The Breakfast ClubINTERVIEW: Devi Brown On Achieving 'Higher Consciousness', Embracing Grief, Developing Self Mastery + More
The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Devi Brown To Discuss Achieving 'Higher Consciousness', Embracing Grief, Developing Self Mastery. Listen For More!
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning.
Everybody is j Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne de God. We are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building.
My good sister, longtime friend, DeBie Brown is back here.
Good morning, Good morning, y'all.
Oh my god, How you feel on book publishing day?
I feel free? Yeah, I feel so free.
I've had a lot of anxiety about it for the last few weeks. You know, what's like, you know that creative birthing, and like there's a lot of like vulnerable stories in it, and you're like, did I do that? Should I have done this? But yeah, now I just feel free. It's here, it's done. I'm proud of it. I feel great.
Living in Wisdom a path to embodying your authentic self, embracing grief, and developing self mastery.
Tell us about that title, you know, I think so just like being a healer, being someone that has been on their own spiritual journey for decades, and being a teacher. I found that, you know, those are the three things that.
Really give you.
A feeling of a well lived life. You know, when we're looking for healing or when we're looking for self actualization or self awareness, all the things whatever we're looking for when it comes time to grow, It's like, ultimately we're looking to be the embodiment of our authentic self, to get past the performance of.
Like who we say we are and actually get to the core. And then all of being alive is to have grief a part of that.
You know, every day there's grief, and whether it's losing someone, which I'm sure all of us have or will because that's what it is to be here, or it's you know, the daily grief of bearing witness to everything that's happening.
Finding a way to embrace.
That grief is a part of what it is to be human is I think a really powerful shift in our growth and then walking a past the path of self mastery like looking to always not necessarily like be better or prove things, but to just deepen in what you already are. Like, Mastery isn't perfection. Mastery is like the slow process of excellence of self, you know, and only we kind of know what that process is inside.
I want to go back for people that don't know Devi's been here a long time ago. But for people that don't know who Debbie is, Debbie Brown is. I want to start from the beginning if you don't know, Debbie was a successful radio personality in media personalities. Uh, and at the top of her game, decided she didn't want to do it anymore. It wasn't like she was pushed out. It wasn't like she had bad ratings. She just said, you know what, I don't want to do it anymore, top of her game.
Uh.
And then she started going on this healing journey. Debbie was out in the clubs. She might have got into a brawl tool, but we're not going.
To go there.
I'm talking about no idea.
Debbie Brown, and I don't under.
That was none there was this. This is a healing journey. So I wanted her rebirth of rebirth, I want to go to for people that don't know what made you say, you know what, this industry is not for me. I want to give this up. You were doing radio, you were doing in different markets. You just had a baby and just said it's not.
At the top of your game. How like, how did you go from a woman in radio to just like, now I'm done.
With it, you know, I think, And it's not even first of all, I just have to say, and y'all know this, Like, to me, radio is one of the most incredible sacred ways to broadcast, because like you're really in someone's head and body when you talk, right like they connect to you with.
Their whole being.
It's I've always found it to be like a sacred responsibility that makes.
You good at like everything else.
I think I realized that my purpose was evolving, and I realized that a lot of the skills that I was amassing, like communication, connecting with people, building community, I just kept getting very very clear direction from God that I was meant to do it differently and use it differently. And I felt like I personally was going through so much like while I was still on the radio for many years, I was like kind of secretly quietly getting certifications and like meditation and breath work and spiritual psychology, like it was such a huge part of my off the air life. And I felt like, at least at that time, because I left the industry maybe almost ten years ago, at that time, there was no blending of the two, you know, and I was having situations where I was wanting to have these deeper layered conversations, and you know, I was being told by the people I worked with, like no one wants to hear that, Like now we can't run that on the.
Air, like ask more questions.
About dating, ask questions about beef ast, you know, And for whatever reasons, it's like what I had to give and what I felt God wanted me to give, it was not valued at the time. And so instead of kind of like sitting in that and you know, just going with the zeitgeist, I was just like, Okay, so it's time to leave. It's time to see what else I can be used for or how else does you know God want to use me? And it was interesting because there was like a breakthrough moment for me where Kendrick had come on my show. And I had known Kendrick for a long, long, long, long long time the very beginning of his career, so we would always have really powerful, beautiful conversations.
Right that was in Houston.
He's brilliant, he's you know, brilliant, beyond belief. And we were talking about like depression on this episode, and we were talking about suicide ideation and this was twenty fourteen, and people in my sphere didn't really see value in those questions or in the way that we were talking about things. So you know, I was kind of asked like, hey, you can't. You can't share those parts of the interview on the radio. It's too long, it's too boring, like we need to get to the music. And so I ended up throwing it all on YouTube and I got such a big response, like so many people were saying, oh my god, like I've never heard anyone talk about that before, and that's how I feel. And then an editor from Vogue magazine reached out to me like a couple of days later, and they're like, this is one of the best interviews we've seen, like we want we're doing a feature on him. And that was like, my that was such like a breakthrough.
Moment for me.
I was like, Okay, like if someone doesn't get it, or you know, if you have this vision that isn't making sense to everyone right away, you just have to find your people.
You just have to keep being.
Your authentic self and the people that are for you will find you. And that really gave me like I was like, Okay, I need to do something different, but I wanted to. I wanted to spend my life talking about wellness and healing and health and pain and grief and you know all the ways to transcend.
But you were so ahead of your time and now it's okay. Now people are vulnerable. Would you see yourself coming back to doing radio. I love radio because you were so ahead of your time. Now we have those conversations and it's not even a thing we talk about that people are vulnerable. It seems normal almost.
She got Deeply Well podcast.
Yeah, Black Effect Network. Yes.
And you know the interesting thing about Dev And I want people to notice, like I met Dev and I think O seven O seven O eight the person Dev is now she's always been. This is just a to me an evolution of who you've always been. You've always been the same one in the room, you know, the one in the room that people can go to for sound advice, the leader in the room saying, hey, let's go do this, we should be doing this.
I've always felt that in you. I've always seen that in you. Why you don't work here? If you if you have order She was swaised co host for a while.
She don't work here at Fair east Side.
Ieart, y'all.
When it comes to healing, the way y'all have been healing in this room. I am just so impressed and inspiring. There have been some beautiful, transparent conversations to your point, though, Can I just say like about you, Like I know people know this because the people in your life like really hold you close and like really protect you. But you're just like an exceptional person and friend. Like I'm so grateful for who you've been in my life for like two decades now. And it's like when we first met, we had nothing.
I mean, you were how did you meet?
She was working at KD Yeah, at KDE.
Right, yeah, and you were on Wendy Show, syndicated, indicated and I used to run the boards on her syndicated show and we would like talk through.
The mic and on MySpace.
And then I think the first time you came to town, like I picked you up from the airport.
That was like you and me we out and literally showed me La.
My introduction to La came through Debbie dev everybody from Kendrick Lamard, the Nipsey Hustle, the Glasses of Loan Scrong, I'm steady.
Gang, Where to eat? Where to go? Devil with my toll guy. I had to check it with.
Death the way you're doing keep checking in right.
But you I love the chapter fifteen because we're talking about that in a way healing accept. Yeah, talk to us why that's important that you have to heal and then accept.
You know, that's what we did in this room. You healing and accepted just for who she is.
You know, this is the thing about healing, right.
And I've worked in wellness and well being for over a decade now, and I work with clients directly, I do workshops, I run retreats. I've had a lot of access to studies and data all around healing, around trauma, around all of it. And I found, you know, from my own journey and with others, it's like there is this misconception that you work on yourself to eventually be rid of everything that's ever happened to you, and that then your life will be perfect. That you'll go to therapy, that you'll do somatic exercises, that you'll meditate, and then one day you're going to just like everything in life is going to feel so happy. That's not God's design, right, Like, no feeling is more holy than the other. God wants us to know and experience and feel in real time everything that crosses our path, and that means grief, that means joy, that means you know, jealousy sometimes anger that means fear.
It's like, all of it is part of the.
Human experience, and so when it comes to healing, a huge part of it is also accepting that the past can't change. For some of us, that can feel heartbreaking, right Like a lot of things have happened to so many of us, so hundreds of millions in your life that didn't get your consent, Maybe that you've never uttered aloud.
You know.
Sometimes we carry things and we're thinking about and ruminating and.
Thought our whole life about the things that have hurt us.
And I think it's important for people to know it doesn't mean you're broken or deficient or not.
Healed because you still.
Remember those things. It's really about changing the way you relate to them. Some things will absolutely never change, but when you heal, it really gets transmitted into wisdom where it doesn't feel like this hard, full, painful charge inside of your body. Every time that memory comes up, you're able to kind of look at it from an observer's standpoint and be like that happened, and that really hurt, and God, that was hard. And I have respect.
For what I've been through.
I have self respect for who I am and what I've moved myself through.
When you talk about working on yourself, right, what does that mean for people?
Right?
When people say I need to work on myself and then they come back to me and it's ten hours later, I worked on myself. I'm so for somebody out there that says, you know, I need to work on myself, what does that mean?
God, that's such a good question, and like that I'm healed. Thing is so funny to me because people will go to one therapy session and be like, Oh, I did it, and it's like, actually, it takes eight to twelve therapy sessions to have like a real you know, cognitive breakthrough, or you know, you read one book and it's like, yeah, yeah, I do this because this happened to me and that's who I am. I think that's self awareness. But when you're looking to work on yourself to transcend your experiences, there's a difference. Like Instagram has given us so much language, a lot of people are using it to manipulate.
Now I hate the language. The wrong way.
I hate it.
I know it like it bathers the ish out of me.
Yeah, it drives me nuts because it's dangerous. Like to be clear, it's dangerous people using certain mental health language that haven't done the work, that don't know the work. It's a manipulation tactic. It can be very harmful for people, can be very narcissistic. So that none of those things.
Are like devoid.
In the spiritual or the mental health space, all that same stuff still exists. But when it comes to like working on yourself, I think at the base level, it's noticing how do you feel when it's just you with you, If there is anything inside of you that feels unmet, unexpressed, unheard, If there's anything inside of you where you feel anxiety, there is a charge in your chest, or there is a rejection or a cringe. Those are things to notice because it's information that maybe something wants to rise to the surface for your review. And I think when we're working on ourselves, it's really about being willing to look at the truth of what is. It doesn't have to be perceived as positive or negative, it's just what is true right now, and then being honest with yourself about it. And if we try to avoid those things, Yeah, you can move through life. You can probably still have a lot of success in life, but the quality of your life goes down.
The quality of.
Your interior world really goes down, and you're not really able to tap in to like the truth of why you're here, to your purpose to you know, and this doesn't matter to everybody, but it matters to me. The truth of your connection to God. You know, all of that kind of goes mute and it goes numb when you avoid yourself, when you tap into yourself, I think a lot of people think, oh, it's gonna hurt too much, or I'm going to open that door and I won't be able to close it. But you're hurting anyway, right, Like, at least there is an outcome to be had by choosing to direct some of your attention and word.
Well, talk about some of the mental health and mental health things that you've been talking about that I feel have been commercialized to a point where people are using these terms but they don't really mean it, right, Yeah, So so talk about that a little bit to make dev go off now, Yeah, No, I want to talk about it, you know, because it really bothers me because I hear people using these terms, and I'm sure they don't even know what these terms mean, right, Like you say, somebody, you just gas lit me. And I feel like sometimes it actually stops a conversation because sometimes when people hear those words, they automatically say, oh, I ain't fucking with that. I'm not talking about that, especially in a workplace where you can't and have a normal conversation if somebody says something, because now when you hear those terms, that also comes after human resources, you know what I mean.
Absolutely, Yeah, I mean there's just so much and I think people should really do like a lot of deeper layers of research, right Like I think the Internet is phenomenal and that you know, it's the last five years. Our consciousness has raised so much since the pandemic because we have had access to understand Hey, a lot of people have experienced trauma, or a lot of people have experienced life frictions or you know, deeply challenging relationships. But everyone is stopping at like one graphic, right Like they're stopping at reading one thing or asking chat GPT one question and then they leave it there, you know, and it's like, so I think a lot of terms like understanding, like a lot of people are over using the term like narcissist or narcissism right, not getting your way with someone or someone kind of even being self focused, Like every single person alive has some layer of narcissistic behavior. That's part of like the human expression too, it's some self focus. But narcissistic abuse is something entirely different. And those that have experienced understand, like you get CPTSD from it, You get PTSD from it, you have changes in your body, your health decreases, like it is a psychological warfare that is insidious and can dramatically change the trajectory of your life. Now, if that level of feeling isn't really happening to you, it may not be narcissistic abuse, you know. And so I think we just need to go deeper into the layers of the things that we're learning. And I will say people that misuse language or use it as tools of avoidance, typically those are the people that you know usually are on the other side and fit the other kind of definitions for those things.
Behavior is behavior, right.
And I think, now something I'm excited about is so many of us are spending more time with ourselves, getting more clear, meditating or getting into nature, which really connects you to your intuition, to your gut response in a really deep way. It regulates your nervous system. When your nervous system is regulated, you're able to see things a lot more clearly, You're able to make a lot better choices in real time. And so usually interactions with people like that that are throwing out misused language, that are manipulating, usually you can handle those situations completely different or get away from them a lot quicker.
One thing you told me one time that makes so much sense, and I love the fact that you give so many actual examples of how to do it.
In the book.
You told me that when it comes to the language, you can have the language and know what it is you're dealing with. But a lot of people avoid the actual healing, the healing work. So if you read the book, there's a lot of different exercises that can walk you through that actual healing process. Why do you think, you know, people forget the healing part once they go.
To therapy because it's hard, you know, And I think it and that's the thing that I really speak to very clearly in my book. It's like, all of this is hard. There is no tip or trick to heal from challenging experiences, right Like, I'm not going to tell you, all right, do this five minutes every day. Yes, five minutes every day will build your capacity, but you need to stretch past the five minutes to devote actual real time to the changes you want to see in your life. And so you know, something I talk about in the book is like, there's a huge difference between having self awareness and having higher consciousness or being embodied in your self awareness. Self awareness is having the terms. It's going to a couple therapy sessions perhaps or reading a bunch of self help books and saying like this, this is what happened, and this is why I act like this, and this is why this is this. But it doesn't mean you're changing any of it, right Like, it doesn't mean you're taking it to the next step to behave differently or to invite in different experiences with people. And that comes through practice, that comes through process. And so in this book, I talk about a lot like how to get out of your way. A lot of people have a lot of sophisticated language around avoiding themselves. You can avoid yourself with anything. You can avoid yourself with therapy. You're seeing the same therapist for ten years and nothing in your life changes what's going on in there, you know, or if you you know, I see a lot of people avoid themselves With religion.
You can be a part of a church, you can go there.
On Sundays and you can still not know God. You can still not make better choices.
Right.
It is daily practice. It is showing up in your interpersonal relationships. It is having the hard conversations in real time as they come up, and just being present with all of it without expectation, you know, without trying.
To control it or make it go your way.
And so in the book, we have a lot of practices like I teach meditation in the book, we work with mudras in the book, which are hand positions that can really elevate your meditation practice because your hand positions open different energy channels in your body.
There is breath work that.
Can be done in the book, and every single one of those practices anchors in the changes that you want to experience, because it shows you how to regulate when you do get triggered when you do have charge, and so both are needed. You have to have the cognitive and you have to have the somatic. You have to have the spiritual, you have to have the physical. All of it kind of beautifully goes together.
So you don't think that people can heal themselves though, Like for instance, right, like let's just save me for it. Say, I'm going through you know, a lot, I've experienced a lot of trauma, right, and just just an example, I'm gonna just use myself, like and I'm constantly going through therapists after therapist after therapists. Okay, I've even change churches and everything and nothing nobody else seems to help me. But I can find that on my own, Like is there do you believe that people can heal themselves without church or without any higher being or without you know, any type of drug you know what I mean?
Or also any therapy?
Like do you think people can change themselves heal themselves?
So in two ways. So based on my belief, I think.
That God has to be a part of the equation. That's my belief, that is my higher being, the God of my understanding. I think we can each have that right because God can look and be different for everyone. It doesn't have to be in the confines of any set religion. I'm certainly not within any set religion. But I do think there has to be something that expands your understanding of what all of this is. And I think that that is hard to do without connecting to something that is bigger than you. That acide, I would say, absolutely people can heal themselves. I don't think you necessarily even have to go anywhere unless there is another layer of need there. Right if there is a mental health condition, a disorder, if there are some situations like really severe trauma that you cannot understand on your own, I absolutely think people should continue to find all the resources that can meet their need, jump in and out of them. If it doesn't work, leave it, you know, trust your gut on that. But yeah, we are our own healers. One hundred percent of the time. I think this book it's about self healing. It's not saying go to this person, go to that person, get this done. I've done a ton of stuff, you know. I've done everything. I've done all kinds of therapies, I have done certifications, I have done a lot of psychedelics. I have done a lot of meditation. I've spoken with a lot of people, Shaman's healer, so much, so much, so much. But it still comes down, no matter what, to how willing I am to be fully myself. It still comes down, no matter what, to how willing I am to sit with myself, especially in the dark periods and the dark moments, and how much self respect I can really gather for myself and what I've been through and experience.
I learned to meditate because of Dev. It was December twenty twenty. It was twenty twenty because it was COVID and that was like the first time we traveled and we went the.
That was the best.
It was amazing with the cowbo for a week with Dev and like Dev had like a bunch of activities what would you call them.
Dev's It was like a spiritual retreat.
It was just a bunch of activities. We were doing yoga and I learned how to meditate. On that trip, I could not still quiet my brain, have my brain still ever, But for whatever reason, in that moment, I was able to meditate and I've been doing it ever since.
It was so amazing.
We did Yeah, we did rake you We did energy healing yep, little mushrooms.
We did meditation yoga.
Why meditation is so important?
Oh my god?
You know.
And I think in some other maybe wisdom traditions, some people might relate to it if you call it reflection or if you call it moments for contemplation, But meditation is the master healer because it gets you out of your identity. And our identity is almost one hundred percent made from like all of the culturally created beliefs that we have, or our beliefs from our family of origin, or you know, the things that we're influenced by by society.
And so when you're.
Able to get out of all those extra layers of like what your titles are, you know what the role you play. I'm a husband, I'm a wife, I'm a someone's child, brother, sister, friend, When you take yourself out of all of that, you actually get to glimpse, like what am I designed to be? What was God's intention for me of me before I fit into anybody's box or any relationship. And so the thing about meditation, and I really want to share this. You know, I believe in trauma informed practice, and it's a little bit different to hold that space within the healing community than if you're not. It's recognizing that a lot of people will have barriers to almost every healing modality that comes up because of some of the things that they may have experienced. So in meditation, you're going through so many layers, and the first time you try, the first several times you try, it could be so hard and frustrating and anger inducing and irritating to sit down and be still, and it could bring up everything and make you feel like you're failing at it, and then you want to stop and then let me go do things I'm actually good at.
You know. That is literally me.
Yeah, that is I feel like I'm missing out on doing something, or I can be doing this with this time, or it's not working. It's like, so I grow to be frustrated when I try to meditate.
Man just smoking and that. Yeah, well I mean that too.
Spoken to meditate is like a great little collaboration and yoga and stretching. But I'm so glad you said that, because I think that is almost everyone's response, but especially if you have been through hard things. And what I want everyone to know is that phase passes and that's part of what doing the work is right. It's being patient with yourself and witnessing yourself, especially when you don't want to do it, and.
It's saying like God, I'm sitting here and I hate this, this is stupid. I don't want to do this. Breathe, Breathe okay, okay, wiggle.
Release, open your body, like you start meeting those feelings with things that harmonize that experience for you. And part of what you're doing when you do that is you stretch your capacity to be patient with yourself.
You stretch your capacity to.
Be present in your life, but you also stretch your capacity for self compassion. So all those little adjustments you make in meditation when you first start, like connect to your breath, take a deep breath with your eyes closed, try to look at your nose. That's something that can focus you. Relaxes your body, Okay, I'm getting tent. Lower my shoulders, release my stomach, release my breath. You're teaching yourself how to regulate your discomfort. So when we say things like you know you know it, do it when you're uncomfortable or uncomfortable, things stretch you. They only stretch you if you learn how to settle into them. And so that building a practice for your wellness is how you settle into it. Once you settle into it, there's another level to go to.
So after you get past that which you can and will, which I was in the same place, I hated it.
I would stop for months at a time and reject it. When I first started my practice.
The beads in the matra helped me.
Yes, working with a mala, working with a mantra, a sanscrit word or something that is valuable to you, you know. The next layer would be you might start crying a lot in meditation. That usually gets people to stop.
Right.
You might notice that, oh my god, I'm still like close my eyes and all these tears come up. The first thing you're thinking is what is wrong with me? Why is this happening? Well, everything that was suppressed, you know, everything that you haven't had the time to deal with, probably for decades. Now, you're still enough that it has a chance to rise to the surface. It's not bad that it's rising to the surface. It's coming up for your review so you can release it, or so you can accept it. So then you get into this kind of like double Dutch cadence with your meditation practice, where you're like, okay, I want to pull back, let me come back in like you're in flow. You're going back and forward. And so the more you will allow yourself to see like I don't want to think about this, but it did happen, and I can move through this. Breathe into it, Breathe into it, grace for yourself, compassion for yourself, presence for yourself. You get past that point, and it'll take months, it'll take time, it'll still come up sometimes, and then you get to the next layer of meditation. And I found that that next level of meditation is when you're actually starting to crave it, like you're like, okay, let me go sit down. Oh, I finally get to be quiet. I finally get to be still.
Ah.
I feel so good when I breathe, Like you know, you get to all these different levels, but eventually the level you're aiming for is like higher and higher consciousness. Higher consciousness means a greater ability to be what you are designed to be on earth and to also extend love and goodwill and compassion and power and influence to others for the higher good of all concerned.
Yeah, I was gonna as with all that. Does Debbie still get upset? Or do you control yourself to the point where you don't get upset?
You's a Gemini, that's Tupac chopra. Okay, it's two.
Are you're about to lose it?
Do you meditate? You pull the beads out?
Do you like?
Or do you sometimes you just explode?
Oh my god? Yeah, I have bad days all the time.
Sometimes I book a session at a rage room, like I have a rage room near my house. You go in, you get a crowbar or bad Oh my god. You pay them like twenty bucks. They give you a carton of like plates and old electronics. You put on some music and then you throw.
Things and remember that for next time. Jess, you don't have to put your silk scarf on.
You don't have to go to rage.
You do not make the breakfast. But is that how you messed up your shoulder? Jesus, you can get mad?
Yeah?
Tore my rotator cut?
Right? How is that?
I am? God has given me accelerated healing.
I'm so grateful, but you know, and I'm grateful for the surgery and for modern medicine and all the things, but no, I still absolutely get disappointed, get mad, get upset. I think the reaction time is a lot less, the personalization of it is a lot less. I can get upset at something in more of an abstract observation way without thinking that someone is injuring me, even if that is what they're attempting to do. I can recognize maybe the deeper layers doesn't mean I'm not going to be upset or disappointed, but I'm not holding it inside. It's definitely not something I'm thinking about for multiple days. You know, I can kind of take it in, release it or the way it feels, you know, because sometimes you're going to be angry about stuff that doesn't change, that can't change. The world is unfair, you know, it is. It just is, and I think I'm an acceptance of that. So I know things aren't always going to go my way. I'm not now all of a sudden, I've meditated so much that oh, no more challenges in life for me, Like, no, it's hard, But the way that it feels inside the level of spiritual confidence you have in yourself to meet that challenge changes dramatically, and I think that you can compartmentalize it differently. You can hold that that unique experience is happening, but it doesn't now have to pull away and take away from all the other good that's in my life too. And I think like my book is really about holding space equally for grief and joy. Life is grief and joy all at once. But yeah, you get mad, but you have other tools for working with that feeling. You're not taking it out on other people, right, You're not taking it out in yourself. You're not now being rude to whatever person is in front of you because of it. You know, you're not causing harm because of your feeling.
Yeah, you know.
In the grief chapter you talk about how you can't heal and tell you grief.
Yeah, can you expound on that?
Oh my god, it's acceptance. You can't heal what you don't let be revealed. You know, you can't heal what you don't spend time with. And I think grief is a hard feeling.
It's hard. All of us have had it.
Even the good stuff can be I my son is going to be seven next month.
I love you.
Quest when you see this in the future, land, you are my baby five nine.
By the way, he's a big boy.
I grieve who he was last year.
I'll never see that guy again, you know, like that there is a real sadness to that. I mean, you're an incredible father, envy, and I know, like you see your kids at so many different ages. Now there's grief to that, all those different chapters of who they are, who they're.
Becoming, you know. So I think.
Nothing can be healed until we grieve it because we have to be with the truth of our spiritual curriculum. We cannot avoid whatever was designed meant to be a part of our lives. And I just want to hold space for the fact that even saying those words, it is okay that there is a rejecting because there are certain things that happen to us that there is no clear way that you could say that's God's design, right, Like, there are certain things that happen and it feels so much better to like attribute it to how wrong things are or the evilness of the world. And so there's nuance in that and that that is its own lifetime of work to come into right. So there's no quick fix for some of those harder abusive stories of.
Things that have happened, But you have.
To let yourself feel whatever is true in your body, whatever is present. From that point you get to choose what the next path is and what the next step is.
But yeah, no healing, No, no true.
Authentic joy or happiness can come if you avoid absolutely anything.
Would you use some language in the book Living in with Them? That's what we're talking about. You say grief is a right, a pathage.
Yeah, wow, I think you know.
And I speak as someone that darkness has been a big teacher for me in my life. And that's not everyone's path, but it's mine, and it's some other people's, you know, having some childhood trauma, having adult trauma, having witnessing hard things, losing people. You know, I started to look at my life and say, it feels so dark.
I don't look like that. You know.
Sometimes not looking like what you've been through is kind of a curse because people think nothing's wrong, no one checks on you, you know.
But it's like.
When I started to realize that pain serves purpose, and I mean that literally, like pain sometimes is the servant to purpose, Like when you can and look at it, when you can be with it, when you can kind of extract yourself from the personalization of it.
It can be really useful for you and for me.
You know, my path has always been to be a healer, to be a teacher, to be present with people in pain, to sit at the bottom of the ocean with someone. So now I realize I needed every lesson I learned because it informs the work that I'm able to do. So I think once you're able to start seeing even your harder experiences as somehow being useful for the bigger story that your life is telling, right, for the bigger thing that you're doing in the world, I think it changes everything.
And with that being said, I love that you celebrated your book in your garden and you co hosted it with Lauren London. Yes, and so okay, so you guys are friends.
Yeah, how what you know?
Because she's been through traumatic experience, you know, a big traumatic experience, losing the love of her life, A book like this would be like medicine to what she's gone through. How was that event? Like when you celebrated, how is that? Because I know you can see the healing directly in her because she's your friend.
God, I just have to say one Laurena is an exceptional woman. Like she is an exceptional woman with like one of the sweetest, kindest like hearts you could ever imagine, Like I've just like she's just one of the kindest, most generous, heart centered women I have ever had the pleasure of like being in sisterhood with.
I think, be honest with you.
We found out we were born in the same hospital. There's a lot that is the that is similar. But she's actually the first person I let read the book.
And it's because she is also such.
A wise woman who has done so much of her own self work and self healing, Like she is a very gifted and wise and so I wanted her eyes on it her first, because I knew she could understand the layers, you know, the complexity, the nuance of grief. And so you know, as she was reading it, she would just call me every few days and just be like, oh.
My god, you know this is amazing or this part meant this to me. So it was really special.
And then you know, and she offered to do something with me for the launch.
Of the book.
We had this gorgeous party in my garden. Gardening was such a healer for me. And that also, I want to say, I think is such a big anidote for grief and anidote for healing. The more you can add romance to your own life, man or woman, the more you can add beauty to your life with intention, the easier healing becomes. And it's also a scientific fact, like beauty seen, beauty scene design, it can heal. It's why even in some hospitals they have like healing gardens, so there's colorful flower hours or access to sunlight or being able to see growth. It changes the things inside of us. So yeah, so she healed that beautiful day. She came and hosted that beautiful day in my garden, and we had so many people there and so many people in the healing community, and it was just Yeah, there was no feeling like it.
It was so special and so free.
I love that guard.
I think that's the last time I saw I think the last time I saw yea Lie was in your guard.
I have a picture of that night.
Yeah, we all we actually all recorded a podcast.
I can't it's too incriminating off brand.
Great. It was a great night though.
I just I don't know when you were just talking about the guard I'm just like, the importance of that is just to have a safe space, safe sacred place, a safe sacred place.
You know you are not good with the back. No, don't do that, Okay.
Yeah.
You Also, you dedicated your book and I'm probably gonna pronounce her name wrong to my Hascal May Haskell Mays, And I didn't know who that was until I went to go look it up. And she was a young woman who was dismembered and ensino what made you want to dedicate the book to her?
And you said, I pray you are free.
M I have to be really careful talking about this because the trial hasn't begun yet.
Gotcha.
She was a beautiful woman.
I had the privilege and the pleasure of meeting when my son started kindergarten and our boys were friends, and so my son is in first grade.
So this just.
Happened last year. And you know, I'm sure the parents listening, Like when your kids are in kinder like, you're still very connected to the other families, right because the kids can't communicate on their own. So you're creating the play date. You guys are getting together for all the birthday parties, like you are seeing.
Each other almost seven days a week.
And she was the mother of this sweet, beautiful little boy that was in class with my son and two other sons. And her husband is currently incarcerated for allegedly murdering her and her parents, and her body was completely dismembered. Her head was taken, her limbs were taken and not recovered. Her parents were dismembered, and then their bodies were dispersed in the trash cans in my neighborhood.
I don't know, Yeah, I don't know. There are whoors in this world. You know.
I dedicated my book to her for so many reasons, but it's really just like if someone takes your whole family, who remembers you?
You know, Like.
I wanted to just honor the fact that she was here, that she was alive, and that I will be thinking about her every day of my life.
M hm m m m m mmmm O.
Living in wisdom, ladies and gentlemen. Debbie Brown is out today.
I got a lot more questions.
I just don't know where should Maybe we should go somewhere else.
I do well, okay, Wusa, Yeah, does everybody need to.
Have a purpose?
I think everybody does have a purpose.
I think what we get wrong is that purpose has to be quantified by something or that it has to make money.
You know.
I think just like so many words are being appropriated right now within mental health, I think think other words are being used for performance, for really self validation sometimes or ego. Right, like you hear people, well, my purpose is this and my or you know, what's my purpose and it's just another thing that you are kind of mispouring yourself into purpose in my belief is simply you know, it is your lived experience and the wisdom you've gleaned from it.
It's the skills you've amassed in.
Any and everything you could have ever done. It's your innate gifts, you know, the things that you have that God gave you. And it's then using it to serve, putting it back into service for others. And so you know, it's like I could say my purpose is talking, right because I was a broadcaster for years, I lead meditation, I communicate all the things. But really, like I look at my purpose as like being able to be in darkness with people.
You know, I think my life's greatest purpose is the fact that, like.
I'm not afraid of the dark, and I can be in darker moments and not recoil with other people that I can hold space for that. And I think, you know, that may not be the most glorious purpose. It's not the thing that's maybe gonna land me on a billboard, but it's the thing that like God trained me for. It's the thing that my life has bloomed into. And I love it.
I love that.
I love how you break that down.
And also you spoke to how people over use words because half the time people don't even know how to answer that question, well, what is your purpose? I remember I was watching one of my friends on a live like asks a guy like she needs, she said, in order to date, somebody didn't have to know their purpose. Like but you know, she was on live with certain people when the guy was like, I don't even know what you're talking about when you say that, and so in return, she said he was dumb, but it was like, nah, he really didn't know what that may like me, I still don't know what my purpose is. I mean, I'm grateful for the woman that I'm becoming in my spiritual growth and everything, but I still don't know what my purpose is and what if it's not just one thing, you know what I mean?
And that's the thing.
It's not Yeah, it's not you know, And like it's okay if finding your purpose takes your whole life, yes, it's the point of being alive. Like why do we think we have to move so quickly through everything? That's the validation piece, right, Like that's the wanting to be seen in it or celebrated for it. But like if it's your life's work, it is supposed to take your whole life.
Yeah, that's right.
Because my mother in law, my husband's mother, she literally just told me she just found out where her purpose is and that is to take care of like to oversee her granddaughter. I just gave her a beautiful granddaughter, her very first grandchild. And that's what she said, holding a baby like a few months ago. Oh, I know what my purpose is now is to be here with my family and to take care of my family because she was living out the country for decades.
That was him, that's him.
He just started.
You have this moment.
Anything, I didn't say anything.
You say we have in law Mexican, Okay that you don't don't do That's what I mean, you know, they're trying to say purpose because of ice be.
I trying to I came back. I don't have nothing to do.
He came back over here to take care of my child. Every day they joke about her being I don't know what. Yes, literally.
You know, I mean, I understand the friction in this room. I get like they just because.
Anything else you want to give him, I don't want to.
I don't even want to talk about thank you so much.
But no, you do say in the book that that you cannot have purpose without wisdom, and you can't have purpose of wisdom without acknowledgment of every single experience.
Yeah, yeah, acceptance, acknowledge your life. You know, this is the thing like and I think for people that go through things, which is all of us. As soon as it switches and you start to have respect for yourself for how you move through something, it changes everything. So it's like, lean into your lived experiences. If you're not thinking about your hardest experiences, you're leaving something on the table, like you're leaving a lot of abundance on the table. Because those are our keys, those are our keys to the next level, those are our keys to deeper layers of our own self.
I remember you told me that one time, and it really did help change my life and just the way I look at things because it's like, I remember you told me, every single version of you deserves grace, every version of you deserves love, every version of you deserves that hittling. And I just when you told me that, I'm like, oh, you know, we all try to run from certain parts of our lives, and it's just.
Like, no, you was that person. You should embrace that person and give.
The them perra And look how much I mean, if I could, if y'all would allow, Like even just when I see the two of y'all, especially because I've known y'all for long and seeing you over so many different versions while also being you know, at the top of your game, it's like something I've always admired, especially the last ten years about you, mb is like the way you and your wife have moved through the world is so powerful and it is so healing for so many people. And to see the way that you both decided to look at one another in your hardest moments and seek whatever needed to be done, no stone left unturned, to repair your hearts and to then continue to be phenomenal parents to your children. It's like that is literally an example of what it is to like glean the wisdom from your experiences and turn it into purpose. Like that pain point for the two of you, because you chose to be with it, to look at it, to feel everything that was in it. Look how many lives you've blessed, you know, It's like the count will go on and on till the end of time. Like someone could find your books in fifty years and it could be radically transformative for them, Like that is dealing with your hard experiences and the darker points and transmitting it into purpose and making it wisdom the same, I mean so many.
Experiences with you as well.
And when you think, even just from a career standpoint, and all the ways that you've elevated and grown every step of the way, you have taken accountability for every version of who you are, and then you've literally shown up as the proof of who you've become. You know, not just tongue in cheek, like you're not just saying that. Like it's like you have always become a new version and then paid everything forward. And I think that's the living example of exactly what I'm saying, I do.
Want to ask you one more thing for you go deb because we talk about you being on radio and there's certain moments like this morning, I'm like, I do wonder what dev would think about this, And it was in regards to Kanye, right, And you know, Kanye last week he posted, oh my mother was a lesbian, and this week he posted that he sucked his cousin's penis, you know, till he was fourteen.
And in my mind, like, if you're not going to go get help, Kanye, what are we supposed to do with this information? I wonder what do you think?
That's a hard question to answer because I don't want to be someone to give anybody a diagnosis, right, Like, that is not my profession, that's not my right. In the past, and I don't know if he still identifies in this way. In the past, he has made mention that he does have mental illness. So here's the thing that I think we all really need to be a lot more real about. What is the difference between mental health and mental illness? What is the difference between like giving someone grace because they have anxiety and you know they're struggling, and actually giving grace to people that may be mentally ill. Nothing in his behavior seems odd to me if I look at it through that lens, And so if we see it through that lens, and again I don't know what or if there are any diagnosises present in his life, but if that was the case, we have to be honest about that, and we have to be honest about how we receive and experience people. If someone is ill in that way, no, perhaps they can't do better. No, perhaps they can't get help. If you are just suffering in your mental health, but you are not mentally ill, it is a lot easier and more possible to get help and change certain dynamics of yourself. If you actually have illness, that's something else entirely, And so I think that is that's something I would like to see change in the kind of like mainstream conversations as we talk about people like who is ill and does not have the ability to make different choices, especially if they're having a big response in their illness, and who is just not getting help because they don't feel like it or want to, or there's ego involved.
So you know, that is my thought on.
That it's been so hard to watch, you know, I think for a lot of us, and it's been going on for a long time, but it's like, this is someone that also.
Added a lot of joy to a lot of our lives, right Like.
When I think of the Graduation album, that's like when we first met, I was so broke and so confused and so like and that album gave me hope, you know.
And so.
It's hard to watch who he's become because I don't agree with so much of his behavior.
Absolutely all right, Debbie Brown Living in with Them A Path to embodying your authentic self, embracing grief, and developing self mastery, available everywhere you buy books.
Now, go pick it up. If you love the sound of Dev's voice.
If you miss her on the radio, you can go get the audio version as well, and make sure you subscribing her podcast, the Deeply Well podcast on the Black Effect.
iHeart radio podcast network. Dev. You already know I love you to death.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you three. I love you, big fan.
She was Jesse. She was singing your praises for a while.
I was texting him all the time. I was like, she is amazing. Oh my god.
And I also have to say I just want to say, like for you, thank you for what you give to the world, and thank you for the example you show up in like you're an amazing mom, an entrepreneur and credibly talented and gifted woman across fields and you're doing all of it, you know, and I think that that no one can really understand how hard that is, especially as a mom, to give your kids the love they deserve and show up in your purpose for other people.
So thank you, all right, and thank you Debbie for being you. Thank you. I just to remember that conversation we had last time, remember.
Her knocking nobody up that never happened.
We have to get back to that.
I remember that give each other grace, even the breakfast wake up in the morning, the breakfast club
