Transcription
And the reason why you cannot redefine yourself is because I cannot redefine a future when I'm still holding to beliefs that tell me that there is no future. That's the work. What do you really believe? Your work is going to be challenging despite having going through one of the most gut-wrenching situations of my entire life. Do I believe something new is possible?
>> [music] [music] >> Hey you guys, Britney Noel here and I am so excited to finally be releasing some of the best of the heart talks tour on YouTube. For the past 2 years, we have been touring around the nation, hearing people's hearts, hearing their stories, [music] and giving some of the most phenomenal answers that you guys see floating around Tik Tok and Instagram. Now, you get to see the extended conversations. So, be ready to learn, to grow, and most importantly, to heal. So, make sure that you guys are telling me in the comments the moments that you love the most. And most importantly, I can't wait to see you guys when I go on tour in 2026. [music] Until then, kick back and enjoy.
Okay, in 2020, I lost my my daughter. Okay. So, prior to her, you know, living, I'm going through life and I'm functioning. I too, I had her at a teen when I was a teenager. I was 17. And before her, you know, I had a lot of trauma, lots of bad experiences. Being the oldest child. That's a trauma within itself growing up in the 60s, but just lots of bad experience and I call myself I forgave, buried, moved on. But when I lost my child, all of that stuff came back up and I just feel like I don't know where to go in life [laughter] anymore. I'm trying >> I'm really trying to find who I am because [laughter] I just really feel like I had this baby and I loved it so much and it went away, >> you know, and everything came back and part of it coming back I feel like I don't not my mom anymore. >> Mhm. Listen. Season of deficit, >> right? And for the sake of the room, if you've never lost a child, to understand what she's saying in depth, think about losing the thing, the person that you put everything into, right? My identity, my emotions, my money, everything. And so you lose your baby. What happens is when you have done a degree of healing, right? And this is an area of your life. When you experience another heartbreak, when you experience another wound, when you experience another trauma, old traumas get re-triggered. [snorts] There's something I like to do called talking to my pain, right? Because you have to know the difference when my regular dialogue is happening and speaking on a day-to-day basis. My thoughts, get up, get some coffee, go to work. Those are my daily thoughts. And then you have thoughts like why my mama didn't love me. >> Yes. >> All I'm doing is driving to work. Why did that thought >> Yes. >> That's my pain. >> Yes. >> Right. I always talk about in my season of deficit. I was driving one day dealing with my own grief of everything I've lost and I'm having an okay day. I'm fine, right? And I'm driving and out of nowhere it felt like this gut-wrenching emotion just hit me in the pit of my stomach. Had to pull off the road. That's how intense the emotion was. And I was like, where did that come from? What was that? And it was this cry out of what we call our inner child, >> right? When you lose your baby, the part of you that needs an explanation as to what's happened is that little girl in you. I thought we were doing better. I thought I was building the life that would honor me. What happened? Especially when you have a place of security in life and then that security is taken from you. That part of you wants to know what's happening and why because now I no longer feel safe. A part of healing means I have to acknowledge that little girl because what got re-triggered was every belief that you had as a result of your traumatic upbringing. So not only am I burying my child, but now I have my inner child saying, "See, this is why good things don't happen. >> This is why I don't get my hopes up. >> This is why I don't believe in good things. So now you have all of these fears and you have all of these doubts and you have all of this stuff that comes back to the surface. And I went, I was like, "What am I supposed to do with this?" Because I buried my stuff years ago. What happened? And God said, "Have another funeral." And I do visualizations. So, I had a mental visualization of me grabbing that little girl's hand and we walked through a like a um jungle, a wood, a a wooded area, and I took her to a hole and together we re-buried all of the old stuff I had already healed from because we're not bringing that back to life. So, I had to go back and re-bury my disappointments of my mother. I had to go back and re-bury the heartbreak that said I wasn't good enough. I had to go back and re-bury every doubt, every fear, every failure. I also had to re-bury the idea and the belief system that because tragedy has happened, this is all life will be for me where you are. And the reason why you cannot redefine yourself is because I cannot redefine a future when I'm still holding to beliefs that tell me that there is no future. That's the work. What do you really believe? Your work is going to be challenging despite having going through one of the most gut-wrenching situations of my entire life. Do I believe something new is possible? Do I believe that I can become another version of myself? And what does that look like? You can't get to that without having another funeral, right? And that means becoming friends with grief because grief is not evidence of failure. Grief is not evidence of something being broken. Grief is evidence of how well I loved. Grief is evidence of how well I lived. So every time grief comes to the surface, it's reminding me of my capacity to love a person, a place, or a thing. When that grief resurfaces, celebrate. And it's not a big celebration, but it's I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to love something on that level. And with that love that I have and the capacity of love that I have, I still have it and I still have access to it. So, what would I like to do now? >> That's what I'm trying to figure out like who is this new person because I feel like I'm a brand new person. >> Mhm. >> And it's crazy. >> Yeah. Yeah. We don't get to go back to who we were, >> right? >> When tragedy hits. >> Yeah. I'm I'm new. >> So, it means I have a new person that I'm learning to love. >> Okay. >> Let me explore her. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> All righty, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Um, part of the reason I wanted to come up here is because I feel like, and I do want to say humor is my defense mechanism, >> right? Um, I feel like I'm transitioning into a different person. Um, that I already struggle with internally and I feel like that's a thing that I struggle with with my inner circle. So, my family, the people who are really close to me who I don't always feel like allow me the space to be that new person, right? Um, that's the first thing. And since we're talking about therapy, I'm going to throw it all at you. Um, and then the second thing is just safety. Um, I think I've for me personally, I've been through a lot in my life where I feel like I'm constantly struggling with uh safety, uh protecting myself or relying on others. Ain't it hot up here? Relying on others to um help to protect me, I guess. Um, so that's been a struggle for me and I'm really trying to get past it. But there's a lot of struggles with both. There's a lot of struggles with the person I'm becoming and me stepping into that and other people realizing it. And then also um, safety, if you will. >> Okay. Okay. [laughter] M. So when you go through transitions in life, every transition in life will challenge the the circle that you're around. Every transition, it will test your friendships. It will test your family relationships. And keep in mind, everybody that is tested in that season, if they fail a test, it's not because they're a bad person, right? Some people can be assigned to a different version of me and in a different season. Right? The friend who didn't think I could speak, they were great to go out and do happy hour with. Not so much to talk about my vision and my dreams, right? Didn't make them a bad person, but it meant that in my next season, they were not allowed a slot, right? So, one, it's recognizing and realizing that when I'm in transitions, I have to hold my relationships loosely because I like holding on to people and you will be disappointed every time, right? The only thing I can do is embody the next version of who I am in whatever small increments that looks like. And then I allow the people to react and to respond to who it is that I've become. They get to decide whether or not they're going to the next level. >> I don't have to make a decision. So when I say I'm becoming a motivational speaker and you're like, "Yeah, I don't see that for you." She made a decision. >> I didn't make that decision. >> But here's the thing. The reason why I didn't have to make that decision is because there was a boundary. My boundary is where I find my safety. So boundary says Britney loves herself so much that she only allows people who believe in her to have this level of access in defining who you're going to be. That person cannot flourish until you have defined your boundaries. You're going to want to start asking yourself some questions. What does love look like and feel like? What does family look like and feel like? What does friendship look like and feel like? Because many times we are loyal to people out of namesake, not because they're actually living up to the word that I keep calling them. Right? So, if you're my family, then I should see certain behaviors. If you're my friend, I should see certain behaviors. Your behaviors tell me if you're safe or not. >> And I trust myself that if your behaviors are not in alignment with how I define family, then I will move around. So define your boundaries, but also you have to work on emotional regulation. Because the reason why you keep running back to those relationships is because when you're sitting with you by yourself, even in your new self, you can't tolerate the silence. I had the best conversations with myself when I was sitting in my apartment with no furniture because I just left that toxic relationship and it was just me in silence and I had to hear every emotion and I had to feel every pain and I had to have every I had to confront every negative thought that was like, "You're dumb. You should have been you should have been done left. This is why you're in the house by yourself. Move back to Austin. Why you?" And I had to sit in that every day. And while it is an uncomfortable and scary feeling and emotion and place to be, it is so beautiful because this is where your relationship with self is solidified. So now it's great for me to have a support system that is healthy. But when they're not there, I still have someone I can rely on. Being alone doesn't mean I'm lonely or without community. Okay. You're welcome, ma'am. You're welcome. I think that when you are going through different different life transitions, which first of all, let's celebrate the transition. It doesn't feel good because you are in this place where I'm not who I want to be just yet, but I'm also not who I used to be. So, I don't fit in with these people, places, and things over here. And I haven't found my new tribe yet. And that's where most people abort the mission because I don't want to tolerate silence and I don't want to be alone and and I don't want to be judged. And can I just have somebody to have fun with? No. Get in a car, drive to a park, and sit there. It was in those conversations that I journaled with myself. and asking the hard questions. Britney, the last three days you've been in a bad attitude. Why? Is that who you want to be? Is this in your new new life, in your new transition? Are you Do you want to be known as the crabby, grumpy, angry black woman walking around? No. Okay, then who do you want to be? Cool. And I always say TDF knows I tell TDF too much my business. But in that season, I said, I don't want to be this person who's angry or agitated or frustrated all the time because yes, you're in a frustrating season, but you don't have to be frustrated every day. So, I set a goal for myself every day. I would there was three journaling prompts I had to answer at the end of every night. One [snorts] I think it was how did you um what's one good thing that you did for somebody else today? No. What what is one good thing that you did? One, what is one thing that you want to do better? Two. And how did you serve someone else today? Three. Those three answers don't have to be long. Right? So, I did good because I went to work and did a presentation. Cool. You need to improve on the way you talk to Jenny because she sent you the wrong email. You can work on that. Right? Three, I complimented my coworker today. Right? I started keeping track of the behavior that I said I wanted to change. But that was because most people don't realize when you were walking around constantly angry, frustrated, agitated, those are side effects and residue of the season you just came out of. It's not who you are. It's not your personality. So when Moana said, "This is not who you are." You're not angry for no reason. You're not exhausted for no reason. You're not careless and and lacking empathy for no reason. There's hurt and there's damage that you're still working through. And that's okay. But in the midst of me working through it, I still get to choose how I show up every day. When I wanted to learn how to change the way I showed up in my vulnerability, one day I text everybody in my phone, but mostly my family members and I sent them a text writing them a love letter. I love you because because in my family we don't really say I love you. We say, "Oh, what's up, bro?" We don't even hug, right? So, when I sent that text message, my brother responded and he was like, "Are you okay? Do I need to come down there?" I'm fine. But I'm learning how to love in a new way because the way that I was taught love is not an expression that I actually like. And I want to be something different.
Hey you guys, I hope you enjoyed that clip. I want you to head on over to the heartalkstour.com and get your tickets for the 2026 tour. Just like in these clips, we are [music] bringing nothing but the real, honest, and relatable truth. You want to be in the room because there's nothing like feeling the collective energy of healing and growth. Heartalkstour.com. I'll see you soon.