As Ann and Charde Young ( Love Freely) wrap up this three-part series, they continue their conversation on doing it afraid and the beautifulness of being vulnerable. They inspire many as they talk family secrets, betrayal, their search for self-acceptance and how affirmations guide them toward self-love as they try to light the path for others.
The two discuss how their creative sides can touch more than a canvas or a page, but it can also brush the human heart.
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As Ann and Charde Young ( Love Freely) wrap up this three-part series, they continue their conversation on doing it afraid and the beautifulness of being vulnerable. They inspire many as they talk family secrets, betrayal, their search for self-acceptance and how affirmations guide them toward self-love as they try to light the path for others.
The two discuss how their creative sides can touch more than a canvas or a page, but it can also brush the human heart.
Follow us on Tina and Ann's website https://www.realtalktinaann.com/
Facebook: Real Talk with Tina and Ann | Facebook
or at: podcastrealtalktinaann@gmail.com or annied643@gmail.com
Apple Podcasts: Real Talk with Tina and Ann on Apple Podcasts
Spotify: Real Talk with Tina and Ann | Podcast on Spotify
Amazon Music: Real Talk with Tina and Ann Podcast | Listen on Amazon Music
iHeart Radio: Real Talk with Tina and Ann Podcast | Listen on Amazon Music
Castro: Real Talk with Tina and Ann (castro.fm)
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. Thank you so much for joining us today. We finish up this three-part series with a beautiful Chardet Young, also known as Love Freely. We have been blessed to have her wisdom on this podcast and I have been blessed to call her friend. You will hear more about doing it afraid, doing it with shame and making the best of this thing we call life.
Speaker 1:We want to make a difference here on Real Talk with Tina and Anne, and we can't thank you enough for listening. Please join us every week. Either you can listen to us on wdjyfmcom every Sunday from 11am to 12pm or you can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts. We drop new episodes every Wednesday at 10am. You can visit us at Real Talk with Tina and Anne, on Facebook and also at our website at RealTalk with Tina and Annecom. Leave us a message and we will get back to you. Spread the word, spread the love. Remember there is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey. Here is part three to our interview with Chardet Young, also known as Love Freely.
Speaker 2:It's not okay. It's not okay to self-sabotage actual love and care. So let's figure out how to love yourself whole. Know that you deserve a real love. I didn't think I deserved it, to be honest. I thought that I should get the type of love relationship my mom had.
Speaker 1:Now did you blame yourself for keeping family secrets like that? Because I blamed myself I did.
Speaker 2:A lot of my shame came from that and I eventually had a conversation with my mother and she was just like you were a child. I was like 10 years old, 9 and 10 when they left and I was like Mom you know, I'm sorry, I think I was like 18. And like I knew dad was cheating on you and he was manipulating me as a child. So for me I just felt like, oh, I just basically messed my mother over. I wasn't being a good daughter because I knew that this was happening. I could have told her. But yeah, I carried a lot of shame and guilt behind that and I didn't realize until I was older that I had trauma behind that, even seeing my father cheating and being over these women's house, and I didn't realize that it was traumatic for me. I just started with life until I started dating and then it hit me like, oh, I have like daddy issues and I have to fix this or I'm going to keep dating the same man over and over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, you know, my dad died so, and he was. He was my adopted dad.
Speaker 1:So, you know and it's really mixed the feelings I have about my biological dad. I actually got to connect with my siblings, which I've never talked about this on the podcast before, which is really interesting. But I have been able to connect with my biological siblings on my dad's side so and it was actually kind of a good connection. But I did find out that I was conceived and raped and I did find out that he wasn't a good man. I really did, had I had been told this through my biological mom's side, because she didn't even want me at her death. I was a memory, I was a bad memory, yeah, and so when you're told that you're nothing but a rape, you know it really sticks with you for years.
Speaker 1:And after my dad had died, I went and I actually did have a relationship that was very small with my biological mom and I initially had thought that my dad was somebody else, later to find out, no, it was this person over here. So you know that was a little confusing. Yeah, you know, I did the genetics, the DNA test or whatever, and then I did end up finding some of these people that were on my biological father's side, and he wasn't a good man, he was an awful man actually. But you know, that's another whole layer to this is not owning who our parents are or what they did and we're not them. We're not. And that's another whole part of rewriting our story and not letting others define us.
Speaker 2:It really is. I tell my, I do affirmations with my children, and one of them is I am not my parents Right, because it took. It takes us a while to separate ourselves from that, and especially with your story. Oh my God, you were conceived in such I don't even know the word for it but look at the light that you are. You know the light that came from them. I was meant to be here. Yes, the light that came from me. Like you say, my father was not a good man. You were a visible representation of what your mother went through, so she couldn't properly be there for you. But yet look at the light you are to so many children, people and women, because you could have been so many. You could have just been them, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, when they had said to me things like you know, nobody graduates from high school in our you know, nobody. Nobody goes to college and you know that kind of stuff. And I was just like you know. I had to remind myself over and over that I matter and that I am worth something, and I had to internalize that and remind myself that I don't have to get that from somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was me. I went to that too. That outside validation and that's why I say this so much, I tell you guys so much when I'm on stage, stop looking outside of yourself a validation, when in truth, I'm reminding that to me I've done it so much. Being dark being, I was always heavy my whole life, so I always convinced myself that I was too fat to be on stage because, like, I don't have to look. Yeah, you can sing, but you don't sound like this. So I had to, like I don't have to have praise from you to do what I need to do. I don't, I could just do it for me, and that's okay. And who's supposed to hear my voice? They will, and that's right. Yeah, I had to keep telling myself that took me years to stop looking for outside approval to just be who I am.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I have to, I have to constantly talk differently to myself. So it's catching myself and saying, you know, and it's getting your mind, your thoughts to go, and I always call it thought stopping when you know it's instantly going to go in this way, it's just instantly going to take me on a path of no good. And so I got us thought stop it instantly and make it go a different path. And that's not always an instant, it's not, it doesn't want to go that natural path of good. So, you know, in order for us to carve a new path in our brain to, honest, you know, think of a different way of Getting us through to the other side we have, we have to carve a new path in our brain and it takes effort. Our brain actually has to take effort to make it think a different way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we're like motherboards, computer systems like you have to, just like you, we got to remove viruses, which is the old thought patterns. We have to download new ones and it takes a while to get used to, like when my iPhone, we get a new iOS every now and then I have to learn this new way my phone works. You have to rewire your mind and reprogramming your subconscious mind is not easy because, like After you do something for a year, it becomes a part of who you are, your brain and lately just it's on flow. Now. It's on flow now. Okay, we see this thought coming, so this is how we feel in. This thought comes and then you want racing like an engine like this is how this goes Right. Like that thought. Stop, I have to use that. I like that a lot, yeah.
Speaker 1:I use the whole time and I don't know where I got it from. I feel like I created it. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I like that anyway, but all the time I I don't like. I don't want anybody else to define me. I don't want my past to define me. I don't want my abuse to define me. I need to talk differently to myself and be kind to myself, and I always tell myself you know, one of my favorite books is the velveteen rabbit, and you know, it's that mentality of knowing. Yeah, I've been through it. I've been, I'm rubbed raw like the velveteen rabbit, but you know, that's where we come alive and that's where the love really is and that's where the connection really is and that's where the growth is.
Speaker 2:So so, yeah, you know, everything grows in the dark, like if you plant a seed it's struggling to push through dark dirt for a long time before you see a bud. Then that bud pushes through until you see that flower. We're no different from that seed. It takes time, you know right, it's.
Speaker 1:It takes struggle you know also, I read in the article, the Mariska Harkinte article is that trauma fractures our mind and our memory. So you know, when you're painting because one of the other things that you do is that you paint on stage yeah, when there's performers, there's music going on on stage and you're painting. And Now tell me, if I'm wrong, that there was a drummer for Gladys Knight who you performed with. He was performing and you were painting recently. I just bet that when you're doing that, that just adds a whole different layer of healing to put your life out there on a canvas while music and there's an audience, people are watching. I mean, that must just be beautiful.
Speaker 2:It is so, and you're right. Elijah Gilmore he drummed for Gladys Knight for years. He has a monthly show called Afro Beats where he drums over Afro Beats, and he invited me to live paint while he was doing so, and art is therapy for me. I found art therapy in 2000, late 2016. I needed therapy. I was working on a dimension unit and then I lived with my grandmother as she was demented and it was driving me crazy and I said I need to go to therapy and I didn't want to.
Speaker 2:At that point I'm like, oh, I'm not going to settle somebody couch.
Speaker 2:So I found art therapy and then I realized I was good at it and it really art. Art basically saved my life, just to put it that way, and it's where I find solace, it's where I can steal my mind, and it's something powerful when you can just no matter how chaotic everything is around me. I'm focused on this painting so he can be playing the drums, people are dancing, music is going. My focus is on this piece, so it's taught me how to steal myself in the midst of chaos. That's what live painting has taught me.
Speaker 1:What do you paint? What are some of the?
Speaker 2:So I just paint. I could do faces. Landscaping is my favorite. I've painted for Cleveland Public Theater before. I've painted a few murals. I've painted a bus, but acrylic is. It's got to be colorful, I don't know. I know that I like colors. I just paint and whatever happens happens. I guess it's based upon feeling. Usually I'll turn some music on and I'll have a reference sometimes and I'll just paint from there. But painting is my solitude. That's how it started. And then I started to post and people liked it so I started selling them. But the intention behind me painting was therapy, to calm my mind and give me something of my own to retreat to.
Speaker 1:If photography did that for me. I have actually a photography website. Everything has been a stepping stone to get me to where I am and I think that back where, when I didn't really have a voice, I used writing. I wrote all the time, even to communicate with people. It was weird. I would give people notes yeah, I would get, and they probably I was an adult and I'm giving you a note. Why can't you just say this to me? But I would do that because I wasn't really able to eloquently say what I needed to say. And then it went to my photography, where I was constantly taking pictures, and my website for my photography is basically seeing the lens, looking through the lens of somebody autistic. It's called Everything Spectrum or something like that. And then I just moved from that to now I do speak to this. Everything just got me to where I am, to have me be able to use my voice again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you took one step at a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's just such a growing process and when I see you up there on stage, you aren't done. This is just some stepping stones to where you're going, because I know that there's a lot more planned for you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, and I'm at a point to where I'm knowing it too, to be honest, especially these last few months of my life, I've gotten so many opportunities and I realize what I had was imposter syndrome, like as if I was just a poster standing up here, not, actually, I'm doing this and I'm good at doing it and it's okay, and for some reason I just couldn't believe.
Speaker 2:And when people would usually say, hey, you did a good job, and I'm like, oh, I will brush it off because I felt like an imposter just playing a role. And now I'm finally at a point to where I can feel it Like I know that there's more for me, because basically what you just described for you has literally helped happen to me. I found art first through therapy. The art led me to open a gallery. That led me to meet the musicians. I met Mikey, I joined the band, I created my own band and now I'm going to go on tour. And so I found my voice. I didn't, when it comes to art, before, prior to 2016,. I never doodle, sketch, paint it, anything.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And that's why I tell people you have to try things, because you don't, you have no idea what you're capable of. You don't, you have no idea.
Speaker 1:Do you have a gallery now, or did you? I don't OK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was called the Underground Cleave. It was on the east side of Cleveland and I just I took the risks.
Speaker 1:You say yes when the doors are opened.
Speaker 2:That's it. I just said yes. When the door was open for me, I said OK, and that's literally the trajectory of my life, that's, the last five years of my life has been what you just said Just showing up, showing up.
Speaker 2:That's literally. And people ask me how do you do that? I'm like that's literally. What you just said explains my whole life and I'm just being myself. So I try to tell people all the time I don't care how talented you are, you could be the best singer, best artist, best photographer, best speaker how you make people feel, how they feel about you, People buy into you. That's what I learned all this time I've been lately selling myself. So at this point I know that it's my energy and who I am and the fact that I was bad as enough to be vulnerable. That's what people are coming to see. So I can probably be singing about the ABCs at this point and people will come and say you know what? You did a good job and you gave. Because it's the energy I'm giving.
Speaker 2:I'm purely walking in love. I'm purely. I want to connect to everyone. Pure. That's really what I want. I'm not trying to put on the best show of the year and at one point in my mind at my thinking about, oh, are they going to buy something from it just never crossed my mind. I'm just there to me to connect with you and that is what people come to see me for and I try to tell people that when they say, well, how do you do what you do? And I've been doing this for years and I'm like I really just think it's just who I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, you're finally reached what you were supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we're all on a mission, we're all on our way to get there, and some of us have to take some extra twists and turns to get what we're supposed to be. Yeah, but you know, we reach it. We reach it whether it's 30 or 40 or 80 or whatever. We reach our purpose and it's never too late.
Speaker 2:So that's a lesson I learned too, because I would say that a lot too. Like I'm 37. I'm like who do you know that starts a music career at 34? And do anything? I'm like, ok, I'm just going to be singing around the bars and then in the last four years I've traveled, singing and done all these things and I'm about to be 38. So it's never too late to do the thing. So anybody out there listening to this, if it's on your heart and mind, this is not a rehearsal. We get one life, and at four, almost 40.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have about 40 good summers. I think once I started looking at life like this, I started to live. I have 40 good summers in me. I'll be almost 80 years old, and I say good because I can live to 90 something. But will I have the same activities of my limbs?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So I want to take and, as you can see, it's almost summer again, so these years are not waiting on us. I have 40 good summers left in me. I am going to do everything that's on my heart to do and that's just it. We have to live while we're here. A lot of us aren't living because we refuse to let go of the shame and the pain and all of that. Just live If you're not hurting anyone and you're lifting people up along the way. Do all the things. Do all the things Because we want to get one shot at this. Just do it all and have fun and smile more and give less and give yourself like 72 hours to feel upset and move on, because what we focus on grows people.
Speaker 1:Go ahead you know I can't tell you how many times I spill something and it just starts this really big domino effect. Or I just made this really awesome thing and then it's completely ruined and I just say that's exactly what was supposed to happen. There it is OK, and you know, I went from my childhood to having my kids. When they were 30, I adopted my two older two kids, and so I did that right when I was getting started to start my retired life. Or you know, I'm not retired.
Speaker 1:I'm not the retired age but I meant you know grown kids gonna start my life without kids. Get the phone call from Children's Services. You gotta take these three babies now. And they were two months, 18 months and a nonverbal three-year-old who had the George syndrome, and you know it. Just, it didn't. It was a lot. I didn't have anything, I didn't know what I was going to do and I dropped everything and I just went and I got them.
Speaker 1:And you know I could, where some of my friends are doing Vegas and they're doing this and they're doing this and I'm going and I'm planning kid vacations, or you know, I'm taking them to New York and I decided when I got them that we are going to experience life together. I'm not going to sit here as this grandma sitting here going what was me. I, you know, and we are going to have fun and we're going. We just went to New York and we went to Tennessee and everything that we're doing. I'm experiencing through them and with them and I'm just having an absolute blast and that's the way you know. I'm just like, hey, let's go to McDonald's, play land, let's do this. And you know, I just I'm just saying, you know, we have to embrace what's been given us, and that's where we get to plan. We get to take it and make it our own path. Things happen, things happen, but then we can take it in the direction that we want.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that. I love that for you and the babies, because what you're doing is making your inner child so happy. Did you experience New York as a child? Did you experience going out with the play land? So every time you take those babies to those places and you're having a good time, it's the little girl in you that's having a good time and you're actually giving those babies everything that you didn't receive and you're giving it to your, the baby and you first. So when you said I help myself when I'm giving to people, that's exactly what you're doing with those babies. You're speaking to the little girl in you who wanted to go on trips, who wanted to spend time in play, who wanted to do all of those things. You're doing that for her through those children. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I call it my third childhood, so that's really cool that you're saying that, and fortunately I have the body that allows me to be able to continue to do these things, probably for the next 20, 30 years, because I'm still in my 50s. So I mean, I have a lot of years, you've got time, I do. I still have a lot of time left here. So, and you know, my kids give me so much and that's what we talked about was being able to pour yourself into something and getting something so much back. And I really do, and the healing is there. And it also gave me a different perspective by bringing them in and they challenged me to the point where I just want to pull my hair out. So there is that.
Speaker 1:But what I learned was my mom, my adopted mom, when she got, you know, put my sister in the system because she was bad or you know different things like that. There was no excuse in her situation. I can't say for anybody. But hey, you know what? Kids have bad moments, but there aren't bad kids. There it is. We don't treat somebody and discard of them because they did bad things. And what I've learned with my son, who is acting out and acting out, he is not a bad kid. He calls himself bad, because that's how a teacher made him feel. But he's not bad and you know, I'm just letting him know. No, you are a good kid, you made a bad decision it is.
Speaker 1:But what do we all do? But we are all specially made, we are purposefully made, we all have a mission and we all are love and we can all have love go through us to other people.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. We are our love. We can all have love go through us to other people, I love that, hey, do you want to sing us out?
Speaker 1:because?
Speaker 2:let me see what I want. I would, instead of singing, okay, I would like to do a little affirmation, if that's okay, if you would do it with me, absolutely. And when they watched it or listened to the podcast, they can do it with us. So I'm going to encourage you to place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me I am loved, I am loved, I am worthy, I am worthy, I am safe, I am safe. I am more than enough. I am more than enough.
Speaker 2:Every day, every day, in every way, in every way, I am better, I am better and better and better. Now the only thing you have to do is believe all of that and take that with you, especially when it's hard, and say it to yourself every day. When you look in the mirror, especially when you got the crust in your eyes and you're looking the worst of the worst, remind yourself that you are worthy and beautiful. Before anyone else say anything to you, you tell yourself, you affirm yourself, and it starts your day with that. It makes it so much better. That's what I want to leave to everyone here today.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen Is all I can say to that. You know, there was a time I wouldn't have been able to say those words after you said them. Yeah, so it's, and I might have been able to eventually say it, but not feel it. But I felt I felt it when you said it, I loved it.
Speaker 2:So I was there too. I experienced that phase of my life where I could not affirm myself and I couldn't say I love you, Sharday. I broke down in tears just saying that to myself. So it takes practice.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you got to fake it till you make it, you know.
Speaker 2:There it is, there it is, that's it, and eventually it becomes real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thank you.
Speaker 2:Sharday, or Yantlove your love or however you want to be, yeah.
Speaker 1:I know you as both, but some people know you as love and some people know you as Sharday, so, but both versions of you are just beautiful.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, and you are too, so thank you for shining your light and having this platform. Well, we can just speak candidly about who we are.
Speaker 1:Yes, All right. Well, I'm going to end our podcast here and I just thank you so much, Sharday, for being on with Tina and Anne, Real talk with Tina and Anne. I just so appreciate you and your message and you know we might be able to do this again sometime.
Speaker 2:Yes, any time, any time. And I will always I love you. I love you so much.
Speaker 1:I love you too and you know I'm going to come out and see you guys again and again, because you minister to my soul. When I see you sing, and not just everybody in the band, but you know, when you're up there and you sing, it really does minister. So, just like you said, believe in yourself.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:I believe in you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're going to stop here for real talk with Tina and Anne, but we will see you next time. Bye.