Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Memories. Passion. Alone. Mourn. Guilt. Loneliness. Regret.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Peace.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Relationships.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Unfamiliar.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: If you put God first, you'll never be last.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: This is Grief at the Cookout, hosted by DiCarlo Raspberry.
Hello, family.
Welcome to grief at the cookout. Today I am joined by a pioneer in the genre of praise and worship, dr. Stephen Heard. Dr. Herd is a Maryland native. Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Howard University. Alum. He is also a Dove Award nominee and Stellar Award winner, having six records to his credit. Currently he serves as minister of music and associate pastor of the First Baptist Church of Glen Arden. Pastor Heard counts it as an honor to be chosen and anointed to have the privilege to impact the globe with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Tune in as Dr. Hurd and I discuss the topics of transparency, character, place, and space in Leading While Grieving.
Stephen heard y'all. We got Dr. Stephen heard on the podcast today. Welcome to the cookout, sir.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: How are you? Listen, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation, and I'm doing well.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Awesome. I'm glad to have you here.
For those people who know me knows that I love, praise, and worship and know that you are a prolific leader in the body of Christ. So I just appreciate it's like, a little surreal for me to even have you here.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: I'm honored, man. I'm just I'm grateful I'm just me. But thank you so much for those kind words.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Thank you. So, sir, in real Grief at the Cookout fashion, we always ask our guests, what is your favorite cookout food?
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Does it have to be one?
[00:02:10] Speaker B: No, it could be multiple crabs and watermelon. And watermelon. That's it.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: I love crabs. Like, love, love.
Okay, so I love crabs because, see.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: I love crabs, too.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I love watermelon. And a cookout is not a cookout without some really good fried chicken.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Really good fried chicken.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Now, are you a sides person?
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, but I don't have to be.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: I like good coleslaw. But most black cookouts don't have coleslaw. They'll have seafood salad or tuna salad, pasta salad and pasta salad. My sister's pasta salad, queen pasta salad. And I'm kind of I can take it or leave it kind of dude. But I love Coleslaw.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Oh, I love it. Okay, well, again, I'm glad that you are here. And folks, this episode is called Grieving While Leading. I think that it's very important that we highlight our leaders. We don't hear enough from leaders in general, but specifically leaders in the church, in the black community, in the church. We don't hear enough from them. And I think that it's really important that we hear from them to understand that they are human, that they are just like us. They are people. And although they are leaders that they grieve sometimes the similar ways that we grieve or possibly different. So, Dr. Herd, I'm going to call you that because I like to call you that doctor, little doctor in front of it. So, Dr. Herd, talk to me. Tell us about a moment or moments that you have experienced while you have been in leadership where grief has taken you to a place where you possibly may have been unsure or possibly felt as if that you didn't know what was going on. Mine was cloudy, et cetera, et cetera. Talk to us.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: So I've been doing music ministry for the local church since right out of high school, which was in June of 1986.
And there have been times, but one specific time I remember was my mom died in 87 and I was in ministry, but I think I kept going, okay, I was a sophomore in college.
I don't think I knew to process it because nobody had ever died that intimate to me before. So I don't think I knew to care for my mental space. But most recently, in 2018, my dad died. And for the last four years, I have probably been tapped out.
I've gone back to school. I was working on finishing a degree. I did that. I was still trying to do ministry. But I have not been connected probably since Daddy died, because after Daddy died, one of my best friends dropped dead in February of 2019. And then a very close auntie died, was my father's cousin. She was like an auntie to me. She died.
It kept happening so close together.
I call it sucker punch grief, where you're trying to get your breath back, and just when you think you're starting to breathe, another punch comes.
And then we were in the middle of a pandemic. It had just started. And I was doing a lot of grief counseling to people who were traumatized by this new thing that was happening, and nobody had answers. And people who didn't have any kind of spiritual awareness were just absolutely inundated with fear. And so I tried to talk them off of cliffs and speak peace in their life. But I think for me, the deficiency was I've been in leadership pretty much all my adult life, and when I tell people that I'm tired and I need a break, I can't hear, I'm numb, and they'll say stuff, I guess, in their words is encouraging. But you're Stephen Hurd and you know God and you're going to be all right. The reality is I do know God, and I do know that I'm going to be all right. But when I'm telling you I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, and I need you not to whisk over it. But what I do understand, Carlo, is that when people don't know how to see, ambiguity is not a problem. The problem is not saying, I don't know. If you don't know the answer and you don't know, sometimes the ministry of presence an encouragement or embrace. I don't know what to tell you. I do know I love you. I don't know what to tell you. I do know that I know so and so, and we could possibly get you to a counselor, blah, blah, blah, blah. Very seldom does that happen with a person who is in leadership. And oftentimes people who are in leadership who deal with so many vicissitudes of life, they don't have a platform to say to somebody, I'm hurt, I'm tired, because people are always expecting them, he or she to be Superman or superwoman. And it's the most unfair position that people put people in leadership in. And so we do have a lot of leaders who are bleeding on the front line while they're leading. And sometimes the bleed on the front line is a call of God to build character and to build something else. But there are times when you authentically suck a punt's grief and you weren't expecting it. It's not particularly a learning thing. It's really a place for you to go somewhere and get healthy and get help.
It's not easily readily available.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: So do you think that because of that, that is why it's so hard for leaders to be transparent?
[00:08:34] Speaker A: 100%.
I think that every leader so I think that there are lines of demarcation that every leader should have a space where people who are allowed in, who I call it your unveiled space.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: For.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Lack of better terms, your Garden of Eden, your butt naked space. That's a space where people don't see you in your collar. They call you by your first name.
They knew you when you were five or they knew your mom and daddy. Those people are in a different space. And that line has to be determined by you, because if people get in that space, it's your fault.
Many people who you're serving should not ever see you in your Garden of Eden because they won't be able to respect you in your office of authority. A lot of times, people can't make the line of demarcation. They can't make the differentiation of who you are. Are you Stephen? Are you Reverend Stephen? Are you Stephen? Are you Dr. Steven? So they can't do that, and it's not their responsibility to do it. Your responsibility in the Holy Ghost is to guard the gates of your assignment and your space. And oftentimes we don't do it because we, quote, unquote, trying to keep it real.
We let people in spaces that they're not prepared for, they're not equipped for, and they're not assigned to.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Well, that's the end, y'all. That's the word.
No, that's really good. That's really good, because that helps future leaders, leaders in the making, current leaders right now. But it also helps those who are not on that sideline of leadership to actually understand why leaders function the way that they do.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Yeah, you've got to have a guarded space, and it's not because you're hiding anything. You are protecting the integrity of your person, your personal person, not your professional person, your personal person. I had a buddy who he's a pastor at a church in Florida, and some of the guys were coming to move something in his backyard. He's a young guy in his forty s and early 40s, late thirty s. And the guys were coming to move something and he had on shorts, the pastor friend.
And the guy said, pastor, you're not supposed to have on shorts, you're a man of God. And I don't know where he got this from, but the boy was disturbed that the pastor had on shorts. He said, what am I supposed to do yard work in? And what am I supposed to go to the beach in pants and a suit? Wow.
He was like, that's not who I am.
I was like, I just think that's crazy that you would even have to justify that, but in some instances you actually have to justify that.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Wow, that's crazy. It's funny that you say that, because so often people put leaders on this very high pedestal and like I said earlier, they don't see the real person. And I think that it becomes detrimental because when you want to have that moment of transparency, to say in the realms of grief that we're talking about that I'm grieving like you said, that I'm tired, that you can't do that because you're not supposed to.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: You're not supposed to be human.
In some regards, I blame the leadership also because you have to keep reinforcing to people that God is the only divine force and source.
I am not, by any stretch of imagination, a deity. I am as flesh as flesh can be. I was made in flesh. The Holy Ghost has covered my flesh and has protected my flesh. I'm human, and the only person that should be lifted or exalted is God and God alone. And so if you enable people to have a clarity of who God is and who God needs to be in their space, it alleviates as best you can that kingship or that regal royalty place where you're putting them up on a pedestal and you're putting them up on a throne.
I make it clear to people all the time, I burp and I scratch my head and my butt like everybody else because there's nothing. There's nothing. And I don't care if you're Billy Graham or Jake's or Jenkins. Every one of those people have they are human nature. And when we don't allow the people around us to understand it and to respect it, that's when the occult behavior becomes a thing where you're such a divine nature that they begin to hurl you or hail you or lift you. That's unhealthy.
Our responsibility is to make that line, to make it clear, oh, there's only one God and it's not me.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Right?
So you said that when leaders and I think this is for everyone, but we're focusing on leaders right now, when they go through bouts of grief or the sucker punch, as you said, that it builds character. So recently, we've seen so many leaders, pillars in the church that we have lost, and I think that we have not paid enough attention to the leaders that have been grieving, those spiritual parents, those leaders that they have.
What do you think in this dispensation of time, the character that God is trying to build within the leaders that we have currently?
[00:14:44] Speaker A: I don't think I have a fair answer to that question.
I do think that we're living in a period of time that no one ever could forecast.
We've never experienced it before, and because the responsibilities of those who are in the clergy is almost never ending.
The sad part about it is there's a school of thought that has taught them to always keep going, always the church, always to the church. So your kids grow up hating the church and hating God because they always have to be second and third. But there has to be created in your life, any leader. There has to be a safe balance.
There has to be a safe balance between your family and the church, your private space and your mentality and the church. Because life happens. And because life happens. Grief is a part of our assignment in life. Tears were made intentionally by God for us to experience. Heartache was made for us to experience. And you've got to find the space and the time to deal with it. The problem is when you don't deal with it, you put it away. It's like a volcano. It erupts later on somewhere else. And so you either become very carnal, you become very disconnected to the things of God. You become very disconnected from your wife or your children or your family. Something happens that unhooks your connection. If you don't find that balance and create that balance, you suffer.
I tell people all the time, I can't speak from a white perspective because I've never been white, but I hear black people say this all the time.
Somebody dies. I'm just being strong for so and so. I'm being strong for so and so. If you're being strong for so and so, who's being strong for you?
If you're not crying because you need to be strong for them, what happens to your God ordained process of dealing with grief if you keep not dealing with it? And so we tell our young boys as kids, man, don't cry. You're not supposed to cry. So that's why you don't feel. And you don't know how to have relationships of emotion or connect yourself emotionally, because you've been taught, you've been trained not to feel.
It's a process, and your process looks different than my process. When Daddy died, I knew my dad was in terminal condition probably four months to five months before he died.
The Lord told me the Lord showed me that he was in transition. And so I couldn't tell my sisters and brothers at that time because they weren't ready. It was probably like two months before Daddy died that I really spoke to them about what I saw and what the reality of my dad's condition was. And so I began to ask the Lord to show me how to process this.
How do I deal with this? And I thought I was doing good to Carlo because I preached his eulogy. Because we had always talked about me doing his eulogy. It was like a running joke we had throughout the year. So that was easy.
When he transitioned, I was there holding his hand. And that was almost easy because it was sweet. It was peaceful.
The thing that became harder to me is when they actually had to come remove him. That became hard for me. That was just something I couldn't process in my mind.
And I thought I was doing good. Every morning after I left the gym, I used to drive to my dad's house every day.
And so one morning I was driving from the gym and I was just driving to my dad's house and I was probably 15 minutes in between my house and Dad's house. And it dawned on me he wasn't there.
So I turned my car around and came home. And I sat in the garage for probably about an hour and a half. And I just wheeled. I cried and I cried and I cried.
I laughed about some things. I cried. And I allowed my process to have I didn't try to stop my process. There were times when I would mention my dad to my sisters or brothers and I'd just tear up. Because it just was like, I can't believe he died. You know what I mean? But what I made up my mind that would happen even when my mom died. Because there are times my mom died in 87. There are times now when I can still smell my mom's hair.
There are times when I ache for her presence or I'll see a picture of her. I'm just thinking like, Dang, this is crazy. But you have to allow that process to happen. I thought I was good the long and short of this, I thought I was doing good until I called my trainer and I just canceled my physical trainer for which I desperately needed, y'all better catch this.
I canceled him. He was like, what's wrong? I said nothing. I'm just tired and I just need a break.
I had started to shut down. Didn't know it. I start sleeping a lot.
I was sleeping for probably almost like a month of some change.
I only got up if I had to do something. If it was a it was a real had to do situation. And the TV was on one day. I wasn't showering. I was just sleeping sleeping. The TV was on. And the commercial was about depression.
Everything that this commercial said was me. And I looked up, and I was just thinking, like, Why is this playing?
And it was talking about getting people counseling for situations. And I made myself get up and go take a shower, took the bed clothes off the bed, went and washed those, came downstairs to change my environment. I made myself go outside to walk to the mailbox. And I slow. Change happens in increments. And so I start slowballing myself, getting back to being healthy. I wasn't writing songs I couldn't hear.
I wasn't listening to songs because I couldn't handle it.
And the disappointing part for me was there were so many people in my immediate space, in my Eden space who just missed it.
They didn't hear my hurt. They didn't see my disconnection. Maybe two people said, Something's wrong. You're not yourself.
Two people.
So it's a real thing. I tell people, being strong doesn't mean you're not supposed to cry.
I celebrate my dad. My dad, March 9 was his fourth year in transition, and I don't mourn him anymore. I celebrate him. I miss him always. I don't mourn him like he just died.
I celebrate my mom. I don't mourn her. I have a friend that I'm dealing with in some mourning for some loss in his family. And you can't keep throating.
Their death can't keep making it as if it happened yesterday, because you'll never allow yourself a space to get healthy in the process.
Cry when you need to miss them as you need to. But there's something about that person's life, that relationship that you had that you can celebrate that has made you a better person.
Their humor, their energy, the interactions that they have with you and people, things they say, places you guys went. There's something that you can grab that becomes a bedrock for helping you to get to the place where you can remember them and miss them and not mourn them and still celebrate them and get yourself to a place that's healthy. Yeah.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: So what did you gain from the sucker punch grief that you received? What did you gain from it?
[00:23:14] Speaker A: I think I learned that nobody is invincible.
Nobody is above heartache and pain.
And that the afflictions that are your lot in life if you don't create a place where you talk to God to know how to process, teach me. The scripture says, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of him who gives it freely.
You have to ask God, show me how. This is a big one.
I'm not ready for this. You got to show me how to deal with this. I'm not ready for this. I can't handle this. You have to show me how to handle this. You have to show me how to process this. You have to show me how to deal with this. And I am a witness that God in the process of time. But you have to make yourself available to fellowship in his presence because the healing is going to come through your fellowship with him. And I'm not saying not go to counseling because sometimes counseling is what you need in partnership with prayer.
But whatever your process, whatever you find to do that helps you to breathe because the ultimate thing is you're trying to keep your breath flowing. Constriction of breath does not allow your functions to happen like they're supposed to. Yeah, this whole pandemic is about the constriction of the breath, the sacrificing of the breath. If you can breathe, things will get better. You've got to breathe, and the rhythm of your breath has got to come back. And that's really what happens in grief. You have to get the rhythm of your breath to come back so that you can move and function in a way that will allow you to get to the next space in life.
That's good.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: That's really good. So now I want to shift gears just a little bit.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: You have, let me see, 12346 albums, right?
The corporate worship overflow called to worship my destiny.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: I love that one. Times of refreshing.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Times of refreshing.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: All that men yes.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: All that men will worship.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Out of those six, which one was the hardest to write?
[00:25:42] Speaker A: The overflow. The overflow. The overflow was the hardest one, but it was the clearest one. So the two that were most impactful to me were destiny and overflow. Okay.
Destiny had the feel of overflow, and I'll explain that in a second. But overflow, I was so clear of what God told me to do.
I didn't have the wherewithal to make it all happen. But I was crystal clear that I'm supposed to do this and I'm supposed to do this. But I was a new producer, I was a new writer. I just didn't really know. But God had. So from the time I've started recording to this very moment, god has always given me the best of everything. Best musicians, best singers, and never any I didn't have to sell my kidney or do anything conniving or lie or cheat or not pay them.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: And those recordings are good. I mean, Dane Janky.
They're really good.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: I've always been blessed, and God has orchestrated that from the beginning of this journey to this present time. It was so hard because I was so hard on myself. I just didn't want to make a mistake.
I didn't want to make a mistake of what I heard God saying. I didn't want to miss what I thought God was saying. It just was hard for me. But I knew that it was laying a bed for the assignment that I was supposed to carry on in ministry. It was laying the space where it would help people to hear God and experience God. And from my pen, what I heard God saying, that kind of thing. The overflow was the predecessor to me of my destiny. Because I was able to work again with one of my favorite producers, mentors Pastor Stephen Ford. And I had some problems with my voice. My voice went out and I couldn't sing. I couldn't talk.
He never stopped working on preparation for the project. I went to an ENT. They were scoping me. There was nothing wrong. They couldn't find anything. I had no polyps. I couldn't talk. So I realized then that there was some kind of spiritual thing going on. My record label at the time was in a transition with management. I didn't know it. I felt it, didn't know it.
So we worked hard to get this project, and then when I opened my mouth to sing, it just happened. And I was probably mid session at night, and I had a conversation in my mind like, you still singing?
I was like, oh, my God, you really are a wonder. And I didn't have any more issues after that from that point. But God showed me that if you trust me in the whole of the issue, you trust me in the whole of the assignment. If I called you to it, I'm going to see you through it. You know what I'm saying?
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: And he did that for me. He really did that for me. And I was just forever grateful that his grace and his strength and his power and his kindness was extended toward me. Because when I do a project, I don't want people just to hear my music ability or my voice or my skill set. I want them to have an encounter with God that changes and alters their experience. Not just the moment, their experience in life that gives them a hunger and a thirst for more, but ultimately to make God famous. Right. Make jesus famous. Put his name out there. Because when you raise his name, whatever is under the name is covered. You know what I'm saying?
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah. That's really good.
Your dad when we spoke before, because both of our dads passed in 2018, mine's in February and yours in March.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: So now I'm going to go back to what I just asked you.
Those albums, those projects, those songs that you wrote, were you able to lean on any of that that God had given you while you were going through the time of grief?
Or did it even dawn in your mind, or did it even prep you in a sense?
[00:29:57] Speaker A: That's a good question, and I don't know that they probably did. I do know that lead me to the rock. My sister told me, I think my brother, you know, you have to sing. I was like, well, no, I'm not going to sing. I'm going to do the eulogy. My sister said, you can do both and you have to sing. And it was strange to me because my sister never tells me, like, song titles. My older sister is my number one supporter, second to my mom. So she specifically said, Leave me to the Rock. And I'm thinking, like, really?
And so I did it. And I don't know that.
I know it blessed my family, and it helped them, and it probably helped me, but I didn't see it like that. I saw it as my responsibility.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Because Leave Me to the Rock came out of I had written a song and didn't know it was a song, and it wasn't a fully written song until after Grandmama died. Wow. Grandmama died. The part sometimes the weight of this whole world tries to slay me I came there. Okay. Because my grandmother was everything my dad's mom was. My mom's mom had already passed away. My dad's mom, and any cousin that you talk to, we all have the grandma experience. We all have the Grandma jokes, the one liners, the way she way we all have that. She was everything. The reason I do music is because when I was a kid, my grandmother would come from her house in Waldorf to my dad's house and our house in Brandywine to take me back to Waldorf piano lessons. Wow. Every Saturday.
That was her seed in sowing into my life, and she did it.
And the crazy part about it is she used to take me to this lady named Ms. Porter. Ms. Porter lived nowhere near my grandmother. She lived farther south, and she would take me back to Ms. Porter's house and then take me all the way back home every Saturday until Ms. Porter got sick.
She would always it was so important. So when she so when she died, I had a frame of a song. But when she died, I got to call the grandma died. I heard sometimes the weight of this whole world tries to slay me a strong tower from the enemy god has been to me when I need to find that place special secret place where I feel the Lord's embrace place I call my sanctuary there you are. Because immediately, the sanctuary of where I needed to be to handle Grandmama not being here happened. Wow.
It wasn't unrehearsed. I wasn't preparing for it. I wasn't trying to write a hit song. I just was in fellowship with God. Like, I would worship God, and the scripture came to me. Hear my cry of God send it to my prayer the ends of the earth will I cry to you my heart is overwhelmed lead me to a rock that is higher than I higher.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Than I right higher than I.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: God orchestrated and I believe that the wisdom of God thank you, Father. The wisdom of God and the grace of God is always light years ahead of our circumstances and situations. That's why it's very important that we spend time with Him, because as cruddy and as ghetto and as trifling and as lazy and as excuse oriented as we are, he says, come closer to me. I'm going to show you who you have called you to be. And every time we get in his presence, he chips off the stuff that disqualifies us. Every single time we're in his presence, for any length of time, two things happen. He covers us with grace. Once he's chipped off the stuff that qualifies us and he puts us back in the mode of representing Him.
He knows the real essence, he knows the Eden but naked space of who we are because he made us so where he's not caught off guard with our trifleness, not caught off guard with our slothfulness, not caught off guard with our sneakiness, he ain't caught off guard with none of that. But he still says, Come closer to me.
And the grace is the part that's so very significant because it's that grace that gives you permission to go in his name when you're not really qualified.
It's that grace that gives you permission to speak in his name when you're not really equipped.
You know what I'm saying?
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's good right there. Now that's good teaching you. I got that for free.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: No, that's really good. And it's just amazing how things just all work together, how God just brings everything together. And for songwriters, because you're more than just a praise and worship leader. You're a minister, you're a preacher, a reverend. You have so many facets in ministry. And I think that it's really important that we do highlight that, that we do talk about that. It's great to hear from leaders like yourself because you're giving us more than just what we know. Yes, we know Stephen Hurd can sing, but he's more than just that. He has more than just know when those periods that you went through of grief, how were you able to stay active, leading in the church, being like a spider, reaching here, singing here, ministering here and all of that, and not bleed on the people?
Because I think we're entering a new realm, or we actually have already have entered into a new realm of what praise and worship is and how people conduct it. And we have more leaders emerging and different things of that nature. And I've seen and I've witnessed so many different people spew out hate, spew out messages that are not of love, that are not of God erroneous doctrines, et cetera, et cetera. And you see how it affects the body, how it affects the church, how it affects the people, because whatever they're dealing with in their private life, their personal life, is now bleeding on them, on their congregation and onto the people. So how were you able know, go forth and not know, bleed?
[00:37:05] Speaker A: I don't know that I didn't bleed. I do know that I have an amazing team at my church.
Minister Mike McCrory and Brother Anthony Brown are my assistants at the church, and they gave me space, time to be back away one of the most anointed young worship leaders is a guy named Larry Vaughn. And Larry's on my team. And Larry would larry would lead worship, and he would just keep it going and keep it moving, or Anthony would lead worship, or somebody else would do it. But realistically, I should have taken a sabbatical, because being a caregiver and being a son, there's no class for that.
Watching your father die before he's dead is a whole thing, whether it's your mother or your father or your wife or your husband, it's a whole thing.
And I needed a sabbatical. I really needed the sabbatical. A time where it wasn't two weeks of leave, but it was a time where I could clean up the blood, spill, a time where I could get my mind to be healthy and processing, a time where I could speak my father's name and not burst into tears.
Those things, I think, are important. And there again, I can't speak from a white reference or another race of people, but black people aren't comfortable with sabbaticals. They feel like they're because we have been so as a black race, we always do the bounce back.
But bleeding is real.
That bleeding thing is real, man, and it fosters unhealthy behaviors.
You start snapping at the people you're serving with, you start cussing at them, or you all fighting, or it's not good. It's not good at all.
But I think that I would have been better off. This is four years I'm talking about. I'm just starting to move into a place where I can see healthy. I'm not healthy yet. I'm starting to see it. I'm starting to hear it. It's been four years, though. Yeah. On top of it. Could have been sooner had the pandemic night came in out of nowhere. It just came out of nowhere.
And then all the things that have happened in the last two years on top of the other two years.
I know death can't be planned, but oh, my gosh. Just seems like when you have a friend who's 49 years old and the epitome of strong and strength, it just drops dead. It's just what in the world? Yeah. You know what I mean?
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: I had a friend who was he got depressed on the back end of this and starved himself. He literally stopped eating.
I've never seen anything like that, the color ever. And every single day, I was actually in school, and I would go to the hospital every day. I would talk to doctors every day, go to class, go to the hospital, go to the hospital, go to class every day for probably six months.
And I did it not because I wanted a certificate or a prize. I did it because a brother is made for adversity and a friend loves at all times. My friends who are in my Eden space are my brothers. They're my sisters.
A good friendship is going to require you some sacrifice. That's right. If you don't have no sacrifice, you guys are acquaintances.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Or your coworkers.
But because it didn't make sense to me, I was fighting for somebody who couldn't fight for themselves because they didn't have the emotional strength or the mental capacity. And man, I prayed and I talked to God and I cried and I wrestled and I fought.
It was just weird. And it made my process harder to get healthy because that was like a double sucker punch.
So I think that self care is so very important. And I'm saying this because everybody needs to hear this.
It's just like the speech that they give on the airline. You cannot help someone else until you put your mask on.
You can't help me to breathe. If you don't have your breath component system on, it's not going to work. Right. And so you have to take care of yourself, your mind, and don't see it as selfish, see it as maintenance.
My daddy was a guy who fixed everything. When I bought a Mercedes, he was mad because he couldn't fix on it. He loved fixing cars. But he told me, he said, if you take care of your car making sure that the oil is changed, your car will run forever.
It's the same thing with our physical and our mental. The definition for healthy is the state of complete physical or mental social well being or not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
That's what healthy means by definition. And long and short of that, you have got to take care of yourself.
That's your responsibility to do that so that you can continue to live, not just exist, but live and live a joyful and a peaceful life.
[00:43:05] Speaker B: You're talking to me?
Can't overwork yourself? No, I tend to overwork myself.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: You've got to create lines of balance and then you've got to have I know a lot of people who do not vacation.
They don't do anything to change their environment, to give them some relaxation and enjoyment. They do nothing. The same thing over and over.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's me.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Lord, you have to fix that. That's very important.
You're a young man with incredible possibilities, but you won't be able to enjoy them or experience them if you burn yourself out on the front end. Yeah.
Time is not our friend, but God's not in a rush.
His time is perfect.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: And I'm learning that. And I think, like you had stated earlier, when I lost my dad, I was in the middle of rehearsal.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: And.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: It was a month process with him. And then when he transitioned, I gave myself a week. If that not even time to sit and process everything. And then I went straight into a show, and I went show after show after show after show. And then when I got to the fall and I finally had a moment of rest, everything came crashing down. And it wasn't healthy. It wasn't healthy at all. And then I realized I'm snapping, I'm angry, I'm mad. I don't know why I'm mad. Now I figured out, oh, I'm depressed, so I need to go talk to someone.
I need to talk this out because if I don't, then it's just going to be bad.
So what you're saying is very true and it's very right. And for people who know that the loss that you have received have taken you down a rabbit hole, we have to find a way to get out and we have to go through the process, but we have to be good to ourselves. So what you're saying is very true.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Moving forward for yourself after you went through that snowball effect and you are processing and I know that it's still a process and it's not over. How have you been able to cope as you're moving forward?
[00:45:33] Speaker A: I don't know that I've done the best job at coping.
For me, it's weird because I'm an introvert by nature. I didn't always know that I am.
I'm an introvert by nature, but I have friends who they're really, really like brothers, and they allow me my space not to use any kind of prestige or position just to say I just don't feel like me today. I don't feel like being glad to be in the service.
I want to go somewhere and just not be me or I just need to go take me a real quick trip. I think it's important to again, this is a question is hard for me, believe it or not, because I don't know that I did the best job at it. I think that I could have done better.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: But that's honest, though, because do we really know how to cope?
How do we cope? I know there's detrimental ways of coping, but do we actually think do we take trips to get away? Like you said before?
[00:46:49] Speaker A: And what part I didn't talk about is when you're so low that you can't pray, like when you absolutely need somebody to pray for you and you don't know it until they do. You don't know it until they start praying for you. And then you feel something inside of you weeping because you feel something in you longing for it. But it's also breaking that wall that you've built up for that's trying to keep you from being exposed, for being hurt, for being vulnerable, for being in this space. And it's not a blame game space. It's a part of life that you just weren't taught how to deal with. Yeah. It's a part of your space that you weren't taught how to manage or to maneuver. Yeah, that's good.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: So would you say that you are an advocate for leaders to find professional help?
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Absolutely.
175% everybody needs Jesus and a couch.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: And a couch.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: Come on. You need Jesus and you need a yeah. Yeah. Because prayer is important, but like, I said before, there are times when I couldn't pray. I didn't know what to pray for, to be very honest.
And there are times when people who are professionally trained to deal with the mind and the emotions can help you to process.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: That's important folks. Don't go to your pastor, go to a trained professional. Let your pastor get what they need to get. Because people pull on leaders, they pull on pastors, they pull on ministers, they pull on everyone of leadership in the church. And they want you to solve a problem. They want you to fix a problem. And I just don't understand why therapy is such taboo.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: It's such a taboo. Well, because it's for years, when I was young, therapy meant you were crazy.
Psychologists, psychiatrist meant that you were crazy.
I remember as a kid, this is a transparent moment, my mom took me to a psychologist. I don't know if it's psychologist or psychologist. I remember I went because the teacher told her that I needed I don't know, she said I needed therapy or something was wrong with me, whatever. I was very energetic, rambunctious, very talkative. But the other teacher, Miss Young, I'll never forget it, told my mom after she found out she had taken me to counsel. She said, there's nothing wrong with your son. The problem is he's not being challenged to do more and she wants to make it your fault because she's not doing her job.
And so they restructured, my mom restructured the way I thought about myself. And I had people like Ms. Young in my corner, and Ms. Parham and Ms. Barton, who would have me do stuff at the school that would once I finished. Because the problem is, once I finish my work, you all should be finished.
So let's talk about it.
So I never got in trouble for fighting or being disrespectful or stealing. I got in trouble for talking, and now I talk for a living.
Well, see?
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Look at God.
That's good. So to wrap all of this up, because if you all didn't get none of these nuggets, he said a whole lot. And if you didn't get none of these nuggets, go back and listen to.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: It again, please do.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: Because what you said, this is straight, honest, raw, straight to the point. That's what we need right now.
What is your advice?
And you've already given a lot, but to book in this, what is your advice to leaders?
Future leaders want to be leaders, leaders in the making.
All of those who are dealing with some type of absence of joy, whether it's the loss of a loved one, whether it's the loss of a job where it's not knowing where they belong, any of those different things that we perceive, that is considered grief, what would.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: You say to them?
So for me, when I want to hear God or get answers to prayers or my creativity is charged, I go to Water. Go to Blue Water. Can't get to the Caribbean. I go to Fort Lauderdale. Can't get to Fort Lauderdale. I'm going somewhere where the water's blue.
I suggest strongly that people find out where their source is and find your water stream.
Get to where your you have to identify it, because I can't tell you what yours is.
You have to identify it, and you have to get there so that you can open up the communication. Well, whatever it is, however it flows, you have to do it, because it's not your job or your assignment to be Superman or Superwoman. It's not your job or your assignment to have all the answers to cure the world. It's not your job or your assignment to be all things to all people. That's not your job or your assignment. Yeah.
And you have to be okay with it. Ambiguity does not mean insecurity or ignorance or stupidity. It means, I just don't know yet.
And confessing that I don't know opens up a whole wellspring of opportunities for you to get to know.
But acting like you know is deceit.
And a lot of times when you act like you know, you're living in delusion, and then you begin to perpetuate delusion, and so it goes into a whole mystified behavior, which goes into witchcraft of some degree.
Just say, I don't know. I'll find out.
You said something earlier about, don't go to your pastor for counseling. If you go to your pastor for counselor, he or she, if they're a good person of faith, they'll direct you to a counselor who's professionally trained to deal with your mental bondage.
They'll pray for you and pray with you, and then they'll lead you to where you can get a consistent process of unlayering the stuff. Because nine times out of ten, we are dealing with layers of stuff.
Volcanoes only erupt when the layers have been pressed down to the nth degree, and there's nowhere else to go.
And that's why we're having strokes. That's why we're having heart attacks. That's why we have high blood pressure and anxiety, because we still trying to put this stuff down. Pressure down. Pressure down. It has to erupt somewhere. So get it before the eruption happens, because you don't always recover from the eruption.
Sometimes it'll take you out of here.
Sometimes it'll leave you paralyzed.
You can't afford to run that risk. You have to be a steward over your life, and you have to be a steward over the life that God has allowed you to borrow. This all belongs to him.
You have to be a good tenant in the space that the God of your salvation and the God of your life is the owner of you're only landlord.
No, you're not landlord. You're tenant. He's landlord.
And so you have to take care of the property yeah.
As if you owned it.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: Family.
What is your Eden Space?
Is it Penetrable?
Family. Are you healthy?
Do you know where your source lies?
Catch yourself before you lose yourself and family. Consider being a great steward over your life. You might join in grieving, but you're going to come out healed. I love you. And thank you.
