S1 E8: The Super Wise Unapologetic Episode

I have been inquisitive since I can remember. Questions are my way of understanding where I fit in within the greater scheme of the world.

I am a woman. Born African American. And I am super wise and intelligent. I am the antithesis of what it means to be an acceptable person.

Regardless, I ask my questions, and I allow the sense that I have made of the space I take to make room for me in areas of life that make a point of shutting people like me out.

I don't dare knock. I boldly open the door. If they try to hold it shut, then I use these thick thighs that I inherited from women who didn't have the opportunity to, power these legs and KICK down the barriers that try to hold me back.

No apologies here. Only intention and audacity. 

Let's talk about it. 

Transcript

What's up, good people? Welcome back to the Speak Space. It's your favorite spiritual sister, the super wise, intelligent, here to bring you some super good conversation. Welcome back. Welcome back. I'd like to thank Timu for sponsoring today's episode, I'm Lying Like a Rug. Timu is not the sponsor for today's episode, but they will be the sponsor for a future episode or two, or three, or four. You already know we are in manifestation mode always on this side of the world, on this side of reality, on this side of right here at the Speak Space manifestation and the Speak Space go hand in hand, right? But what I would like to do is thank all of my subscribers, all of my members, all of my contributors, all of my supporters, everyone who has lended a listening ear and provided feedback, I appreciate you more than you will ever know. So thank you, thank you, and thank you some more. We have one hell of a topics today, so if I were you, I would go grab something to drink, something good to drink, get you a little snacky snack. I can't promise you that this is going to be a short episode, so go ahead and get comfortable while we get into it. All right? Welcome back. Welcome back. So today's episode will be about being unapologetic. Excuse me. In your existence, in your moral fabric, in your integrity, and so on and so forth. And I am going to use myself as a primary example of how being unapologetic will open doors for you when other things attempt to close the doors on you, right? If you read the synopsis of what this episode is all about, it says when folks try to lock doors, close doors, I use these thick thighs that I got from my grandmothers, and I knocked them bitches down, kick them in, right? Kick them down. Do whatever you have to do to make space for yourself. Because one thing for sure in this life is that you cannot depend on anybody else to make space for you. So let's get into it. I was thinking about my professional life in general. When it comes to living without apology, right now, we don't get to know each other. Let me tell you something about me. Ever since I was a little girl, right? I've always been inquisitive my happy, ask will ask questions about any and everything. I was one of them kids, and I've been wearing glasses since I was two. So it was like a little miniature Miss Magoo, looking up at people, asking them questions. Just a whole bunch of questions, right? And I didn't care, because I needed to know what I needed to know so that I could know where I fit in the world. I had to have a clear understanding of where I belonged. I saw so many different things happen around me. And I have always been the type of spirit that just needs clarity. If you want me to function, then make the shit clear. If it's not clear, trust and believe. I'm going to ask. And I'm a Southern girl, so sometimes an inquisitive child can be mistaken as a child who lacks discipline or a child who lacks decorum or a child who lacks respect when that couldn't be farther from the truth. For me, the questions were my way of becoming respectful. My questions were my way of making sense of everything around me. Like I said before, but sometimes, especially where I'm from, people tend to want to beat a child down for not being, quote unquote, in a child's place when all that did was take the audacity and the right for a child to know that their voice has power away from them. Excuse me. I take that as a confirmation for that one more. Wow. Yes, because it's true. But no matter how much trouble my mouth got me into, I continue to ask the questions because I just had to know. Wow. Because it's true. These allergies are kicking my ass. Don't act like you all don't have allergies out there too. And if you don't have allergies, man, what must that be like? Anyway, because I definitely have these allergies, and they kick my ass every year. But anyway, yeah, my mouth has got me in trouble since I can remember, and the only thing that I learned how to do was become more resilient and steadfast in the right for me to know. For a minute, I thought I was going to be a goddamn journalist. Then I thought I was going to be an attorney because I don't back down. See, this is the thing for me, because I have such a I don't give a fuck attitude when it comes to the truth. I don't mind confrontation. A lot of people cower from confrontation. I'm not one of those people. I think confrontation is a necessary evil. And it's not even a necessary evil. It's just the requisite for finding out what you need to know. Right? So that's what I do. I'll ask the questions nobody else wants to ask. I'll ask the hard questions. I'll have the hard conversations. Because you need to break through that to get to the freedom and truth of whatever it is you want to know. And I hate making assumptions. I despise having to make an assumption, especially when it's a situation involving adults, because I'm like more than anyone, we know how to use our words, or we should know how to use our words. So I have very little patience with grown ass people who cower when it comes to them speaking what it is they need. Open your mouth, say what you need, and you might just get it. I don't know why people so goddamn scared other than trauma. Maybe it's trauma, I don't know. But that shit annoys the hell out of me. Anyway, my audacity right. And my unwillingness to waver in the moral fabric that I have has gotten me into so much shit. But on the other side of that has been so much respect. Because if it's the one thing that people can say about me is that I'm a stand my ground and I give credit where credit is due. And if I'm wrong, I'll own it. But when I'm right, I'm a stand firm in being right. Because why not? If you go catch hell either way, you know what I'm saying? Be right and catch hell for being righteous, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not about to sit up here and allow anyone to minimize my voice for the sake of their ego wanting to feel like their best because we all can't be best all the time and sometimes you're going to be wrong, even me. And I can accept that. But that's the difference. I can accept it. I'm not about to have an apology for the way I exist. I'm already a woman in a masculine driven society. We even going to go into the wickets of that. But I am already a woman. That's one. I'm a black woman. That's two, right? And I am wise and intelligent, superiorly. So I will say that's three, I work and exist in an environment where very few people like me exist. So I have to fight before I even get into the office space to have the plateau or have the foundation of peace enough to go into my professional environment and other places around me with a sound mind. Because the microaggressions be microaggressing, you hear me? Before I even get to work. And the amount of work that I have to do before I work is not something that everybody else has the burden of carrying. So my audacity is in and of itself an act of rebellion, resistance. It's an act of carving out a space for myself where there is none and there'll never be none unless I make some for myself. And then people who come behind me because I'm one of them kind of people. I trailblaze. I don't carve out a spot and then carry and then cover up my tracks so nobody can follow me. No, I'm paving a whole way where there was no path before me. I'll make one and I'll make sure that that path creates an opportunity for somebody else like me to come behind me and raise hell too. Because we all need to be in spaces where decisions that impact us are made. And sometimes you're going to be the first, sometimes you're going to be the only. But you need to be there, right? And you need to be there without apology. I watch on a daily basis, and it's men because it's not a lot of women, you know what I'm saying? So if I'm in the room, the first thing I do is look for other black women. In rooms where I sit, where decisions are being made. Nine times out of ten, I'm not going to see one if I do. Now, this is the trip part. Many times, right, when I have seen my reflection in a person in a room where we needed to be, she didn't want to acknowledge me. Stay the farthest away from it being black power in the room. Because I'm not mad. I'm on the other side of that. I'm on the flip side of that. But like I said, I don't apologize for my space. But you have some people who are traumatized by what they had to do to get to where they sit and where they are. And I'm like, it is not a privilege for me, right? It is my right to be where I have worked hard to be. I'm not about to sit up here and pander to somebody else's sense of superiority. Whenever I walk into a room, they cower anyway. I see that shit and I don't even have to speak on it. All I have to do is exist. And that's why I don't exist in a state of apology. I have to be firm. I have to be proud. I have to be sure because every systemic situation that I walk into is not set up for my success. So I have to be very sure when I put 1ft in front of the other, when I open my mouth to give recommendations, when I have a thought, when I say things that impact a group of people that I'm right. And you best believe I had to work ten times harder just to get to the same resolution that someone else who looks a little bit differently from me may or may not come up with themselves. Many times I'm the one giving the answers. But it's because I have to work my ass off. It's because I can't pussyfoot around with the boys going have beers, going I don't even drink beer. But going Drink beer, going to the golf spot, going to smoke cigars. Like I don't have that luxury. That's a luxury. I don't have to I have to read my ass off. I have to prepare my ass off. I have to stay on top of trends. I have to do everything so that when I'm back in that room with the people who don't look like me, I'll have something meaningful to say. Especially when they won't. And if my tenacity and my assuredness is problematic, so be it. So fucking be it. Because I've been in situations and this is why I'm not mad at the sister who really doesn't want to acknowledge me because I know she's scared. I don't have that same kind of fear. But I can understand it because some people are so tied to the title, some people are so tied to the things that they have that they don't know who they would be if they didn't have it because all their lives, all they know is the hard work. And I've worked just as hard my whole life. But I also have a sense of who I am. And like I said before, my being unapologetic will open more doors than it'll close, and every door that closes because I'm unapologetic needed to close. And I'm okay with that. But some people are definitely afraid of losing anything that I lose for having pride in myself. I don't need to have good written and let me make space for things that want to find themselves, want to find their way to me, the blessings that want to find their way to me, the manifestations that need to find their way to me so that I can continue to grow. Let the fucking doors close. Y'all got to stop being scared out here. When you can't control how other people feel, you're going to be scared for the rest of your life. But the other part to that, though, is that so many people are slaves to jobs, so many people are employees, and they don't have any desire to not be. It bothers me to have to ask someone to take vacation. It bothers me to have to ask to do anything outside of the work hours that I have, especially when I need to do something to include going to the doctor to take care of my health. It bothers me to ask permission to have to take care of myself. It bothers me to have a day that I need away from the craziness that happens all around me in a professional sense. It bothers me that I have to put a title on that and call it Mental Health Day, which comes with its own stigma, and take a mental Health day when I should just be able to unplug when I need to. Now, granted, I understand that you are trading hours for dollars, which is dangerous, but most of us play this game. We've been indoctrinated into this system. But understand that just because you are trading hours for dollars doesn't mean that you're also trading in your integrity and the moral fabric that you have about yourself. Even though there are a lot of people who do, I'm just not one of them. And it's so disheartening to watch people get suckered into situations where they are set up for defeat from the beginning before they even start to play the game. Because most people ain't set up to be pieces of shit, but in environments where you are dealing, people whose egos have to be stroked because they don't have anything else. When you have people who invest in doing everything but the right thing and you come into a situation and you believe that these types of people have what you need, you've already lost. If you're playing the game, you've already lost. And I'll tell you a story here. I worked in Afghanistan for five years straight not straight, like without breaks. I took vacations and all kinds of other stuff. But it was of course military environment and they hired my happy ass to do a thing right? And in the course of me doing that thing the way that only I could do that thing I ran into a lot of issues with a lot of people who had been there a lot longer than I have but had not accomplished anything other than trading hours for dollars. And I'm like, live and let live. You ain't doing nothing but making your fucking money. Make your money and get out of my business. You know what I'm saying? I'm doing what I do. I'm doing it extremely well. I'm minding my business. Why are you in my face? The thing is, it bothers people who have nothing to show for the things they do. When you come into a situation and without having to do anything you already shine more brightly than they do. When I tell you I walk into a room and my spirit precedes me that's exactly what happens. It will make a person whose scruples are loose have an issue with themselves. It is never me. I am never the issue. It's the reflection of the person to themselves. When I enter into a space, that is the issue. I don't do clicks. I don't need to have friends in the workplace. I didn't come there for that. And I'm vocal about it. I don't care about anybody else's business or dirt. I don't give a fuck. I didn't come there knowing the shit. I didn't plan on leaving there knowing the shit because it don't make a difference to me. It ain't doing nothing in my life right until it does. I'm really just trying to trade my little hours and get my little dollars. That's all I'm trying to do. But because people are literally empty or people are running from trauma or people have convinced themselves that they are way more important than they are because of titles, because of the types of bonds that they make in places where there should never have been a bond in the first place, I'm a problem. I'm a problem not because I'm problematic. I'm a problem honestly, because I'm not a problem. I don't want to be a part of that bullshit. I don't need to be a part of that bullshit. It's stupid and it's beneath me. And I think the people who are impacted by me not wanting to have anything to do with them I think they feel that they are beneath me because they are I don't seek to try to change their minds. I'm like, if you already know then it don't need to be said, right? And they don't understand me because I don't have to try hard for people to want people naturally gravitate to me and I don't like it because I'm very much so introverted and I work very well on my own, right? But if I have to be the leader of a team, I'll be the leader. I would prefer that I lead a team because I need to be a part of the decision making process. If the decisions impact me, that's my whole mo for leadership, right? To have some modicum of influence over decisions that are made, especially if I'm going to be party to the outcome of those decisions, let me be at the table, right? And this is the thing. It's always my intention as a leader, as it was those five years in Afghanistan, to lead people into becoming better versions of themselves professionally, right? If you are going to work with me, because it's never working for me. It's never working under me. If we don't work together, then we really going to work together because I hold myself to a higher standard. So I am not about to minimize that to help you maintain your sense of mediocrity. So you don't either have to rise or you're going to have to leave. That's how it works, right? You're just not going to sit here and do nothing. And I don't apologize for that. I don't apologize for holding myself in high regard. And it's interesting because during my time in Afghanistan, I had influence on people in such a beautiful way. And that's one thing that I'll always be proud of. As we continue on with this discussion, we'll talk about some things that happened to me while I was there. But one of the biggest accomplishments I can say that I got when I was in Afghanistan was having a positive impact on the lives of people who really didn't see the best or the good in themselves, because it was a dark place and a dark time, especially for those young military members who got fucked over. I watched that shit happen all the time. I felt so bad for them. I'm like, Damn, you signed your life away for them to do this. I can't tell you how many young ladies were violated. I cannot tell you how many black and brown faces were how many black and brown faces were relegated to doing the most menial tasks. Boy, when people far away from the flagpole they think they are, they do all kinds of dirt just to see the human experience, right? Just to see just how low one human being can be to another human being. They just did stuff that never ceased to amaze me. And they were all in uniform doing it to each other, too. I'm like, Y'all cannot get me. Come on, man. And don't let them have a little rank. Oh, my God. And this is the truth. I mean, I apologize for saying this shit, because it's true. But for me, one of the things that I saw was that you had so many young soldiers who were overwhelmed with this life. They couldn't see a future for themselves in the military. But the military wanted them to stay in an extra four years or so. And they were just like, you ain't enhancing my life with the years that I've given you. I can't see myself. I can't see any elevation in my rank structure, because their leadership was shit. Their raiders were shit. You know what I'm saying? The racism was rampant. It was out of control at that time, and they wanted out, but they just didn't know what to do because the military hadn't given them skills that they needed to be successful outside of war, which is a conversation for another day. I implore you guys to go watch this documentary. You can actually look it up on YouTube. It's called GI. Junkie. It's about what happened to veterans who came home, especially black and brown veterans who came home after that war, the Vietnam War, and what they came home to. And the same thing happened for the Korean War as well. For black soldiers, the goal god, that's a whole nother episode, but just go watch GI. Junkies, all right? And that'll open up your eyes to a lot of truths about what serving this country has or hasn't done, depending on who you are. Anyway, going back to Afghanistan, right? So I was like I came there as a contractor. I've never been in uniform service, thank God. So I saw what was happening, and with the skill set that I have, what I could offer at the time was a transfer of knowledge, because at the time, that's all I really had to give that would result in tangible, immediately tangible results for them. Right. That's what they needed. So your concern is that if you get out of the military because you feel like it's a hamster wheel, you won't be productive, not the way you want to be. Right? Because you got sold a pipe dream. Understood? All right, cool. Your MoS is trash. You weren't given the training you need. Okay. Not a problem. So what I can do for you and this was just all sidebar. I didn't have to do this, but I wanted to in my heart and soul. What I can do for you is help you get some study material that you need to get certified to a certain level so that you can get out of this shit and you can come back here as a contractor. And you can make more money in one year than you probably did in two and a half years, if not more of whatever your little enlisted rank is. Because most of them were enlisted. That's another conversation for another day, and we can start you off there. If this is something that you feel like you would like to do, let me know. I know you ain't making no money. And for the ones who had families, who were serious about their families at home, because Lord Lord knows some of them mobasses got to Afghanistan, and they forgot they had spouses, they forgot they had families, and they risked everything for whatever you want to fill in the blank with. But anyway, for the ones who were serious, for the ones who had drive, for the ones who wanted a better life for themselves, I helped them. And I did it without apology. I did it without expectation in return because I know what it's like to feel hopeless, the despair. You had a lot of sticky fingers in Afghanistan. Most of them were green suitors. And it's because they have nothing. You strip these kids literally, of everything. You make it more beneficial for them to get married and pop out all these babies, and they don't even know themselves yet. I mean, like, you fuck people's lives up anywho bottom line up front. I taught them through my own tenacity. I taught them through my own being, my own sense of audacity. I taught them through by being an example of what being unapologetic is. I taught them through that to take control of their lives and to listen to their intuition. And I taught them how to acknowledge their intuition. And I put them in a position where they can put all of the pieces together and then make the final decision with regard to what it is they want to do. And all of them, over ten of them, except for one, decided that they would take the bait, put their resumes in, and the rest is history. That is how sure you have to be in who you are and what you stand on to say, all right, even if I have to pivot about 180 degrees in my life, I'm willing to do it to get to wherever my end goal is. I can see it, but I just don't know how I'm going to get there right now. You have to stand on everything, you know, even if it means pivoting from where you are to get to where you are trying to be. Now. In Afghanistan and in a military environment in general, falling in line is just as expected as a living person having a heartbeat and breathing, right? I'm not necessarily a fall in line type of person. Now, I'll follow rules when they make sense, understanding where these rules came from and who created them. So going back to me being inquisitive, I like to do a lot of research. I like to ask questions to understand why the things that are shaped around me in a certain way are shaped around me in a certain way. And then when I find out the answers, I apply the knowledge to my daily interaction with people, because I know the truth at that point, and so many people don't, and that's their problem, but so many people do not. And what I learned throughout those five years in Afghanistan was just as I am apologetic in my true self, right, just as I am apologetic, unapologetic, rather, about standing on the right side of right. You have people who are just as unapologetic about standing on the wrong side of right. And when I tell you that's a fight, that's the fight that I had to fight. When I tell you I've had to file all kinds of things to include a lawsuit against not only my employer but the employer of my employer because of the things that happened. And people would feed me information, but they were too afraid to come forward with the information themselves because they valued a title and money over integrity and morals. And that's cool, but that can only take you so far, and you're going to always be under the foot of a person who has the audacity to be unapologetic about being wrong. At some point in time, you're going to have to be unapologetic about something. The people who were afraid also were people who had apology about being afraid. They had apology about being afraid. They had apology about being brave. They had apology about being courageous. They didn't even total line. They just coward. Not saying that they weren't bad people, because not everybody is built to raise hell, but I'm built to raise hell. And the thing is, I need nobody raising hell with me because I cannot depend on people to be as firm as I am when it comes to a thing. And not only that, but the way my spirit is set up and the way my spiritual protection is set up, I don't have nothing to worry about. But I know that about me. You have so many people who haven't even walked into the light of that yet. That's a whole nother journey that they have to prepare for. But a lot of my unabashedness and a lot of my being unapologetic absolutely comes from the faith I have in my spirit guides to make a way for me out of no way. Let me tell you something about Afghanistan. After five years of being there, they got rid of me because I stood on my truth. The day that I got fired in Afghanistan was probably the best day of my life at the time. I felt so light and so free, and they thought I was going to Kirk out. They thought I was going I don't know. I don't know if they thought I was going to raise hell in that way for that situation. I just kind of got calm, and I was like, all right, because they didn't have a reason. It was more funny and interesting trying to get them to come up with a reason because they didn't have one. You know what they tried to say? It was at will. Then they tried to say, the customer doesn't like your attitude. You mean I bruised some colonel's ego because I told him that he couldn't fuck up national security systems for the United States of America? That's. Why? Cool. Because if y'all are in the business of breaking the law, I don't want to be in the business of breaking the law with you. Because actions like that have very real consequences. And I am not trying to be on the wrong side of that. Why? Because baby girl enjoys her freedom. Now, whether or not they'll get caught, whether or not they'll be called to task on it, who knows? But I know I don't have to worry about it. I know I can go to sleep at night knowing I ain't try to fuck with nobody. I didn't try to fuck nobody up, none of that. My conscience is so clear. And you have some people who, even though Afghanistan has been shut down, they still work for the same company, supporting the same customer, doing the same dumb shit because they can't go nowhere else and be productive. And that's the saddest part. You are a big fish in a very small pond and you will have to stay there forever because you don't have the knowledge, the skills, the abilities. You don't have the integrity. And you for damn sure don't have the knowledge. You just don't have the knowledge and wisdom and understanding to be able to make it outside of that pond. And that is the most pathetic situation to put yourself in as an adult, as a person. You have responsibility to yourself to make better decisions. You have some people who are so comfortable in their mediocrity that they would rather stay in dysfunction and be audacious about being stupid. I've never seen so many people be so proud of being dumb. Now, that's how you and see that that's how I knew that I was not in the right space anyway. Because if I'm going to be proud, it's going to be proud of growing proud of making a path for myself and other people. But when you have folks who are proud of being unlawful because they think they get you don't get away with anything, let's just be clear. But they are proud of their ignorance. They are proud of their stupidity. That's just not a me thing. And they can have that. And I know that I don't belong in environments that like that. They it was only a matter of time before they got rid of my my happy ass anyway. It was like right before COVID they had already let go like 60 some people. Girl, they were trying to girl, you all. They were trying to green. It was like a forced greening. So I made the most money in my office. It was like, let's get this bitch up out of here. They did it is what it is. I'm not tripping because it needed to happen to me that way. And it's so crazy because I don't apologize for anything that I did. I don't feel sorry about anything that I did. I wouldn't do anything differently because that's who I am. I don't sell my soul to be in the great, the good graces of people who do bad things. Why? I won't be like them. And that was the problem. I didn't want to be like them, and they wanted me to. I'm like, you need to try to be like me. But you could never. When you are standing on the right side of right, you don't have nothing to apologize for. And that's the thing that kills people. You have nothing to apologize for because you ain't doing nothing out of the way. That's the peace that comes with living a good life, living a life on integrity. Good integrity, right? Walking in peace, walking in love, right? And it's interesting because a lot of them, the mugs who did crazy stuff to me were the ones who were all in the chapel every Sunday playing, wanting to show out for each other when everybody in there knew everybody's business. You're not going to see Aaron in nobody's chapel because the sacred space is within my chest. The sacred space is in my heart. The sacred space is in my spirit. I carry the church around with me, if you want to say it's, the building. Everywhere I go, I am the building. So every room I walk into, I am the building. Every meeting I sit down in, I'm in the building. I am the building. Right? Come into an office space, I am the building. Walk past a group of people, I am the building. I am holy. And when people don't really know this about themselves, when they make up all of these stories about themselves, when they come in the presence of the real thing, they don't know what to do. It's scary to them. I don't have a reason to be scared of any man. I don't have a reason to be afraid of any woman or any being. I'm very firm on that. Which is why in spaces across the spectrum of space, when I enter into a thing, I don't have a reason to apologize for the presence I bring along with me. I've worked hard to establish myself as the woman I am. I've worked hard to make space when there was no space for a woman like me. I've worked hard to make room for other people. I've worked really hard to accomplish everything that I've accomplished into a mass, everything that I have amassed. I don't apologize for anything because nine times out of ten, I have to work extra hard for those things. My suggestion to you is that you stop apologizing too. All right? So that's all I have for you guys in this episode. I definitely appreciate you listening, and I hope you decide to stay tuned for season one, episode nine. Until then.