S3E2: Reclaiming Your Time

[00:00:08] Hi, welcome to Verbal Tea, the journaling podcast where we focus more on our own inner voices than the voices of those around us.

[00:00:15] Each week, we explore topics through journal entries based on journal prompts that I come up with.

[00:00:21] You can find those journal prompts in our monthly blog that is linked in the show notes.

[00:00:26] I've created this so that you, my guests, and myself can all ride along and explore these topics together.

[00:00:33] I'm Globe, your host, and I'm so excited to continue our Conquer and Comfort series.

[00:00:42] In light of October being a spooky month and a month that highlights domestic violence awareness

[00:00:51] and the importance of being survivors and being vocal and caring about your mental health,

[00:00:56] We are covering things that we have conquered and the ways that we comfort ourselves.

[00:01:07] Last week was a nice warm blanket.

[00:01:10] We covered how to make our mind a safe space.

[00:01:13] And today, we're going to poke just a little bit deeper and cover what we've overcome.

[00:01:21] The way I frame this is with the question, how are you reclaiming your time?

[00:01:28] The way that I phrased it like that is very intentional, as almost everything I do is.

[00:01:34] I phrased it this way because we all know or have heard by now that healing is not a destination.

[00:01:43] Healing is not linear.

[00:01:44] Healing is a journey.

[00:01:46] It's a path.

[00:01:47] It's a commitment.

[00:01:48] It is constant.

[00:01:50] It is not something that stops.

[00:01:51] So we are using present tense when exploring this topic because even if you aren't a survivor of abuse or you are neurotypical,

[00:02:05] there is still friction in your life that you've had to overcome to better carve out your path to fulfillment and claim your joy.

[00:02:14] Anyway, I'm going to keep this really short and simple for you guys because I really want you guys to take some time to get into this.

[00:02:23] When you're reflecting on this, please think of what you've overcome.

[00:02:27] What was that challenging person, challenging thing that you never thought you could shake and you have?

[00:02:33] What is something that you're working on shaking right now?

[00:02:36] Write about it.

[00:02:38] Now, before I get into mine, I have to make a big disclaimer, okay?

[00:02:44] Spirituality can be very beautiful.

[00:02:47] In fact, I've found a beautiful space within spirituality.

[00:02:52] But when I was exploring this question and writing the prompt for myself in my personal journal,

[00:03:00] the biggest thing I kept writing about was overcoming the hard standards and self-deprecation that my Christian background instilled into me.

[00:03:12] Now, before you just turn it off, you guys got to understand, please just bear with me here.

[00:03:18] I wasn't just raised Christian.

[00:03:19] I was raised Kojic, Church of God in Christ.

[00:03:24] And my parents were really into the ministry, okay?

[00:03:28] Very, very faithful servants.

[00:03:30] So it was just very intense standards.

[00:03:33] And being able to represent this complex, dynamic, divine being was intimidating.

[00:03:42] But the way I felt because gospel music was good back then, the way I felt in church, all of it just was delivered in this way that felt good to me.

[00:03:51] And so unlike a lot of my peers, I was eating it all up.

[00:03:55] I just, I really ate it all up.

[00:03:58] Now, there are a lot of beautiful things that spirituality can ground you in.

[00:04:03] But for me, for some reason, I really held on tight to the self-deprecation part of it, the humility on another level.

[00:04:13] So I really held on to that part.

[00:04:16] And my parents unintentionally caused me harm because of this belief system.

[00:04:21] And I caused myself so much harm because of this belief system.

[00:04:25] And even walking out of it, I was causing myself harm.

[00:04:30] And that's because although I walked away from the institution, I still had to do the work to undo the damage, to repair the damage, and, you know, get over those bad habits.

[00:04:43] I was harming myself in so many ways, y'all.

[00:04:46] I was harming myself with bad financial habits, with who I gave access to me, and always friendship, romantic, all of that.

[00:04:54] You could see it in the track record of people I let be close to me and how I was, like, the kind of friend and lover and coworker, the kind of person I was to those people.

[00:05:06] You can see.

[00:05:08] You can see the wounds.

[00:05:10] I know that there is this standard way of what we think self-harm looks like.

[00:05:16] But self-harm can also look like, you know, getting into one bad relationship after the next, being friends with people that just strain you.

[00:05:28] My problem was, and it is a problem I'm still working on, but I wanted to be a light to everyone, even if it meant I was in the dark.

[00:05:39] I can say that I don't allow myself to stay in the dark long, but I am still working on my boundaries when it comes to friendship.

[00:05:49] But all of this starts with self-inner talk, okay?

[00:05:52] That is how I've reclaimed my time.

[00:05:54] I have changed how I talk to myself.

[00:05:56] And I know that you guys, if you have been listening to me for a while, I know that you all know that I am big on our inner voices, hence the podcast.

[00:06:08] Instead of just telling myself, I'm bad, bad, bad.

[00:06:11] You should be better.

[00:06:12] You should repent.

[00:06:14] I acknowledge Aries opportunity where I need to grow and then my power because I can grow.

[00:06:21] I can grow.

[00:06:23] Back in the day, I just felt like a failure.

[00:06:25] I'm like, I'm so bad.

[00:06:26] And I put all this pressure on myself, always trying to compensate.

[00:06:30] No, I'm not trying to compensate.

[00:06:31] I'm trying to navigate because, you know, my legs still work.

[00:06:36] Even if I walk into the wrong direction, my legs still work and I can go into the, you know, the right one.

[00:06:43] It's kind of like if any of you have been in leadership and customer service jobs, you know when there is an agent that is struggling, you don't want to just straight up tell them they're terrible.

[00:06:57] You don't want to do that.

[00:06:58] That's not productive.

[00:06:59] That's not going to get them to the place that they may need to be.

[00:07:03] Instead, you do the start, stop, continue.

[00:07:05] So you'll acknowledge things that they are good at and their strengths.

[00:07:09] You call those the continues.

[00:07:11] There may be some things that they absolutely need to stop.

[00:07:14] And you say that like, hey, this isn't working.

[00:07:18] And then you say start.

[00:07:20] How about you start doing this?

[00:07:22] Maybe if you start doing this, this call can flow better.

[00:07:25] And that's kind of the rubric I use when speaking to myself of areas of opportunity or growing moments.

[00:07:33] It's really helped me.

[00:07:35] It's helped me become a better mother.

[00:07:38] Oh, my gosh.

[00:07:40] Like reclaiming my time.

[00:07:42] When I think about reclaiming my time, I can see it in my children, how free and loving they are and how they know how capable and smart and strong they are.

[00:07:52] They don't have that complex that I had when I was a child because we just feed all these beautiful things into them and praise them for their strengths.

[00:08:03] When they are struggling in an area, we remind them of how amazing they are and the techniques to overcome things, to calm themselves down.

[00:08:16] It's a completely different thing.

[00:08:18] So, yes, if you want to know I'm reclaiming my time, I guess you can look at my children.

[00:08:22] I've reparented myself essentially and it has started with that.

[00:08:27] I do go more into detail about this in my personal journal prompt.

[00:08:32] And I'm going to give you guys a snippet of that in the blog later on this month.

[00:08:37] But when you think of what you've overcome, think of how you're reclaiming your time, how you have taken your power back.

[00:08:47] There are so many things that we have going on right now in our lives, in the world, the country, if you're in America.

[00:08:55] But we have more power than sometimes we realize.

[00:09:00] And so just even making like a victory lap of the things you've overcome is helpful.

[00:09:05] But using that present tense, I'm telling you, it's just something special about writing about your strength in the present tense.

[00:09:13] That makes you feel so refreshed and strong after you close that journal.

[00:09:19] I really hope that this helps you guys.

[00:09:22] Next week, we're going even deeper and we're actually going to be talking to people who have experienced violence and had to overcome that.

[00:09:31] So we're going to be talking to survivors over the next few weeks.

[00:09:35] I'm really excited and honored that they want to share their stories with us here.

[00:09:40] And I hope you guys have your journals and pens ready for when that time comes.

[00:09:45] In the meantime, please go ahead and comment, like, review, all of that.

[00:09:51] And as always, you can follow us at Verbal Tea Time on TikTok and Instagram,

[00:09:57] where I am sharing realistic self-care methods for you guys to try.

[00:10:05] Spend intentional time with your thoughts.

[00:10:07] Focus on thriving instead of surviving.

[00:10:11] And be well.