TBG Library: Truth's Table

Published Apr 29, 2022, 7:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

Are you looking for something new and insightful to add to your bookshelf? The Therapy for Black Girls Library has got you covered. Since so many of our community members love a good book, we'll be sharing interviews with the authors of some books we think you'll enjoy in these TBG Library episodes. 

This week we’re reading Truth's Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation. Truth’s Table is a collection of essays and stories documenting the lived theology and spirituality we need to hear in order to lean into a more freeing, loving, and liberating faith—from the hosts of the beloved Truth’s Table podcast. For this conversation I was joined by co-authors Dr. Christina Edmondson and Ms. Ekemini Uwan. We chatted about the creation story behind the book, how they managed the vulnerability required to write, their expansive ideas about faith and sprituality, and how they want this book to impact readers. 

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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for a special bonus episode of the Therapy Me for Black Girls Podcast. You've got a great new book to add to your reading list right after a word from our sponsors. Are you looking for something new and insightful to add to your bookshelf? Well, the Therapy for Black Girls Library is open for business and you don't even need a library card. This week we're reading Truth's Table, black women's musings on life, love and liberation. Truths Table is a collection of essays and stories documenting the lift, theology, and spirituality we need to hear in order to lean into a more freeing, loving, and liberating faith from the host of the beloved Truths Table podcast. Today, I'm joined by co authors Dr Christina Edmondson and ms A Chimtee you want. During our conversation, we explore the creation story behind the book, how Christianity shows up in the tech, and how they want this book to impact its readers. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us over in the Sister Circle To talk more in depth about the episode. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you Dr Joy for having us. Yes, thank you for having us, Dr Joy. It's a pleasure to be here on the couch with you. I appreciate that. I appreciate it. Very excited to chat with you. And has been such a beautiful evolution. I feel like for Truth Table, I don't know quite what the timeline is. I feel like Truth Table and Therapy for Black Girls have been cousins along this podcasting journey. Like I feel like, you know, we were out at the same time, and so it has been really cool to see how both of the platforms have really blossomed into what they are. That we do consider you a cousin, and so we're just so excited for really all that therapy for black girls is and has been for black women, and just your leadership as a fellow psychologist, I mean, what you have done to reduce stigma and to make it very clear the importance of black women's concerns and hurts and growth. And so we salute you, Dr Joy. We give your flowers right now, Thank you, thank you. The feeling is so mutual, so mutual. So I am clearly very familiar with Truth Table, but there may be some listening or participating that are not familiar. So tell us about the Truth Table podcast and how it started and now it's new evolution into a book. Yes, Dr Joy, we are definitely sisters and cousins. You know. Truth Table started in seventeen. It's a table built by black women and for black women, and we are the midwives of culture for grace and truth and so we at Truce Table, we are unashamed about our faith convictions. Three Black Christian women who talk about race politics gender, current events from a Christian lens, but a theological lens, trying to give an analysis and make sense of what's going on in the world right. And so we've been doing that for six seasons now, six seasons already, we've been doing that, covering all types of topics, and so now we have expanded and now we have a book called Troops Table, Black Women's Musings on Life, Love and Liberation. And so we have taken our podcast into a book. And so this is really our culmination of our work as a trio, because myself and Christina will be moving forward as a duo and Michelle is going to continue her work there in St. Louis in activism and in ministry there. So we've been running together for all these years and now we're gonna continue to march on. But our book will be the culmination of our work as a trio. I love then. I'm very excited for people to dig into it, and I would love to hear about the different leans because I think that that is a part of what's so cool about Truth Table is that you all approach it in some similar ways, but you also have different trainings and backgrounds, right, so your psychologists, activism organizer. So tell me about how each of those leans blends together to come together for truth table, Dr Joey. In a lot of ways, that's just like what it means to be around the table with your girlfriends, right, And obviously you connect over a shared experience navigating this wild, sexist, racist world you're leaning in and you're you're sitting across from at brunch. You know women who are teachers and educators and doctors and stay at home moms, you know, the whole collection. So I think a lot of our friendship networks probably feel that way, that it's just a table of similarity as well as complexity where we can complement each other. So my background is in psychology focusing trauma therapy, but have been hired for over a decade around intercultural issues, diversity, equity, inclusion. And then you know, Michelle is an organizer as well as clergy person, really active in the Ferguson movement and the movement for black lives across the country. And obviously a Chimny is our public theologian and so really, I mean she really brings to their her theological training on everyday questions as well as political questions that we are all dealing with and kind of burdened by right now. So that's our academic book smart stuff. But I think we're knitted together by this kind of shared sense appreciation and love and delight in black women and black woman nous and a real friendship where we want to see each other shine and thrive and overcome and rest. So all those things I think are at the table. It really is interesting, I think, And I'm sure that you ran the sedition writing your book too, to be writing a book right now, right like with the background of the world looking like what it looks like, and so I'm curious to hear especially from you a chimity and thinking about it does feel like there are so many theological underpinnings to what we've been experiencing for the past couple of years, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on maybe like how you are making sense and how others can make sense of like everything that's happening in the world. Yes, Dr Joyd, there's really a lot going on right You're just sitting down trying to focus and write a book. It's like, oh my godness, right now in this time, like it's just too much going on. That's something that I've been wrestling with since the onset of the pandemic, right because I know a lot of people are trying to move into this normal and I'm like, yo, it's still happening, y'all. It's still happening. People are still dying, and so trying to really in the public square, I've been, you know, writing for like The Atlantic about the pandemic and trying to help people to come to like some radical acceptance about the reality about the pandemic. And I moved through the lament and move through the grief. Let's not deny it, let's not shove it, let's not suppress it, but let's deal with it head on. And by dealing with that, hopefully we can unleash our imaginations and begin to dream up a world that's better than the one that preceded the pandemic. And so I did about two different articles about that in The Atlantic. I felt like a voice shouting out in the wilderness. Okay, y'all, hope we're not going back to normal, and normal was problematic. Okay, we're still worn out because of the normally, but we're still persisting unfortunately trying to get back and all these bandates and everything being lifted, and so I try to make sense of that and try to help I guess you can say, hold people's hands through it, because this is just a lot that we're dealing with it. So I have a lot of empathy, and I know what it means to want to bury your head in the sand. I get it, I really do. But that's just not going to be the solution in the long run. If we want to get through this pandemic, we're gonna have to face the reality of the ways things have shifted, in the ways things have changed, and so I tried to make some sense of that and do try to help people begin to grieve the life that they once knew and then needing to pivot and what that means. And then even just the political landscape and how things have really changed significantly and the ways that fascism is just beginning to lay hold, and what do we do. How do we deal with competing truths, right, little t truths? And so that's my job. That's what I try to do on truths table, Yes, in the book as well, but also just in the public square and various mediums through writing and things like that. And Dr Edmonton, I mean, as a fellow psychologist, I know that you have also been just paying attention to everything that has been happening, And can you talk a little bit about how your work has changed during the pandemic and how that maybe shows up in the book. As you were talking, I was thinking, Dr Joy, I was like, the block is hot. The block is hot, I mean it is, it's over the top out here. You know, sometimes you just have to name a thing. And so Keimmedy had talked about a pandemic. But on top of the pandemic, we just have so much political unrested instability. We have an increase in hate crimes. We have global conflicts, wars, ones that we know about like in Ukraine, and ones that we don't we know less about, like in Ethiopia. So they're just layers upon layers, and we're living in a cultural trauma. So our brains are exhausted. And by our I mean mine, my brain is tired. So I'm like disclaimer everywhere I go, like, by the way, we've been through a lot. I've been through a lot. My brain is tired. And so I think in writing this book. I was bringing that brain to the table, right, because it's the serious cognitive exercise to have the energy and to connect the dots and the emotional pieces, the insecurity of your writing and should I share this or not share this? So it was so much that I was working through and processing through and in writing the chapters that I contributed for this book. And and one of the things that I had to think about and reckon with was really owning the parts of my story that are interconnected with other people's stories, and so how do you publicly share I mean, from a therapist standpoint, we're trained to respect and guard other people's stories, and when I'm writing, I'm thinking about, Okay, how do I share this story and at the same time respect the interconnected stories of the people that are also involved. Maybe I got issues with potentially, but I still have this, I think built into me, this sense of charge to make sure that everyone's story is respected and protected. So that was an extra layer, right, and contributing and writing for this book. Yeah, And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about like your decision making around that, because that has come up a little bit in my writing to not necessarily in sharing client stories, but just like in my personal stories. And you know that my book Sisterhood Heals is all about like relationships with other black women. And you're right, I do feel like some stuff has come up around like, oh, so this is my story, but it also intersects with this other sisters story and do I have to have a commerce asian with her before I shared this? So I love to hear maybe from both of you. I don't know if this came up for you also a kimmany how you have made decisions about that. Yeah, I mean I can give you a quick example. So in one of the chapters, there's one called I is Married. Now, it's about grown black women married to grown black man. IM have a background in family systems, but I don't write it. I give a disclaimer early on that I'm not writing this solely wearing my marriage and family therapy had I'm just writing this as somebody has been married for over twenty years to a black man, and and all that we have to work through and how to love each other and honor each other in a world that at times overtly hates black men, and obviously all the dynamics of misogynore, and so what does it mean to love each other and to honor and serve each other when we are spent and we may be trying to pull on each other for things that we're asking the other person to overcompensate for because of the world right, the system, the culture that we're a part of. But in that chapter, I actually talk a little bit about my dad, and I tell a story about my dad and I. We usually did all the grocery shopping in the house when I was a kid, and so one of our favorite things to do was put the food away and plan out the meal and chuck it up and laugh. And I remember my dad saying to me, and I talked about this in the book, I don't know if you're ever gonna get married. And he said that to me almost like an epiphany. It was a way of saying, like, you're an assertive woman, and there's some truth in what he was saying, although it was still hard hitting and obviously really complex to right. But I had to think about whether or not I wanted to share that story because I adore my dad, but I also knew that in sharing that story it would cause people to think about their own fathers, their own relationship to being fathered, whatever that looks like. And it would also maybe overly paint his personality based on that story, which is what happens, right, If you only know somebody by one tweet or one paragraph, that's all you know about them. And so I adore my dad, so I thought the story was relevant. I still placed it in there, and I'm hoping that people get the sense that we're more than one paragraph or one tweet. But I did share with him a little bit about it. He chuckled, and from that it actually helped me quite a bit to be prepared for the really sexist world. I think he was giving me a piece of wisdom about people are going to expect for you to be a certain way. I see that you are not that way. You are more assertive, and there are gonna be some men who aren't gonna like that. And he was right, He was right about that. But I also wanted to make sure that I presented him in a way that honored that he's more than just that statement in the kitchen, right, What about for you, Kim, we need Did that come up for you at all? In writing? Yeah? It did, actually in a couple of chapters. The first chapter, The Audacious Perseverance of Colorism, the chapter that I wrote, and in it, I do share about my own experience with colorism and really despising my complexion as a dark skinned woman and how that manifested in me skin bleaching, and so in there, I talked about how there was skin bleaching in my home, that the product was actually in my home, and being first generation Nigerian American, it's not uncommon in for skin bleaching products to be in the household, and so just talking about the fact that, oh, my mom had this product, how do you share that? I wanted to talk about the fact that none of my family ever remarked about my skin tone. They never made any type of colorist remarks or anything like that, and never encouraged it, never encouraged it. I don't even know that she was privy to it, honestly, until my skin started to change. Maybe later on, but honestly, I don't even know that she is aware that that was happening. It was happening more so under the cover of darkness. No pun intended on that, But I wanted to be able to share it in a way where it doesn't impute her. But this product wasn't the house, and so I had easy access to it, and so so it was. It was a delicate dance, you know. And even now, you know, if I'm honest, I actually haven't told her that that story sitting there because I was like, but maybe I shouldn't go tell mamma. But you know, it's just hard, it's just tough. I can't, I can't deny it. But then I also had a situation where I experienced spiritual abuse in a previous church of mine, and I talked about that in the Colonized Discipleship chapter and I probably would have been well within my right to name the pastor, But for me, I just don't know that that was gonna be beneficial at all. In some ways, I don't know that that aids the healing process my my naming. I can name what happened. I think you need to in order to do that, and I think there's power in naming that and reclaiming that story. But I did not name the person that was responsible for causing harm to me in that particular church. And I did that in some ways because you want to leave room even for people that have harmed you. You You want to leave room for people to grow beyond what they have done. Right, if we think about Brian Stevenson who talks about we are more than the worst thing we have done. So I'm trying to leave room for grace, you know, if that makes sense in that even in that tent, there the real tension there. But I decided not to name that person because I just think it would have been a distraction and then it would have been a weird like controversy and potential controversy. So I was like, nah, but I can name what happened, and I didn't do that because it's my narrative what happened to me. So listening to you both talk and you know, being familiar with the podcast, like there are so many different things that y'all delve into into the podcast. So the book is organized as a series of essays, and it sounds like each of you kind of were responsible for writing several different ones. How did you decide which topics you were going to tackle and what made you decide to do it as an essay format. That's a really good question, and in some ways at the beginning it wasn't quite that organized. It wasn't like, let's sit down at our virtual table because we couldn't be in person right and to really like plot it out. I think in some ways it was you know, what do you have in your cabinets? Like what's in your pantry? Like what do you want to contribute? Because we wanted to create something that felt like there was a degree of ease. Now with that being said, these are weighty topics, and we do you share stories that are connected to our own growth and our own pain and stumbles and all those things, right, But we wanted it to flow out of things that are already in our wheelhouse that we already talked about. And then over time, as we begin to shape it more, it became clear like, oh, there are like three buckets. There's life, there's love, and there's liberation. And thus that helped us to kind of really be able to create the title, right, Truth Table Black Women's Musings on Life, Love and Liberation. And I've said, since we've sent in the last manuscript and you know, things printed now, it's beautiful, it's out there. But I've often talked to a chimney about, you know, I've got like ten other topics that we could have talked about, especially under the life section and even the love section, and certainly liberation as well, but especially that life section. And so there's a part of me that's already thinking about a truth table. Black women's musing two point oh with our words but also an invitation for the words of of other black women to fill those pages. And in this book, you know, you'll see at the very end there's a set of blank pages that says my musings. Because our hope is that after you hear our stories, our stories are really a catalyst for your story, and your story has deep, deep value, and we want you to know that, and we want you to contribute and maybe you'll fill it out and maybe you'll share it with your girlfriends. That anything to end there for Yeah, no, I think, as we say on the show, see cover that. But yeah, honestly, things that truth taper are much more organic than people probably realize. You know, it was really like, Okay, here's the proposal, y'all. Y'all type in your chapters, in your submarines. Honestly, we're just trusting each other to move in our wheelhouses, and that's really what it is. We don't have time to mac or manage anybody, and we're like, all right, if that's what you're feeling in your heart, and if that's what you're on in your mind, saying with your chest, and put it out there. And that's what we did it and it has come together. I mean, for for three different people from three different social locations, with three different writing style to be able to put together a book and then have it harmonized in a way where it's it feels cohesive. That's not an easy thing to do. And so I'm really happy with the way the book has turned out and what we've been hearing so far already from people about how it's stirring some stuff and it's making them go into the deep recesses of their hearts and their minds, some things that put away that they didn't really want to deal with or they didn't even realize they repressed. And so that's why that musing page at the end or pages at the end, it's really really key. I think, Yeah, I love that y'all included that. And you've already kind of alluded to this committee. What is your vision for how you want your reader to engage with the book? I see, you know, sisters at the table, and the brothers in the standing room section, you know, and our non binary listeners to in the standing room section. I see them picking up this book. I see the marking, the margins. I don't know that you'll be able to not help to do that because there's some stuff and then you're black, Oh my goodness, like I was dealing with this, but my stuff wasn't that deep, or oh my, what's what's deeper? So there's some piercing questions in there, there's some interventions, and there's some diagnosis that we've given there that some people are not gonna be ready to confess out loud. You know, this is for you and your God, you to go in your closet and go and write, you know. So I could just see people just filling up that musing stage and then hopefully getting the journal and continuing that work, and then just sitting around the brunt table and musing together about this book. I can really see that because I think the topics that we're talking about they're relevant to a lot of people in different social locations and in different places. You know, when you're talking about something like colorism, that's a shameful thing for us in our community, you know, and it's a scolge within our community. That conversation comes up often, right, But it's not something that we are like eager oftentimes to get into because there's a lot of pain and trauma that lives there. So we hope that it helps people to enter into their own narrative and see that it's just as valuable as our own just because we got a book, don't me and ours is more important than your story? Right, more from our conversation after the break, And I'm wondering if given me, if you can also staying with the topic that the chapter that you wrote about colorism, that conversation, like you said, is a difficult one I think for sisters to have, I think with the black community as a whole. But it does feel like when you enter that conversation, it's just very difficult for people because we know that colorism has like a specific definition, right, it refers to how darker skinned individuals are treated unfairly because of their skin tone. But then undoubtedly there is a counter narrative around ladder skin sisters who come in to talk about the pain that they've experienced also related to their skin color and it feels like it's very difficult to kind of have that conversation without somebody's pain feeling invalidated. I would love for you to be able to maybe talk about as people prepare to read this chapter, like what kinds of things can they keep in mind to kind of ground that conversation. I'm so glad you asked that this conversation it can be so delicate, and you've really got to thread the needle very precisely, you know, on this topic. So in that chapter, the audacious perseverance of colorism in there, even though I am a dark skinned woman and who walks through the world as a dark skinned black woman here in America, I do give a disclaimer in this book that this is not about dark skinned versus light skin. I really wanted to be very clear about that and make a reference to school days, if you know, you know, you know, in that book, and I talk about the ways that are light skinned sisters also experience and have been harmed by colorism too, and the ways that we think about slavery, and the ways that we have false narratives about the work that light skin enslaved people experience in comparison to dark skin enslave people and so that to me, I really had to dispel those myths. That was really really important for me to do that and to really make sure that, hey, this is not some sort of oppression Olympics, y'all. But the facts really are the facts. Though there's quantitative data here that talks about the ways that the marriage ability rates are much lower for dark skinned women, that talks about our income levels being much lower for dark skinned women, and so that was important for me to lay that out. But doing that in a way that does not diminish um the experience of colorism. I want to say in February, if you remember the drama that happened with Danny Way Newton and you know, talking about you know, the roles and some privileges that she has had and talking about her mother and I had this OpEd I would isn't able to land it or to get it placed anywhere. But just talking about like, we can acknowledge that light skinned women also do experience colorism, not exactly in the same ways, but they do experience that. And by saying that that doesn't diminish our experience, that doesn't negate the quantitative data that shows that we are discriminated in much significant and greater ways. But I think we have to have room to be able to say that, you know, without harming one another with our words and our approach. But I think we have to be able to enter in and really begin to prepare our hearts and minds before we enter into the conversation, because our trauma really jumps out. When we have that trauma, we resort to black and white thinking and we just cannot do the nuance that's necessary in order to enter into such a very delicate and difficult and sensitive conversation like colorism and Dr Evans and you know in the chap that did you refer to earlier as married now you talk about the importance of both single and partners, sisters and brothers to make sure that they're always doing the work. Can you say a little bit more about what that work is? Well, A lot of the work is largely work with ourselves, right because marriage within like our Western context, is it's many things. And one of the things that it also is it's a business. You know, there's a lot of commercialism and performativeness about what marriage is supposed to be. And al confess I for one love a great Black Love Instagram post, the endorphans get to move and when you see that, right, But with that being said, it can cause us to think that marriage and of itself is going to be a magic wand it's going to meet these deeper needs within ourselves that the other person cannot possibly fulfill. And so I think one of the most loving things that we can do for ourselves and for others is to think about what each other's responsibility is, so our wholeness belongs to us and not to our partner, not to our mate, and being able to be honest about that I think allows people to have less insecurity as they move throughout their marriage to one They don't end up putting themselves on a pedestal that I am the end all be all to to who you are, I provide you with meaning. It is a really unhealthy, narcissistic way of showing up within a marriage, but it also frees people up to be able to bring their insecurities and limitations in a vulnerable way to their partner, because ultimately, I think that's what most married couples are going for. They want a safe place to fall because life is hard and so the idea of having someone that you can be truly naked with and by that not just physically, but like in the sense of rawness, realness, brokenness, and that's not used against you, that's not shamed away. Within our faith convictions, it's one of the first things that happens for that in the Genesis narrative that Christians hold to is that when the fall takes place, when sin happens, people come for themselves up. And so the invitation into new relationship is one in which you do not have to cover yourself up. You are free without shame, and so that requires being whole within yourself and some of that doing the work is right, taking care of your mind, your body, and your spirit like it's your business, and the other person offering that up as well. And I would say in really really practical ways it would be different for each person. But to really sit down and think about what is my plan? And many people have tried to start these at the beginning of a year, and like myself, you fall off the wagon a little bit, but you can get back on. But what is my plan from my own wholeness, my own happiness, so that I am not putting that burden on my spouse, but I'm free to love them. I can also imagine, you know, just again being familiar with the podcast in the book, now that this being a tool that like sisters can also use in therapy. Right, And so I wonder if any of that came to you or came in mind for you, Dr. Elemonson, as you were writing about how someone might use the work and then talk with the therapist about it, or might even spark an interest in talking with the therapist about some of the things that come up. I have a chapter on forgiveness which I thought long and hard about do I want to contribute a chapter on forgiveness in this Why? Why? Why did it take so long? Why was it to kind? So it's so it's kind of like preachers, right, if we're writing a sermon, you know that like that's gonna be what you're weak is going to be full of. So I knew that I had to take stock of issues of bitterness and entitled unforgiveness in my life. In that chapter, I talk a fair amount about both justice and forgiveness and how those things don't have to be in contradiction to each other. And I think that's really important for black women to be able to hold both of those things together, not only experiencing you know, personal slights or personal harms, but experiencing systemic harms as black women. And so, yeah, it was just important for me to push through that chapter. And I there's a part there where I say it is better to have my abuser in the hands of God than in my mind, and to think about that at least, and now obviously that's easier said than done, but to think about that in terms of our own kind of imagination and imagination of Nope, I'm gonna put you in a box, and I'm putting you over here, right, which is a visualization work, right, So it offers people the opportunity to do that. There's some mindfulness pieces that are in that chapter as well, But yeah, I am hoping that people will allow it to knock on some doors that have been sealed shut and give them the strength to peek inside and to reopen up those memories and to approach them anew. Right. And that's where we can find some healing, is that we can open those doors up again and process them anew. I think the book offers people the opportunity to have some conversations about some things that have been locked behind doors. The last thing I would say is there's a theme in there about how do we respond to church hurt and spiritual abuse, and there's lots of ways, and me and Chimney talked about the importance of sharing that story. You know, she used her own kind of discernment and discretion about all the details that she might share out about her experience with spiritual abuse in the church. But one of the things that I know in one of the chapters I have on disciplining the church is one of the things that when we've been harmed, it's so easy for us to lose our sense of agency because that trauma, that shame can make us so small. But a part of our healing could be to remember, actually, you know what, we're a little bigger than we remembered, right, and being equipped with pieces of agency. And so that chapter lists some questions that we can ask of our faith communities to make sure that they are safe and ready for us. And so I think that is a part of what we learn also in counseling, right, is as we experience healing and processing, we also get equipped with the skills to now be able to test the circumstances that we're a part of. Thank you for that. One of the things I love most about Truth Table is that it does feel like it allows sisters because we know, like religion and spirituality is typically very important for a lot of black women, right, But I think we also have to acknowledge, and you all do a beautiful job of acknowledging how religion and spirituality has also kept black women small in a lot of ways. And so I would love to hear about how you have dealt with any criticism related to the Only way I can describe it is maybe like an old school kind of approach to like spirituality versus what you all described as like liberation, right, and how you can stay connected to spirituality but also be all of who you are. And so can you talk a little bit about the criticism and how that shows up in the book? Yeah, Oh my goodness, that's a great question. To do this work, it really takes a lot of faith, I'm telling you, and not that that's in me, but it's really God like holding me because in a lot of ways, I'm like, is this the life that you designed from me? Lord? Like this is not what I had in mind left up to me be married with kids in the suburb, being a soccer mom. For real, that was my dream for my life. I realized that might be a basic dream for some other sisters, but that was not a basic dream that was like Pine the Sky dream from me, because I did come up in the school of the hard knocks. When I came to faith, I just had to have a very low opinion or a low value for what people actually think about me. And I know that sounds terrible or odd or weird, but I just really had to really really care primarily about what God has to say about my life and what God is calling me to do. And that caused some very very tough decisions and sacrifices that I'm still living with to this day, to be quite honest, And it's not exactly the typical path to go into seminary as a black woman. It's not typical. There are plenty of women that have, but that's not necessarily typical. And then to go into seminary and not to be a pastor right and not to be feeling like you were called to preaching. So it's like, very early on I had to make a decision like, Okay, I cannot worry about what the crowd is saying. I really have to care about the one person that's necessary, which is God. And so I have definitely dealt with a whole lot of criticism, particularly early on with the last election cycle. You have racists and sexists, I would say, popping off at the mouth about telling me what I can do and can't do. And because I'm black and woman, and because I didn't really have any models for like who do like public theology that looked like me? So what do you do? Like? You really do have to be dependent on God? And so for me, I just those criticisms I learned very on. I just had to just pay them no mind, truthfully. And I wish I could give people a step by step on how to do that. I don't know what it is about my makeup to where I can just be like, Okay, I really don't care what you gotta say. I know that's not easy for other people, but for me, I just don't really have a very I don't put too much stock in what people have to say about me, as long as what I'm doing is being respectful and being honorable to other people, right, But as long as I'm also honoring God in the process. In this book, I felt very free you to write about what I wanted to write. And even though there were hard subjects and difficult for me to enter into just because of pain attached to it and histories and things like that, I didn't feel any barriers or fear from, say, like critics. I just was like, these are things I want to write about and y'all will deal. So so I think that shows up pretty much in most of the chapters. I'd say, more from our conversation after the break, and how do you both think that you have been changed by writing the book? And also how has your relationship with each other changed writing the book. Yeah, that's a great question. I was writing this book, editing it during periods of time. You know, obviously COVID is happening, but I've had COVID twice. So please wear your mask, and I am a mask wear by the way, but I throw it out there to say that, dr do you will understand it's been trained to be a listener, who has been trained to connect the dots. You know, it's a real high value on one's intellectual ability for the purpose of compassion. But most psychologists have a high value on intellectual ability for the purpose of compaction, so emotional intelligence, all that stuff. And so it was humbling to have really significant brain fatigue when writing, when editing, when having to really think deeply about difficult and emotional and complex topics. And I think the freedom I got in that was a reminder that I am more than my intellect, which is actually a gift, a gift like we are more than even what we're known for, and that we have an intrinsic value that goes beyond whether we've been known as being smart or attractive or social or whatever it might be. That even our so called strength, we are more than our strength, so we don't have to fear losing it or for it being out of commission for a while. So a person a level, that is something that I took away from a lot of things that I've had to engage in, but certainly book writing over the last couple of years, is having to tap into a part of myself that's beyond just my intellectual ability to connect dots, and that there's a value in that as well. And so that was a gift to me that was a hard earned, dramatic gift, but a gift nonetheless to me. And I learned a lot about the sisters at the table, right, so I learned a lot about both the Chimny and Michelle, the other co host whose writing is in this book. Because you know, you think you know your people. This is the same thing with family, Like you think you know people and then you every once in a while you are surprised by their stories and or your surprised not only by the story, but maybe you weren't aware of some of the emotions or the hurt or what they were thinking at that moment, even as you were walking kind of a parallel process with them. I think I know both the Kimney Michelle really well, but I'm like, oh, we are more complex than our friends sometimes. Now, what about for you? I feel like I got to see, you know a little bit more are about Michelle and Christina things that I maybe have known in passing. But I really got to get a more intimate view, which was revealing a little surprising because some of the topics in the book we've actually discussed on the show. But there's something way different between talking on the show for an hour. Max at least for truth table to writing a book. Chapters upon chapters upon chapters, you're talking maybe over fifty pages each. You know, if you combine our chapters together, we each route four. And so I just got to see more layers and more dimensions to them both, not to say that I saw them as one dimensional people, but it just was like wow, like you get to learn so much more, just even about birth stories, origin stories, you know, like Michelle does a beautiful job of writing her origin story. I think it's in the Protests as Spiritual Practice chapter. It was just a very revealing and poetic and just really beautiful. And then just Christina with Forgiveness, which is a very difficult chapter. That one was like a who, God, I gotta read about forgiveness. Okay, forgiveness. Somebody got somebody that they gotta forgive or they need forgiveness giving to them, right, and just seeing just even her own heart for that, and then reading about you know, her experience as a married woman who's been married for over twenty years, and and just how they came together at their HBCU and anyway, I've just learned so much about them. And then for myself even in this process of writing, I've been able to observe my own growth, particularly with my own self image and embracing my self image. I'm very honest in this book, more honest than I wanted to be. If I'm honest, I've told way more than I wanted to tell. But just talking about how I really struggle with my self image and loving myself well into my twenties, and it was really really a struggle, and especially somebody who grew up in California as a dark skin black woman, and and just seeing my own growth and like really loving who I see in the mirror and in appreciating God's creativity. You know, that's something I just couldn't have said about ten fifteen years ago. And that's not a small thing. Even with my own chapter with the Hidden in Plain Sight, a single Black Woman's Manifesto, and it is a manifesto, y'all. It is the longest chapter in the book. But even in that chapter, just coming to a place where I'm like, well, I'm still single, and I'm a lifelong single, So talking about how I've never been in a relationship and just even in that seeing the growth and just like there's no bitterness there, but there is a righteous anger right because I make the argument about how like, no, this is like these things have been designed systematically to preclude or exclude, I should said, black women from marriage in the ways that they're on their parts are able to get married, and more so if you're a dark skin um black woman. But even just seeing where I've come to, like a level of acceptance, you know, I'm content, yet dissatisfied, still praying, still asking the Lord to move in that way. But if God does, and it's like, okay, marriage is not life and death is it's not food and water. I will not die without it. I might feel like that, but without it. And so just coming to it like an acceptance. And I can say that as somebody who's knocking on forties door a year old a chamity would be like, oh no, uh that can't be that like this just no, this is not my portion, and so I look, no, Sis, well currently that's where you are. Still, Let's accept it. Let's continue to move on and do all the wonderful things that you have to do and offer, you know, to this world. Yeah, so nca emmonson, what do you feel like you are most proud of? About the book in this entire process. Oh wow, that's a good question. I am proud of many things, but yeah, you said, what's the thing. So I think whenever we have an opportunity to see a group of black women working together to achieve a goal, fanning each other's flame, cheering each other on, excited for each other's success, and just putting their brain power, their prayers together for each other, I think that's a win. And it pushes back on these lies, right that we cannot get along, that we cannot work together, that everything is a competition, right, And so this is probably one of the least competitive projects that I've participated in. It's like what you got, what you bring into the table, okay. And it reminds me of being, you know, an undergrad and you know when we were like flat outbroke, and I would call up my sorority sisters and I was like, okay, well how much money you got we can can we get to Walmart? And that was gonna be like spaghetti dinner night. Okay. So we were all putting together our pennies. Somebody had enough gas money to go to Walmart and then we made a meal and we all ate in a lot of ways. I feel like I'm always enliven when I see us able to do that. So, you know, twenty plus years later, I'm like, what you got? What's the best you have? And we have more to contribute now, right, we have more than like you know, the one dollar turkey role from Walmart? Right, but we now have you know, our academic backgrounds, our stories, our tears, our prayers, are wins, our losses. The things were still waiting on, but we were able to put that together. And I'm really proud to show that that black women can work together and create something as we have done for generations. And so that is probably the proudest point. What about Yes, you know, I would say ditto to all of that. So there's a lot of books coming out, you know this, Dr Joy. Honestly, I think the people can be overwhelmed. If I'm honest, I can say this as a as an author. Now, I think that you know, the flood of books coming out, I think it's a good thing. But I think there are a lot, right, I think sometimes people can hit the fatigue. So I think what I am proud about with this book, I'm proud of a lot of things. But I think I'm proud that Truth Table. I think we're doing something different, right. I think that when you think about church women, which is where we are, right, when you think about faith, you know, in religion, I think sometimes people tend to think there won't be any depth. I think that sometimes people think it will be something. I think they have like a caricature sometimes in their mind of what to expect, or that it is just gonna be, you know, some little surface level Bible study or something. But I think Truth Table is doing something categorically different, particularly with the topics that we're talking about. The things that are on the table, like divorce, something we've not actually talked about on the show, but it's discussed at length in this book Colors, and we've talked about on the show, but not at the same level of depth that's in this book with like our actual narratives inserted in their singleness. Yeah, we've talked about it, but we haven't talked about it in this way, you know, and to the degrees that we're talking about it, talking about disciplining the church, what does it look like to hold the church accountable? And as people who who the church? But we're like okay, but we can rightly see it like no, we got our own here, and this is where we need to course correct. I mean, where else do you get to see all of those things come together? And then just talking about under this thread of Pan Africanism, I would say even just that the unity of blackness within the diversity of blackness, I think it's something very different that you're getting there. So I'm proud of the ways that we've been able to move in from different discipline psychology, history, sociology, theology, pop culture. There's a lot of pop culture in their musical references, because music is really important to Truth Table. As you know our theme song, you know, it's like originally created for a truth Table. And so I think there's something really really rich going on here with Truths Table, and something that I think I hope people will be able to go back to and be like, oh my goodness, like I need to go back there, I need to mark, I need to hopefully cite, I need to you know, wrestle with this more because hopefully they feel like they're to really really rich offering I hope in this book. So one final question, and this is for my own writing journey. What advice would you give to me and other authors who are kind of embarking on this writing journey. What what words of wisdom would you import for us? I would say slow and steady wins the race. And so just every day you're just putting words on the page and not psyching yourself out. I mean, you'll learn a lot about to what degree you are a perfectionist right in a writing process. But the discipline of saying I've got two hundred words that have to be written today, or I've got four hundreds that have to be whatever that number is. And then I would also say, understand your body and how your brain works so that you can create reasonable expectations. So you know, you got your power snacks or whatever the time of the day needs to be. But you want to shape your world a little bit to the extent you can around supporting your writing goals so that it's not you know, there's so many things that they particularly black women, we are stretched so thin. But this is one of the things where you want to sit down and take a breath and say, Okay, how do I for the next month, try to make my schedule respect what I need to get done, and I think we have to give ourselves permission to say and I need my schedule to respect my goals. Anything you did, Yeah, well, I would say it takes a village to write a book. We talked about the solitude that's required and how lonely it is to be a writer because it's you and that whatever your devices, if it's voice notes, or you in the laptop or you in a notebook, whatever your medium of writing is or your preferences on that, you need support. I needed support because because I'm also a caregiver and so I was, you know, stretched, you know, really at capacity when it was time for us to write the book and we didn't have quite as much time as I thought we were going to have, and I was like, my goodness, I was like, I cannot get this done if I don't have that. I'm grateful for my mom who was able to come into town at the perfect time so that I can get some relief on the caregiving side so that I could sit down and write. And then as a writer, I do have some perfectionistic tendencies. And this is also where my village comes in with Michelle and Christina, who were telling me just get out of your head, just put it down, like what you're feeling, just write it, you know. I was just telling him, I was like, I'm struggling to write this chapter. And they were like, what right that I am struggling this because and name why and that is what. That is what I actually did. And so for that one and probably the colorism one, where I was like, these are the reasons why it's hard for me. I feel some trepredation around these issues, and so it forced me to really write in a way that it's not quite as academic as I typically right, but in a way that's more personable. So yeah, I would say, bring yourself to the table, bring yourself to the writing space, your full self, whatever you're feeling, just go ahead and write it. But also recognize that it takes a village, you know, so set yourself up, you know, delegate, bringing the friends who can help support, family, your partner, whoever you need to help to support and lift some loads off so that you can have the capacity and freedom to write. That would be my advice. I love that. Thank you all so much for sharing. So tell us where can we buy our copy of Truth Table and where can we stay connected with both you and the book and you know kind of stay abreast of any new information y'all will be sharing. Well, thank you for having us, Dr Joy. Y'all can buy Truth Table, Black Women's Musings on life, Love and Liberation. We hope y'all love the cover. We hope you love. You can buy it wherever books are sold, and you can pre order the book online. You can go Amazon, Bookshop, Target, Walmart, Barnes and Nobles, or you can go to your local bookstore and go and purchase the book. And then you can follow Troops Table at on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at truth Table myself. You can follow me at syste Theology on Twitter and on Instagram and on Facebook. Yeah, I did as to all that stuff. Wherever books are sold, you know, you can get this book. And yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Dr c Edmondson and Instagram as well. And we do have a Black Woman's Discipleship group, So for any listeners who identify as Christian or sort of kind of Christian, they're like, what's up with these people? We welcome you into that Black Woman's Facebook Discipleship group and where we have speakers come in vertus all virtual Facebook stuff, and we got pop culture topics that we picked up. You know, we had a we had a fascinating time talking about Will Smith and Chris Rock recently. So that was that got everybody's attention, right. So, but you don't get those conversations, that's very very in group. You don't get those conversations unless you're inside that Black Woman's Truth Table Facebook discipleship group. So we welcome you the black women who would be interested in that perfect Well, it has been such a pleasure to hear more about the book. I'm so excited for you both, and I hope that our community will support you all and grab a copy and continue these very important conversations. And so thank you both for being here. Thank you, Dr Joy, Thank you for your endorsement of the book to us. Thank you, of course, thanks so much, Dr Joy, You're welcome. A huge thank you to Dr Edmondson in a chimmittee for joining me today. Be sure to grab your copy of Truth Table at your local bookstore and text this episode to two of your girls right now so they can check it out as well. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, be sure to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com Sash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet design just for black women. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by Freda Lucas and Alice Ellis and editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much again for joining me for this special bonus episode. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take it here. What M

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The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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