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The Space for Sistas® Podcast is a weekly-ish chat with Dr. Dominique Pritchett and guests about all things health and wellness leaving you with actionable solutions to step into our most authentic selves.
Episode 34
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[00:00:00] welcome to the Space for Sisters podcast, a weekly ish conversation with Dr. Dominique Pritchett, an organizational wellness strategist, international speaker, and therapist, as well as some amazing guests. We share life changing stories, solutions, and strategies to inspire Black women to dream, decide, and do what's necessary to evolve into our most authentic selves and live well.
While I was journaling this morning, I started reflecting over my past this past year, the good, the bad, the messy, the ugly, all of it. When I looked at what I was writing, I was like, huh, I think I'm laying out.
Principles or a guide that I can use to guide my upcoming year and how my brain works once I see a lot of words or a lot of information, it kind of works in puzzles. I just start automatically categorizing this information into organized ways to process it, [00:01:00] revisit it.
I was like, huh. Um, These are some principles that's going to guide my upcoming year. And see where they fit for you personally and professionally.
I'm not a numerologist, but if you think about it, is the year of nine and the number nine symbolizes closure, reclamation, release, full circle. In this episode, I'm going to be focused on transformational themes.
I want to introduce you to several guiding principles for, so that you can have a more intentional and growth focused year. As I was journaling, I looked at my life in three areas. Did I see myself? Did I find ways to support myself and, utilize my supports? And did I spend my time in spaces where I felt psychologically safe?
When it comes to seeing myself, not just, [00:02:00] Oh, I looked in a mirror and I looked down at my outfit and I saw what I had on or what was reflected back. No, did I truly see myself for all of my experiences, see myself for the flaws, see myself for the person that chose to get up every day, to see myself as someone that has a lot of life and praying for a lot of those years to come.
In terms of support how did I support myself? Did I find myself in codependent situations? No. Did I find myself ignoring when I needed help? No. When I need support, I'll reach out to my circles. I have different pockets of friends. Some of them have met and some of them have never met.
I got an older group of friends and a younger group of friends in my circles. One of the things I. committed to several years ago. If I'm going through something, I'm going to communicate that with my support circle. I might even say, I don't need anything from you. Just pray for me. I don't need anything from you.
Just check on me later. Because letting [00:03:00] my support circle know where I'm at mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I'm not looking for anybody to fix my stuff. Cause at the end of the day, I have to be able to navigate and find ways to support myself. While knowing that they are there if I need them.
And a lot of times I work through it myself, but I'm not of the mindset that you don't need anyone. I got my therapist. I got my circle. I got my trainers at my gym. I have running clubs online. There are so many people that I utilize for different pockets of my life. I know this journey is not meant to be taken alone.
In terms of psychological safety you can exist where you can get things wrong. You can make mistakes. There can be conflict, but you won't be hurt or harmed because of it. And so there were a few spaces earlier this year on certain boards and committees.
I'm not renewing a membership just because. When I took a step back, I was like, I don't want to participate in this [00:04:00] anymore. Even if it was a organization full of black women, even if it was, there was a possibility that I could leverage partnerships. If it didn't feel good to me, I would trust that if it was aligned, it would come back in a different way, but not, it didn't feel good at that time.
So I bounced. When I start my mornings off I call it by miracle morning because every day I wake up, I consider it a miracle considering that I didn't think I would live to see the age of 18 because of all the craziness.
Back then I had no desire to live. I wanted to be wallpaper. I wanted to just fade into the background. Until I found. My voice, and until I realized my voice could touch different corners of this world I realized that life was worth living. I had hope, I had purpose, and I was able to declare meaning for my life.
I didn't think I would live to see 18, and now I'm even about to turn 40 years old in 14 days! And I am ecstatic because a lot of people are like, Oh my gosh, 40, it's a [00:05:00] milestone birthday. How do you feel? You're single. You don't have kids. I feel great. I feel great because I didn't think I would make it this far.
At least that was a thought back then. As I share these upcoming principles with you, I hope that they inspire you to create a similar roadmap, if you want to call it that, for your own growth. I started seeing this theme come together, it's clarity. When I think about clarity, I think about what it means to be clear about what do I want, what do I need, and the boundaries that I must set.
and maintain to protect that clarity, because here's the thing. People are like, Oh, so crystal clear. I know which direction I'm going. I know what I don't need. I know, all of these things, but we fall into old habits quite easily of letting certain people invade our space and Chisel at our clarity.
If we are maneuvering through life and it gets fuzzy and we just keep going through that fuzz, [00:06:00] just like if we're driving down the road and that fog isn't letting up, you got some options. You can either fi pull over and fi get yourself somewhere safe or you can keep going and risking bumping into something that's in front of you.
I truly believe that we have to. Clear the fog. We have to clear the fog. And that acronym is, are we operating in fear? Are we operating out of obligation? And are we operating out of guilt? Those things do not enhance clarity. They make them very difficult.
So make sure that you are clearing the fog often so that you are not navigating life out of fear, out of obligation or guilt. That's not clarity. When I think about defining my goals, um, people write goals, but they stop at that. When I think about vision board parties, I'm not opposed to vision board parties.
I like action board parties [00:07:00] over vision board because you can make the vision and make it plain, but if you don't identify the incremental steps of what it's going to take to reach those goals it's basically just a goal. With my goals, I needed to hold myself responsible.
A lot of people say, Oh, I got an accountability partner. I got an accountability partner. That's a great.
First of all, I don't believe other people that's their job to hold us accountable. Especially if we, lack the responsibility to hold ourselves accountable first and foremost. So that's what I mean when I say get super, super clear about your goals. With my goals, I write down what am I overarching goals?
Then I write down all the steps or the objectives that I need to take to reach those goals. And then I break those objectives down into benchmarks. How am I going to evaluate whether they are working? When am I going to check in , daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly? And through those [00:08:00] benchmarks, I'm assessing for what are those barriers, but here's the thing way before I set the goal.
I'm gonna identify potential barriers because a lot of the stress and the things we bump our heads on. They're not anything new. They might be dressed up differently, but they're not new. For example, I live in the Midwest, and every, when October rolls around, if I'm not on somebody's hot island, I know the probability of me exhibiting depression symptoms is quite high.
So I proactively do what I need to do because that's a potential barrier to me doing the things I want to do. Yes, many people live full lives with depression. My point is every year we know the seasons are going to change. Am I going to, Continue to status quo being stuck in the house, not I work from home.
So being stuck in a house, not pre scheduling social time, no, that won't [00:09:00] cut it over the winter. It's too easy to go into that spiral. That's what I mean when I say be very clear about the goals you set. When I think about that clarity and the moments and the time periods where I felt most clear minded this past year, my confidence was through the roof.
That's why I was like, I know those two are connected when I'm clear or I I of course correct if things aren't clear, I'm able to be confident. Confidence builds trust with yourself. And as a person that lives with anxiety, I call myself a warrior to anxiety. She is, I feel like she's always there.
But. The more consistent and clear I have been with my choices, my time, my relationships, what I want, what I don't want, I was able to confidently trust that I didn't need her to speak up for me figuratively. I didn't need her to be at the head of the table. My girl, you got to move around. I'm at the [00:10:00] head of my table.
With confidence, I was able to build trust with myself, especially through when I needed to make big decisions, whether it's money decisions about my grandma's because I'm her power of attorney. I don't need to wait on external validation because I trust myself and I'm confident that no matter what decision I make, I can handle the consequences, the positive and negative
Operating in clarity allows me to confidently make more healthy and positive decisions. When I think about external validation, you ever find yourself polling, asking your friends, a girl, what you think about this? Or should I do this? Polling. Can rob you of executing, making decisions.
It can rob you of confidence because you got all of these people in your head. Again, look at the bigger picture here. This is not saying don't utilize your support network to say, Hey, let me run something by you. That has to [00:11:00] come when you are clear in a direction you want to go. If it's a brainstorming session, that's different, but don't go looking for people to make decisions for you because you got to live with it.
When you reflect on how polling and others impact your life, consider doing it less often, especially in decision making situations and see how you self empower. That's what builds and boosts confidence. If this is an area you're struggling with really look at how your behaviors are driving that lack of confidence.
I found out polling was just not for me. When I'm ready to move on something, and I got three people in my head, I'm worried about their feedback in a unhealthy way. I actually ruminate over where I just run it over and over in my head and I forgot what my original decisions were.
My third C is curiosities. This year I'm going to continue to explore more. I'm going to continue to be curious or live out my [00:12:00] curiosities of adventures, new experiences. And also learning opportunities. There's so many things I'm curious about, so many places I want to visit in the world.
Not this long, not that long ago, I took a last minute solo trip to Aruba because, and I've been there a number of times. But I was curious to how would I respond to a solo trip? It had been over, it's been about a year since I had taken an overseas solo trip. I said, let me see how I do because I want to do more of that this year.
I love friend trips. I love my girl trips. I love group trips. But I was curious to see how my system would handle a solo travel because it had been a while. I had a ball all by myself. Consider approaching challenges and opportunities with curiosity rather than fear or avoidance.
What's the best that can happen? What is the best that can happen? Through that in line with confidence, I had more courage [00:13:00] to do things I wouldn't normally do go to places I wouldn't normally go to. I had the courage to embrace discomfort instead of going into that dark hole.
I was able to embrace pushing forward despite the uncertainties. Look, y'all, if you're anything like me, uncertainties is not the place I like to live. I like to be certain about things, but also I realized that shines a light. I might need to be in control all the time. I like to plan. I know I can't always predict, but I like to plan.
I like to have outlines. I like to have processes. I like to have strategies, but I definitely leaned more into some of the uncertainties. How would I be around certain groups of people? How would I be in certain spaces? Not all of them turned out to be horrible. But I definitely leaned into some uncertainties.
I want you to think about how courage has been essential in redefining your personal. And your [00:14:00] professional goals. A lot of the spaces we have to walk into, especially as a black woman we need courage because it's always so uncertain.
How will be perceived? Will people see me or will I have that icky feeling in my stomach? So having that courage to show up, if you are the first, if you are the only one in certain spaces.
Another C that I'll be applying again this year is embrace closure. I leaned into closure of a lot of things, a lot of relationships. This ties to the.
numerological significance of a number nine. It means ending, the numbers go zero to nine before it starts duplicating. And so it suggests an ending, closure, a release. And I am transitioning. Yeah, like I said, I'm turning 40 in 14 days and I'm excited because it's a [00:15:00] monumental transition and I'm super, super excited to see where that goes.
A lot of people dread turning 40, but nah, I'm ready. Bring it on. As you think about closure don't go seeking closure because a lot of us hang on to relationships, friendships, intimate relationships.
I just need closure. I got one more question. If they told me this, I would feel closure. Likely you won't. Okay. Whether it's with your parents, your daddy, your mama, your auntie, whoever it is, that one last question. It may help. Or it may not. But when we go seeking closure that says more about us than it does them.
And as a therapist, I hear often my clients say, I just need closure. I think we have to take some onus and find a way to give ourselves closure. Because even if we ask that last question, we found that person, we tracked them down. What they might say isn't what we need to hear. Like I said, for some people it does.
It can help [00:16:00] you. For me, it didn't. I didn't need to go ask another question. I didn't need to send one more text. I didn't need to, none of that. I want you to think about when we hold on to things, it can linger habits or relationships that just don't serve us anymore. As I continue, commitments.
I committed to a lot of stuff this past year. One of the things I committed to earlier last year was not announcing things all the time, especially my commitment.
I ran my first marathon in Cape Town, South Africa in October and seven, eight months prior to that, I announced I was running and training for a marathon, but I never shared where. So the night before I laid in my bed, I, meditated, I journaled, and I just announced it to those I'm connected with online and the support was amazing.
I truly believe one of the things that helped me stay true to what I said I was, I would do, I'm okay with sharing, but my growth needed to shine through my [00:17:00] aligned actions and the decisions I needed to make, not me promising things to my community, that's not where my commitment lies.
It's through my growth and my actions, then you can see based on those actions, did I do what I said I would do? As you think about the commitments you have on your plate the goal is not to burn out. It doesn't mean add more to your plate. When you are committed to something, it's about prioritizing the areas of your life and work that align.
You're going to keep hearing me say align because think about when we do things out of disalignment or we're not operating in alignment. It contradicts our values. And then we put it in the drudgery zone. Our energy ain't there. Our attitude shows through it. Another thing consistency.
. My consistency in terms getting up at the same time in the morning, reading this year. My goal is to read one book a month. Whether it's self help, financial, investing, relationships anything for [00:18:00] pleasure. But I'm hoping to expand my worldview of some topics as well.
I know I need to get up at the same time. And my good window of time is about 5 30 AM, because that gives me a good start to the day, especially on days where I have to see clients. I'm not rushing. I get to honor my miracle morning, which is to pray, meditate, journal, workout, and have a cup of tea.
But if I'm not consistent, I'm contradicting. everything I said I wanted to do. What it says is that, Oh, I'll just do it here. I'll do it there. This don't mean don't be flexible. What it means is that I am going to try to do things at the same time every day to ensure they get done. Because if it's consistent, that means it's on my schedule and it's reoccurring.
I've grown to be much more flexible because I can be very rigid at times, but that ain't a realistic way of living. So another [00:19:00] C, I want to acknowledge our connections. I have the goal of strengthening friendships, letting some of them go and being a better friend.
There are a few circles that I'm connected to. I didn't do such a good job, I realized that I definitely need to do better in terms of if someone's messaging me is be responsive within at least 24 hours and be proactive, whether it is sending flowers, sending cards or just randomly love notes.
Those are the things that I can do and they cost nothing. It takes very little time. And so building and maintaining meaningful connections to me is what has helped me live to see 40 as I said, I didn't think I would live to see 18. I felt like I always had to do everything by myself.
I know that's not the case now. So my goal is to be proactive. Be an intentional friend this year. Think about where you need to strengthen first, you got to look inward. Do [00:20:00] not demand things from your friend or do not ask things of your friends that you're not even doing. Okay.
You have to be meaningful and consistent. with those actions. Another C is capacity. Recognizing and respecting your limits to avoid overwhelm. Think about all the times you have stretched yourself to capacity. So I want you to think you and your friends are at dinner and they brought out the bread, y'all done had a few drinks, Brought out the appetizers, had the full meal, and they got the nurse to say, Do you want dessert?
And you have dessert. So you are, stretched to capacity. But in reality, you know you probably could've put half of your entree in a to go container because you were already stuffed. This is how I think about my brain. I think about all the times where I stuffed and stuffed.
Things I said I would do for people. Projects I would take on. It piled up. There were moments where I did nothing. I didn't follow through on certain contracts. [00:21:00] I realized I applied for this great position in Nevada. This past week I go, look, I'm like, why isn't this person responded back to me?
The email was in the outbox in my email system, sitting there week after week. And I was like, wow. I'm sure this person thinks I'm a total flake, things like that slip through the crack and people will easily say, that wasn't for you, sis. That wasn't for you. No, that's not always the case. I dropped the ball.
It was for me. I dropped the ball. So that's something we have to, got to stop doing is dismissing things as, that wasn't an alignment or God didn't want that for you. No, I was irresponsible. And if it didn't happen, it didn't happen, but just stop saying everything happened for a reason. No, it happened because I didn't honor my body.
I did not honor that my capacity was stretched thin. If it comes back around, it comes back around, but I take onus. I did to [00:22:00] contribute to that. So you have got to be able to identify a system to recognize your limits. Once you recognize them, what are you going to do about it? You can respect them or disrespect them.
When you are managing your commitments, say no. Say yes a little bit more. You got to find your harmony because capacity can be empty too. It's not just overflowing it can be empty. So we're so used to and too busy saying no that maybe we need to say a few more yeses. Sound familiar?
I got a few more C's then I'm going to wrap it up. But I was on a roll, like I said, I was journaling and I was like, Oh, C there. My next C is conscious living as the world was being held up by a thread.
I leaned into, I still need to consciously live. A lot of years of my life, I unconsciously existed. I felt like I was often in a dissociative state most of my life. [00:23:00] My conscious living was through mindfulness, the practice of being in the here and now. And whatever came up in my body, I didn't judge it.
I acknowledged it. I honored it. And I owned it. I stay present as much as possible. And so sometime that presence I would need to get offline and start connecting a little bit more. I traveled just to stay connected to the parts of the world where people were looking for hope.
They were looking to be connected with other people. With that conscious living, one of the things I have joked around with my support circle was like, Oh, I'm gonna go buy a TV. I haven't really owned a TV in 10 years. I was cleaning today and I just said, you know what?
I don't want to buy a TV. I joke about it, but there was a seriousness. Really I want to buy a TV, but I was justifying like I'm gonna buy a TV for my dog Moomba. But when I think about it as a person that lives with OCD, that's just one more thing I have to check that's off and I have to unplug when I leave the house.
Also I don't want to get complacent with [00:24:00] binging in front of the TV. There is nothing wrong with a binge day, which is why I give myself a solid four hours of my favorite shows on my computer four hours a week. I've done that for the past few years. Either I'm reading or listening to a podcast, but in order for me to consciously live, I cannot get roped up in things that just don't do my body any good.
Also, when it comes to social media, limit doom scrolling. People think I'm on social media all day every day and I'm not. I'm literally on there, engage with my community, post what I need to post, come back later and check my comments. For the first half of last year, I limited myself to 30 minutes a day.
If I couldn't get done what I needed to do 30 minutes a day on social media, I was on way too long. And I think about what are all the things I could have done with my life, with my time, if I was not doom scrolling as much as I did this past year. As we think about these principles to guide your next steps, I alluded to course correcting.[00:25:00]
It is so important to make adjustments before you reach a breaking point. Okay. I often talk about burnout. It is the mental, the physical state when stress is left unmanaged. You're exhausted. You're cynical, unmotivated. That is burnout in the simplest form. If we course correct along the way, I do believe we can make adjustments before we reach that point.
Think about all the times where you kept going, and Before you knew it, you were screaming at the top of your lungs. Because things were falling apart. This is why when it comes to elevating your emotional intelligence you have to prioritize self awareness as well as social awareness, because how are your behaviors, your actions impacting other people?
When we can be in a frequent state of [00:26:00] self awareness, I truly believe that allows us to course correct so that we can. Acknowledge and do what's necessary to regulate our nervous system versus waiting until it's frying. As I get ready to wrap up, I want to share two more C's with you. The first one is creation.
Create a way. Focusing on the what, You need to do versus how am I going to get it done? How am I going to do this? You'll find a way. It is a way that you can protect your energy and your focus. One of the things I say is you got to limit the outside distractions. And I already list a number of them.
And so taking action, especially when your circumstances are not ideal, you have got to create a way and figure out what is it going to take to get through it. And lastly, claim your time. Focus on protecting your energy and protecting your focus.[00:27:00]
You got to limit distractions, whether it's screen time gossiping on the phone, whatever it is. Think about your energy as an a source that if it's depleted, what are you missing out on? How are you not able to serve in a capacity that you truly desire ? So that's the recap of the guiding principles I lived by last year, and I'm taking with me this year.
I did fine tune a lot of them because I truly believe when I can honor these areas, these seas, It will impact my personal and professional life in a way that I can't even imagine. It's important that you take action that's aligned with clarity, curiosity, courage, conscious living, course correcting, claiming your time and all the C's I shared.
So I hope you all have the best start to your new year and you deserve every blessing that is coming [00:28:00] your way. Take care.
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