M from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl ill two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the backs of diamond eyed school children who grew into hymnals recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep the warmth of their blood. Be wise, he's smart, being black, Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of jim see. King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife, wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is. And the ancestors told me that you would come to give you wisdom. Thousands They said you would come Dropping Dropping the Gym. Hey, welcome back to another episode of The Dropping Gym's podcast. I'm Debbie Brown. This is your soft place to land where we have conscious conversations and unpacked tools for our healing journeys. All right, this episode, I wanted to do a little bit of Q and a H. Last time I did that, I got some amazing questions. So I hit up my Instagram this week and I did the same thing again in my stories. I asked everyone who listens to the show if they had any questions about the spiritual journey, life, meditation, all the things UM, and I got some really, really, really amazing questions. I feel like the floodgates opened and there was just so much depth that came pouring through. So I'm excited to answer a lot of these UM. At post uh the time of recording of this episode, I am getting ready to head up to Ryan back to the Omega Institute campus where for the next week I will be hosting a retreat along with Queena Fua called Women Who Heal, and I'm really excited to connect with everyone that is signed up. That Omega campus is just so, so so breathtaking, and you know, my deepest intention, especially as one of the first UM gatherings post pandemic, that I've been doing well no, actually I've hosted a bunch of retreats over the last two years, but y'all know what I'm saying. This UM, this special one that that actually had a really unique intention that has been really different than things I've taught in other spaces. I should say, Um, you know, the campus was really important to me. The Omega campus was established decades ago, forty or five years ago, to be exact, by a lot of incredibly awakened spiritual teachers of the time, and it's been a place where people have gone to get lost in spiritual study, to find themselves again, to remember to be with themselves. And it's it's such a different experience than um, some of the other kinds of retreats that we really enjoy that help us relax. This is more of a study retreat. You stay in a cabin, you go away, you have daily hikes and meditation, you study, you take classes and courses and different things to expand your thought process. And that really really resonates with my soul. That's the kind of stuff I like to do, um to refuel and recharge myself and to get really clear on myself and my teaching. So I was excited to offer that and kind of open up that world for those that hadn't already participated on that campus before knew something like that, you know, even existed up until very recently. You'd find about things really you know, find out about things really just in whispers of people who felt comfortable telling you about your journeys, letting you know places you could go. And so this was kind of in that tradition. It was one of those secret sacred places um over nearly fifty years where people who are looking to do deep, expansive work would go and connect with themselves. So I'm really excited. I'm headed out there tomorrow at the time of me recording this episode, and it is it's gonna be special. Alright, Let's dive into some questions because I have a lot of really good ones and I'm gonna just kind of go through them. Uh, I love Oh Okay. First question for our Q and A today on Dropping Gym's is how does your relationship with food affect slash nourish your life. I love this question, and I'm I'm kind of going to answer this question really personally from my experience, um, not necessarily in a way that is guiding anyone into doing anything. But I used to have I used to be a really proud foodie and everything I ate it was about pleasure and it was about like how delicious could it be and how different could it be you know, I'd always order like the most outlandish thing on the menu or the you know, the quote unquote strangest thing you know, I'd encounter in my travels, and I really felt like that was not one it was not sustainable, that's not the healthiest way to live. Um. But also it just you know, I wanted to find what was the deeper connection, Like, yes, I'm very epicurean. I love food, love, you know, sensory things like that is inherently me. But it was like what else is being filled right now? Um? And so after I had my son, I ended up doing the Keto diet, which dramatically um changed my life for the better. It gave me a lot of space in between experiencing pleasure with food. UM. And it also helped me kind of regulate and get to know my body a little bit better because I started noticing, you know, when when am I actually hungry versus just want to eat? And what am I actually hungry for? And what is you know, what craving inside of my body for nutrition is looking to be met, you know in this moment. And so going keto UM also introduced me to intermitted fasting, and so that was something that I did for about a year after I had my son, and it just it really changed me. And you know, definitely I got into a lot at or physical health, I lost weight, but outside of that, UM kind of intellectually more spiritually, it just helped me understand how my body related to food. So to answer your question, I probably gave a really long winded um t am I around that, But my relationship with food UM was really changed by that. And so now I find that I really eat to live and I used to kind of live to eat. I used to just get so excited to think about delicious things, and now, UM, now I just find that, like I eat things that taste good to me, that feel good in my body, but it's really just about honoring my body. And so you know, I'll notice like oh I'm hungry, Oh I need some fuel, and so I'll go meet that need. And I don't put a lot of thought um into calories or anything like that. I just looked to meet my needs of what my body wants. But I try to do it in a way that really honors UM it's true need and it's true function. So it's an area I'm still learning in Um, I'm definitely this year, I've been thinking a lot more about wanting to expand in my understanding of my my own personal bodies relationship to food. In the past, I've I've had a bunch of different kind of tests done. Like twelve years ago, I did one of those blood tests that tells you you know what you should eat, what you should never eat, and all my favorite foods around the never eat list, like things like olives and olive oil, and like I was like, come on, I'm not living a life without olive oil. So I don't know. Sometimes I have information, but I don't necessarily Um. You know, I go with what what actually seems sustainable, joyful, feasible from my personal life. UM. But that's an area I'm looking to expand in and I've really been enjoying my study in that space so far. So I hope that answers your question. But I really look to nourish my body, um, and kind of meet my needs on or my cravings, but really do it on the true timing of what my body needs when it needs it. And I am in practice with that and I'm looking forward to expanding in that. Alright, Let's see, Um, more questions. These are such good questions. Okay, another great question thoughts on where to start when offering wellness tools to marginalized communities. Okay, what I am hearing in this question, um, this is what I'm gleaning from it. So I hope this is the intention is you know, sometimes when you recognize communities that really need this work, there is such little foundation for coming into this work, and so it does feel like a mountain decline. Like I remember when I first started really being deep in my study and and feeling ready to teach. There there were so many things that I learned and I had come into kind of an advance practice with myself. But how do you reverse engineer that in a way that can really serve the people that you want to bring these tools to. So I think I'm gonna answer this question from the lens of a facilitator and a teacher. But you know, a place that felt really good for me to start with people, especially in environments and in communities where some of the ways I experience wellness and my and my daily practice, would it necessarily be able to be um replicated getting people to a space where they can understand how to slow down is so powerful. You know, sometimes meditation really isn't the first step depending UM. Our bodies can really react strongly to it, especially if they house a lot of PTSD or CPTSD. So what you want to do UM if that is feeling present where you are getting people to rethink how they experience time and their day. So it could be like teaching some practices like sharing with the audience. You know, every time you feel yourself moving really fast, just notice it and ask yourself if you can slow down. Sometimes the answer to that question will be known. Because you are working, you're surviving, you're having to multitask, you're doing a lot of things. You know, some people have really really burdened days and experiences UM and no support in that, you know. So the idea of telling someone to build out this hour long p this it's harmful. You know, it's not possible, and it it feels it can feel shameful UM or like even more of a glaring response to how UM sometimes hard your life feels. And so helping people understand that sometimes we're program to move really fast because we've been surviving for a long time, but there is an opportunity to slow down occasionally. You know, if you're if you're walking really fast just because your body is used to that, but you don't actually have to, You're missing an opportunity to regulate your nervous system. You're missing an opportunity to take deeper breaths that can potentially help fuel the rest of your day. You're missing opportunities to just be with yourself, to connect to joy, or to release some grief because it's present. Whatever it is that your body needs, we do need to find opportunities to slow. So I hope I'm answering this question in a way that is useful. But you know, I would say sometimes the very foundational baseline, when you are serving communities that don't naturally have the opportunities to expand in this work of mindfulness and wellness, teaching new ways to experience time and our bodies can be a really powerful shift. Ah, thank you for that question. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was really good rocking. Oh my god, these count Okay, these questions are amazing. Um, and I'm getting questions, a lot of questions from one particular person, and so these are wow. Thank you for these. I love them. Another question I got is can you discuss more about energy leaks and one's unfinished business and pursuits. So, if you ever connect with me on social media or if you've seen any videos I've done or podcasts I've done with other people, something that I do talk about a lot is not leaking your energy, and the way that I kind of express that is in service too. It's really important to being alignment in our daily choices. When you embark on a path of healing. Sometimes we are just looking at that bigger heal, right, Like, especially if it's something that has been really powerful in our lives, you know, um, if it's like a big trauma, or if it's a big relationship or the thing we focus on the mountain, and so we think everything about how we're healing or getting better is in service to that one specific thing, and we don't always see all of the small, tiny ways that that and many other things have affected how we move in the world and how we flow in our own integrity, how we have dignity for ourselves and others. And it is really important on a path of healing, especially for you to be able to not just intellectualize what you're learning, but live it and um to have the life that you deserve and to have the connections that you deserve. It's really important that we monitor our smaller choices and our day to day interactions. And so energy leaking is kind of a byproduct of not being intentional. Even in those small moments, you find that you are just kind of um letting the air out of your healing. You're leaking this beautiful healing that you've begun to store in your body on those bigger things. UM, you're letting it leak out every time you don't honor the smaller choices or the smaller ways that you show up in the world and show up in other people's lives. And so I believe with every ounce of my being that the only way to really embody healing and change your life in the ways that you're dreaming about is to be UM in very tight aligned choice making and uh really really kind of take responsibility for your character UM in all moments and in all interactions, and and not give yourself that thing of you know, UM, not to beat up on yourself, but to just really look to make the better choice the majority of the time, UM, even in the small ways. So thank you for that question. I love that. I love that I think about stuff like that all the time, UM when I'm sharing. Okay, let's find another great question. Oh, here's a wonderful question. Okay, how do you integrate balance with your personal healing journey and with your marriage partnership? Love that question, And I know a lot of people kind of walk through that where you feel like you might be on a certain path, but maybe the person um, you know, the love in your life, for the partnership in your life, is not on that path and the same pace that you are, UM, and you don't want to grow apart, or maybe you just want to make sure you're able to just stay together and move forward and and be able to understand one another at a deeper level. So I think you know a way to answer that question would be I think it's important to get clear on what are the over arch values and mission that you want for your partnership, for your household, for your family. You know. I think when we get really clear on what are the values that are important to us, you know, maybe coming up even with five specific pillars that are going to represent what your family is, what your decision making is made around. UM, when you get clear on that, it becomes a lot easier to stay in flow with one another even if we're growing at different paces. So you know, is is personal growth of value for your family system that will kind of let you know how far you can go individually or together. Um is wellness as well being is mental health, is emotional regulation. Is that something that's important to the both of you as a unit, as a system. And I think if those answers are yes, if if one or all are yes, then from there you're able to kind of create a safe container to speak freely about your needs, about maybe the areas you're working on in yourself. Sometimes in partnership, especially if personal work is new to your family systems. Sometimes in partnership, if one partner is saying they want to work on themselves, the other person is thinking it's because of or in response to them, and we make everything really personal. But also if we're not sharing the ways we want to work on ourselves and some of the context for why, with those valuable relationships in our lives, UM, we miss an opportunity to connect more deeply. We miss an opportunity to give and receive love to one another. So if there's something that you're working on individually, that is just about you. It could be so beautiful to be vulnerable and to open yourself to your partner and share that and share you know, what is the deeper, the deeper thing that you're working on with this What was maybe the pain or the experience as a younger version of you that led to you wanting to do this work. Now, you know, we we got to share language with each other, We got to teach each other how to talk to one another, how to be safe, how to how to kind of expand in ourselves, and then it makes it less personal. And you know, when things become less personal to us, then we can really show up and support other people the way they deserve to be supported, and vice versa and all of those beautiful things. That's such a dance. Thank you for that question. Um Let's see what is another question. Here's another really beautiful question. How to reconnect with your adult self not having an environment to know self in childhood? Really beautiful, quite Sian. Thank you for asking this. Um. So, the way that I'm experiencing this question is you're asking, you know, how do you how do you get to know yourself? How do you connect to the core of your identity when as a child, perhaps you were repressed, suppressed or disconnected in some way from being able to get to know honor uh and experience emotions within yourself. This is something that's so so so so many of us experience as young people, and it's usually the core of what leads all of us to the to our work and what leads all of us to um many of the challenges that we experience as adults. So this is such a gorgeous question, so uh so happy to be answering this because first, one of the first steps to being able to really tap into more of who you are right like, you're probably experiencing, you know, pieces of you and and definitely seeing like the glimmer and the potential and the beauty and what could emerge. And what's so powerful about this moment that it sounds like you're in is you just need a little more time with you. Um. The first thing that I would recommend is create some distance from the people in your life. It's really imperative when you're looking to um access points of yourself that you never have before. You need a blink canvas, you need freedom. You do not need reflected back to you or mirrored, you know, other people's perceptions of you that you've already outgrown. You need the time in the space to uncover these parts of you for yourself, and then to get to know them and to be in practice with them before you have to show up against people that are always going to experience you as the version they're most comfortable with. I hope I'm making any sense. Um, Yeah, I hope I'm expressing this in the way that I feel it. But time alone is imperative on your path and even from you know, the relationships that feel really beautiful and special and that that are healthy and honoring in our lives. You need the space to become more and so just having time to back up a little bit, having time to not have to be pressured to do things to show up for people, being able to take off some of the roles that you wear with others is really important. At this part of the journey. You have to strip yourself. You have to get out of performance. And it doesn't even have to mean in bad ways, right like, it doesn't have to mean that everything is toxic or you know that there's a there's an issue everywhere. But it just means that if you're used to doing something, because that's what you're used to, you need to give yourself a break from it so you can see if you actually still want to. Um, it's about coming back into choice. It's about returning back to yourself with a zoomed out view so you can be in choice in creating something that feels like more you know, that feels better, that feels aligned with the truth of who you are. So I would say, carve out more time for yourself. Um, I think definitely. And and we're going to have a lot of different moments that this is going to be required. You know, every couple of years, you're gonna need to space yourself out a little bit and zoom out and get more connected to self. I remember one of the first times I started doing that. It was Shanja Rymes had this really beautiful book called The Year of Yes. And I remember a few years after that it had come to me in a meditation and God said, this is your year of No. You need to say no to everything. And I remember being like, God, what what do you mean by that? Like no, I gotta take opportunities like no, you know, think I gotta keep moving forward, and da da, and God was just very explicitly clear with me that I needed a season of no because I needed to recalibrate and grow into the bigger yes. So I remember this year, you know, I let things really really slow down, and I stopped kind of leading with optics and perception, and I said no to really big things, things that were meaningful for me at the time. And ultimately it was just one of the most powerful things I ever did. Like, it upleveled my spirit, it upleveled my ability to express my purpose in just such a really really important way for my life. So, you know, sometimes I recommend just lean into a season of no. Say say no to big stuff. You know, maybe you don't have to. Maybe it's just about the little stuff. Maybe it's just say no to every friend that wants to go out, saying no to every invite and intentionally staying in the house. And even if you feel bored, investigate what can I do to fill my time. As you begin that road, you really start to look reconnect to curiosities that you and gifts and talents that you used to have. You also get to figure out what it is that you like you start to get creative, you start to your taste change and expand, and you just get to grow and stretch a little bit. Um. But you can't do that if you're always busy, if you're always active, if you're always kind of being perceived by others, if you're always perceiving others, um, if you're always in a space of being witnessed, sometimes you need to pull back so you can kind of refine and chisel and sculpt yourself. So I hope that answers the question. Loved that question, and I think we'll hold it here. These were some really, really, really gorgeous questions. So I'll be revisiting more of this soon. I'll be doing more of this on my I G and if you don't already, connect with me on Instagram at Debbie Brown. And I will be back very very soon next week with another episode. UM excited. Some of the people that will be talking to you on the show soon are amazing, people like Dr Joy hard In from Therapy for Black Girls, also Young Pueblo. So excited to share their work and some of those beautiful conversations that we have had. Take a second today, your soul work for this week is to just connect to your breath right now, the seasons are changing. At the time of me recording this episode, it's September and we are ushering in the fall equinox. There is a lot of new seasonal energy coming. We're in a retrograde period. We are coming into new energies, new opportunities, new abilities. So it's important in times that the planet is shifting, that our seasons are changing, we let ourselves take the time to recalibrate, to slow down. So your soul work through this next week is to find more moments to take deep breaths, and I mean deep deep breaths, like really connect, let yourself drop in just deeply at hell and oh and pace your own self embody, just like that. Do that throughout your day, close your eyes, and when you can connect to the way wherever you happen to live, that the seasons are changing. Maybe the air it's a little crisper, a little cooler. Maybe it's a little cooler at night or at the top of the morning. Maybe light is coming into your home in a different way now through the windows leaves. Just notice, just observe, let yourself slow down in that and connect to that God flow. Thank you for listening, Drop us a review, give us five star ours, and big love. Share this episode with a friend if you think it resonates now, I'm a staying, I'm staying. I'm a staying. I'm stay. Hey, find me on social Let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, please, please please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Dropping Jams is the production of I Heart Radio and the Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jack Please and me, Debbie Brown. For more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

M from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl ill two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the backs of diamond eyed school children who grew into hymnals recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep the warmth of their blood. Be wise, he's smart, being black, Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of jim see. King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife, wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is. And the ancestors told me that you would come to give you wisdom. Thousands They said you would come Dropping Dropping the Gym. Hey, welcome back to another episode of The Dropping Gym's podcast. I'm Debbie Brown. This is your soft place to land where we have conscious conversations and unpacked tools for our healing journeys. All right, this episode, I wanted to do a little bit of Q and a H. Last time I did that, I got some amazing questions. So I hit up my Instagram this week and I did the same thing again in my stories. I asked everyone who listens to the show if they had any questions about the spiritual journey, life, meditation, all the things UM, and I got some really, really, really amazing questions. I feel like the floodgates opened and there was just so much depth that came pouring through. So I'm excited to answer a lot of these UM. At post uh the time of recording of this episode, I am getting ready to head up to Ryan back to the Omega Institute campus where for the next week I will be hosting a retreat along with Queena Fua called Women Who Heal, and I'm really excited to connect with everyone that is signed up. That Omega campus is just so, so so breathtaking, and you know, my deepest intention, especially as one of the first UM gatherings post pandemic, that I've been doing well no, actually I've hosted a bunch of retreats over the last two years, but y'all know what I'm saying. This UM, this special one that that actually had a really unique intention that has been really different than things I've taught in other spaces. I should say, Um, you know, the campus was really important to me. The Omega campus was established decades ago, forty or five years ago, to be exact, by a lot of incredibly awakened spiritual teachers of the time, and it's been a place where people have gone to get lost in spiritual study, to find themselves again, to remember to be with themselves. And it's it's such a different experience than um, some of the other kinds of retreats that we really enjoy that help us relax. This is more of a study retreat. You stay in a cabin, you go away, you have daily hikes and meditation, you study, you take classes and courses and different things to expand your thought process. And that really really resonates with my soul. That's the kind of stuff I like to do, um to refuel and recharge myself and to get really clear on myself and my teaching. So I was excited to offer that and kind of open up that world for those that hadn't already participated on that campus before knew something like that, you know, even existed up until very recently. You'd find about things really you know, find out about things really just in whispers of people who felt comfortable telling you about your journeys, letting you know places you could go. And so this was kind of in that tradition. It was one of those secret sacred places um over nearly fifty years where people who are looking to do deep, expansive work would go and connect with themselves. So I'm really excited. I'm headed out there tomorrow at the time of me recording this episode, and it is it's gonna be special. Alright, Let's dive into some questions because I have a lot of really good ones and I'm gonna just kind of go through them. Uh, I love Oh Okay. First question for our Q and A today on Dropping Gym's is how does your relationship with food affect slash nourish your life. I love this question, and I'm I'm kind of going to answer this question really personally from my experience, um, not necessarily in a way that is guiding anyone into doing anything. But I used to have I used to be a really proud foodie and everything I ate it was about pleasure and it was about like how delicious could it be and how different could it be you know, I'd always order like the most outlandish thing on the menu or the you know, the quote unquote strangest thing you know, I'd encounter in my travels, and I really felt like that was not one it was not sustainable, that's not the healthiest way to live. Um. But also it just you know, I wanted to find what was the deeper connection, Like, yes, I'm very epicurean. I love food, love, you know, sensory things like that is inherently me. But it was like what else is being filled right now? Um? And so after I had my son, I ended up doing the Keto diet, which dramatically um changed my life for the better. It gave me a lot of space in between experiencing pleasure with food. UM. And it also helped me kind of regulate and get to know my body a little bit better because I started noticing, you know, when when am I actually hungry versus just want to eat? And what am I actually hungry for? And what is you know, what craving inside of my body for nutrition is looking to be met, you know in this moment. And so going keto UM also introduced me to intermitted fasting, and so that was something that I did for about a year after I had my son, and it just it really changed me. And you know, definitely I got into a lot at or physical health, I lost weight, but outside of that, UM kind of intellectually more spiritually, it just helped me understand how my body related to food. So to answer your question, I probably gave a really long winded um t am I around that, But my relationship with food UM was really changed by that. And so now I find that I really eat to live and I used to kind of live to eat. I used to just get so excited to think about delicious things, and now, UM, now I just find that, like I eat things that taste good to me, that feel good in my body, but it's really just about honoring my body. And so you know, I'll notice like oh I'm hungry, Oh I need some fuel, and so I'll go meet that need. And I don't put a lot of thought um into calories or anything like that. I just looked to meet my needs of what my body wants. But I try to do it in a way that really honors UM it's true need and it's true function. So it's an area I'm still learning in Um, I'm definitely this year, I've been thinking a lot more about wanting to expand in my understanding of my my own personal bodies relationship to food. In the past, I've I've had a bunch of different kind of tests done. Like twelve years ago, I did one of those blood tests that tells you you know what you should eat, what you should never eat, and all my favorite foods around the never eat list, like things like olives and olive oil, and like I was like, come on, I'm not living a life without olive oil. So I don't know. Sometimes I have information, but I don't necessarily Um. You know, I go with what what actually seems sustainable, joyful, feasible from my personal life. UM. But that's an area I'm looking to expand in and I've really been enjoying my study in that space so far. So I hope that answers your question. But I really look to nourish my body, um, and kind of meet my needs on or my cravings, but really do it on the true timing of what my body needs when it needs it. And I am in practice with that and I'm looking forward to expanding in that. Alright, Let's see, Um, more questions. These are such good questions. Okay, another great question thoughts on where to start when offering wellness tools to marginalized communities. Okay, what I am hearing in this question, um, this is what I'm gleaning from it. So I hope this is the intention is you know, sometimes when you recognize communities that really need this work, there is such little foundation for coming into this work, and so it does feel like a mountain decline. Like I remember when I first started really being deep in my study and and feeling ready to teach. There there were so many things that I learned and I had come into kind of an advance practice with myself. But how do you reverse engineer that in a way that can really serve the people that you want to bring these tools to. So I think I'm gonna answer this question from the lens of a facilitator and a teacher. But you know, a place that felt really good for me to start with people, especially in environments and in communities where some of the ways I experience wellness and my and my daily practice, would it necessarily be able to be um replicated getting people to a space where they can understand how to slow down is so powerful. You know, sometimes meditation really isn't the first step depending UM. Our bodies can really react strongly to it, especially if they house a lot of PTSD or CPTSD. So what you want to do UM if that is feeling present where you are getting people to rethink how they experience time and their day. So it could be like teaching some practices like sharing with the audience. You know, every time you feel yourself moving really fast, just notice it and ask yourself if you can slow down. Sometimes the answer to that question will be known. Because you are working, you're surviving, you're having to multitask, you're doing a lot of things. You know, some people have really really burdened days and experiences UM and no support in that, you know. So the idea of telling someone to build out this hour long p this it's harmful. You know, it's not possible, and it it feels it can feel shameful UM or like even more of a glaring response to how UM sometimes hard your life feels. And so helping people understand that sometimes we're program to move really fast because we've been surviving for a long time, but there is an opportunity to slow down occasionally. You know, if you're if you're walking really fast just because your body is used to that, but you don't actually have to, You're missing an opportunity to regulate your nervous system. You're missing an opportunity to take deeper breaths that can potentially help fuel the rest of your day. You're missing opportunities to just be with yourself, to connect to joy, or to release some grief because it's present. Whatever it is that your body needs, we do need to find opportunities to slow. So I hope I'm answering this question in a way that is useful. But you know, I would say sometimes the very foundational baseline, when you are serving communities that don't naturally have the opportunities to expand in this work of mindfulness and wellness, teaching new ways to experience time and our bodies can be a really powerful shift. Ah, thank you for that question. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was really good rocking. Oh my god, these count Okay, these questions are amazing. Um, and I'm getting questions, a lot of questions from one particular person, and so these are wow. Thank you for these. I love them. Another question I got is can you discuss more about energy leaks and one's unfinished business and pursuits. So, if you ever connect with me on social media or if you've seen any videos I've done or podcasts I've done with other people, something that I do talk about a lot is not leaking your energy, and the way that I kind of express that is in service too. It's really important to being alignment in our daily choices. When you embark on a path of healing. Sometimes we are just looking at that bigger heal, right, Like, especially if it's something that has been really powerful in our lives, you know, um, if it's like a big trauma, or if it's a big relationship or the thing we focus on the mountain, and so we think everything about how we're healing or getting better is in service to that one specific thing, and we don't always see all of the small, tiny ways that that and many other things have affected how we move in the world and how we flow in our own integrity, how we have dignity for ourselves and others. And it is really important on a path of healing, especially for you to be able to not just intellectualize what you're learning, but live it and um to have the life that you deserve and to have the connections that you deserve. It's really important that we monitor our smaller choices and our day to day interactions. And so energy leaking is kind of a byproduct of not being intentional. Even in those small moments, you find that you are just kind of um letting the air out of your healing. You're leaking this beautiful healing that you've begun to store in your body on those bigger things. UM, you're letting it leak out every time you don't honor the smaller choices or the smaller ways that you show up in the world and show up in other people's lives. And so I believe with every ounce of my being that the only way to really embody healing and change your life in the ways that you're dreaming about is to be UM in very tight aligned choice making and uh really really kind of take responsibility for your character UM in all moments and in all interactions, and and not give yourself that thing of you know, UM, not to beat up on yourself, but to just really look to make the better choice the majority of the time, UM, even in the small ways. So thank you for that question. I love that. I love that I think about stuff like that all the time, UM when I'm sharing. Okay, let's find another great question. Oh, here's a wonderful question. Okay, how do you integrate balance with your personal healing journey and with your marriage partnership? Love that question, And I know a lot of people kind of walk through that where you feel like you might be on a certain path, but maybe the person um, you know, the love in your life, for the partnership in your life, is not on that path and the same pace that you are, UM, and you don't want to grow apart, or maybe you just want to make sure you're able to just stay together and move forward and and be able to understand one another at a deeper level. So I think you know a way to answer that question would be I think it's important to get clear on what are the over arch values and mission that you want for your partnership, for your household, for your family. You know. I think when we get really clear on what are the values that are important to us, you know, maybe coming up even with five specific pillars that are going to represent what your family is, what your decision making is made around. UM, when you get clear on that, it becomes a lot easier to stay in flow with one another even if we're growing at different paces. So you know, is is personal growth of value for your family system that will kind of let you know how far you can go individually or together. Um is wellness as well being is mental health, is emotional regulation. Is that something that's important to the both of you as a unit, as a system. And I think if those answers are yes, if if one or all are yes, then from there you're able to kind of create a safe container to speak freely about your needs, about maybe the areas you're working on in yourself. Sometimes in partnership, especially if personal work is new to your family systems. Sometimes in partnership, if one partner is saying they want to work on themselves, the other person is thinking it's because of or in response to them, and we make everything really personal. But also if we're not sharing the ways we want to work on ourselves and some of the context for why, with those valuable relationships in our lives, UM, we miss an opportunity to connect more deeply. We miss an opportunity to give and receive love to one another. So if there's something that you're working on individually, that is just about you. It could be so beautiful to be vulnerable and to open yourself to your partner and share that and share you know, what is the deeper, the deeper thing that you're working on with this What was maybe the pain or the experience as a younger version of you that led to you wanting to do this work. Now, you know, we we got to share language with each other, We got to teach each other how to talk to one another, how to be safe, how to how to kind of expand in ourselves, and then it makes it less personal. And you know, when things become less personal to us, then we can really show up and support other people the way they deserve to be supported, and vice versa and all of those beautiful things. That's such a dance. Thank you for that question. Um Let's see what is another question. Here's another really beautiful question. How to reconnect with your adult self not having an environment to know self in childhood? Really beautiful, quite Sian. Thank you for asking this. Um. So, the way that I'm experiencing this question is you're asking, you know, how do you how do you get to know yourself? How do you connect to the core of your identity when as a child, perhaps you were repressed, suppressed or disconnected in some way from being able to get to know honor uh and experience emotions within yourself. This is something that's so so so so many of us experience as young people, and it's usually the core of what leads all of us to the to our work and what leads all of us to um many of the challenges that we experience as adults. So this is such a gorgeous question, so uh so happy to be answering this because first, one of the first steps to being able to really tap into more of who you are right like, you're probably experiencing, you know, pieces of you and and definitely seeing like the glimmer and the potential and the beauty and what could emerge. And what's so powerful about this moment that it sounds like you're in is you just need a little more time with you. Um. The first thing that I would recommend is create some distance from the people in your life. It's really imperative when you're looking to um access points of yourself that you never have before. You need a blink canvas, you need freedom. You do not need reflected back to you or mirrored, you know, other people's perceptions of you that you've already outgrown. You need the time in the space to uncover these parts of you for yourself, and then to get to know them and to be in practice with them before you have to show up against people that are always going to experience you as the version they're most comfortable with. I hope I'm making any sense. Um, Yeah, I hope I'm expressing this in the way that I feel it. But time alone is imperative on your path and even from you know, the relationships that feel really beautiful and special and that that are healthy and honoring in our lives. You need the space to become more and so just having time to back up a little bit, having time to not have to be pressured to do things to show up for people, being able to take off some of the roles that you wear with others is really important. At this part of the journey. You have to strip yourself. You have to get out of performance. And it doesn't even have to mean in bad ways, right like, it doesn't have to mean that everything is toxic or you know that there's a there's an issue everywhere. But it just means that if you're used to doing something, because that's what you're used to, you need to give yourself a break from it so you can see if you actually still want to. Um, it's about coming back into choice. It's about returning back to yourself with a zoomed out view so you can be in choice in creating something that feels like more you know, that feels better, that feels aligned with the truth of who you are. So I would say, carve out more time for yourself. Um, I think definitely. And and we're going to have a lot of different moments that this is going to be required. You know, every couple of years, you're gonna need to space yourself out a little bit and zoom out and get more connected to self. I remember one of the first times I started doing that. It was Shanja Rymes had this really beautiful book called The Year of Yes. And I remember a few years after that it had come to me in a meditation and God said, this is your year of No. You need to say no to everything. And I remember being like, God, what what do you mean by that? Like no, I gotta take opportunities like no, you know, think I gotta keep moving forward, and da da, and God was just very explicitly clear with me that I needed a season of no because I needed to recalibrate and grow into the bigger yes. So I remember this year, you know, I let things really really slow down, and I stopped kind of leading with optics and perception, and I said no to really big things, things that were meaningful for me at the time. And ultimately it was just one of the most powerful things I ever did. Like, it upleveled my spirit, it upleveled my ability to express my purpose in just such a really really important way for my life. So, you know, sometimes I recommend just lean into a season of no. Say say no to big stuff. You know, maybe you don't have to. Maybe it's just about the little stuff. Maybe it's just say no to every friend that wants to go out, saying no to every invite and intentionally staying in the house. And even if you feel bored, investigate what can I do to fill my time. As you begin that road, you really start to look reconnect to curiosities that you and gifts and talents that you used to have. You also get to figure out what it is that you like you start to get creative, you start to your taste change and expand, and you just get to grow and stretch a little bit. Um. But you can't do that if you're always busy, if you're always active, if you're always kind of being perceived by others, if you're always perceiving others, um, if you're always in a space of being witnessed, sometimes you need to pull back so you can kind of refine and chisel and sculpt yourself. So I hope that answers the question. Loved that question, and I think we'll hold it here. These were some really, really, really gorgeous questions. So I'll be revisiting more of this soon. I'll be doing more of this on my I G and if you don't already, connect with me on Instagram at Debbie Brown. And I will be back very very soon next week with another episode. UM excited. Some of the people that will be talking to you on the show soon are amazing, people like Dr Joy hard In from Therapy for Black Girls, also Young Pueblo. So excited to share their work and some of those beautiful conversations that we have had. Take a second today, your soul work for this week is to just connect to your breath right now, the seasons are changing. At the time of me recording this episode, it's September and we are ushering in the fall equinox. There is a lot of new seasonal energy coming. We're in a retrograde period. We are coming into new energies, new opportunities, new abilities. So it's important in times that the planet is shifting, that our seasons are changing, we let ourselves take the time to recalibrate, to slow down. So your soul work through this next week is to find more moments to take deep breaths, and I mean deep deep breaths, like really connect, let yourself drop in just deeply at hell and oh and pace your own self embody, just like that. Do that throughout your day, close your eyes, and when you can connect to the way wherever you happen to live, that the seasons are changing. Maybe the air it's a little crisper, a little cooler. Maybe it's a little cooler at night or at the top of the morning. Maybe light is coming into your home in a different way now through the windows leaves. Just notice, just observe, let yourself slow down in that and connect to that God flow. Thank you for listening, Drop us a review, give us five star ours, and big love. Share this episode with a friend if you think it resonates now, I'm a staying, I'm staying. I'm a staying. I'm stay. Hey, find me on social Let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, please, please please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Dropping Jams is the production of I Heart Radio and the Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jack Please and me, Debbie Brown. For more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.