← UNRULY WITH SHELAH MARIE
UNRULY WITH SHELAH MARIE
14: Solo Episode: Ditch Resolutions: Reflect and Recharge To Reclaim 2025
00:29:20
Loading summary
Transcript8 lines
- [00:00]
Narrator
When you visit Arizona, time is measured in moments, not minutes. Like the moment your work stress disappears as you kayak through the canyons, or the moment you discover the life changing effects of prickly pear chocolate. But nothing beats the moment you see the Grand Canyon for the very first time. Visit A New state of Mind. Learn more at Here you are AZ.com.
- [00:30]
Sheila Marie
New Year same great savings all in the Fred Meyer App Get Sugardale ham portions for $0.87 a pound with your card and an additional $25 purchase limit one. Then get organic asparagus for $1.99 a pound with your card and a digital coupon.
- [00:44]
Narrator
Shop these deals at your local Kroger.
- [00:46]
Sheila Marie
Today or click the screen now to download the Fred Meyer app to save big today. Fred Meyer Fresh for everyone Fred Prices and product availability subject to change restrictions apply.
- [00:56]
Narrator
See site for details.
- [01:02]
Sheila Marie
Welcome to Unruly. I'm your host, Sheila Marie. I'm an author, a fierce advocate for black women, and the founder of the Curvy Curly Conscious movement. In this space, I'm sharing what I've learned on my own journey while sitting down with some amazing women who are all navigating their own paths to healing. Because there's no better time than now to get a little unruly. Hey beautiful people. It's me, Sheila Marie, the host of Unruly. Welcome back where we are all about living boldly, authentically and fully aligned. By the time you hear this, it'll be the beginning of 2025. We'll be in January 2025. And so I am not one of those people who likes to hop right anymore. I used to be at this point in my life, I don't like to hop right into resolutions and doing everything new at the beginning of January because to me, I align more with the astrological New Year for two reasons. One is because I'm an Aries and the Aries are the first of the zodiacs. So for Aries, the beginning of the year is already April, March in the spring, and that feels more aligned to me as a time where you start where things are regenerating, regrowing, doing new things. Like if you look in nature, nothing new is growing in the dead of winter. So to me it just feels more appropriate for that time. I don't even if it wasn't my birthday, I feel like it would still be more appropriate time. That's like the time like around March. April is when I really go into like, okay, what do I want to shift into for the next 12 months? January is actually My time where I do a lot of reviewing and a lot of inventory. So that's what I'm going to share for this episode. I'm going to share the top lessons that I've learned in 2020. And let me tell you, 2024, I know I'm not alone in this was a crazy year. It was almost like the best of times and the worst of times. There's so many things happening socially, politically, economically, globally. And then in my own personal life, I don't know if you feel that as well, but I know a lot of people that I talk to right now are just feeling like 2024 came and really just threw everything up in the air. So let me share these lessons. I want to share four lessons that I learned that shifted how I approach my life, my work, and my relationships. So let's get into lesson number one. As I said, I pretty much identify as an Aries. Yes. I'm that annoying person who's going to mention that they're an Aries every five seconds. I don't care who going, who going to check me. You're not gonna fight me, you're not gonna beat me up. I mean, maybe, but until then, I'm gonna keep saying it. All right? Aries like to do things fast. Aries like to be first, we like to discover things, and we like to get shit done. I think that's great. However, what I learned in 2024 is that haste makes waste. Yes, mom, you were right. My mom was telling me this my whole life. Haste makes waste. And I always be like, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm 13 and I pretty much know more like, be for real. But I learned that going faster doesn't always get you there quicker. In fact, I learned that rushing can actually cost you more time. And it costs me more time. Let me give you an example. So, as you know, I published a book, Unruly Please. I hope that you are buying the book. Thank you for all the support. By the way, please buy this book wherever books are sold. Make my publisher happy. Make me happy. Okay. Buy Unruly wherever books are sold, friend. When I started writing, I was like, oh, I'mma just go hard. I'mma go. I'm a lock in. You know, I'm going to have writing hours. I'm going to be on regimented schedule. And, you know, for somebody like me who's self employed and just a shit show in general, having something regimented, a schedule has not always been my strong suit. I really thrive off of newness, off of novelty, off of. Oh, you never know where it be next month. You never know what I'm going to be doing next week. You know, like, it's something that I've matured out of a little bit because I think it served a purpose for a large part of my. My life. But I was trying to embrace the structure, right? I'm like, okay, let's get it. Let's get it. I'm gonna write two hours a day, five days a week at these specific time. And when I did that, the writing that came out of that reflected the form. So what I mean is that's a very regimented, masculine energy, energetic approach. Masculine. Not in the sense of sex, like male or female, but in the masculine. Masculine. Why is that word so hard for me to say masculine? The masculine energy. I turn French, but the masculine energy, that is a masculine principle. Forward motion, planning, Excel spreadsheets. I'm doing 1, 2, 3, 4. Everything got to be better than the last, right? And that showed up in the writing. The writing was masculine. The writing did not reflect me. It was a little bit regimented. You could feel it. It was a little robotic. It was lacking some of my. A lot of my voice to the point where I turned it in, and my publisher was like, girl, where are you? And it was because I was not honoring the speed at which I should be going at. I was trying to rush myself in order to meet deadlines, in order to keep up with these systems around me. And then really what I was doing was causing myself to do double work. I had to rewrite what I submitted three times. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Yes. Like when I say, I rewrote chapters of my book so many times that sometimes I. I go in my book and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. We changed it. We changed the name. Because if I would have slowed down from the beginning and I would have just honored that. I need more time that I can. I do not work like that. That is not the I. I. I understand that I was trying to honor structure, and I think that's a good thing, but it was. The pendulum was swinging too far in the other direction, and I wasn't really allowing myself to move at a pace that creatively aligned with what I was trying to put out. My creativity was not moving at the speed that I was writing, if that makes sense. So what came out was very dry, very boring. It was done, but it wasn't really my best work. So if there's one thing that I feel like I learned from 2024 is that faster doesn't mean quicker. Faster might mean you have to do something three times in a row. And I notice now when I rush through something, like let's say if it's a home improvement project, when I rush through it, I end up having to redo it. I wanted to rush to hang up the lights in Sailor Room, I ended up having to hang them lights three times. Whereas if I just sit down and give myself a little more time in the planning phase, if I sit down and try to really get familiar in my body with what is the energetic exchange required to keep up this pace, then I can be more realistic about what my timeline should be. So the next time that you're attempted to rush through something, ask yourself, am I doing this from a place of alignment or am I just trying to get it over with? Remind yourself it's not only okay to slow down, but slowing down will actually save you time in the long run. And also bonus points, give yourself permission to ask for help. I had to end up hiring an editor on my own that could help me edit down some of my thoughts, help me organize some of my thoughts. Shout out to Felice. Her name is Felice and she was. She killed it. She killed it. She helped me bring out my true voice. And I'm so happy that I was able to work with her. But I think if I would have got real with myself in the beginning, I would have asked for her help from the beginning and wouldn't need to rewrite it three times. All right, so that's my first lesson is that haste makes waste. The second lesson is which kind of relates to the first lesson. And this is something that Ace says all the time. Like I. Ace says this phrase so much that it just became a part of my lexicon now. And he'll be like, man, sometimes what you think you want ain't really what you want. He says it all the time. Sometimes you think what you think you want ain't really what you want. And I feel like I get it now on a deeper level. And let me, let me explain. You know those desires that we all have, those shiny pretty things that we think we want. Sometimes what we. It. It looks good on the surface, but it doesn't really align. I said I'm. I, I'm. I'm really, really nailing down the energetic experience part of this. And I really want you to get it. Cuz this is ma. It's the over. It's the umbrella to all these lessons that I learned in 2024, is that what I. What we are really looking for when we're looking for anything, when we're looking for a partner, when we're looking, looking for money is an energetic experience. That is what we are searching for. We want the energetic experience of safety when we have unlimited money, right? We want the energetic experience of being surrounded by beauty, feeling beautiful, feel, feeling worthy, feeling loved, feeling cared for, right? So sometimes what you think you want ain't really what you want, because you might want the appearance of the thing. Like, you might want the beauty of the thing, but you might not want the energetic experience required to support having that thing. Let me give you an example. So I, for a long time in my life, thought that I wanted to be a famous actress. I have an acting background. I still love everything, all things acting. I still love it. I love. I've been around my house all day. Shout out. This is like the second week Wicked has been out. So it's still very fresh in my mind and I'm literally walking around the house all day.
- [11:10]
Narrator
How do you make an Airbnb a vrbo? Imagine trying to find the perfect vacation rental for a girls trip. Now imagine there's a tool that makes it easy to compare different houses so the group agrees on a house faster than they agree on appetizers. You've got yourself a vrbo. Make it a vrbo. How do you make an Airbnb a vrbo? Picture a vacation rental with a host. The host is dragging your family on a tour of the kitchen, the bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, the downstairs bedroom, and the TV room, which, surprise, is where you can watch tv. Now imagine there's no host giving you a tour because there's never any hosts at all, ever. Voila. You've got yourself a vrbo. Want a vacation that's completely and totally host free? Make it a vrbove.
- [11:59]
Sheila Marie
And nobody in all of us, okay, see, I'm gonna stop there. But I'm still a theater girl at heart. I'm gonna always be an actress at heart. But when I dreamed about those big roles, when I imagined red carpets, when I imagined that glamorous life, I didn't actually think about the energetic output it would require me to have. But I didn't necessarily consider the energy of who I would have to be in order to support me having those things. So I didn't like the version of Sheila that I had to be to schmooze, to deal with everybody's egos, to be in the right rooms. I didn't like the energy that I needed to have to deal with all of those really humiliating interviews and to deal with industry people who are really cutthroat and really don't care about you, and. And you never know who you can trust. All of those things. The person that I would have to become in order to support that dream, I did not want to be. And that was a hard pill for me to swallow. But I could not betray myself. And I realized that when I. When I look, I admire people who have the temperament for that so much. Like Jessie Wu. Like, I love you, Jessie, if you're listening. Like, she can tolerate the industry. She knows how to protect herself. She knows how to put the right barriers up, which we're gonna talk about in a second. She knows how to do the right amount of schmoozing and. And she can do it and go home and sleep at night. Me, I do it. I go home, and I'm literally drained. Like, you ever seen those. You ever seen those, like, blow up? What are they even called, these things outside of car dealerships? And they, like, funnel air through them, and they look like they're dancing, and then when they turn the air off, they just deflate to the ground. That's me after trying to force myself to be in those environments. So when you're thinking about what you want, instead of thinking only about the thing that you want, think about who you'd have to be to keep that thing and have that thing and maintain that thing. And do you want to be that person? Because that's what you're actually getting. Because when you're getting the thing, you're also getting the performance of you who has the thing. And you might not like who you are with that thing. Maybe you will, but it's just something to take into consideration. It's something that I learned. So, you know, take a moment. Moment to examine. Examine all the things you're chasing and. And really sit with. Are they aligned with your energy, your values, and your joy? That's. That's a question. That's a. Not a rhetorical question, but that's a re. That's a question for you that only you can answer. Leads me to my third lesson. Boundaries are bridges and not walls. This really has been the most fruitful lesson that I've learned of this year, is, you know, I know that humans, when we go. When we correct something, we. We err towards overcorrection. I don't know if I use that word. Error. Who do I think I am. We add towards overcorrection. Yes. I'm Stewie from Family Guy. So, like, yeah, boundaries are bridges, not walls. When I started thinking about boundaries, it was actually as I started writing the chapter about boundaries in my book, which was two years ago, mind you. As I said, the book took me a lot longer than I expected. So I think this was 2022 where I started thinking about boundaries. And I think it was right after the. After the filming of Love and Hip Hop. And so I felt that I had not had the proper boundaries. So my pendulum swung all the way in the other direction to having, like, uber strict boundaries. As I said, I think humans, when we go to correct something, sometimes we have a tendency to overcorrect. That's how we learn. So I had overcome, corrected, which actually my therapist says insulated me. Some people would say isolated me, but I was very insulated. Again, this is coming off miscarriages. My first one, coming off Love and Hip Hop was super traumatic. So I just felt like, ah, everybody out, everybody out. Nobody can call me, nobody can text me. I'm not talking to anybody. I can't trust anybody. Cuz really what it was, these very, very rigid and strict boundaries came from a place of trauma. They came from me feeling like, I cannot trust the world. I cannot trust y'all. Y'all are shady. People folded on me. They failed me. And most importantly, what I didn't want to acknowledge at the time was that I didn't know if I could trust myself. I felt like I had made some really, really big wrong decisions. I was not being the person that I thought I was. I looked in the mirror and I was like, oh, my gosh, I fucked up. Like, it's me who got me here. It's because I did not have. I didn't trust myself. I didn't make the right decisions, I want to say. And that made me lose a certain amount of trust for myself. At the same time, I also felt like I lost trust in spirit. God, whatever's out there, right for me, I call, I say spirit. And I have such a close connection with spirit that when I got into this jam, I was like. Like, really? But I thought we were close. So if I'm here. Because at that time my expectation was, if I'm close to spirit, then everything will be all good. I won't have to go through these certain trials and tribulations. I won't have to learn these certain lessons because I know better, right? Knowing better doesn't necessarily mean we do Better and I didn't. I had to go through these lessons, right? So I didn't trust God. I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust people. And that led me to build up walls around me. Well, I'll never let anyone hurt me again. I'll never trust anyone again, including myself. I didn't say that at the time. That's what was really happening. And what that did was make me kind of lonely, really lonely, actually. I was just alone in my thoughts. I lost a real strong sense of community. And I went through that. I healed from that. And on the other side of that, I learned that what I want is connection. I want community. I want to be close to friends. I want to be able to trust Spirit again. I want to be able to trust myself again. So after healing, I was working through how to create boundaries that are bridges for connection and not walls that keep us separated from the people that we love. And myself and I worked through it in the chapter. You can read the book if you want to get more in depth about it there, because I have a whole chapter about boundaries. And now where I am. I didn't even realize that it was happening. I was, like, almost paying attention to so many other things, Writing my book, getting this done, the podcast, this thing, that thing that I didn't realize that everything was falling into place perfectly. I moved to Georgia coming off the heels of disconnecting from my close friends, disconnecting from myself spiritually, and disconnecting from Spirit. Now I have such a healthy. I am. It's probably one of the things I am most proud of, is how healthy of a friend network I have now. I have friends on all, like, levels of closeness to me. Some of them have a very high level of proximity to me. Some are not. But they're all meaningful. They all have. We all have a healthy exchange, right? They all serve a purpose in my life, and I serve a purpose in their life. I have friends that are in the industry. I have friends that have done reality tv. I have friends that have never been in any type of entertainment thing at all. I have friends I've known since childhood. I have friends that are in the spiritual community. I've. I got my witches. Like, I feel that I am so connected to myself and have such a high level of trust for myself that I. That trust has guided me to connect with people that show up in my life and that serve a. A purpose and that I am able. These boundaries act, actually allow me to connect with people. Because whereas before I didn't have boundaries. I would over commit. I would join events, go to things that I didn't want to be at, show up with the wrong attitude and therefore rub people the wrong way and not make any connections. Now if I get it, if I get a ping, my. My spirit and my body's like, I don't know about that event. I don't go. I'm not going. I'm not going Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm not fucking going. Wolf of Wall Street. I remember that. I wish. I wish you could see a meme right now. It's the meme in my mind. I'm not going. If I get a ping. If my intuition shows up and says, sheila, that I don't question it, I apologize. I reach out and I don't go. If spirit says there's something about this person that's not right, I keep them at a distance. I don't question it anymore. And now I only show up with a full heart, with a clear heart. And I can have clean. My. My thing is I want to have clean connections with people. I don't want to have any murky, icky connections that make me feel there's something there going on that I need to question or, you know, I just connect cleanly with people and it allows me to connect fully. When I don't have to worry about that, I don't have a second get that I could show up as my happy fool Sheila, and then we all get what we came for, period. So boundaries, again, to reiterate, are not about keeping people out. They're about creating the space to connect with integrity. So you can leave yourself with this thought. What's one boundary I can set this week that will bring me closer to myself and others? Lesson number four, and this is probably my favorite lesson, if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. Sister. Sister. If it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no to the no no, no. Hey, your girl singing today, baby, this is one that I feel in my bones. If it is not a hell yes, it is a hell no. Okay, you need to get that and take that with you. Let me tell you something about being an Aries. Yes. I said Aries is my entire personality. What are you going to do about it? Just kidding. It's easy for me to threaten people that are not like, in my face. I. Aries, we need you to stand on your square. I have never really liked wishy washy energy to begin with. It just. Just grinds my gears Right. So what I learned this year is that I leaned all the way into the rule of hell yes or hell no. So if it doesn't inspire, when I mean a hell yes, is that giddy, happy feeling. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. That's a hell yes. If it's a well. Well, I guess I should. What? That's a no. That's a hell no. All right. Think of Marie Kondoing your whole life. For those who don't know, Marie Kondo is a Japanese feng shui expert. Is that. Is that how she's an author? She's a TV show host, but she created this Marie Kondo method, and it's about decluttering. So her method is about decluttering your physical house, But I really do think it applies to your spiritual house too. Right. Hers goes, does it bring you joy? So you go through your whole entire house. By the way, this is amazing thing to do at the end of the year or the beginning of the year. I actually do this every year. I do it at the end of December because I love to start the new year with a clean house. I go through my entire house, and she has it, like, through sections. So you start with, like, your clothes. Then you go through, like, your kitchen and your dishes and, I don't know, knickknacks and then furniture and blah, blah, blah. Right. If you want to look into it. Marie Kondo K O n D O. Amazing. I love it. So her rule is, does it bring you joy? You go through your house. You pick up the thing that you're thinking about. You have to physically touch everything. She's like, you can't do this with music on. You can't do this while you're distracted watching a tv. TV show. This is a. A very intentional act. So you're there, you pick up the physical thing. Let's say it's a clothes the coat or something. Hold it in your hand and ask yourself, does this bring me joy? If you don't feel, you know what joy is? Joy is not something that you need to guess. Am I feeling joy? If you're asking, are you feeling joy, you're not feeling joy. So if you don't get that feeling, I love this coat. I love this coat. I love this coat. I love how it makes me. Oh, my God, I wore that coat that one time. Ooh, I love this coat. Looks so. So if you don't get inspired, if you don't feel joy, it has to go. And the first time I did this, I did this very faithfully and religiously. And I think I got rid of 40% of the things that I owned and I was so happy and I didn't miss any of those things. And I haven't yet. So on that note, this is your spiritual way of doing that or your practical everyday way. So I don't go against myself anymore. If there's a project and I am not excited about it, if I don't get that giddy, happy feeling, if it doesn't light me up with possibility and I go, oh my gosh, that would be so cool. And then I could. If I don't get that feeling inside, what is it, class? Hell no. Yes, that's right. Now this is hard. I'm not gonna hold you. Especially when you're thinking about projects and people that are project based and, and, and, and a lot of us, you know, there's inflation. There' is not the same for everybody. So everybody don't have the luxury to just say no to a project. So you just do this the best you can. But what I will say is that it's always cost me in the end, what felt like a good deal. Let me just take this check at the beginning. Always ended up feeling like an obligation dragging me down, taking up extra time to the point where I always looked back and said, I knew it from the beginning. I knew it from the beginning. Why didn't I listen to myself? So this, I promise you, if you abide by this rule in this year, 2025, you will waste less time, you will feel more energized, and you will feel more in alignment with who you are. If it's not an enthusiastic yes, it's a no. Just like consent. All right, there's no guessing games here. So this role has saved me so much energy this year. I don't even know how. But I did not have any big goals for 2024. I didn't make any sweeping changes. I just followed my Hell yes and I worked less. And this year I have a podcast coming out. And as we speak, my podcast was just in the top 20 of all podcasts on Apple Music that, like, I need a moment for that. That's insane. I mean, I just, I just started this podcast. You know, we haven't even been doing this for a year. And that is because I followed the Hell Yes. Shelly. Shout out to Shelly. That's my A one Day one. She is a part of the reason why I have this podcast. When she approached me and told me about this podcast, I was nervous. But I felt a hell yes. And then I can do this. And then we could. It's just like the ideas kept coming and I got so excited about it. This podcast has is a part of the reason of why my year was so great. My book came out this year. I had a book tour this year. I and my marriage is in an amazing space. My husband and I are happier, more connected than we'd ever been. I feel like I'm the best bonus mom I've ever been right now. And all things are aligning. And this is largely because I am following my hell yes. Check in with yourself before you commit to anything. If it is not an enthusiastic full body, hell yes. Give yourself the permission to say no. Trust yourself to say no. Your time and energy are too precious to waste. Okay, my girl. All right. Those are my closing reflections for 2024. 2024 has been a crazy year for a lot of us. It's been a year for me, slowing down, letting go, and stepping into deeper alignment with myself and my life. These lessons were not the easiest to learn, but they were invaluable. And I promise you, if you take any of these into this year, you will not regret it. As you move into 2025, I invite you to carry these questions with you. Number one, am I moving too fast to truly align with my purpose? Number two, am I chasing something that not my Number two, am I chasing something that might not actually serve me? Number three, are my boundaries creating space for deeper connection? And number four, is this a hell yes or is it time to let it go? And as always, before I get up out of here, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being a part of this journey. Thank you for your support and absolutely, I want to hear from you. What lessons did 2024 teach you? Is there anything I missed? Is there any lesson that you want me to share with the rest of the class? Is there anything that you'd like to say? I want to hear from you. I want this to be a two way conversation and I'd love to feature your reflections in an upcoming episode. So if that's you, head over to speakpipe.comunruly and share your thought. Thoughts there. Thank you for growing with me. Thank you for learning with me. Thank you for growing with me. Thank you for learning with me. And thank you for being a part of this unruly journey. Until next time, stay bold, stay intentional, and of course, stay unruly. If you have something on your mind, a question or something you want me to answer, just send in a voice note@speakpipe.com unruly I can't wait to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe so you never, ever, ever ever miss an episode of Unruly Audio Up.