Divine Intervention is a space I created to be unapologetically myself. I created this space as another step in my personal journey towards being true to myself. With guests, book analysis, and more, this is a space for me and others to exist authentically and share our experiences. Once I began to think about the systems, voices, and perceptions that shaped my view of life, I realized how much I was struggling because I was allowing outside factors to influence how I navigated life and viewed myself.
Divine I. was created from a program I experienced at the end of 2025. I had a conversation with another participant and it made me realize how differently I viewed myself because of outside voices and how I could actively choose to define me for myself. I began to think about systems, voices, conversations, and perceptions that shaped my outlook and how I could actively choose to define myself for myself. Divine Intervention will discuss decolonizing the mind and finding what freedom is for yourself. The most radical thing you can do is dream of a life different from the one before your eyes and be willing to take the steps to make that happen for yourself. All forms of resistance begin with how you think of the world around you.
In this episode, I discussed a couple of reflections from my first week of grad school, including my emotions surrounding my story of self. I discussed navigating what it means to be fierce, stepping into my own power and, what that means for me.
Hey y'all, this is your girl Brianna, and this is the Divine Intervention Podcast, where I try my best to make space and learn how to take up that space. And today I just felt like gapping a little bit. I started grad school last week, and of course, they brought up some things. Your girl had to process that like she took a gap year. So I had to get back into the swing of things, had to get back into like what it feels like to just be doing something kind of all the time or like constantly scheduling. Um because life, once you like get a job, I feel like I had to transition into like what it's like when you're working a job, and then transition into going back to school. But honestly, I feel like the transition into getting back into school hasn't been as hard because I love school. Um, but the transition of like workforce, navigating like working nine to five, that for me was very difficult. I uh I'm a busybody, I like constantly learning. I think in the workforce you do that, it just shows up very differently. Neither here nor there. That's not even what this episode is about. This episode is about the fact that I had to write a story of self for a class, and I think it made me work through a couple of ideas and points, and I guess after I finished reading it, it was 500 words, y'all. I wrote like 15. Um 1500, and I was like, okay, um, now we gotta we gotta backspace, we gotta backspace. It was really hard for me to condense it down, and I still kept my original version because I felt like the original version was T. It may have been very long-winded, but I feel like hey, points were made, so I decided I'm gonna share that here so it doesn't just you know sit in my files or whatever. And for the basis of the story, I basically went through what it was like for me growing up in the Delta and how I often felt like I was this walking ball of emotions. I feel like even processing things, I was very anxious, and I think all of this connects to why I care so much about power of self, sense of self, and wellness because I promise y'all I am convinced that I inherited the nervous system that I had. I don't even know what I was that stressed about that young. I have no idea, I was just stressed about everything. Um, and I think for me, I frequently have to bring myself in, but also like I said when I first started this podcast, define what certain things mean for me. And growing up, I was always timid, I was always the smallest person. Um, I don't talk very well. Somebody can argue now that I probably do talk a little loud, but if you ask me, that's just signs that I'm getting more comfortable with myself. I don't care. Um, but growing up, I was very timid. I didn't talk very loud, I didn't talk very much, and I uh hated being seen. I didn't I didn't want nobody looking at me. I could deal with one-on-one conversation, but I probably was gonna clock out after a couple of minutes because I didn't intend on the conversation to last that long, you know what I mean? And uh lately I've been thinking about how I've really been getting back into my girl Eve, the rapper, and I love I love everything about Eve, but I think whenever I would go to like her lineup of music, like her style, her fashion, the way that she carried herself, everything about her felt so fierce. And for a long time in my life, I really struggled with navigating just being a more so quiet woman who didn't feel fierce. I didn't feel like I was voisterous or like outgoing. I didn't feel like I was the type of person who you know how like you hear folks talk about somebody and they be like, oh, they just lit up the room and they were all loud and like they're funny, and this is that and the third. I to me, I was just like, I don't know if I'm that person. Like, I'm more so the one in the corner with a book. Um, if you ask me a question, I'll answer it, but I'm not really finna, you know, just yap for too long. And I think over the past few weeks, as I've sat on this idea of what it means to be fierce, and as I work through my story of self, I realized that a lot of things can can come in a lot of different packages, and that for a long time I was measuring who I authentically showed up as against a package that just wasn't mine, I feel like it's like comparing the sun and the moon, they're not the same thing. So even if you get into the conversation of them, they're two different things, but they have their qualities that make them special, and you go to each one for a different thing, and I I think that in the conversation of like fierce, because when I thought fierce, I thought like oh my gosh, like Beyonce Sasha Fierce. I thought like I've never been the type of person that is very even in the way, for instance, I had to do a disc assessment for class where like it's basically another one of them personality things, y'all, where it ashes you like, are you loud? Are you quiet? How do you handle conflict? All of the things or whatever. And I always hate stuff like that because it the description it gives me back never feels like myself. And I always feel like things are so nuanced that when I get something that feels that generic, I kind of throw out most of it because there are probably two or three words that I resonate with, but the reasoning behind it, I just never feel in alignment with. Go in the house and get under some air. I guess for me and navigating the question of like, especially being a black woman, I think a lot of times it's often that you hear like the don't let nobody play with you, and you're in a world where like people are people are gonna try you. And I think for me, it took a while for me to realize that it wasn't that I was letting people try me, it's just that to me, the proof of the situation itself, I would rather remove myself than continue to give my energy to something that's showing that it's not in alignment with me. And I also think that as a person, I'm quicker to acknowledge that there is no situation I have been in where I wasn't there despite the fact that my gut, my intuition, told me I had no business being there. You know, like I don't let me find the words. I just I don't believe in being upset with people when they be they self. If somebody has continuously shown you their character, their personality, it's a track record. You wouldn't keep going back to a place that served you nasty food. You know what I mean? Like if you knew that you went to a place and they sweet tea wasn't good, when you go back there, are you gonna order the sweet tea again? No. I think that's the way that I engage with people. I look at it in the sense of if I've seen a track record of ABCD, then why would your behavior surprise me? And I think even in the conversation of me walking through like this idea of like what does it mean to be fierce? When I was doing my sense of my story of self, it took a while of me scribbling across the page to realize that fierce can come in a lot of different ways. Fierce is not always boisterous, it's not always loud, sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's choosing yourself in a situation where others probably would have stayed, or even choosing your peace because you've just come to the point where you feel like your peace is no longer up for negotiation. As I worked through my story of self, I kind of wrote about how the reason why I ended up where I'm even here now is because a year ago I wasn't satisfied with a lot of things. I wasn't satisfied with my mindset at the time. I wasn't satisfied with I don't even want to say my body because I'm not gonna put that on my body. I don't believe in putting things on things it's not on. I wasn't satisfied with my lack of motivation to take care of my body. Cause I'm big on it's nothing wrong with said thing, it's the way that you're operating your relationship with it. I wasn't satisfied with just where I was, and it was for many reasons. I feel like it took me a cool like eight, nine months for me to really create a set of systems for myself where I started to feel more satisfied with like you know taking online classes, doing going to the yoga studio. Like I had to start implementing things, my starting the podcast. Like I was like, you have to implement things in your life that are making you feel like you're working towards your personal goals. Because I do think that when you get into the workforce, it's navigating, not feeling like all you think about and all you worry about is work. I think that was something that was really hard for me to work through. But I think that I'm saying all that to say that even when I was writing my story of self, I didn't realize I got to the end of the paragraph and I wrote it. I was like being a woman who is from the Mississippi Dells and who grew up very timid, very to herself, very I'm quicker to write in my journal than I am to speak out loud. And I think that I didn't realize until I was writing that my version of fierce may not be that I'm just the the one who's gonna cuss the waitress out when your order is wrong. Because I'm probably I've been a waitress before. Like I'm um, she probably just made a mistake, y'all. Like, her bad. Please cut her some slack. I'm more so the person who my version of fierce is when I'm not satisfied with something in my life, I'm determined to change it. I believe that life is meant to be enjoyed, it is not meant to be survived. I don't believe in giving my energy to things that my that is not deserving of my energy. If I've already given you the amount of it that I've given, why would I give you even more? I just I think in the midst of my writing, I realized that for so long I was measuring, which is even messed up to measure. Even when I got to the the end of the writing, I was like, you're measuring yourself. That's very unfair to yourself. But not only are you measuring yourself, you're putting yourself against a standard that's not even in alignment with who you naturally are, and you'll never measure up if you're comparing yourself to something that it's like trying to put on a shoe that don't fit, or like an outfit that don't match your body type. You know what I mean? Like you can you can get your foot in this shoe, but no, and you can get your body in the outfit, but until you find a thing that's like a fit for you, you're going to continue to feel just out of just out of it. You're not gonna feel like you're the best version of you, um, and so that's kind of a small reflection I had this week, and I just wanted to share it in all honesty with me starting school and working at the same time. I'm not sure. Well, that's a story. I was gonna say I'm not sure how frequently my episodes are gonna be. Yo girl always got something to yap about now. Whether or not I'm gonna be talking about like I don't know. I was gonna say whether or not I'm gonna be talking about books and like writing, I'm not sure. But I do got a couple of books, TED Talks, and stuff in my journal. We just gonna let I'ma cook, I'm a cook. I'll get back to y'all. But anyways, if you stayed this long, drink some water, go buy a plant, go touch some grass, and I guess if you had to walk away with anything, I would say how do I word this? I guess it's like any other thing you would see on like a Pinterest board. Like, don't compare yourself to anything. Allow yourself to just be yourself. Because I think when you do that, you see the traits and the things and the attributes that you have that make you you. And can't nobody really be you but you. So I'll see y'all in the next one.
