My Dealing to Healing story

This is my Dealing to Healing story. I hope as you read it that you feel inspired, that you know that there are no coincidences and God is real.

In 2017, in Atlanta, Georgia, I felt a shift in my life. I kept telling my sister, I feel a shift. I don’t have the words to describe what a shift feels like but it feels like a change is happening in your life. I felt this shift and journaled about it several times. At the same time, I was feeling this shift, my best friend had been diagnosed with cancer, my mother’s health was declining and I was in a lot of pain from heartache and grief. I’ve always considered myself a spiritual person but when you have two very important people in your life with serious health issues, you pray a lot more. I believe this is when I really started my spiritual journey.

In November of 2018, my best friend, Michelle passed. It was one of the worst days of my life, as I had never had a friend to die and she was more like a sister. It’s during this time that I started writing short stories and posting them on social media with the hashtag Sunday Sermon. I didn’t do many, I only averaged a few from 2017-2019. The Sunday Sermon was always a story of inspiration, encouragement, and spiritual healing. It was cathartic for me. I was telling my social media friends a story that was really for me. There’s nothing like aligning yourself in practicing what you preach.

In May of 2019, I received a phone call from a doctor in Nashville who told me my mother was being put on hospice. She had given up on taking her medication and she may have 6 days, 6 weeks, or 6 months to live but I needed to come back home to Nashville. And so just like that, I left my job and moved back to Nashville in June 2019.

In November of 2019, my mother passed 3 days after Thanksgiving. Another one of the worst days of my life. I was so stricken with grief and pain not only from my mother dying but from complete abandonment from my only sibling. My sister had told me and put in writing that she did not want to be contacted when our mother passed. I’m not going to elaborate or expand on this part of my story because that part is her story. I only tell you this part about my sibling because I want you to truly understand my pain. I was burying my mother solo. Within 12 months, I had lost my best friend, my mother, and my only sibling. My only blood family left now is my son.

As I struggled through the holidays that followed after my mother’s death and my sibling’s divorce from me, I pushed my way through my grief by working and spending time alone in my bed. I dreamed about moving back to Atlanta to leave the painful memories of Nashville. I consistently job searched to make my way back to Atlanta as soon as possible.

March 2020, Covid arrives, and now on top of grief, pain, and heartache, I’m getting my shifts canceled at my current bartending job and have been instructed to isolate due to a pandemic. My life was much like a layered cake. The layers just kept stacking and with every layer, the pain just got heavier. It is around this period that I wrote more of my Sunday Sermon stories. My pain is now really spilling into my social media pages. I find it cathartic and feel the release and healing as though I’m writing in my journal or telling my therapist. One of the stories I write is that I feel I’m channeling my mother, she was a writer. She wrote letters to family members, Elvis Presley, Dr. Phil, and many more. Growing up I remember she would get up in the middle of the night to write. Her words of wisdom flowed out of her and she felt a huge calling to help encourage people through her personal stories.

June 2020, I moved back to Atlanta to take a great corporate job that I had wanted for years. I thought it was my dream opportunity, I thought it was a blessing and I was over the top with excitement. For the first time in a couple of years, I felt hope. Not to mention, I now have income coming in. Remember back in March when I got put on leave due to the pandemic? Yes, that also means I had zero income coming in and without giving too much detail, I was not getting unemployment. It was a ping pong tournament between the states of Tennessee and Georgia to approve my unemployment.

It is now July, I’ve moved back to Atlanta, got my dream job and everything should be getting better. It looked great on paper. It sounded like a great opportunity. Unfortunately, it was only that! Within weeks of starting my job, I had a full-blown panic attack. Shaking uncontrollably, crying, gasping to breathe, all while trying to stay in control in a Microsoft team meeting with more than 60 other people in the room. I struggled for 7 months working from home with anxiety and panic attacks, along with depression. The depression came from so much disappointment from the last 24-36 months. I tried to stay on top of it by working out at the gym, reaching out to my circle of friends, and seeing my therapist via Zoom every week but it was just really band-aid after band-aid. My therapist gave me a lot of insight and hope but healing is painful. As she helped me manage my anxiety, depression, and pain, I still felt a struggle within, a void and complete discontentment with my life, as though I was not getting my soul food.

February 2021, after 7 months of struggling with my job, and a lot of prayers, an opportunity came that I will forever be grateful for. I got an opportunity to partner with one of my friends. She was not just a friend, she had been an angel in disguise for many months and before, she had been in my circle of close friends since 2009. This opportunity quite possibly saved my life. I finally have a job that I love however the void still exists in my life. It is at this point that I acknowledge and know that life is more than just about working, making money, getting the account, the sale, getting the job done, buying all you need and want, experiencing life through travel and adventures. At the end of the day, we are here to help others. What is it that I am contributing to someone else, what is my purpose, what is my calling, what is this struggle that I feel to do more? All questions I’ve been asking myself since 2017.

May 2021, the day after Mother’s Day. I had traveled to Nashville with my son who had come down to Atlanta to visit me for Mother’s Day. After getting to Nashville around noontime, I had a conversation with my son’s father. He had been to the dentist and we had a brief 15-minute talk. He sounded fine. Nothing he said sounded different or unusual. His speech was fine. How was it that hours later, my son called me to say his dad had suddenly passed? If the earth could spin off its axis, it was at that moment. This was the 2nd worst day of my life. If you are wondering the first, it’s when my dad passed in 1999.

A few weeks after the passing of my son’s father, my grief is still unbearable. It was on a Sunday morning sitting in my bed while watching Bishop T.D. Jakes at The Potter’s House church, that I broke. I had been having church in my bed since 2010 via the internet. I had given up on brick-and-mortar churches due to the overall production, the business side of the churches. I had been to the churches that people used as a business platform to pass out real estate cards, teach Sunday school classes on finances, bring in elite country music artists. None of it was for me, amongst other things that I won’t get into. On this particular Sunday, I broke into a rare and audible prayer that I told God, I would do whatever he wanted me to do. I was tired of struggling with the pain, the grief, the heartache, fighting my purpose, my calling, I was tired of feeling the shift in my life. I said, “I will do whatever you want me to do but you are going to have to send the messengers because I am not smart enough to hear your voice.”

Two weeks later after praying that prayer, I was drinking my coffee early one Monday morning while scrolling through Instagram. There was a woman that I had been following for years, she had been an ABC affiliate reporter in Atlanta. I had always been intrigued with her beauty and talent and was often curious about what she was doing. As I followed her to keep tabs on her career, I noticed her platform on social media had changed. She was posting about spiritual things, motivational quotes, pictures of love, posting about God. I liked so many of them and often felt like she was talking to me. This particular morning I reached out to her to say, I liked the way she was posting and I felt she was speaking to me at times. I didn’t expect a response due to she has over 17k followers. To my surprise, she came right back and told me that what I said had made her very happy because she felt her calling was to empower women. She continued to tell me her story, her past struggles, and her pain. As I read paragraph after paragraph, my heart hurt for her. It was proof to me once again that no matter what the outside looks like, everyone has a story to tell. As she opened up to me to be transparent, I in turn became transparent with her about my story. I told her my story which included I had started writing a book during the pandemic and my hashtag Sunday Sermon stories. I told her I had a calling in my life but struggled to know my purpose. She told me instead of writing a book maybe I should consider hashtag Sunday Sermon on a larger platform and gave me examples of what she thought it might look like on a larger level. She also told me to go to a name generator app and find a name to use across all platforms. When we finished our direct messaging on Instagram, two hours later. I had wet spots on my balcony where the tears had fallen like a waterfall. I knew from everything she had said to me, that she was a messenger to confirm what I needed to do. I immediately jumped on my computer and researched “name generator”, since I was clueless. After a few minutes of research, I started putting the name, “Sunday” “Sermon” “Sunday Sermons” and every possible name that I thought I could build on. Nothing was available that I loved. After about 30 minutes I became frustrated and took a time out. I went to the bathroom to just regroup and when I came out, it was like a lightning bolt hit me, I heard “Dealing to Healing”. I ran to my kitchen island and wrote it down on a scratchpad. I then put it in the name generator app to learn that the name was available as a domain name for a website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. I was so taken back and overwhelmed that I questioned it. I didn’t know if it was coincidental if I was crazy or this was God revealing the name. I remembered this woman on Instagram telling me to stop and think and pray over the name. And so I just did that. I told God if this is you, then the name will still be there when I know it’s really for me. I laid it on the altar and left it there.

The next Sunday, I posted a Sunday Sermon on Instagram. Before posting it, I had prayed and asked God to show me again that if this is what I am supposed to be doing, I only wanted one person to like the post that had never liked anything of mine. I was not concerned about my close circle of friends or my usual suspects liking it, I just wanted to know that I had touched one life with this story. To back up just a couple of weeks prior, I had met a man at a baseball game. We wound up sitting side by side and getting to know each other. After that evening, he started following me on Instagram. For 2 weeks on Instagram, he did not like any of my posts. This particular Sunday, he liked my Sunday Sermon. He was definitely that one person that I had asked God to reveal to me to show me that I had touched just one life. He was another messenger. Same Sunday, I posted the same Sunday Sermon on Facebook. Two of my friends, one from high school and another I’ve known since I was 19 years old had liked my post and asked me to make it a public post so they could share it with their friends. Now, this was extremely challenging for me. I’m a very private person and I keep everything locked down on my Facebook and Instagram accounts. As I’m struggling with the decision, I feel like God may be speaking to me and saying that if this is my calling, if this is my purpose, then I must share it not with just a select few friends but with the world. As I changed my setting from “friends” to “public”, I felt as though I was closing my eyes and jumping out of a plane. I thanked those two friends for wanting to share my Sunday Sermon and told them I was just trying to touch one life with one post at a time. They replied that my stories inspired them and I was succeeding with my goal of touching one life, one post at a time. These two friends are two more messengers.

The next Sunday, I posted another Sunday Sermon. Again, I had a friend who rarely comments or likes any of my posts, she asked me to make it public for her to share. I private messaged her and thanked her for sharing my post and that I was just trying to touch one life, one post at a time. What she said to me next was so empowering. She said, “Absolutely true and God will definitely use you to touch the right person, keep on doing what you are doing. You have a great talent with words and writing! Everyone tells me I should be a writer, you my friend are the one that should be a writer. You should look into publishing Dana’s Sunday Sermons! 💗” I’m using her quote because when I said I was not smart enough to hear God’s voice, I believe that he used my friend to not only speak but confirm what my calling is to help others. I knew she was the fifth messenger. Tears streamed as I knew my prayer had been answered and I had zero doubt. Later that evening in Nashville, I shared my story with my angelic friend that I also worked with in business. After telling the story, she replied, “what are you waiting on to lock down the name, Dealing to Healing?” The next day I came back to Atlanta and locked it down.

Now, I’ve locked down the name and started my social media platforms, I’ve told less than 10 people and just a few are seeing my posts on my Dealing to Healing pages so I’ve posted the stories on my personal pages and made them public. I’ve told myself that I can’t tell my story until I have my website done to blog. And since I’m not an expert doing a website, that may be a while, but no rush because I’m not ready to share my story with the world. It’s difficult to be transparent in a world full of judges and critics. It’s especially challenging when you are a private person. I’ve always considered myself more in the role of a director or producer but never on stage as an actress. Being on stage does not interest me. I’d rather be the wind beneath the wings.

Friday, August 13, one day before my birthday. My son had come from Nashville to visit me for my birthday weekend. That evening we had gone to a football game, after returning to my home, I sat down in my mother’s leather chair and told him my story. Tears streamed because I can’t tell my story without being overwhelmed with emotion. As I tell it and he remains quiet on his bed, I’m thinking that his interest is pretty low. After all, I’m his mom and I’ve done a lot of things in his lifetime and this is just another “thing” to him. To my surprise, he told me he’d do my website. On my birthday he worked tirelessly to finish it and wow am I ever so proud. I have no more excuses. I have every base covered and the time has come for me to share my story with you and the world. I do not doubt that all these years of not feeling fulfilled, not knowing what my soul food was in life, not knowing my purpose, I now know that everything I have been through in my life, and this is the short version, has prepared me for Dealing to Healing. I agree with the words of my therapist, “I share your excitement. Your whole life has prepared you for your “dealing to healing” project. Very much looking forward to hearing it all. With love, respect and many blessings, your favorite shrink.”

I hope you have read this and felt inspired and know that struggles in life can birth new life. I pray that you read something on my blog, on my social media that gives you hope to never quit or give up, to continue to look for answers. When I was searching for the name, I felt I needed a name other than Sunday Sermon because I truly felt in my heart that I was not just trying to reach people that wanted a sermon on Sunday. I was not trying to reach just the Christian religion. My goal was to share my stories and find others, like me, that have pain, disappointment, grief in their life from abandonment, childhood traumas, addiction, anxiety. They are also dealing with struggles all while trying to heal. Isn’t that what we’re doing, dealing while healing? If you feel inspired, please leave a comment, like my blog, or check out my personal stories and life experiences on my social media platforms at the following:

https://www.facebook.com/dealingtohealing

https://instagram.com/dealingtohealing

https://youtube.com/channel/UCVMUWxBDHOUqn4NdUI5x8zQ

Please go to http://www.dealingtohealing.com to sign up for my blog posts directly to your email. Thank you 🥂❤️

People will suck the life out of you

True story! You can loose yourself trying to please others, living for others. Let me talk to the empaths, codependent folks, the people pleasers. Feeling that you want or need to make people happy is a curse and a blessing. Like a quote that someone sent me this morning, “Know your limits on how much you can give, because some people don’t have a limit on how much they can take!” You are a blessing to those that give back, that’s called a relationship. But if you are doing the majority of giving and they are not reciprocating, they are a taker. Takers take, that’s what they do. They take everything! I’ve had them take my time, my energy, my counseling skills, my mind, my heart, my life. You can give so much of you slowly that you loose yourself. And when you loose yourself in those people, it’s like a slow weaving web. You don’t even realize it until you’re caught all the way up in it. I knew when I was caught in it, because I felt exhausted. It’s exhausting to always “feel” like you need to answer that phone call, reply back to that email or text immediately. It’s exhausting to counsel people through all their drama. It’s exhausting to even listen to it. You’ve heard the saying that “people will suck the life out of you.” They will literally do that. And life is precious. You never get that time back. You never get to erase those minutes, hours, and days. And here’s the most important thing I’m about to tell you, you cannot and will not make them happy. Period! Happiness comes from within not someone else. If you’re reading this and you feel any part of what I’m saying, listen to your intuition. Check your energy around individuals. If you feel exhausted, you might be loosing yourself in a taker. Do you just for a day, then a week, then a month and see who’s still around. The ones that are still with you, that’s your tribe. That’s your relationship folks. The ones that have left, those were the takers. Let them go, find yourself!

Step by Step

When I look at this picture, it reminds me of so many things. It first reminds me of the song Whitney Houston did off The Preacher’s Wife’s album, called “Step by Step”. The lyrics say, “step by step, bit by bit, stone by stone.” But my favorite part says…”I know you’re hurting, and I know you’re blue. I know you’re hurting but don’t let the bad things get to you.” When we we are in a bad place and we are hurting, we can’t see the steps ahead that God has already placed for us. Proverbs 20:24: says “The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?” That’s why we just need to take small steps of faith and know that our steps are already ordered and set for us. Like the picture, it’s not possible to take big steps and it’s not even required. All you have to do is take it bit by bit, day by day. Like our Fitbit or Apple watch, we don’t really know where we are going to be when we hit that 10,000 step goal. That’s how it works when God prepares your steps. We don’t know where we are going to be when we are finished with our steps. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “You don’t need to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” You’re gonna be ok, just take take a step today.

Traits of a narcissist

Drop a 💔 in the comments if you know a narcissist!
I’ll go first 💔💔💔 I’ve known a few and I’m not using the term narcissist lightly. I’m talking about a real, live, true narcissist. There are many types but the ones I’ve known personally have the following traits:

They do not respect boundaries and when you stay firm on your boundary, they give you the silent treatment to prove THEY are in control of the relationship.
You are a reflection of their image. You must ALWAYS look the part…gut in, make up on, hair to perfection, never a make up line, panty line, shoes polished and no gaining weight. Model image 24/7.
If there is $100, they’ll spend $99 on them and $1 on you.
They’ll gaslight you, get you mad, just so you say sorry for every four letter word you called them.
They are not capable of telling the truth. They lie to themselves and to everyone else.
They are addicts of narcotics, alcohol, sex, pornography, often more than one of these.
They have zero empathy but award winning actors/actresses. You’ll think they have it at times. They’ll fake a tear or two and sometimes say “I’m sorry” but make note, it’s not real. They’ll hang up the phone on you quicker than you can finish saying “she died”. Yes! That happened.
They are energy vampires. Get ready to give up your soap operas and reality shows. They’ll always have drama.
They build their value on their image. If the people aren’t liking, commenting, swooning, and putting them on a pedestal, they feel worthless and get depressed.
I’m going to stop there. They’ll be more stories to come on narcissists. I could write a book on them. And maybe I will do just that! Until next time, if you feel like it, write down the traits of your narcissist. See how many compare to the list. Just know you will not change them and no contact is the only way to move forward. The only way!

Resentments are like seashells (8/31/2021)

Resentment is a word I really did not understand or try to understand until about 12 years ago. It was best explained to me that as we go through life, we all have resentments. If we are pretty healthy emotionally, we may have one here, one there and just like collecting seashells while we walk the shoreline, picking up a shell or two and putting them in your pocket will not weigh you down. They are not heavy enough to pull us down. However, when we keep collecting shells, (the resentments) they become heavy, as we keep walking and we keep collecting, they become heavier and heavier. If we can’t throw them back to the sea and release them, they will weigh us down. As the waves come in and life happens, we will be so weighted down with shells that soon we will find ourselves drowning in our sea of resentments. What resentments can you release? We have to ask ourself, is it really worth it. The person holding the resentments is the only one drowning. The other person is happily playing on the beach called life. It’s truly like one drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Today is a new day, sort your resentments out and decide which ones you can release. Love yourself!

Don’t judge people by the cover (8/30/2021)

Yesterday I posted a Sunday Sermon about not giving up, “Hold On”. I want to pick up on the part that I said “pray to God and ask him to help you, to send people to you that will love and support you. And they will come, accept those people.” I want to emphasize on this part. People that you think would love and embrace you don’t always look like you think they may look. Your tribe that God sends don’t necessarily look like the Beaver Clever mom, they are not always a “Christian” that is in church every Sunday. They are not always a family member or a person of your race, religion or same sex. The very ones I thought would embrace me and love me, were not the ones. The ones that have picked me up out of my gutter of despair and loved me so hard, are not even church members. They are people from all different walks of life. They are people of color, they are part of the LBGT community, they’re the opposite sex, some have different political views, they have different religious beliefs, but one thing they all have in common is love, compassion and empathy. That’s the real religion right there. If you don’t have those things in your heart, I don’t care if you have your name on the church pew. You’re not doing it right! Having the mindset that your tribe, your people are going to be like you, needs to be canceled out of your head. God can use ANYBODY! Be open to all you meet because connections are not coincidental. ❤️

Hold On (8/29/2021)

Let me talk to the people who are grieving from a loss of a job, a death, a breakup/divorce. Let me talk to those in pain from childhood trauma, abandonment from a spouse, a child, a sibling, from people you thought you could count on.
Let me talk to the folks that have pain and have cried a million tears on their pillow from that situation. Let me talk to the people that have depression so bad that you can’t lift your head up, your self confidence is depleted, taking a shower and dressing yourself is exhausting. Let me talk to the ones that your anxiety and panic attacks keeps you in tears, you’ve forgotten how to breathe and sleep has escaped you. Let me talk to the addicts, because of the traumas, the pain, the grief, the depression, the anxiety, you have found comfort in that food, that bottle, that pill, that person that you are trauma bonded to, or that pornography. If you do not identify with none of the above, please stop here. All I can say to you is you are a blessed person.
For everyone else who identifies with any of the above, let me tell you from the bottom of my heart, with all the strength in my soul, DO NOT give up! You are special and you have a gift inside of you that you haven’t discovered yet. Pray and ask God to help you, to send people to you that will support you and love you. And when they come, accept those people. Embrace their love. I don’t care what they look like, thats your tribe. Your story is being written and as long as you have faith of a mustard seed, you will survive and make it through. I’m not guessing at this, I’m not having wishful thoughts, I’m telling you the truth from a voice of experience. All that I just mentioned, I have lived. I have survived and you can too. I know it’s hard, I know it feels hopeless but it’s not hopeless. You can survive!
I have my story to share soon and the birth of my new project Dealing to Healing. If you feel inspired go to @DealingtoHealing on social media and click on link in bio or http://www.dealingtohealing.com to sign up. #SundaySermon #DealingtoHealing
🙏🏼 and Love ❤️ to all!

When 8/28/2021

When
When did it change? You know what I’m talking about if you’re a Boomer or Gen X. When did we get permission and so brazen to discuss politics openly. When I was growing up it was a rule “never discuss politics or religion” outside the home. I never remember anyone in my family having conversations about it. I vaguely remember the Watergate scandal and the conversations about that but never anything else. And when did we feel so free to call people names to their face? I see it on all social media platforms, people calling other people “stupid”, “idiot” “crazy”. I was raised not to call people names. Sure I heard name calling but never to anyone’s face. My dad thought everyone was a “jackass”.

And when did we become comfortable with violence? I was taught at home and in school to never touch anyone. Yes! There has always been domestic abuse in homes but that was and still is hidden. I’m talking about the violence we continually see on the tube. The violence on social media that we just scroll past because we have become numb to it. You know you can over expose yourself to things so much that you become numb. A porn or sex addict will testify to that. Is that what happened? We’ve been exposed so much little by little, bit by bit that it no longer impacts us? Have we really lost and compromised our core values to join this army of hate and anger?

And here’s the thing, it’s our generations that is doing it. No, not all of it but WE should not be doing it at all because we know better. We were raised better. We had scruples, core values, real home raising, church camp and Sunday school pushed through our veins. We knew better to name call or fight someone just because. We better have a damn good reason if we went there. I know because I had to think of a few myself.

And really what’s the point in all of it? You won because you called someone a worse name than they called you? You feel better, seen and heard? Newsflash..if that makes you feel more powerful and better, you got more than name calling going on. Check your insides.
Have we really become this? If so I don’t know when.

If they do it once, they’ll do it again (8/28/2021)

I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day. We were discussing when people manipulate you. The first time they do it does not mean it was a mistake or a one and done. No! That means they are testing you to see if they can get by with it. To see if they will get caught. That’s what they do.

Manipulators manipulate!

They never take responsibility, they blame circumstances and other people but never themselves. They don’t value people, no matter what you do for them. They seek out empaths with kind and generous hearts and exploit their qualities. They create drama and then play victim to circumstances. It’s all part of the calculated, manipulation plan. They respect no boundaries. They expect you to set yourself on fire to keep them warm. Don’t ever think it’s a one time deal. It’s a test for you and a try for them. You know the saying, “ happens once, shame on you, if it happens twice, shame on me.” #dealingtohealing

Healing yourself can be offensive

A friend recently sent this to me. I have read it several times. As I read it, I think about people in my past that took advantage of my lack of boundaries, my lack of self respect, of me walking on eggshells to keep from rocking the boat, saying “yes” while biting my tongue and really meaning “no”. Allowing them to push me into guilt and shame. Using fear based doctrine to manage me. Being controlling and gas lighting me. And now, none of those people are in my life. I took my life back and control of my life and one by one they left. When I stopped walking on egg shells, started honoring my feelings, speaking up and out, saying no and giving zero reason why, and setting boundaries that were clear, they disappeared. People will stay around and hang out as long as you let your brokenness benefit them. I encourage you to do a check list of who is benefiting and start being offensive to them.