Meet Shawnte Kinney. She woke up in Dec 2015, looked in the mirror, and realized that her life was out of control. She DECIDED to be Fabulous in every aspect, and chose the path to Freedom & Wholeness. Just look at her now!
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Escaping Out Of Control Mode With Shawnte Kinney
This is Charla Anderson, the host of The Charla Anderson Show, collector and connector of fascinating people, and everyone is fascinating, especially YOU. We’re on this extraordinary Win Win Women platform, WinWinWomen.com, and WinWinWomen.tv, and we are now streaming with Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and soon to be on all your favorite podcasts with Podetize. I’m so excited about that partnership.
I had Michael and Gale with their miracle story last time. It’s an unbelievable story of overcoming death, basically, with Michael. I thought, “Why don’t I do miracles and overcoming stories for us? It maybe even a little series or maybe it’s my format. Who knows? However, we’re going to meet a rockstar warrior named Shawnte in this episode. She’s doing incredible things. She’s on fire.
First, I want to tell you that I’m so incredibly grateful and honored to have you take the time to read this and be a part of our story here as we continue to grow this little show. Who knew it was going to come along? I didn’t but when intriguing opportunities present themselves and you say yes, things show up. That’s my message and that’s Shawnte as well.
As I always do, I start with a breathing exercise, a mini meditation, and it takes 22 seconds. I encourage you to do it multiple times a day when you’re out and about. It centers you. What we’re going to do is breathe in for 7 seconds, we’re going to hold for 4 seconds, and we’re going to breathe out for 11 seconds. Breathing in calm and breathing out gratitude. Here we go. Join me if you will. Breathe in for seven seconds, calm, hold, breathe out, and gratitude release. Thank you.
It helps me, and I’m sure it helps you to get a little more grounded and centered. I’m so grateful to have you take part in that. If the whole world could settle down a little bit, I think we’d be better off. Don’t you? I’m so excited, as always. That’s me but I’ve got a guest on fire in this episode. She is beyond amazing and she’s got so many irons in the fire. We met at the last big event that I went to, and most of us probably in that group went in 2020. It was the end of February 2020 before we started staying home all the time.
I met Shawnte there. She’s got an incredible story. She’s gorgeous. She’s beautiful. She lives in my vicinity, the DFW area. I’m excited about that. I’m going to bring on my friend and firecracker, Miss Shawnte Kinney. Shawnte, if you will, introduce yourself. Tell a little bit about who you are and about who you are in this world, and then a bit about what you do. We’ll then go in further with that.
I am so excited to be here. I do appreciate you for inviting me to the show. Like you, I am excited. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Shawnte Kinney. I am the Owner and Founder of NexLevel Magazine. I am a full-time litigation paralegal, which I’ve been doing since I was about nineteen years old. The gist of what I do is I use my story to inspire other women. My goal is to inspire action and movement and to give women a voice.
For so long in my life, I did not have a voice. I did not know what I sounded like. I didn’t know my identity. I was lost in a world of obligation, guilt, pain, and all sorts of things. I went on a journey starting in 2016 when I decided that my life was in chaos. I wanted to get healed. I wanted to be whole mentally, spiritually, physically, financially, emotionally, and in every area of my life.
God took me on a journey of healing, and through that journey, I got whole. I got healed. My soul got free because, for so many years, it had been in bondage because I had stopped listening to her. As I said, I didn’t know my voice. I didn’t know my value. I didn’t know my worth. I wandered through life, and I thank God that I found Him. I found me. I found my voice. I found my purpose. Now, it’s sharing the story and having conversations from the other side of pain and brokenness.
Also, encouraging and inspiring, not just women. I work with women. I talk with women, but even the men are jumping on board needing that inspiration and needing to hear the other side of tragedy, trials, pain, and heartache, and talk about it. That’s what God has blessed me and allowed me to do. I use everything that I have to inspire others.
The other side of trauma was the word that kept coming to me while you were saying it. None of us are immune. Every single one of us has stories. Every last one of us has stories. I’ll throw this out here now. If you want to tell your story, please direct message me somewhere, and we’ll talk about that because everyone has stories and all of us can inspire others through our overcoming.
Shawnte is especially gifted at telling her story. I was curious if you are okay to share it. There was a moment in time when you woke up. It was a moment in time that you went, “Enough is enough. I’m not doing this anymore.” You started trying to break the chains and break free of the limitations that we put on ourselves, but we’re trained to do it.
I don’t mind. Please feel free to ask me anything. I’m really and truly an open book. My moment was a combination of a lot of things. There were a lot of moving pieces in my life that got me to that moment. That moment happened at the very end of December 2015. I woke up. I went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror, and I was disgusted with myself. My life had been in chaos. I had no balance. I felt like I was a chameleon because, for years, I had readjusted myself to fit every role and be everything for everybody in my life.
A pleaser.
I call her the essential woman. She is one that everybody needs where everybody puts, “You can do it.” She is the one who’s constantly running into everybody’s aid and is the strong one in church, work, my marriage, my family, friends, and the whole 9 yards. I was that one. It’s not by anybody else’s design, but that was the role that I chose and I stepped into.
I couldn’t even fault anybody. It took me years to get to the point where I had to realize and accept that I put myself there. Nobody said, “This is your role and you’re going to play it.” I chose that role for a lot of reasons relating to trauma. By the time I woke up in 2015, life was bad. I was finally at a point in time where I was like, “Enough is enough.”
This is because one of the things that I did recognize is that the person in the family, who is the person, the grandma that everybody can’t live without, the strongest person in the family that everybody can’t live without are also the ones that die first. They die empty never fulfilling their own dreams and being who they were meant to be because they served so many people and they give so much of themselves.
The strongest person that everybody in the family can’t live without are the ones who usually die the first. Click To TweetI realized I hadn’t been taken care of myself. I had no control over my emotions. My finances were on the rise. My marriage was crazy. I, myself, internally, mentally, and emotionally, there was no balance within me. I looked around in my life and everybody around me was in shambles. When you go into chaos, you think it’s limited to you but when you’re in a chaotic situation, everybody in your life, believe it or not, is in a chaotic situation especially if you are the head of the family. It’s because everybody’s only going to do what the head does.
However, I looked around and my skin was bad. I was overweight. I was an addict. I had no self-control or discipline. I couldn’t continue in anything. I had no time management skills, but I was still the best at what I did. I was still the best at who I was but I was failing me miserably. I was satisfying everybody else, but failing myself. The walls that I had perfectly constructed throughout my entire life to deal with childhood trauma and the effects of being an “essential woman,” because everybody doesn’t care about your feelings when you are the person. You’re the one that they dump everything on.
Taking on all of that strong woman persona, I had constructed walls to compartmentalize all this stuff, and those were slowly coming down. In 2015, when I looked at myself, I was like, “God, I finally hear You. You wanted life to break me,” because that’s what I now know. I needed to get to a breaking point. I needed to run out of the road because as long as there was a road, I was going to keep going because I was that person.
Once I made it to the end of the road where there is no room for me to turn around, there is nothing that I can do, and there is no way that you can fix this, Shawnte. Now that you’re at the point where you have done all that you can do, it’s time for you to turn around. God was like, “Now, I can step in.” He had to get me to that point. Although it was a dark time in my life, it was also a very beautiful and awakening time in my life. I walked out of 2015 with the mindset of, “I’m going to be healed.” That started my journey. I did a lot of things. One of which was the exercise I started where at first I couldn’t continue in that exercise routine.
Once my mindset changed, come hell or high water, for an entire year in 2016, I didn’t attach any results to exercise, but I made myself go to the gym or do some level of exercise like walking or whatever, every single day for an entire year so that I could become accountable to consistency. People laugh at me because I would get dressed at 5:00 in the morning. I would get up, get completely dressed, and go touch the gym, touch the treadmill, and then turn back around and go get back in the bed but I created the habit of getting started and doing something and making it part of my life because I was determined.
I began to work on my emotions and on my spirit. I began to study the character of God. God is so amazing because he directed me in it. It was two questions. The first question that God asked in the Bible is, “Where are you?” It was that realization of asking myself, “Where am I in my emotions? Where am I in my finances? Where am I in my relationships? Where am I with myself?”
I made a list. I was finally honest with myself. This is where I am. God asked me. He was like, “Where do you want to go?” I was like, “I want to be healed.” That’s the only thing that I want but I didn’t know what a healed me looked like. I began to research that. I began to visualize that. I began to imagine what she’d look like. What kind of clothes does she wear? What type of books does she read? Where does she live? How did her hair look? What did her skin look like? Who were the people that she hung out with? What were the things that she did every day?”
I began to research that and look around at different people who inspired me. I studied the character of God and a healed me embodied His character. I began to work on that. I became intentional about everything. In the middle of this change and transformation or smack dead in the middle of it, my husband decides that he wanted a divorce.
I got emotional and teary when you said that the go-to person, the strong person in the family dies first. That gave me chills. There is no truer statement than that. People that are used, abused, and empty inside typically don’t survive well, if at all. This commitment was powerful. Some spark lit in you at that moment in time. A lot of us look at ourselves and go, “I need to do something, but so what? I’ll start tomorrow.” You took an action step to be consistent on one thing.
Going to the gym isn’t it. It would not work for me. I don’t want to get up and do that. That’s not mine. However, the thing that I’ve chosen to do commitment-wise on a daily basis is meditation or something like that. For our audience that wants hope, wants to shift their trauma, their life, they’re lost, and so much is habits. It’s managing urges.
If you want to stop cursing, drinking, smoking, or whatever it is, nobody else is shoving those things in your mouth. You are the one, and it’s after an urge. If you manage urges instead of quitting something, it’s very strongly connected to what we want to have in our lives. We are the only ones that have the choice to change. Nobody else is going to do it.
There is no fairy godmother that’s going to wave a magic wand and put you in the castle. You are your own Cinderella to put yourself in the castle and love yourself enough to take whatever works for you. The story is amazing. We are overcomers and we do what we have to do. I’m a born pleaser. I want everybody to be happy. “No way. I’ll just do it.” This is maybe a key. If you’re going to do it anyway, love it.
Don’t be resentful of people because they’re taking advantage of you. I’m going to do it because I am not going to draw into the drama around it. I’m going to gracefully love people. If you’re already going to do it anyway, you can shift. Maybe I can bless them in the circumstance and remember that it’s taking care of me as well.
We are a product of our environment and we’re going to live out what’s lived before us. Love encompasses so many things. It’s so big. This is what I found to be true about my life and a few people that I’ve encountered. You’re going to love people based on the way that you’ve been shown love and taught how to give love. Sometimes, that’s not the healthiest.
Sometimes what I’ve realized or what was true for me is I had a very limited view of what love was. Everybody in my world looked at love as being this. You are giving every ounce of all of you and doing all of this. As I was giving, it was from a place of love based upon what I knew love to be at the time. I was serving, giving, and loving from that place but while that love was serving everybody else, that love was not fulfilling me.
I remember reading something. I was raised in a very fundamental religion, and I think that you were as well. That God is in a box with very small rules and regulations. When I realized that God doesn’t have a box and it’s about relationships, not religion. We can walk more and that his total love without judgment and with grace and with gratitude being the key, then we have an opportunity to truly start loving ourselves. We can’t do it if we don’t love ourselves. Many people don’t know how to do that. That’s what your message is so huge for. The religious thing, that God in a box, didn’t you come from that?
I was raised a straight Pentecostal, the Church of God in Christ. I’m so grateful for my raising. Do not get me wrong. I’m grateful for the teaching of the church. I’m grateful for that foundation because it saved my life. If I did not have that basic fundamental relationship understanding, I would be lost. However, there was a lot that was not fully taught or fully appreciated that I had to go on this journey in order to understand. One of which was to be understanding that the love of God is so much bigger than this small space that we bring Him.
The rules and regulations, right and wrong. We have to follow these instructions, and it’s very small instead of the freedom of loving. If you want to, if you’re open to it because we’re talking about overcoming and I believe that the vast majority of us have childhood trauma that happened. Do you care to address that briefly about how as a child you were misled and abused?
I come from a huge family. We are a family of 7 with 5 girls and 2 boys. I am the third overall, the second oldest girl. We did not grow up in the ideal situation. We were in poverty, but we had each other. There was a lot that went on in our life. My mom is the strongest woman I know. She did the best she could. She had seven children and a single mother. She kept all of us. She knew the type of children that she wanted us to be and different things like that.
However, there were a lot of things that happened. There were some things she did good, some things she did wrong, and it is what it is. There are so many small things that I’ve had to even overcome as an adult from my childhood and big dramas. I was sexually abused as a child. I had to overcome that. Part of my journey was releasing not so much the anger of that because I forgave that a long time ago, but I didn’t forgive myself. I didn’t forgive God.
Part of my desire and giving so much of myself to people over the years was to fill that gap and void. Also, to find a voice for that little girl who lost her voice when she was young. There are so many things. Just learning how to even speak as a kid the way we were raised. I was thinking about this. The way we were raised, children are seen and not heard.
My voice was stifled a whole lot. I didn’t know what I sounded like. I didn’t know what was in me. I had to overcome that. It’s all sorts of small things and some big things but we were constant. I tell this to everybody. Every last one of us has PTSD from something in our life. We’re all overcoming something. The key is to not let it get you and to always keep moving. That’s what I tell everybody.
Every one of us has PTSD from something in our life. The key is to not let it get to you. Always keep moving. Click To TweetYou can’t learn and win if you are sitting on that couch and never moving. One of the things you said reminded me, and my little book is Candy Bar Hugs: It Doesn’t Take Much To Make A Difference! It’s a tiny book with a message. It’s getting ready to be released in hardback with Beyond Publishing. I’m excited about that. The dedication to my children says, “I did what I did. I didn’t do what I didn’t do. I did all that I knew to do with what I knew at the time, just like you did and are doing in your life right now. I love you.”
It’s a release of, “We’re all doing all we know to do.” At any given moment, we’re doing all we know to do and it doesn’t always affect others. People take things personally, and people make assumptions, which comes from the book, The Four Agreements, which I love. What if we gave that up? I believe you’ve done a whole lot of giving up what’s wrong and embracing what’s good and light. I know that you wrote a book. It’s called Don’t Be Bitter. Often, we walk around with this cloud that they did this to me, so now I can be offended by everything and it’s a very low-energy place to be if you’re offended all the time.
The reality is that a lot of people aren’t even aware that they’re holding offense. They’re not aware that they’re holding pain. People are reacting.
They’re doing what they do.
We’re going to live out the life that’s lived in front of us. If everybody in your life responds like this and if everybody in your life does this, this is a normal thing. When you look around, this is normal for you, then it’s hard to step out of that and see that it’s not normal. That was part of my journey when I looked out and I’m like, “Everybody’s doing the same thing, and this is not working for any of us.”
I had to separate God. Again, I was raised in the church. I love God with every ounce of my being so I talk about Him all the time. God called Abraham, “You got to come out from what you’re familiar with and you have to go somewhere else.” It’s stepping out of that world, stepping out of that chaos, stepping out of that moment, becoming aware, going, and looking back.
You talked about The Four Agreements, and one of the ones that I love more than anything is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the habits is to seek first to understand. You have to step out of it and then look back at it and try to get an understanding of it. That was one of the ways that got me to the point where I was able to understand. My mom did the best that she could based on what she had and knew at the time.
I then began to look at her entire situation and look at what age she was when I was coming up being that very hard to deal with a 13, 14, or 15-year-old girl who was in such a dark place full of so much anger who is trying to kill herself and was mad at the world. How she was responding to that and still being heard, but also having to deal with six other kids. Do you know what I’m saying?
I do. I have a lot of children, and I was one. Junior high is the worst place on earth. My middle school years and those teachers that teach those people. I have a saying. If they were born at fourteen, there wouldn’t be any. They’d come out so cute.
I would not have wished me now that I’m standing here on anybody, but I give my mama so much credit because again, I’m like, “She was doing the best she could.” I gave myself the same grace. Now, I understand that even with all the things that I was doing, I’m like, “They were doing what they knew to do. That was their role.”
Don’t you feel like we’ve lived a life in that regard as reactionary? We’re reacting rather than creating. We’re reacting to what’s going on, and it seems like it’s all chaos. That hasn’t gotten better in our world. I’m outrageously optimistic that it is getting better, but we hadn’t seen it yet that much.
It depends on how you look.
We’re always reacting instead of creating our life moment by moment and having a little bit of a plan. I believe there’s one key that can begin the shift. First of all, you said recognizing it, but gratitude and starting being thankful just for being able to breathe. We’ve got free oxygen out here. On this side of the dirt, what a blessing is that? We wake up. If we started with a thank you mantra, everything is saying thank you. Even if we don’t like what’s happening, we still can be in gratitude.
You have the power to change any situation simply by the way that you look at it.
It’s your perspective.
You can get up every morning and your life could be in absolute shambles but what I tell people is before you complain about anything, say thank you for two things, and then see if you still want to complain. However, we can choose the way we look at every situation. We can choose the way we handle every situation. We have that power, and it’s learning that because everybody doesn’t know that I have the power to choose.
It’s a new muscle. You took a commitment to touch that gym every single day, whether you did it or not, but that created the habit, the commitment, and the empowerment of do it or don’t. “I am committed.” I would call it not a small thing, but that decision to, “I am committed no matter what. I’m going to love myself enough to honor my commitment to myself.”
Commit to commitment.
There’s so much more to your story, but as we are wrapping up, you’ve got a book or multiple books, if I’m not mistaken. I wanted to talk about the things about habits. You had a part of a book or something about habits and habits are huge. Just one tiny little habit in choosing. It’s all choice. Everything is a choice. You get to choose.
Let’s talk. You’ve gone from trauma to leaving a legacy. This is where you are. You are on fire every step of the way. You’re at the gym every day. You are at work in a full hard power-driven job every day. We’re on Win-Win Women TV, and Shawnte has her own show that will be on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM Central time on WinWinWomen.tv. My channel is Be Empowered. What is your channel?
It’s Transformation.
You’ve got your own live TV show. You’ve got podcasts, books, events, and a magazine. For you to come on my show after your launch, if anybody knows anything about a launch, you birthed the baby. The launch of your second edition is what it is. What is all that tied up in a bow and where can they find you? How can we get more connected with Shawnte?
You can find me at NexLevel.org. It’ll take you everywhere and everything connected to me. I’m on every platform, or at least, I’m trying to be because as God reminds me, there is somebody who needs to hear your message. You have to be intentional about being wherever that person is and putting it out there so that she can connect and hear. You can connect with me on all social media platforms. NexLevel.org will get you to NexLevel Magazine, which is equipping women with actionable tools they can use in their life to take their life from chaos to balance.
Spread the message of God on every platform. You have to be intentional in putting it out there so that everyone could hear. Click To TweetIt is even for teens. I thought you had a teen article, which is awesome. I need it more than them.
We wanted to give teens a place to speak. It’s breaking the silence. Give them a place to speak, and different people are sharing their stories. I’m all about stories. Connecting with women who want to share their stories of how they successfully manage challenging situations so that they can share them with others and inspire them. Let them know, “I’ve been there. I’ve gone through what you’ve gone through, and you can come out. There is hope on the other side, and this is what I did.”
You may not walk the same walk that they walk, but if you hear enough stories from enough women, you can say, “She had something that helped me, and I’m going to take a piece of it that helped me.” We are giving you some tools for your journey because we don’t know what your journey looks like, but God knows what your journey is.
Our job is to give you the tools. Now, you have this tool bag, and when you face whatever situation you face, you can go into the tool chest and pull out a weapon and fight that situation with that weapon. My goal is to help and empower women with those tools, with gratitude and grace. It’s giving yourself grace and learning delayed gratification. Also, teaching women how to be committed to commitment and commit to consistency. It’s all these practical things that you do every day. That’s what it is.
Also, love yourself enough that you can take those small steps and small disciplines repeated daily. Jim Rohn is like, “A small discipline, a step. If you take an apple a day or a candy bar a day, tomorrow, you may not notice the difference, but in six months, you probably would.”
It’s, “The way it comes on is how it comes off.” It’s a step at a time.
We want every one of you out here, we’re all overcomers. If you can take a deep breath right this second, you’ve been provided for some way or another. You may not like your circumstances, but you can’t change the last circumstance or last week or last minute. You can only change the next one. Take a deep breath and make a different choice. That is the only way and that’s all you have.
You don’t have another minute besides this one or a second. You only have this one. Take the next second one step more positively than you did the last step. If you’re doing good, it draws more good to you. The Law of Attraction is real. Be that and take that next step that makes a difference in your life in a positive way.
It’s called Inspired Right Action. That’s what I call it.
Action is a huge piece, and you have a life designed to inspire action. It was on your website, and I love that. One of the things I’ve said is you can’t change the world. You can change your world, which changes the world. That means perhaps a smile to somebody, picking up a piece of trash, or going out of your way a little bit just to give grace to somebody, all of those things. It’s a small action and it raises the energy of everyone around you.
This time goes so fast. I’m telling you. I love talking with people. Let me close this portion by saying, we’re on WinWinWomen.com weekly and all of the streaming services. Shawnte has a show. WinWinWomen.tv has a plethora with a goal of having round-the-clock global shows. It’s worth taking a look at and watching us grow. It’s a beautiful group of women making a big difference.
It’s women supporting women and our desire is to see you win. That’s a win every day in life. Our goal is to see you win. There’s something for you every day to help you win the day. That’s the goal. If you win the day enough times, you’re going to make some change.
If you win the day enough times, you can make some actual change. Click To TweetEven sometimes, it’s just winning the minute. Sometimes it’s like, “I’m going to wait to have that glass of wine until later.” You might do it a few different times later or several times until it’s like, “I don’t even want it right now.” For example, my name means joy in Greek. It means chat in Spanish and I always like to end with, “Choose joy.” I’m incredibly grateful for you, Shawnte. This has been amazing. I love talking with you.
I appreciate you for having me.
Is there anybody out there that wants to join in? On my side, I only see the four, you and me with our other. We’re still new here. We’re learning and that’s okay. I’m so incredibly grateful for this opportunity and this platform to learn new skills, meet new people, and share. I do believe we, you and me, many of us on Win Win Women are going to be on global platforms and stages because that’s who Paula is. She’s been doing it for years. That is where we’re headed and I’m excited.
I am too.
I feel that you’ve shared a lot and you’ve given so much wisdom. Also, you’ve got such a heart to shift one person at a time and maybe many one of these days but people need to understand that they don’t have to be stuck where they are.
One of the things that God told me when I started my journey was because I used to ask all the time, “God, change the situation.” God was like, “I don’t have to change your situation, Shawnte. If I change you, then you’ll change your situation.” That’s the sum and substance of what happened. I was transformed with a new mind, a transformed heart, and a new way of seeing. I didn’t realize that the way that I was looking at life was through dirty glasses.
It’s a little bit about, “Poor me, and it’s all about me,” and when we realize that it has very little to do with us, and what anybody says or does is nothing to do with us. That’s in The Four Agreements. Don’t take things personally. I tell my grandkids, “Nobody can hurt your feelings without your permission. Nobody can make you angry without your permission. Let it go.”
It’s unconditional love and forgiveness, but not unconditional boundaries. That doesn’t mean take things that you shouldn’t take but when you stand in your own power, so often a bully can’t bully you. It’s because you have compassion for the five-year-old that’s inside of that bully that doesn’t know how to love themselves enough and you can learn that we’re all in this world trying to get along as best as we can.
All of us are trying to survive and trying to make it as best we can based on what we have.
Also, choose in grace. Giving yourself the grace, “I messed up but that doesn’t mean it’s permanent. It means I got an opportunity now to make a difference. Take another deep breath and take a different step, a different direction, and apologize. If you mess up, you apologize. To me, the word integrity is huge. When you mess up because you will, whatever you promised, you say, “I’m sorry. I’ll make a new agreement,” and move forward. You live in your integrity and honor your word.
Many of us don’t take that honoring your word lightly. It seems like, “They’re a little white lie,” or whatever, but no. It’s who you are. Whatever you say after the words I am is who you are. I don’t believe that people recognize that when they say, “I am so sick. I’m so tired.” I don’t believe that they’re creating their world and it’s who they are in that moment. I Am is the breath of life.
I agree with all of that.
We’re on the same like, “Let’s make a difference. How can we make a difference? That’s where we are.”
It’s like I tell people all the time. God has put something in every last one of us. I wrote a post about this. Growing up, I was always told by one person or another that I talk too much. “You talk too much. You got a big mouth.” I was always in trouble in school for asking too many questions. People did not like me because I asked too many questions but there’s a reality that exists.
God has put something in each and every one of us to benefit this world and to benefit others. He’s given us all an opportunity to serve. There is a message in each of us. There is a story in all of us. There is talent in all of us to help change the world but it starts with us. It starts with that self-love and that self-realization. Also, finding and accepting you and healing all of those broken parts of you such that you are not recreating another broken you. That’s where it starts and it is work. Let’s not play around. It’s work to get here. It is work to maintain it.
The alternative is not pretty.
It is not but once you do the work, there’s something so powerful about you. There’s something powerful about every last one of us and it’s the one thing that I know more than anything in the world that there is no power greater than the power within you. There is power in you to shift and change every situation. It may be an “is,” but that “is,” is not the is and you have the power to change what that “is,” is. It’s just, “Are you willing to? Are you willing to look for the light instead of looking for the darkness? Are you willing to look for the good?”
Find the good because there is good everywhere in every situation. If you are thankful, even if it’s a horrific situation and be grateful that you can take a breath and you’re okay in that split second of a moment. In everything, give thanks. You’ve heard that. Everything doesn’t mean only when it’s good. I was thinking about asking you about regrets. I didn’t get to it, but would I change things?
Yeah. Are you kidding me? I’ll change everything but with the understanding and realizationere are so many things I would do. “If I had done this,” but I don’t go there. I was like, “No. Every single solitary thing since, “Let there be light,” has brought you and me to having this conversation right here, right now. Every decision in the whole universe and twelve generations back in, if they hadn’t met, you wouldn’t be here. Everything has brought us to be.
I would not change one thing.
I’m talking about it in reality. If I was twenty again and I could go, “Maybe I should,” and I’m flippantly saying it because everything has brought us to having this conversation right here right now and I love it.
Somebody on the show asked me if I could change anything, would I have done anything differently? When I started my journey, and with the exception of saying that I would’ve communicated more with my husband, I think about that all the time in life, and I give God thanks for every single thing I’ve had to endure in life. It’s because every single thing I’ve had to do or that has happened, good, bad, or indifferent has been the leading cause for me sitting where I am now. Where I am now is where I’ve always desired to be.
It’s the only place we have to take the next step. This is it. We don’t have another place. It’s where we are. I don’t care where you are. It’s all you got. We don’t have all this wishful thinking. All we have is where we are. You might as well give yourself grace, take a deep breath, and love it as it is because when you do that, then you have clarity on how to take the next step.
The next step opens up and that next right-inspired action becomes very clear.
I feel like there are so many people who are reactionary, as we said before and we’ve numbed ourselves. We’re watching so much programming coming in that is not to our benefit. It’s called programming for a reason. The last thing is taking responsibility and turning off your devices for a few minutes. For five minutes a day and standing in the grass or rubbing a tree or holding a rock. I feel like this grounding that happens, we’re missing that with all our electronics and stuff. Maybe taking a few minutes or 22 seconds to take a little mini-meditation like we did. It’s a place to start.
There are 1 million little things but it’s intentional. You have to be intentional. You have to set your intentions and stick to those intentions. I say this all the time. You have to know where you are, but you got to be clear on where you want to go. If you want to be a happier person, you have to realize what that happiness looks like. You got to figure out what happiness looks like even if happiness isn’t seen around you.
Do the work to go figure it out and don’t delay stepping into that place even if you’re not there. Don’t delay becoming that person. How would she act? That’s what I used to tell myself all the time. How would a healed me talk? I would imagine how a healed me would talk and that’s how I started talking. Those were the words that I started using. Soon, they became the language that I used and I released the old language that I used to have like, “I’m ugly. I can’t do it.”
Even if happiness isn’t seen around you, do the work and figure it out. Don’t delay stepping into that place. Click To Tweet“I’m too tired. I’ll do it later,” and all those excuses.
It becomes a mindset. It doesn’t even qualify as excuses. It’s something that you’re so used to and when everybody around you uses the same language, you’re like, “This is our normal language. This is our culture. This is familiar to us. This is home.”
You can be comfortable in chaos because that’s what you’re comfortable with. I have a very close-to-home story about that but you can be very comfortable in a crisis and if it’s not being a crisis, then you can create the crisis so that you can come in and save the day. Your mode is, “I’m the knight in shining armor. I want to come in and save the day.”
If things are going well, it’s not that they like it. It’s that they aren’t comfortable with smooth sailing. That’s another aspect of all of this. We could talk for hours and days. I love you so much and thank you for your time. I know you’re busier than anybody I know but I’m so proud of you. I’m so thrilled that we were able to meet and connect. Here we are, many years later and we had a great ride. It’s our time.
Everything that happens in the season is supposed to happen.
For such a time as this. Blessings to you, girlfriend, and we will be in touch. I love you so very much. You inspire me.
Thank you. My job is to show up. Any opportunity given is an opportunity taken.
When intriguing opportunities present themselves and you say yes, things show up and it has to be an intriguing opportunity because opportunities are unlimited. Take care of yourself. I’ll be in touch, for sure.
Thank you. Have a good one.
I love you.
I love you too.
—
I’m Charla Anderson, host of The Charla Anderson Show, Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (and EVERYONE is Fascinating!) on live TV, streaming and podcasts. As a Ziglar Legacy Certified Trainer, a retired award-winning flight attendant, Olympic Torch bearer, personal development junkie, Inspired Speaker, Published Author and Your Courageous Coach, I want to share my passion of living life full-out, saying YES to intriguing opportunities, and encouraging YOU to do the same. Let’s jump on a discovery call and get to know each other. Find all things Charla at CharlaAnderson.com/links.
On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, Princess to Queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.
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- https://CharlaAnderson.com/links/
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About Shawnte Kinney
Shawnte Kinney is the editor of NexLevel Magazine, a quarterly digital magazine that equips women with actionable tools they can use to transform their lives.
Shawnte is also the host of the NexLevel weekly podcast Conversations from the Other Side. She shares the real-life stories of women who have successfully managed challenging situations to inspire and encourage other women as they find balance in their chaos.
Shawnte is the author of Don’t Be Bitter, Book One in the Journey of a Lifetime Series, about how she found herself in the middle of a divorce. She has over 25 years of legal experience as a civil litigation paralegal. She enjoys teaching about the life of Christ, exercising, and connecting with people.
