this week. But I
Speaker 1: am telling you, if you have questions, send them to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not overwhelmed podcast at womanevolve dot com, but I
Speaker 1: do want to take the time to just kind of
Speaker 1: cycle through a few of them. So I will do
Speaker 1: that next week, and I will try to not make
Speaker 1: my answers long winded because I just get to talk,
Speaker 1: and I think because I'm introverted. When I start speaking
Speaker 1: out loud, the words just come out like vomit. So
Speaker 1: y'all speed through them, don't worry about me. Let's get
Speaker 1: into this week's question.
Speaker 3: You are going to.
Speaker 1: Really really enjoy this one, mostly because it's probably one
Speaker 1: of the questions that I get asked the most in
Speaker 1: which people want to know, child, how do you do it?
Speaker 4: Hi, Pastor Sarah, my name is Latasha Duffy. My question
Speaker 4: to you is how do you balance being an entrepreneur
Speaker 4: and a mom and also trying to keep Christ first.
Speaker 4: Sometimes being an entrepreneur, it could be very stressful, and
Speaker 4: I deal with a lot of anxiety, and so I'm
Speaker 4: just wondering how do you balance and handle it all.
Speaker 1: I find it difficult to answer the question about how
Speaker 1: do you balance it all keeping Christ in the front
Speaker 1: of everything that you do while also dealing with anxiety
Speaker 1: and stress and just life moving at warp speed.
Speaker 3: The reality is some days.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I am balancing it all very well.
Speaker 1: And then there are other days where I realized that
Speaker 1: because I'm at a place of peace, that there is
Speaker 1: no balancing act involved. But I'm going to share with
Speaker 1: you a few things that have been helpful for me,
Speaker 1: and it is honestly why I wrote the book Power Moves.
Speaker 1: When you talk about balancing it all, there are some
Speaker 1: days where I am posting the podcast and answering questions
Speaker 1: and we have a full production crew, light camera, hair
Speaker 1: and makeup. And then there are other days like today,
Speaker 1: where I need to get a podcast turned around. I've
Speaker 1: had a long day momming it up and I am
Speaker 1: looking like the way God brought me into the world.
Speaker 1: But this week and the MicroBlaze anyway, stay focused.
Speaker 3: Here's the point.
Speaker 1: Sometimes balancing it all is not how do I do
Speaker 1: everything at the same level that I have always done them,
Speaker 1: but rather how can I show up in this moment
Speaker 1: with the truth of how much capacity I have and
Speaker 1: allow my circumstances to prioritize what's most important. I love
Speaker 1: doing this podcast, I love hearing your questions. It is
Speaker 1: not so important that I have the hair, the makeup
Speaker 1: in the production crew in order to turn this around.
Speaker 3: When it's nice to have it.
Speaker 1: It's nice, but I don't need it, And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times we are thinking about how do
Speaker 1: I consistently be who I was when I was at
Speaker 1: the top of my game, instead of allowing the game
Speaker 1: to adjust to where we are today, And so prioritization
Speaker 1: is one of the things that has really helped me
Speaker 1: to balance the things that are assigned to my responsibility.
Speaker 3: In addition to that.
Speaker 1: I will say that I certainly struggle with anxiety when
Speaker 1: it comes to getting things done. I often worry that
Speaker 1: I am in over my head, I don't have what
Speaker 1: it takes. But I have also recognized that my anxiety
Speaker 1: is the greatest when I am thinking about all of
Speaker 1: the things that I have to do at one time,
Speaker 1: instead of realizing that none of them require me to
Speaker 1: do them right now. When I ask myself the question
Speaker 1: of all of the things that you have to do,
Speaker 1: what can you do right now? What is most pressing?
Speaker 1: What matters right now? What will matter tomorrow? What will
Speaker 1: matter six months down the road? Because sometimes I am
Speaker 1: stressing about things that are happening literally six seven months,
Speaker 1: eight months down the road, and so reminding myself to
Speaker 1: be present in the moment to enjoy what I have.
Speaker 1: If I'm driving the kids and I have a book
Speaker 1: to all I can do is drive the car. If
Speaker 1: I am writing a book but the kids need a bath,
Speaker 1: I can close the laptop down or ask for help
Speaker 1: and making sure that the kids get their bedtime routine
Speaker 1: so that I can do what is in front of me.
Speaker 1: I recognize it's a luxury to have the ability to
Speaker 1: ask my partner for help. As a single mother, I
Speaker 1: would have to be a little bit more intentional. I
Speaker 1: would have to ask around, thinking in advance of people
Speaker 1: who may be able to support me with the children
Speaker 1: so that I can accomplish my work. I was fortunate
Speaker 1: and that when I lived in Dallas, I was able
Speaker 1: to ask some of my family members to chip in
Speaker 1: to help me get whatever I needed to get done.
Speaker 1: I will say that keeping Christ in the front of
Speaker 1: it all as an entrepreneur and a business owner is
Speaker 1: not something that I.
Speaker 3: Seek out doing. And let me tell you why.
Speaker 1: Because I consider work, what I do, and my relationship
Speaker 1: with Christ who I am, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: when we're still in the beginning stages of walking out
Speaker 1: our faith, we want to make sure that we're honoring
Speaker 1: the love that we have for God, our desire to
Speaker 1: be obedient and to really live a life that looks
Speaker 1: like Jesus. And it does take work to make sure
Speaker 1: that we are making sure our actions align with the
Speaker 1: values that are important to us. I just want you
Speaker 1: to know that it will not always be a struggle
Speaker 1: to do that, and you will have to give yourself
Speaker 1: permission to come to a place where you say, I
Speaker 1: believe that this is not something that I am striving for.
Speaker 1: That when I really accepted Jesus in my heart and
Speaker 1: as my savior, that He's dwelling inside of me. And
Speaker 1: because Jesus dwells inside of me, my priority is to
Speaker 1: make space for the Spirit of God to settle me
Speaker 1: into where I am right now, to challenge me in
Speaker 1: the decisions that I make, and to be obedient when
Speaker 1: I feel those urgings. The reality is that for many
Speaker 1: of us, when the Holy Spirit wants us to go
Speaker 1: in a certain direction or stop certain actions, it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear it's not necessarily something that we have to seek out.
Speaker 1: We feel it immediately that I'm doing something that lacks
Speaker 1: my new integrity, that I'm doing something that I feel
Speaker 1: convicted about in the moment, and if we can be
Speaker 1: obedient and responsive to those moments, we have less to
Speaker 1: worry about when it comes to making sure that we
Speaker 1: keep Christ in everything. If we honor Christ in the
Speaker 1: areas where Christ is challenging us, we have to know
Speaker 1: that that same God, that same spirit of God that
Speaker 1: is leading us to a path of righteousness, knows how
Speaker 1: to get our attention. The question is will we respond
Speaker 1: or will we become desensitized because we don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to respond in the way that we need.
Speaker 3: To in the moment.
Speaker 1: So say all of that to say that keeping Christ
Speaker 1: in the center of everything that we do has everything
Speaker 1: to do with who we are and how we center
Speaker 1: Christ and our being and trusting that that will overflow
Speaker 1: into everything that we do. You know, and just on
Speaker 1: I guess the most eve advice level ever when it
Speaker 1: comes to balancing it all. Don't be afraid to let
Speaker 1: some balls drop. Don't be afraid to say I used
Speaker 1: to have capacity, I don't have it anymore. Don't be
Speaker 1: afraid to say I may need to slow down. I'm
Speaker 1: getting a little burnt out. I need a break, I
Speaker 1: need to pull back from things that are not essential.
Speaker 1: I need to ask for additional support so that I
Speaker 1: can continue to do things that are essential. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say this and then I'm gonna zip it.
Speaker 1: But I was speaking out of women's lunch today to
Speaker 1: business owners and entrepreneurs in Dallas, and the theme of
Speaker 1: it was about acceleration, and I did some studying for it.
Speaker 1: Even though I was only speaking for fifteen minutes, I
Speaker 1: was nervous. I wanted to be prepared. And what I
Speaker 1: learned about acceleration is most of the time when we
Speaker 1: use it, we talk about a car increasing in speed.
Speaker 1: We think about things that are gaining momentum. But in physics,
Speaker 1: acceleration is any change in velocity, not just an increase
Speaker 1: in velocity, but even coming to a stop is a
Speaker 1: change in velocity that is still considered acceleration. And so
Speaker 1: as a business owner, especially as a woman, if you
Speaker 1: are a woman of color, then you may fall into
Speaker 1: the perception of being behind. There's all types of statistics
Speaker 1: that support the notion that women of color are more
Speaker 1: behind when it comes to business and entrepreneurship and pay skills.
Speaker 1: And we have the evidence of that and our experiences,
Speaker 1: and yet the reality is that Acceleration sometimes means slowing
Speaker 1: down so that we can take care of the bodies
Speaker 1: that perform our talents, our business, our gifts, so that
Speaker 1: we can take care of the soul in which all
Speaker 1: that we do flows from, because who wants to gain
Speaker 1: the world and lose their soul? And so I will
Speaker 1: say lastly that when it comes to balancing it all,
Speaker 1: my husband has a book called Balance.
Speaker 3: Definitely need to read it.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to balancing it all, make sure
Speaker 1: that you are defining acceleration properly, recognizing that it can
Speaker 1: be speeding up and slowing down at any given moment,
Speaker 1: and asking yourself, what is the best way for me
Speaker 1: to accelerate today? Is it in me speeding up or
Speaker 1: is it in me slowing down? I could honestly go
Speaker 1: on and on about the ways that we are able
Speaker 1: to balance our family and our relationship with God. It's
Speaker 1: really important to me, primarily because I think that I
Speaker 1: culturally received a I'm trying to say this the right way.
Speaker 1: I believe that culturally there is a notion that we
Speaker 1: need to keep Christ in the center of maybe what
Speaker 1: we do for others, But when we're at home, that's
Speaker 1: kind of the place where we can kind of relax,
Speaker 1: or you know, we don't have to work as hard
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're keeping Christ in the forefront
Speaker 1: of all that we do. Maybe that's just a PK thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a mean thing that whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you guys can judge me, write me, tell me about
Speaker 1: it later.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I will tell you that I actually decided to
Speaker 1: attempt gentle parenting and then realize that even in doing
Speaker 1: gentle parenting that I wasn't necessarily combining my faith in
Speaker 1: the gentle parenting. Though I have a prayer life. I study,
Speaker 1: I read the Bible, Me and the kids, we you know,
Speaker 1: listen to worship music in the car in the morning.
Speaker 1: We pray in the morning. I was inspired, honestly by
Speaker 1: reading a book by Kim Cash Tape their novels and
Speaker 1: they are amazing. I started with the Promises of God series.
Speaker 1: But I noticed that in the novel, like a friend
Speaker 1: would be having a random conversation and they would be like,
Speaker 1: we should pray about this, and then they would start praying.
Speaker 1: And I would think to Like, when I go throughout
Speaker 1: the day and something comes up that I should pray about,
Speaker 1: I like take a little note, and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll pray about that. I'm gonna add that to my notes.
Speaker 1: But I have been actively trying to not just be
Speaker 1: intentional with the way that I speak to my kids
Speaker 1: and the way that I listened to them, but I've
Speaker 1: also tried to be more intentional as of late, to
Speaker 1: really incorporate them into the things that I'm praying to
Speaker 1: God about for them. So I decided that for this
Speaker 1: week's episode, we would dig a little bit deeper into parenting,
Speaker 1: especially coming off the hills of last week's rescue. If
Speaker 1: you heard last week's episode, then you know one of
Speaker 1: my girls was out here trying to be rescue from
Speaker 1: gentle parenting. And let me tell you, I absituively, positutely
Speaker 1: understand why we are trying to be rescued from gentle parenting. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're somewhere like, what in the world is gentle parenting?
Speaker 1: Like I have heard people talking about it, but please
Speaker 1: make it make sense. Gentle parenting is a parenting approach
Speaker 1: that encourages a partnership between you and your child to
Speaker 1: make choices based on an internal willingness instead of external pressures.
Speaker 1: First of all, I want you to know that my
Speaker 1: chondo shivered at this, like my shondo shivered reading that definition.
Speaker 1: I don't like that definition. I saw it on Guidepost Monossori.
Speaker 1: I need another one that's not working, okay, very well.
Speaker 1: Family says gentle parenting is an evidence based approach to
Speaker 1: raising happy, confident children. This parenting style is composed of
Speaker 1: four main elements empathy, respects, understanding, and boundaries, and focuses
Speaker 1: on fostering the qualities you want in your child by
Speaker 1: being compassionate and enforcing consistent boundaries. I like that one
Speaker 1: a little bit better. Uh, the reason why I am
Speaker 1: trying now, y'all, don't turn it off.
Speaker 3: Do not turn it off. Okay.
Speaker 1: I started gentle parenting myself before I started gentle parenting
Speaker 1: my children.
Speaker 3: Let me say more so.
Speaker 1: My husband and I have almost been married for ten years,
Speaker 1: and I noticed pretty early on within our marriage that
Speaker 1: I would get defensive when he said I did something wrong.
Speaker 1: I was prideful when he did something wrong because I
Speaker 1: think it proved that he wasn't any better than me,
Speaker 1: and I was unable to separate who I am from
Speaker 1: what I did.
Speaker 3: So if I made a mistake.
Speaker 1: And I maybe paid a bill late, or dinner was late,
Speaker 1: like things that were you know, maybe not a big
Speaker 1: deal in the grand scheme of things. I am ready
Speaker 1: to throw me out with the bathwater. I am the
Speaker 1: baby in the bathwater. Throw me away. Okay, that is
Speaker 1: part of how I have, you know, experienced myself and
Speaker 1: experience I basically, I think a family structure that heavily
Speaker 1: emphasized performing well over interrogating how we got off track?
Speaker 1: What can we do without shame involved?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You know, I have not been raised in every black household,
Speaker 1: but I have talked too many of the blacks, and
Speaker 1: many of the blacks I don't know. I have not
Speaker 1: talked to as many of the whites, but many of
Speaker 1: the blacks have told me that this is part of
Speaker 1: their experience too, Although when I spoke to Brename Brown
Speaker 1: at conference, she kind of made me believe that some
Speaker 1: of the white folks was going through this too.
Speaker 3: Brown folks, what y'all doing over there? Yellow? What you got?
Speaker 1: Go on? Tell me how many of us have experienced
Speaker 1: this same level of you know, performance based connection. And
Speaker 1: so when I realized that if I did not relearn
Speaker 1: that who you are is not what you do, you
Speaker 1: can apologize without it, you know, being a reflection of
Speaker 1: your worth and your value. You can speak up for
Speaker 1: your needs without having to get them fulfilled in unhealthy ways,
Speaker 1: like when I learned that I can be a person
Speaker 1: who embodies the fullness of my wants and my desires
Speaker 1: to be corrected and steered into a direction of growth.
Speaker 1: When I learned that that was possible, I basically started
Speaker 1: gentle parenting the responses that I would get so I
Speaker 1: would get in trouble when I was grown up. Maybe
Speaker 1: I would shut down, do what I was gonna do anyway,
Speaker 1: or I would feel like you're I'm a terrible person,
Speaker 1: you know. But you know, there are moments throughout my
Speaker 1: adult years in which I do something wrong and I
Speaker 1: tell myself, You're just human, You're not perfect, You're gonna
Speaker 1: make mistakes, Like I am speaking to myself in the
Speaker 1: way that I need to get out of that trauma response.
Speaker 1: And so I started gentle parenting as a response to
Speaker 1: my own trauma, and then realized that I was doing
Speaker 1: the same thing with my children. And listen, parenting is
Speaker 1: an experiment. I could be jacking this all up. Okay,
Speaker 1: don't take no advice from me unless you're willing to
Speaker 1: be an experience experiment, Lane, because we're just seeing what
Speaker 1: we can do out here, right. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: invite my children to, you know, tell you a little
Speaker 1: bit about gentle parenting. So I asked them first to define.
Speaker 1: I asked the younger ones. You know, Malachi is twenty one.
Speaker 1: He I'm trying to gentle parent him now, But I
Speaker 1: was fourteen when I had him. I was you talking
Speaker 1: about raggedy parenting, tough parenting. She did the best you
Speaker 1: could parenting. I love them parenting, fun parenting, raggedy parenting,
Speaker 1: like all mixed up in there together. That was his experience.
Speaker 1: And we're working through introducing healthy patterns in our relationship
Speaker 1: dynamic now. But I asks the children, who I'm still
Speaker 1: practicing going, how they define gentle parenting, And so I
Speaker 1: want you to hear their definitions.
Speaker 5: So it's like being more understanding to your kids and
Speaker 5: really just trying to think how they're thinking, stepping into
Speaker 5: their shoes.
Speaker 2: I think gentle parenting is when a parent actually takes
Speaker 2: a step back from the authoritarian persona per se and
Speaker 2: puts themselves in the child shoes and attempts to build
Speaker 2: a connection with the child based on their experiences, instead
Speaker 2: of judging them and punishing them for it, they take
Speaker 2: a step back and they're like, I can understand you're
Speaker 2: going through a lot of feelings right now, and just
Speaker 2: take a softer approach.
Speaker 3: Now, that doesn't work with all kids, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so you have heard their definitions of gentle
Speaker 1: parenting and Kinsey's taking a psychology class. So y'all just
Speaker 1: bear with me, because it's one thing to want to
Speaker 1: be a gentle parent. It's another thing to have somebody
Speaker 1: actually with like a clipboard, trying to tell you whether
Speaker 1: or not you're, you know, living up to those principles.
Speaker 3: So I will tell you.
Speaker 1: That my goal in being a gentle parent is to
Speaker 1: display for them a loving example of someone who can
Speaker 1: handle every part of who they are. I was convinced
Speaker 1: that there were limits on what God could handle with me,
Speaker 1: and as a result, it hurt me. I hurt myself,
Speaker 1: and it created distance in my relationship with God. Our
Speaker 1: homes are the first encounters that we have with love,
Speaker 1: whether that is a love that is healthy and pure, complicated,
Speaker 1: or completely toxic. Without intentional work, it would be difficult
Speaker 1: for us to not in some ways misalign God when
Speaker 1: our parental experience of love has left some things to
Speaker 1: be desired for. So I assume that, much like you
Speaker 1: know I experienced at home, that if you did something
Speaker 1: like you're going to get grounded, you're going to get
Speaker 1: shut down. You know, I used to feel unloved when
Speaker 1: I was on punishment. You know, I know that wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily the goal, but I used to feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: they don't love me anymore. And so when I did
Speaker 1: something that I felt like violated my relationship with God,
Speaker 1: I assume that it would be difficult for him to
Speaker 1: still love me, and so it made it easier for
Speaker 1: me to stray when I did not live in that
Speaker 1: consciousness of love. And so I do see my desire
Speaker 1: to gentle parent and you push over and not not
Speaker 1: be ran over, you know, But I see that as
Speaker 1: a part of me doing the best that I can
Speaker 1: to filter the love that God has for them through
Speaker 1: my imperfect human hands. And let me tell you, I
Speaker 1: don't always get it right, Ellen. Let Ella tell you,
Speaker 1: hold on, Ella. So do you think I'm more of
Speaker 1: a gentle pan or a tough parent?
Speaker 5: Em well, gentle parent?
Speaker 3: Really, you think I'm a gentle parent.
Speaker 5: Why because you always try to understand me. You're like,
Speaker 5: I can see how you feel this way or this way,
Speaker 5: and always trying to step into my shoes even when
Speaker 5: it doesn't work. I can tell that you're trying to
Speaker 5: understand me.
Speaker 3: Really, how can you tell when it's not working?
Speaker 5: Because you're you like.
Speaker 3: What I Ella, would I be breathing out?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can see like I can see how you
Speaker 5: feel this way, and because you always just take a
Speaker 5: deep wood and then you just try to restart yourself
Speaker 5: and think how you're feeling the heart in like how
Speaker 5: I could feel.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you Ellen.
Speaker 1: That means though I'm trying, I'm trying to be a
Speaker 1: gentle parent, but sometimes I lose my patience.
Speaker 5: Well I know that.
Speaker 2: But you.
Speaker 5: Here, there's this scale. Sometimes you're an eight, sometimes you
Speaker 5: with two. It's around that range.
Speaker 1: Like its eight a really great parent, and two is
Speaker 1: like an amazing.
Speaker 5: Ten okay, one to ten and sometimes you're two and
Speaker 5: sometimes you're.
Speaker 3: Eight okay, never a ten, but never one either? Never
Speaker 3: a ten?
Speaker 5: Well, number one?
Speaker 1: How do I get to be a ten? Can you
Speaker 1: tell me how I get to be a ten?
Speaker 5: Do you get to be a ten? It's like you, Lily,
Speaker 5: if you stuggle, I clean your alma, I will do something.
Speaker 3: To you, okay, And what's the two.
Speaker 5: And two is like.
Speaker 2: Chock clean y'all?
Speaker 1: Now they sound about the same Ella. No, yeah, they
Speaker 1: sound they sound about the same.
Speaker 4: Na.
Speaker 1: So when I was growing up, my mother would give
Speaker 1: me a stare, and I knew what that stare meant.
Speaker 1: I guess for me, it's a deep side when I
Speaker 1: give a deep sigh, Eleanos. And I am trying to
Speaker 1: hang on to God's unchanging hand and to gentle parenting.
Speaker 1: But it's getting a little rough, and it's getting a
Speaker 1: little tough out here.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm doing the.
Speaker 1: Best that I can, because I truly do believe that
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity in us being gentle with ourselves, gentle
Speaker 1: with our children that neutralizes the pressure for us to
Speaker 1: perform well in parenting and allows us to be human.
Speaker 1: And from that place of being human and parenting, we
Speaker 1: also have an opportunity to grow to teach our children
Speaker 1: how to do the same, and to go back to
Speaker 1: the mind your business question, it gives us an opportunity
Speaker 1: to balance it all. Because I'm not trying to balance perfect.
Speaker 1: I am balancing with humanity, with grace, with empathy, and
Speaker 1: with transparency about what I am capable of doing. This
Speaker 1: is part of the reason why I felt it appropriate
Speaker 1: to include the kids in this conversation about balancing it all,
Speaker 1: because they are the one who bear the scars of
Speaker 1: when I don't balance things. Well, Like, y'all might get
Speaker 1: mad at me, but like you're gonna not listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast, you may stop watching me on YouTube, you
Speaker 1: may follow me, you may not come to conference, you
Speaker 1: may not buy a book.
Speaker 3: You know, but my children, if.
Speaker 1: I jack this up, if I don't balance this thing, well,
Speaker 1: I shape their lives in a way that I want
Speaker 1: to answer to God for. And so you know how
Speaker 1: I was telling you about that book that I was
Speaker 1: reading and just realizing that they would just incorporate prayer
Speaker 1: at any given moment, and how it inspired me. I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to be that kind of person.
Speaker 1: And then my daughter Mackenzie was going through something and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to be that person. And
Speaker 1: I think she was having a tough day and she
Speaker 1: was telling me how she was feeling, and I was like, Okay, Kensy,
Speaker 1: let's pray about it. So I didn't know if she
Speaker 1: had noticed that shift in me, that I was being
Speaker 1: more intentional about taking the time to really, you know,
Speaker 1: pray with her about what was on her heart in
Speaker 1: the moment, and not just be the gentle parent that listens,
Speaker 1: but be the gentle parent that lays her at the
Speaker 1: feet of Jesus. And so I asked her whether or
Speaker 1: not she noticed it. Does it help you when sometimes
Speaker 1: like instead of telling you to go pray that I
Speaker 1: pray with you. And I've been trying this new thing
Speaker 1: where like I pray with you about the things that
Speaker 1: I would usually pray to God about you, so like
Speaker 1: if I'm worried about your friendship circle or I'm worried
Speaker 1: about you, like being focused, like instead of me just
Speaker 1: being like, man, I'm going to take that into my
Speaker 1: own prayer closet. I've been trying to pray with you.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed that I have noticed that. I remember
Speaker 1: we were I was bullying my eyes out. When was
Speaker 1: that like the seventeenth of January, Not that I remember
Speaker 1: the specific date, whatever day you made me go to
Speaker 1: school after, I was after we landed late, which was
Speaker 1: so rude, but anyways.
Speaker 3: So rude. What was rude about that?
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 3: No, because I will be coffee my lung. You'll be
Speaker 3: all right. Go to school. You will be all right.
Speaker 2: That they sleep in late and their parents let them
Speaker 2: let them stay home. I can't imagine it.
Speaker 1: You need to get up. You'll be fine. Me too,
Speaker 1: is strong resilience. Okay, but you were crying your eyes
Speaker 1: out the day and made you go to school.
Speaker 3: And what happened? I prayed with you.
Speaker 2: Right, you prayed with me, and I listened to my
Speaker 2: worship music. You have to do like, I want you
Speaker 2: to try listening to your worship music tonight. I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: and I listened to Millium or no, no, no, no, listening
Speaker 2: to Tuckney Jesus.
Speaker 3: You know that's my song.
Speaker 6: I was like.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my gosh, it's been so long
Speaker 2: since I've like, actually, it's not even like you know,
Speaker 2: you make us pray every morning. But when I was praying,
Speaker 2: it didn't feel like a chore. It didn't feel like
Speaker 2: something I had to do. It actually felt like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm talking to a friend, I'm talking to somebody close
Speaker 2: to me. I'm talking to God. How I would talk
Speaker 2: to you about a bad day? You know? So I
Speaker 2: think instead of looking at a relationship with God as
Speaker 2: a chore, just to look at it as venting to
Speaker 2: somebody that you love, because you know, sometimes it's like
Speaker 2: I gotta pray, I forgot you gotta be ling.
Speaker 3: Hey, big poolky, how is your day?
Speaker 2: Oh wait, you saw my day? But anyways, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell you about it. Anyways, like you didn't see the
Speaker 2: whole thing happen, I'm gonna still tell you, you know,
Speaker 2: instead of looking at it it's like a It's more
Speaker 2: than a friendship. It's like a really genuine and never ending,
Speaker 2: all unconditional, loving relationship. You know, I think everybody should
Speaker 2: have that.
Speaker 1: I have to be honest, you know, taking the time
Speaker 1: to reflect with my children about parenting. It's not just
Speaker 1: something I've done on the podcast. I've asked them before.
Speaker 1: And if you want to know, you know, how you're doing,
Speaker 1: you trying to get a progress report from these little
Speaker 1: crumb snatchers, May I suggest that you ask them these
Speaker 1: two questions. What is it about mommy or daddy that
Speaker 1: you will do with your children? What will you repeat
Speaker 1: with your children? And what is it about mommy or
Speaker 1: daddy that you will change with your children? And this
Speaker 1: has been a very interesting way of me hearing from
Speaker 1: their perspective how I'm showing up and how it affects them.
Speaker 1: I didn't record that this time, but it's been nice
Speaker 1: sharing with you the ways that I am parenting my
Speaker 1: children and how I am learning, how I'm growing, and
Speaker 1: how I am attempting to balance it all. I can
Speaker 1: only imagine that when you are on the outside looking
Speaker 1: in hearing someone else's children speak about them, that you
Speaker 1: were able to tell a lot about them based off
Speaker 1: of how the kids speak, and you know they're funny
Speaker 1: and they're honest, and they know that I'm not perfect,
Speaker 1: and they seem to be okay with that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's an experiment. I'll let you know for sure. Couldn't
Speaker 1: have this conversation without thinking about the closest you know.
Speaker 1: My dad calls it soft parenting, and he told me,
Speaker 1: can't be gentle, this world ain't gonna be gentle, and
Speaker 1: just we're gonna be tough on you.
Speaker 3: And he was not lying.
Speaker 1: And I am grateful for some tough parenting that made
Speaker 1: me resilient in the face of adversity. I have to say, though,
Speaker 1: that my mother was a pillow in the midst of
Speaker 1: the tough parenting. I don't think that she had all
Speaker 1: of the information that I have now, but I think,
Speaker 1: for the context of the times in which she was
Speaker 1: raising us, that she was really close to a gentle parent.
Speaker 1: And so I couldn't close this episode out without asking
Speaker 1: her to chime in about parenting. Her youngest child will
Speaker 1: be thirty this year, and it would be easy to
Speaker 1: assume that she is finished. But I assure you that
Speaker 1: she's just now really beginning to raise me. Is that
Speaker 1: not ignorant? She is just now I'm just not willing
Speaker 1: to listen. I'm just now willing to say I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. I don't have it all figured out. Mommy,
Speaker 1: please help me. And so Homegirl has a newborn, and
Speaker 1: so I asked her to share a little bit about
Speaker 1: her newborn experience and to say your prayer for us.
Speaker 6: In the throes of motherhood, oh my god, I picked
Speaker 6: up book books, I read magazine articles, I watched the news,
Speaker 6: I watched cartoons, I watched drama, I watch comedy, and
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, in the throes of motherhood,
Speaker 6: I only wanted to watch each child. And according to
Speaker 6: that child's personality develop a space in my heart that
Speaker 6: would reckon with anything that I found most perplexing. I
Speaker 6: couldn't ask my mother. I couldn't axt my grandmother. I
Speaker 6: couldn't ask an auntie, I couldn't ask a neighbor. I
Speaker 6: had to look inside my heart and look inside the
Speaker 6: heart of that child and understand what it was that
Speaker 6: they needed, not from me, but in order to survive
Speaker 6: the vicissitudes of life. And the reason you couldn't even
Speaker 6: ask anybody because each child's journey was going to be different,
Speaker 6: unlike mine, unlike their dads, And so whenever they hit
Speaker 6: a wall, I knew that it was part of their
Speaker 6: story and the only thing I could do. In some
Speaker 6: cases seek medical advice, in some cases just be still
Speaker 6: in watch. But most importantly, that child told me and
Speaker 6: is still telling me, exactly who they are, what they need,
Speaker 6: and what life affords them. It's very difficult to watch
Speaker 6: them figure it out because I don't want them to
Speaker 6: bump their head or fall out of a crib or
Speaker 6: tumble down the stairs. And that was physically, but now
Speaker 6: sometimes right now, it's in an emotional set of stairs,
Speaker 6: or it's a it's a physical or a mental or
Speaker 6: even a spiritual set of stairs, that they either have
Speaker 6: to decide whether they're going to go up the stairs
Speaker 6: or if they're going to go down the stairs. And
Speaker 6: so motherhood never ends, it never ends. From the cradle
Speaker 6: to the grave, whatever I've instilled in there will remain,
Speaker 6: and they'll decide how to eat the bones or eat
Speaker 6: the meat that Mom provided and throw away the bones
Speaker 6: when it comes their time to do exactly what I'm
Speaker 6: trying to do. Fantastic people, So I pray right now
Speaker 6: in the name of Jesus, whether you're the mother of
Speaker 6: a new born or if you've lost a child, somewhere
Speaker 6: in between, you've had to decide to share your body,
Speaker 6: share your life, share your words of comfort and advice.
Speaker 6: And I pray, Oh God, in the name of Jesus,
Speaker 6: at the end of the day a days in when
Speaker 6: everybody's still and your heart is still beating, that a
Speaker 6: calmness and an assurance would come over you to let
Speaker 6: you know that you've done the best that you could,
Speaker 6: and that God will assist you if you ask him
Speaker 6: for the wisdom to continue to be the mother, whether
Speaker 6: it's a spiritual mother or a biological mother. An adoptive
Speaker 6: mother of foster mother. You'll have to ask God to
Speaker 6: give you the wisdom and the foreknowledge, and then at
Speaker 6: the end of the day, the peace and knowing that
Speaker 6: your hand has touched a generation whose hand will touch
Speaker 6: another generation, and that you, as a great mom, have
Speaker 6: raised people that will be great human beings, filled with
Speaker 6: God's love his character, and that it will have to
Speaker 6: be developed, that it won't come ready made, but that
Speaker 6: God will move them because He has a specific plan
Speaker 6: for their lives. In Jesus' name, Rest and hope, Mamas,
Speaker 6: we stand together in Jesus's name.
Speaker 1: And with that, Episode seven of the Woman Evolved podcasts,
Speaker 1: brought to you by the Black Effect Network, is coming
Speaker 1: to an end. I have to tell you I don't
Speaker 1: think Rescue Eve is working, although the last one definitely
Speaker 1: gave us lots of content for this episode. I don't
Speaker 1: think the girls get it, you know. And if the
Speaker 1: girls who get it get it and the girls who
Speaker 1: don't don't, then this girl has to decide to abandon Chip.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been a whirlwind of I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think if there's even been anything in the news cycle
Speaker 1: where I'm like child Travis Kelsey was yelling at the
Speaker 1: coach man Taylor Swift took that Grammy.
Speaker 3: From something, But y'all, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Who wants to talk about that debt beyond he's got
Speaker 1: a country album?
Speaker 3: What else?
Speaker 1: Is there anything else happening in the news that is
Speaker 1: Rescue Eve worthy? And is it even worthy of Rescue Eve?
Speaker 1: Or do we need to just mind our business and
Speaker 1: drink our water?
Speaker 3: Y'all?
Speaker 1: Send me an email let me know if Rescue Eve
Speaker 1: is working. I will keep trying if you will dive
Speaker 1: into this pool with me. But if not, let's say
Speaker 1: syanara and kiss this thing goodbye? All right, listen, I
Speaker 1: love you. I hope you have an amazing week. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. God, Thank you for every
Speaker 1: woman learning to be gentle with herself, whether she is
Speaker 1: a mother or just a girl in a hard world
Speaker 1: trying to find what it means to be soft and
Speaker 1: sensitive yet powerful and authentic. God, I pray that you
Speaker 1: would show her that it's okay to let her walls down,
Speaker 1: even if she's got to put them back up to
Speaker 1: go into certain rooms. God, I pray that you teach
Speaker 1: her the beauty of having walls that are easy to
Speaker 1: dismount and slow to put back up, which means she'll
Speaker 1: have to be pensive when guarded and quick to remove
Speaker 1: them when necessary.
Speaker 3: God, we don't want to go through this.
Speaker 1: World hard hearted, cold hearted, waiting for someone to betray us.
Speaker 1: And yet the reality is that many of us have
Speaker 1: had to survive. We want to live though, we want
Speaker 1: to thrive, we want to grow, we want to evolve.
Speaker 1: So God, I pray that as this podcast comes to
Speaker 1: an end, that my girls feel a little less alone,
Speaker 1: a lot more known in evidence that they've grown. Thank
Speaker 1: you Jesus for connection, for sisterhood, Thank you for power
Speaker 1: that moves in our lives and changes us for the better.
Speaker 3: In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen, y'all pre order my book, come see me on tour.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to kick it with you. I will
Speaker 1: talk to you next week.