Transcription
The Jaws that drop when I tell them how abnormal my childhood was. The eyes that are blocked wide open. They can't believe that something so glorious came from that. Something so beautiful came from there. Something so divine came from that.
The follow-up question is, how did you? How did you come back from your ashes? And then I go on to tell a story of how I had to become the Phoenix that rose from everything that burned me down. How I have to heal from everything that I felt was holding me back. I have to now. I have to explain how what you see right here is possible. That's how Instagram happened. All I do is tell y'all what I did. That's literally all I do.
I had to confront the shame I felt about where I came from. To confront the shame that I felt not about what I did, but it was what somebody did to me. I didn't ask for a lot of the things that was in my bag, but they were there. What was stopping me from sending that invoice? They eventually got the invoice, by the way. Okay, we had the workshop. It was glorious. What was, what was stopping me from sending the invoice? Who are you? Who are you to charge you? To ask for something in return? Don't they know you're damaged? You actually don't even deserve to be here. If you look at the statistics, that was a "who are you" moment where I had to be like, who am I? Because the "who am I" is not what you do. It's not what did you accomplish? It's not what degree did you get? It's no, who are you when you're in the bathroom by yourself? Who are you when you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you haven't forgiven yourself for what you did two years ago? You didn't forgive yourself for the person that you led in your life that came through and wreaked havoc. You didn't forgive yourself for the thing that you said that caused harm to your partner. Yourself for pushing away that person who wanted to love you or the best friend that you, relationship that you let die. You haven't forgiven yourself for the ways in which you're imperfect. And this is why you're having your "who are you" moment. "Who do you think you are?"
My Divine Gentleness season happened when I gave myself permission to be perfectly imperfect. That I can be this glorious being, flawless, and also be a person who has a complicated past. Graded what she does, skilled at who she is, gifted, and still be a work in progress. How do you get to a point where you bring it all to the forefront? You're not all good, and you're not all learning. Duality allowed to be both. That I can be beautiful and great and magnificent and smart and complicated and my family crazy. I don't know how to bring this man home to meet my family because I don't. That's gonna be a complicated conversation. Listen, we'll get through it. We'll get there. Cross that bridge at that time. It all comes together. I don't have to pick and choose. And some of you have a pick and choose relationship with yourself. I love you when you're doing something good. Treat you with love and kindness and respect when you are performing a certain way. But what happens when you aren't performing? What happens when you have nothing to brag about or post on Instagram? What happens when it's just you? Listen, you will have seasons where nothing good is going in, going on in your life. Where you have nothing to brag about, nothing to post about, nothing to say, "Look at who I am and what I've done." You will have seasons of non-accomplishment to show you what you really believe about yourself. Who are you when you want to see me? Can you still stand before yourself and say, "I'm proud"?
What makes that conversation hard? That that task hard is because I'm still holding against myself what I did. The decisions I made. When I came out of that relationship, my head was down, looking at the floor, shoulders heavy because I did that to myself. I had finally realized I couldn't keep pointing my finger at him because, mind you, two years in, I was like, "Now, Brittany, I don't think this is him." Since like, I don't think God was in this at all. But we'd be like, "But God, like, you can change. God, you said that if I pray, you said that if I came before you." God was like, "I wouldn't talk about that one. I wasn't, I didn't put my name on that. That was nice." I had to take responsibility for the fact that you did that. And the shame that comes with knowing that I did it. You mean to tell me I broke my own heart? I disappointed myself? It wasn't my mama. I can't blame her no more. It wasn't daddy. Like, can we? It was societal reform, racism, something. It was something other than me. The shame that comes with realizing it was me. I did it.
Divine gentleness comes when you reach a point when you're willing to say, "I forgive you." Mirrors up. [Music] When you look in the mirror, I want you to see that thing you did. I want you to see the times that you feel you have dishonored yourself. You know that time when you let somebody have access to you who didn't deserve it? How about that time that you kept going back knowing that it was going to hurt every time? [Music] I want you to see how you talked yourself into doing what you knew was going to hurt you. See how you willingly allowed yourself to walk into situations that didn't honor you. I want you to see how you minimize yourself so that you could fit into somebody's life. I want you to see how you turned red flags green. I want you to see all the times you lied to yourself about what was going on in your life so that the pill was easier to swallow. And I want you to see all the times that you refused to hold yourself accountable for making a new decision. Now, seeing all those things, I want you to look at yourself in their eyes and say, "I forgive you." I forgive you for being too hurt to make a better decision. I forgive you for making you think that you were only lovable if you were discounted. I forgive you for not asking for what you were really worth. I forgive you for sacrificing me for somebody else. Take a deep breath. Forgiveness is one of the more powerful tools that I still use today. That makes it easier for me to digest when I'm human. That makes it easier for me to digest when I'm having imperfect moments. The hard thing about forgiveness is realizing that forgiving doesn't mean I forgot. So you forgive yourself today, and then by the time you get home tomorrow, in your shower, that thing comes back up again. That memory, that situation. For some of y'all, that's gonna call you because you didn't block the number like you were supposed to. Yeah, and told y'all, "Block, block" came from Jesus, okay? He was trying to help somebody out. It's going to come back up. And when that thing rises up again, still forgive you. When that thing rises up again, still want you.
I had to get to a point where I was willing to say, "I want you." Even on your worst day. I want you on your best behavior and on the beat. You know you're working on that over there. I want you even in your imperfections because I'm not going to allow your shortcomings to blind me from your greatness. And very much like someone on the panel said today, you spend more time thinking about the shortcomings than you do thinking about the greatness. Getting myself permission to move into my Divine Gentleness, I had to sit down and realize, this chick that rose from the ashes, how strong is she that she was willing to bounce back from everything that tried to literally take her out? It wasn't by accident that that woman found me in Walmart. And if you don't start to see the divinity in who you are, that it's all a setup. What am I going to do with this person that I'm becoming? Who am I going to become? The transparency, the journey to transparency, allowed me to reach a point where I was willing to move out of my pain long enough to find the purpose. Move out of what's wrong to finding out what can I do about it? So moving away of this story that I created that Britney is the one who is victimizing you get the short end of the stick because don't we create stories about our lives? "I'm the victim. Bad things always happen to me. I'm never gonna get married. I'm never the one they choose. I'm always the one who's forgotten." Don't we create stories and then start making decisions that are in alignment with the story? And then we say, "God, how could you?"
All right, I'm gonna go there. Yeah. I have to challenge the stories that kept telling me I was small. Stories that kept telling me, "Brittany, every time people tell you, 'Oh yeah, we love how you talk dirty,' line, they just said that because you're cute." [Music] It was just one, and it was just two, and it was easy to dismiss when it was just this person or that person. You know, every, every now and again. Moving into my season of gentleness, it came more frequently, nearly every day. Because when I moved into my season of Divine Gentleness, my walls were down, which meant people could see me. People can now see the light that I had behind the wall. People can now see the value that I was sitting on. People could now see what I brought with me when I walked into the room. And some of them were inspired by who I was, and some were intimidated by who I was. I didn't know who I was. I was like, "What is your problem? All I did was just show up. All I did was say something." But I heard the power in your voice before you did. I saw your light before you did. And understand that if people are intimidated by your light, they will attack it. And if you don't know who you are, you will take those attacks as confirmation of maybe I don't belong in this area. Maybe the attacks are coming because I'm not in the right lane. But maybe you are. And it's the, the imposters in that lane that are like, "Hey sis, we need you to move because you're making it real uncomfortable right now." My therapist asked me, "Brittany, are you willing to make some people uncomfortable so that you can be who you are?" Because in finding and navigating Divine Gentleness, I was starting to realize the influence that came with who I was. That if all I said was A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I bet you I can say it so it's so powerful. I will have people crying by the time we get to S. Okay, somebody gonna drop a tip before I get to Z. Okay, that's the gift. It's gonna work even when I don't want it to work. Are you willing to make people uncomfortable? Because you've accepted everything you want. What they hate about the season of Divine Gentleness is the fact that I can't use your past against you anymore. I'm the first one to say, "I was there. I did it. Hey, I wrote a book about it. It's on Amazon. Would you like to buy it?" I will be the first to expose to you who I am that way you can't use it as ammunition against me later. So when I walk into the room heavy, when I say what I have to say, when I show up red hair and all, I won't be intimidated by the side eye you gave me because I gave myself that side eye years ago. Girl, listen, I got over here. You will. [Music] When I confronted me, it took away your power to control me. So I'm not gonna be quiet anymore. I would go into meetings and literally mute myself because I knew, "Brittany, every time you speak, people listen to you. Every time you talk, the eyes are on you." And I was so uncomfortable with people's eyes being on me because what are they looking at? When I found out I was something to be looked at, scars and all, that's where my power came from.