Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeart Radio and The Black Effect.
Great day, everybody, how y'all doing. I know it's been a tough time, y'all. It's been trying to understand everything that's going on overseas. You know, it's been tough to figure out everything that's biblical versus everything that's just people just being evil, lack of humanity, lack of love. And I've had to watch, you know, and get a lot
of knowledge from trusted voices. And I encourage everyone to do the same so that we are not ignorant to what's going on, because lots of times we can be guilty saying, well, this ain't in the United States, so
this don't affect me and my family. And I just think sometimes when we have that attitude, even when it comes to like voting in the elections and stuff, we can kind of think, well, it's not going to affect me, and then ten years from now you're realizing, oh, it affects me somehow, you know, with your taxes, or with certain benefits, or even zoning of zip codes which dictate where your children can go to school. It's just yeah, so let's be vigilant. It seems like I came in on.
I came on this podcast swinging within the first two minutes of asking how are y'all doing? But I can imagine there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of people wondering. There's a lot of fear, fear not and how can you have no fear? You know, when you decide to willingly get more knowledge about the times we're living in and get more knowledge about things that are going on outside of your zip code, your county, your state, your country, get to figuring out what goes on, you know,
for other genders, other races, other sexualities. You know, let's not be so ignorant and think that we don't have to have knowledge. But your brothers and sisters and what my brothers and sisters are going through. Everyone is a brother or a sister. Somehow, we're all connected. We're all human and diamond. So yes, all I could do is be pray, you know, and sometimes you feel like your
prayers are helpless because there are hundreds thousands of people dying. Yeah, I was just telling somebody, you.
Know, I feel helpless. You know, what do I do?
You know? So if everyone can just be loving.
Listen.
Hold space for people with their perspectives and their opinions. Should they differ from yours, hold space. Hold space. So if this recording sounds different, it is because I'm in my safe space. I am in North Carolina. I'm in hit to Night, North Carolina, at my favorite spot at Living Waters. This place changed my life. So there was a fall family day on Saturday this past Saturday, and it would hay rides, y'all, barbecue.
Just food, folks and fun.
You hear me, y'all.
I needed it.
I needed to. Oh and y'all hear that poppin yes, Because I'm literally sitting in front of the fireplace. So this is in real time. I don't have my recording equipment because I thought I would be home by now, but I decided to stay and rest. So if you hear some crackling, it is this beautiful fireplace. Just came here to rest. And so this place, y'all, if you go to Livingwaters Ministry dot com, I want you to register for one of the Healing the Heart retreats because
that retreat changed my inentire life. It changed how I moved, It changed how I respond to things. That changed how I love and you know I'm being tested.
It's amazing.
When you're on a healing journey, you will be tested in the area of your calling. You will be tested in the area of whatever you're assigned to. You'll be tested in the area of the in the area that you're trying to heal from.
And I might share more about that.
I will say this year some triggers of rejection, some areas that I hadn't healed from regarding rejection, were triggered this summer in the May juneish time of this year. So just been working through that. You guys, rejection does not feel good. And rejection could be someone simply dismissing how you feel about something, could be the rejection of who you actually are, like your actual being can be rejected. And I didn't think you know I would ever. I
don't know why it affected me so much. It seemed like the entire month of June I was physically sick. I may go into details about it. You guys know that I always try to share, especially if there's a lesson learned from anything regarding my life. Now, before y'all get to sideye am, this rejection was not from a romantic relationship. It was not from you know, anything like that, but it was from a friendship where I live. It
was from a friendship. So the reason why I have to say say that because y'all thinking I don't have no other friends outside of Beyonce and Kelly.
I do have.
I do have other friends, Okay, because y'all be thinking, Okay, when people start talking personally, y'all be thinking it's about a boyfriend or it's about y'all. Know how y'all can be come on and raise your hand and say I'm talking to you, okay. So I just wanted to clear that up. So yeah, it's just been a great time of reflection and a great time of recalibration.
I encourage everyone, if you can.
Y'all get up here, get to one of these Healing the Heart retreats. I volunteer at as many as I can. The last one in November is already full, but they will resume in January of twenty twenty four. The reason why I say this is because you know, I found myself in a pattern of certain responses or certain triggers or you know. Yeah, so this place really really healed me. So I love to come back here and just reset,
recalibrate the mountains, the farm land. I'm gonna I'll post some pictures in my story about how country.
It is and how beautiful it is.
So I guess what I was trying to say was, Hey, you might not have a spot in North Carolina to come to, but sitting by a lake taking a walk just to get away from the noise.
Can be quite healing.
If you can just you know, or you would be surprised in your state where you reside, one of the national parks, grab a cabin somewhere and just just go. Just breathe, pray, meditate, take safe people.
You know.
Right now, I'm sitting by a fireplace. I'm gonna get some apple cider or hot cocoa, one of the two, y'all, and just just be just get away from a noise for a time. Because I can imagine the job you're on schooling, or maybe there's a relationship that's not going the way you desire for it to go. Maybe you need to steal away and just get some time. I
encourage you to get some time away. So when that's that's what I'm doing, I'm getting some time away and rereading material and that I needed to go through again. Did y'all hear that crackling?
Yeah?
I did not know how to start a fire. But even though I started reckless fires when I was a little girl, I'm talking about the actual fire where you bring the wood in from outside and you get the kindling. I think it's called So, y'all, please, I hope this, y'all, please forgive me. But I wanted to do a podcast, a solo episode, just to so y'all could hear my voice so that I could, you know, just have an intimate moment with you.
So if the.
Popping is too much, I am so sorry, but it sounds good to me and it feels good. I also wanted to acknowledge that this is the season for season depression. And when I look back over the times that I've experienced seasonal depression, especially when I was living in Illinois, it was something about the changing of the seasons. But now I deal with it so much better, especially I live in Georgia. I live in Atlanta now, so it
doesn't get as cold and gloomy it seems. You know, it's been raining a lot or windy, but I don't know the weather, at least the weather's a little better.
But seasonal depression is a real thing. It really does affect people.
So how do you know if you're going through seasonal depression? Well, literally, when the seasons change, you get down and it occurs at the same time every year. Seasonal effective disorder occurs in climates where there is less sunlight at certain times of the year. Okay, So I want to just encourage you guys who deal with that. Again, it is triggered by changes in season. This form of depression usually occurs during the fall and winter months when there is less
sunlight and the days get shorter, and it's called sad sad. Again, seasonal effective disorder usually lives during the spring and summer months.
I promise you. It never failed from.
About who November around March. It definitely affected me living in the Midwest with all the snow and so you know, I had to get away and get in the climate where it was warmer out for me. I have to have warmth, even though Atlanta can get cold. But yes, that is so true. So during the winter months when there's less sunlight and the days get shorter, all right,
Not according to SAMHSA dot gov. Not everyone with SAD has the same symptoms, but they can include sad, anxious or empty feelings, feelings of hopelessness, guilt, worthlessness or helplessness, loss of interest or pleasure, and activities you used to enjoy. Fatigue and decreased energy, Difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions, thoughts of death or suicide, oversleeping, overeating, particularly with the
craving for carbohydrates. What if I'm just greedy, honey, I love a good Texas toast, honey, y'all, y'all, I love just putting bread with butter on it and putting it in the oven on the broiler.
It's different than putting your.
Toast in a toaster. You gotta let that butter kind of bake ino and melt into the Breadge out, yes and okay, okay, okay, greedy smurf over here symptoms.
Let's get back to the symptoms.
Weight gain, social withdrawing, kind of you feel like hibernating, difficulty sleeping, lack of appetite, irritability, and agitation.
Okay.
There is a such thing as a light. It's called light. It's like light therapy or a happy light. You can literally go on Amazon and get this light and you can put it on your desk out of you know, and people absolutely love it. Or therapy to antidepressants, Vitamin D supplements may improve symptoms. And I don't know, for some reason, I feel like I've heard it before that black people are prone to having more of a vitamin D deficiency. So these symptoms sound similar and are exactly
what depression is. It is a form. It is a form of depression, all right. So and if you notice that you literally get sad in the fall and it lasts till about the springtime, it literally is called s a d. Now, light therapy, let's go talk about light therapy. Okay, there literally is a light therapy lamp. Y'all their online for as low. I see one for twenty nine to
ninety nine child at CBS. You can get go on Amazon right now and get you a light therapy lamp fifty one dollars, thirty nine dollars, twenty dollars, thirty dollars, seventy dollars. Child. They got light therapy lamps in all brackets as far as you know what you would want.
To pay for it.
But I always say, definitely consult your doctor first. And I am not dealing with sad at the moment, but I still think I'm gonna order me a lamp child. And that's why I love, I love. I think you know, having doing you know, Florida ceiling windows, being able to have a lot of light come in, come in in your house, having a lot of light in. Now, if you walk around your house naked all the time, you might want to, you know, get you some shears.
Or maybe you don't care.
Maybe you're free, maybe you don't mind people walking down the street and they look in your condo or your brownstone, your apartment and see your sweet cheeks in the window because you like to walk around naked in e KK I D so, I definitely wanted to speak into those that have sad.
I have had it.
It is not fun, especially when you already you know, have dealt with depression in the past that had nothing to do with this season. You know, I've had depression in July, and you know, so I get it, But again I do, I do know what sad feels like.
I could call oh.
And maybe about two years ago I could feel it trying to come on, and I was like, uh uh, So now that I know what it is, and if I feel something similar, I just counter it. I was like, no, And that's the good thing about having the tools, you know, going through enough therapy, going through enough healing. You know, if I didn't have enough healing, you know, I would
probably be in a moment of sad. But now when it's cloudy out, I pray for rain, like, oh Lord, let the rain come and watch this patio of you know, if it's cloudy, like all right, even though it's calledy, I know the sun is still shining up there somewhere.
And that's from life.
It may seem cloudy, it may seem dim, but just know the sun is still up there. Isn't that amazing Even when it's cloudy out, there's still some light in the clouds that cover the sun, and the light are temporary.
Even the cloud's gotta move.
The sadness has got to move, The anxiety has got to move, the worry has got to move, the fear has got to move. Light is so much powerful then the fear, worried, depression, anxiety, it's so powerful. Get into the light. Tell me what your light is. Get into the light is the light, just sitting down. I'm literally I'm in a rocking chair in front of the light, the fire, this fireplace. Get into the light. Get into
the light of positive thinking and positive conversation. If you know you did with sadness, anger, or worry, Why engage in conversations that's only going to trigger it and make it worse.
Get into the light.
Get into the light kind of, Get into the light with some ice cream, Get into the light with some teasing cameo, Get into the light with the word, get into the light with prayer, Get into the light with dance, Get into the light with music.
Get into the light.
Get into the light. All right, I ain't gonna tell you no more. I felt the need to speak into someone who possibly is feeling the weight of the sadness due to the seasons changing. All right, again, please talk to your doctors, your therapists, through your job, and through your school. Help is available. Resources are available, especially if you're in school. Some resources are free, okay, so take advantage. And again, as far as the light therapy, you know, make sure you.
Research it for yourself.
But there are people who should not use light therapy, especially if you have diseases. That involve the retina of the eyes, such as diabetes and the use of photo sensitizing medications like lithium, melatonin, antipsychotics, and certain antibiotics, you know, all right, I had a bronchitis. Oh to have olvers sin it's infection them. So I was treated with the antibiotic. And you can't go you can't be in the sun on an antibiotics. So please please please figure out you know,
the light therapy. There are images literally, y'all. Just google light therapy and you'll see people literally sitting in front of the light. All right, Okay, Well, I am literally just wanting to check in with you, guys. This is a hard season, hard times, but I pray you again. I always encourage safe people to process this all with and if you don't know, I hope to provide some
resources of truth. And I'm excited I'm gonna have somebody on maybe the next episode that can and shed light on some things that our world is facing right now, all right, And I just know that I love you, and it's been you know. I was so happy to see some of my East Coast loves at the Mental Wealth Expo in New York that was really really it was really good. It was really good to see you guys,
and so I really really really appreciate it. And you know, to see so many people y'all the men's panel, to see men talking and being vulnerable about their mental health journey, I was like, oh, oh, y'all can get it. Okay, wait, let me see all of them. That might be a stretch, but a few of them up there was real. That was my type.
They was real cute.
You know, obviously I have been equal opportunity as far as color is concerned. But listen, when they was up there talking, I says, see a man that's in tune with himself and his journey and doing things.
To better himself. Now this is for me. Now for me. I loved it.
I thought it was amazing.
Okay, because.
You know, a lot of men are taught to hold their pain inside, hold the pain inside, don't talk, so then when you try to have a deep conversation with him, they can't say more than three words mm hmm. Process, get that pain out, get rid of that baggage, get riten, get rid of that hurt. I'm reading something and it says pain held inside festers and causes more pain. This is from healing and restoring the heart by my spiritual mom Denise Bogs. It just says pain held inside faster
and causes more pain. The festering occurs because you are still hurt and angry. Anxiety and depression are symptoms of unresolved pain that has been held onto. Depression is anger held inward, all right, and so pain inside. You know, a friend of mine, their son fell Lord Jesus and fell and hit his head child on the table until he's you know, his brow cut in the eyebrown. So it required a lot of stitches.
And so I heard.
Someone say, oh, man, you're gonna be all right, and I said, don't say that. Don't dismiss this little boy's pain. Don't also dismiss he's got stitches.
He's gonna have a whole scar. Now. I got a scar under my eye.
Because I think me and my brother were playing. What we were planning, was he really mad at me and hit me in the eye, and their belt buckle hit me under my eye. I got a little scot under there, y'all. Don't leave him alone. He didn't mean it, and that's my brother, and I love him so but we teach, we teach, especially young boys. Man, you're gonna be all right, tough it up, you'll be fine. And I'm like, don't tell that little boy that. And then they said, well,
he was acting up, and he would. He was being disobedient and was playing and was doing something he had no business doing and.
He fell on the table. Oh Lord Jesus.
Either way, I'm still not dismissing that young boy's pain. And I'm not gonna tell him to tough it up, no matter if he was playing and wasn't supposed to be playing and he fell. So what this little boy got stitches in his forehead? All right? AnyWho, pain demands to be felt, and so once you deal with the pain, it is gone and it cannot affect you any longer. The pain found beneath depression. It's all anger, and you have to allow yourself to feel the pain in order
to release it. You can begin releasing the anger by acknowledging who hurt you, all right, and you must break your families. Don't talk rule and talk it out. Okay, So there are things that family you know, don't talk about it. Minimize it, you know, sweep it under the rug. So all dysfunctional families have four unspoken rules that keep pain bird inside. Don't talk, don't feel, don't trust, and
don't rock the boat. And these rules are what keep a family dysfunctional and therefore must be broken for a family to be healthy. How many of us come from families where you don't talk about how you feel, or you're so numb you don't feel, or you or you're told don't trust, don't rock the boat because if I say something, Daddy's gonna get mad. If I say something,
Mom's gonna get upset, don't rock the boat. So you know, you keep your pain inside just to keep the peace, and then you grow up with no peace in your heart, you know. So this is just what mother Michelle be up here in North Carolina doing processing and mine in my business. But I still think of my checking in listeners often. Thank you y'all for allowing me to just help touch you in a way and perfectly. You know, I keep checking in to be a safe place for you.
And congratulations to all the folks that our recipients of Mike Todd's damaged.
But not destroyed.
When I tell you I'm excited, I'm excited his book is a New York Times bestseller, and you should be getting yours any time. They should already be, I guess being sent out. So I'm excited for y'all to get y'all's books. And yeah, I want you to go, just go right quick to Livingwatersministry dot com and register for a Healing the Heart retreat. So if y'all know it is checking in, there's a heart in the branding.
It's because my heart has come a long, long, long.
Way, and I have this place to thank for it. It is faith based, but no matter what your faith is, no matter what your belief is, when you strip all that away, we have been the recipients of some unmet needs. We don't know how to grieve losses properly. That turn into depression, that make you more anxious, you know. And when you don't grieve a loss properly, addictions form habits for him if you cannot get out of those first three steps of grieving a loss properly, which is shock, anger,
and sadness. Right. So, I've had to grieve some losses, y'all. But the only way that I can stand before y'all and talk to y'all and not feel like a hypocrite is because of the ongoing work. But I love this journey. I love it and I love the people that God has blessed me to be able.
To journey with and who journey with me. Right, So I want your to come. I want try to.
Make sure y'all register and get to a Healing the Heart retreat for twenty twenty four. Do not come on, y'all come on, and I want to say hello. There was.
A couple of retreats ago.
Someone walked up to a friend of mine and said, Hey, I'm here because I heard Michelle talk about Healing the Heart on one of her podcasts.
So I just want to say thank you.
I'm excited that you.
Came and you showed up.
I want to hear about your experience. Okay, so if you're listening, let me know about your experience. I don't say the name, because you know, we hold all confidentiality you know up here. So I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. All right, catch me in Philly this weekend, all right, October twenty second, at the Circle of Sisters event in Philly.
I'm excited.
I think I make my appearance at four PM at the Circle of Sisters.
Event in Philly.
I always love coming to Philly, so I hope to see y'all there, And just please know that I certainly do love you, and I hope that something that I said on this episode touched you, or if you feel like you need to, let a friend listen to it. Seasonal effective disorder is real again because the days are shorter and there's less sunlight. So please please please know that you are not alone. Okay, all right, thanks for checking in, all right, bye bye.
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.