[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to another episode of the Girl's Stop Plan podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your favorite home girl choreo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here to encourage you to stop playing with your potential and start working for what you want in life and in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: You already know that I'm bringing you the information and the conversations.
[SPEAKER_00]: to help you make the money and get the honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have it all as long as you are willing to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And baby, last episode was like the episode heard around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you have a messy or no, but that episode about me breaking my silence with being betrayed by someone who I thought was a friend really got tons of not just downloads but so many people have reached out to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both like personal friends as well as just like
[SPEAKER_00]: internet friends with lots of kind words, lots of questions and lots of confirmation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I got so many stories from people who have found themselves in similar situations, who have been silencing themselves, who have felt like, you know, this isn't good for my brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I talk about it, but it's eating me up inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of these things that really, again, was confirmation that I needed to clear the way
[SPEAKER_00]: having the conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if y'all don't know about like illness and disease and how that works, a lot of the things that people are suffering with, especially women, comes from us holding on to emotions, especially anger, where we're so upset about something that may have happened years ago, maybe even from your childhood, that you are just suppressing,
[SPEAKER_00]: but your body still feels it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, a lot of times it manifests into different illnesses and into different just ailments and diseases and baby, that's not going to be my story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, there is no way that I'm about to allow something to literally eat me alive because I'm not willing to speak on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: to everyone who has, you know, reached out, sent me messages, shared kind words, shared their own stories, but I had a conversation with my girl Nicole, just a couple of days ago actually and every time I talk to her, she gives me the best advice that's wrapped up with Bible
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just everything that I always need in the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always feel like, man, God sent this girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: God sent this girl right over here to tell me exactly what I needed because I needed that good word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was so good after she listened to the episode that I wanted to share it with you all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've kind of been taking some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been maybe a week and a half since I released that episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've just been kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: decompressing and processing my feelings and my thoughts after hitting publish because to be quite honest that was one of my most vulnerable episodes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now y'all know I've been on this podcast crying and doing a whole bunch of stuff that I've never planned on doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But tell it my business in that way with something that was truly one of the hardest things that I've had to deal with
[SPEAKER_00]: put myself out there and so I had to take a little bit of time to just work through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But after having this conversation with Nicole, I said, okay, I got to talk about this on the pod because it's going to free somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the title of this episode, if you haven't seen it, is girl F, him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the F is not the F that you probably thought it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: The F is forgive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what Nicole said to me, because she has dealt with something similar and I think a couple of situations, anybody in business, I guess, has probably dealt with some type of betrayal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's just, you know, a little more hurtful when it's someone who you thought had your back or someone who you thought was, you were truly building a genuine friendship with outside of just, you know, the fake.
[SPEAKER_00]: entrepreneurship that you know a lot of times we do especially here in Atlanta, but she said one of the things that she had to realize coming through a situation similar to mine is that forgiveness is not an emotion, it's a decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when she said that it kind of stopped me in my tracks because I understand you know we hear all the time for giving the same for them is for you like I get that
[SPEAKER_00]: but I was still pissed off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was still, if you say David Shans, I must still be looking sideways.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still rolling my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when she said that, I was like, well, that's a different take because for the life of me, that my emotion had still been not FM with the other F, like you play with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who you thought was playing with and there was a lot of anger wrapped up in it and I could not.
[SPEAKER_00]: understand how I could suppress that anger to get through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when she said it's a decision, that flipped a switch for me, that made me realize that it's not about how I feel like me getting over the hurts.
[SPEAKER_00]: me getting, you know, changing my feeling toward the situation because how could I ever change the feelings that I have for somebody playing in my face for several years?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I couldn't, couldn't wrap my mind around that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when she said it's a decision, I'm like, okay, that's a different way of looking at it because that means I can literally just choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's literally just a choice for me to say I'm no longer going to allow you
[SPEAKER_00]: And so every day, I have to decide that I forgiven him and me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta forgive myself for the lack of discernment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who feels like I have discernment, you know, as still I let this person creep up on me, get close to me, learn things about me, share things, all of these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to forgive myself for missing the red flags, thinking I had a real friend and then blaming myself for being foolish.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing that I also got in processing all of this, I got so many people, like, in alarming number of people who reached out to me and were like, girl, I know he was no good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I met him at this thing, I saw him at this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He played, you know, he played me at this thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been doing this, I think I told y'all this last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been doing this in high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: That really helped me to understand that this is who he is and it really had nothing to do with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: a relief because for a long time, I was just going back and forth with myself, like, why would he do me like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, here I was thinking I was a great friend to him, what did I do to him to cause him to do this to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so even me sharing what happened and then getting that feedback from other people who have experienced this same version of him helped me to forgive myself for feeling like it was my fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, no, this is just who he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just happened to be the next person he did this to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so forgiving myself was a big part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think talking about it and not being afraid to talk about it was also a sign of my evolution and my growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the Libra and me is super non-confrontational.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't want to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to argue.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do whatever you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just go figure out on my own how I'm going to deal with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: get loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to get in your face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And me thinking that that made me the bigger person was actually called in me back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so forgiving myself is something that I have to continue to do every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of that forgiveness is just understanding that I have to have boundaries and stand on business behind those boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and so I'll never truly understand it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, if it's like you're trying to figure out the reasoning of or the mind of like a mentally ill person, like if you're not mentally ill, you're probably not going to be able to relate.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're probably not going to be able to understand why they do the things they do, what's going on in their head because you truly can't relate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so not even wasting time and energy and putting any thought into the why,
[SPEAKER_00]: but just figuring out the what, which is what do I do from here?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I need to ensure?
[SPEAKER_00]: What boundaries do I need to put in place to ensure that I don't allow this to happen again?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then stop allowing the situation to replay on repeat in my head so that I can truly create space for what's next because I think another part of what was so frustrating,
[SPEAKER_00]: is that I felt like, okay, guy, why am I stuck here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I stuck trying to figure this thing out instead of moving forward into whatever is next?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that I really needed to relieve myself by releasing the truth, to truly create space.
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly can say that, and this is nobody's fault, but my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly can say that I let this situation paralyze me when it came to business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know if y'all have noticed the people who have been wracking with me for years, I've kind of been laying low for the last two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I haven't been doing much when it comes to business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've, you know, told some of my business besties and some of my people who I know I can trust, just about the fact that I have had started to feel like, maybe entrepreneurship wasn't for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, maybe I'm just not cut out for this cutthroat world of entrepreneurship where I'm out here, really trying to be a good person in the midst of the scammers and the fakers and the people who are willing to do anything for a dollar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that is not me, it never will be me and I don't care what I go through or what I lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not willing to lose my morals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not willing to do to trade my morals for some money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm just never going to be willing to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
[SPEAKER_00]: When this happened, I started to feel like, okay, maybe entrepreneurship is not for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe God is just trying to get me to go in another direction, but in reality, what I've realized is I need boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also need to stop accepting this theory that I'm non-confrontational, because what that means and what that has resulted in is me letting these little subtle
[SPEAKER_00]: disrespectful thing slide to where I'm just like, okay, not anything what they made, that's not what I really saw, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what really just happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would just move on to the next and y'all, if I could do a series on bad business situations where I've hired people to work in my companies and they've tried to like overthrow the business where I've, you know, had whole teams of people that I've had to let go of because they were gathering
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, trying to, I mean, it's just, this is not the first time that this, something like this has happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just the first time that it was someone who I thought was a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other situations were just people who I've hired.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the fact that things like this have happened so many times, I know that there's a big lesson that I had not learned and hopefully I've learned it now, but I think the
[SPEAKER_00]: biggest lesson.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least one of the biggest lessons is how I handle these things by being assertive upfront so that I don't have to get aggressive on the back end because I am definitely as non-confrontational as I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am still human and I can only take so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what has ended up happening is like I let people push and push and play and play and play and I don't
[SPEAKER_00]: I overlook it, I just make sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, but it gets to a certain point where I got to come out swinging, where you've backed me into a corner, and now I got to come out guns ablaze, and now I look crazy, because this little, the seemingly little thing has like pushed me over the edge, because it's been the 20th thing that I've
[SPEAKER_00]: is the solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Standing up for myself is the solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not letting this respect slide.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am just here to encourage anyone that has been dealing with the situation similar to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: How freeing it is when you can first forgive yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever that looks like, you might not need to go write a podcast or create a social media post.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might just do a little dear diary and pour your heart out to yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: But however you can free yourself from those intrusive thoughts, however you can free yourself from the judgment, because most of the time we are judging ourselves in these situations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you are the judge and the jury for yourself, it never ends, because we're always with ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just feel so free, just from speaking up, just from sharing, just from being heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And moving forward, I will not sweep things under the rug or pretend like I don't notice people trying to play with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm no longer going to avoid conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: I might go, okay, cause I am a working progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like, I feel like me acknowledging this,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just gonna give God the green light to put me in another situation to see, okay, girl, are you serious?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you really not gonna let people play with you because I also feel like a part of why I haven't gotten the download from God for whatever is next is because I have to prove that I can be trusted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to prove that whatever new idea or next best thing got has for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to prove that I can be trusted with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to prove that I'm not going to share it with the wrong people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to prove that I'm going to stand up and defend it and defend myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to prove that I'm not going to give it away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to prove that I'm willing to let go of the people and the situations that no longer serves me so that I can create space for the new me.
[SPEAKER_00]: is me proving myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And y'all know, well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what type of relationship you have with God, but the God, I serve, he really out here testing me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm one of his strongest soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, prayerfully, when I'm faced with a similar situation, I will find the strength and the courage to be assertive, to speak up for myself in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: No longer of wedding conflict, not feeling like, if I say something, I'm the bad guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: being the bad guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw post on thursdays the other day that's like, I don't mind being the villain in your story because you lie in anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like here I am trying to protect myself or trying to feel like I need to be the bigger person and you're over there telling a whole lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the math is not mathing and so I can't be over here torturing myself when you are being toxic and telling people lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm over here trying to be the good guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't serve anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't know if it's me being pregnant with this baby girl who is obviously coming into this world to shake it up and to show me who I truly am.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I am both excited and also terrified that this little girl got me all one already and I haven't even seen her face yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel her spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel the spirit of don't, don't, don't f with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the F's I have to give.
[SPEAKER_00]: stepping into my 40th year are so limited, but today I am choosing forgiveness because I'm realizing and recognizing that forgiveness is freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Freeing myself from judgment, focusing
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of choosing the image of me, instead of feeling like I need to worry about what people are gonna think about me if I say this or if I tell my truth, how this is gonna affect my business, if all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I lose business or opportunity because I'm talking about someone who did me dirty, whatever opportunity that was wasn't for me anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever person doesn't wanna work with me because of this was probably gonna try to play with me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now they realize and recognize that,
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to find somewhere safe to play, because baby over here is not, and you're gonna hear about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm on one y'all, it's the baby topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise it's the baby topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want you to really consider a few questions for yourself in case you are in, or you find yourself in a similar situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: What situation has been holding you back from creating space for what's next?
[SPEAKER_00]: What situation has you feeling frustrated?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, God has forgotten about you, or God is letting people play with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time, it's like that little ditty meme where the guys stare in a ditty and ditty staring back and he stare in a ditty and ditty stare back.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how God is looking at us like, okay, this is what happened now what you're gonna do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we look in a God like what you're gonna do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God looking at you like what you're gonna do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We already have the tools to figure out what to do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of times, we are waiting on the sidelines.
[SPEAKER_00]: waiting for somebody to come save us, and we have to save ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Standing on boundary, standing on business, separating ourselves from the foolishness, that is how we can save ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what situation has been holding you back from creating space?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I have been clouded for literally two years because I have just been replanted in my head and replanted my head and making this a part of my identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I was so weak to get myself into this situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do I go from here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Full of confusion, zero clarity, because I was allowing this to keep me in a choke hole.
[SPEAKER_00]: What has you in a choke hole that's keeping you from creating your new reality?
[SPEAKER_00]: What have you been obsessing over and replaying in your mind that is keeping you from moving on?
[SPEAKER_00]: We gotta get real with ourselves, even if you don't tell anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be between you and your therapist, you and your home girl, or you and God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But getting it out, being real about what is holding you back, is what is necessary, so that you can be propelled forward into your next best blessing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to start taking the same advice that I will one day give my daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: and step forward into what God has for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you, I got nothing but love for you, and I will catch you on the next episode.