Breaking The Lies We Tell Ourselves And Learning To Heal

Life can be loud, demanding, and relentless, but the loudest thing in the room is often the story we keep telling ourselves. I’m talking about that inner script that says you’re not enough, you’re “too much,” or you’ve already failed, even when God keeps providing and your life shows a different truth. When everything piles up, I’m forced to choose: either I trust Him or I don’t.

I pick up my healing timeline after a major disruption, a car accident that made me slow down and finally hear my own thoughts. From there, I share what it looks like to stop drowning pain with busyness and start naming the lies that became my “truth.” We also get into the real-life impact on parenting, because what I believe about myself doesn’t stay in my head, it spills into my home. That includes the hard lesson of how saying “I’m not a good mom” lands on kids, and why I refuse to assume my children have no hurt or anger to process.

Before my annual church retreat becomes the catalyst for a powerful exercise: we write letters to release what we’ve been carrying, and what my kids share breaks me open. We talk about emotionally immature parents, distance, rejection, abandonment, therapy, faith-based healing, and how refusing to heal can quietly shape generations. I end with questions that cut to the core: what would healing do for you, your family, your community, and the world and what happens if you don’t?

If this resonates, listen through to the end, then share it with someone who needs a push to start healing today. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell me your answer: what would healing change in your life right now?

You are Loved!

Not just a little, but greatly

Not just today, but forever

Not just by some,

But by the ONE who created you in His Love

And HE's Not The ONLY One

We Love You Unconditionally
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There's nothing you can do to change it!!!!

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Transcript

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Choosing Trust When Life Piles Up

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hello, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Be Clay here on Be Clay Podcast. We are learning how to just do that just to be clay. We're on the journey to continue to learn. This is not a journey that stops. This is a continuous journey as you learn how to be clay. Um and just be molded. So we are in August, you guys. Um, today is August the 2nd. And you know, this is crazy because 2026 is moving, and you know, I have a lot to do this month. Um, with me still trying to finish my schooling as well as getting ready for my children to go back to school. Um, this is a lot, and there's a lot, but I'm just trying I'm telling you, I told you last episode that I'm in a place where we just trust in God. You either gonna trust him or don't. And that's exactly where I'm at. There's a lot. There's a mountain so big, you know, with uh dealing with uh three tuitions and you know, and we will be driving down to each area um that the time it's gonna take to get to do that. Come back, and you have to still deal with, not deal with, but the other three who will be, you know, they still and they're you know, high school, right? Because all my kids are now, the rest of them are in high school, and so you know, and the beginnings, but I'm just trusting God because all that I have needed, thy hands has provided. Okay, everything that I have needed, He has always provided. He is my Abba, He is my source, and so you either trust Him or you don't. No ifs, ands, and buts about it. You either trust Him or you don't. This is where I am right now. I'm trying to tell you, I've been this is where I am, you guys is where I live. That's been walking around here like yeah, it's a lot, but I'm even gonna trust you or I don't. That's it. So with all that being said, hi, how are you doing? How are you guys doing today?

The Accident That Forced Stillness

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So we are going to pick up where we left off. And we left off basically, if we want to have a little time frame of where I left off was basically um uh March. Uh March, because I think, yeah, it was about March, um, beginning of April, uh, more so you know, March where I began to say, you know what, Alisa, just you know, embrace it. And that was March. That was right after because here I wasn't even working as well. I was working around the clock before uh, but then since I had my accident and the end of February, I wasn't even doing lift anymore or anything like that. So um I was at a standstill, and um I literally, especially after my accident, I got T-boned. So my whole equilibrium and everything was really thick actually off. And it made me actually sit down, and all these thoughts and all these were, and this is why I actually it came into more into the forefront of every of my inner conversations and everything else, because before I was always I went, I I worked three three, if you want to count, live four jobs, right? So I barely slept, um drank coffee, you know, special shots all the time. Um just to, you know, whatever. And so now then I since the accident, I wasn't doing lift. Um I wasn't doing lift. I just was working um you know my three jobs, the taxes, the my other two jobs. And then I just came home and you know, and that's what everything was right here. So I had this is why I was even more to the forefront of what I really believed in myself because now the conversations were louder. I wasn't drowning and drowning these voices with work. Um so now we're in March and I explained to you understand. So I hope that we uh if we have taken the time or in still taken the time to actually write down those things that we speak of ourselves and think of ourselves. And because again, like I said, it was affecting my babies. Yeah, I knew my babies were struggling with some things. Um to say the least, on some there was uh there there was something that we had to that we were dealing with as a family. Um, which that would be a whole nother series, okay, of episodes. When I'm not sure when I'm gonna be ready to put all that out, but with all that being said, um and so one of the things again, like okay, so being though that I'm here, this is what I'm 38 now, so um, right, I'm 38. So being still at 38 at this time frame, and I told you I didn't want to walk into 38, you know, and everything else, but I was serious about that. But now we are dealing with these and these voices aloud. I really, really strongly did not want my children to be in their 30s and 20s dealing with the stuff that I'm dealing with now because it was even more evident of how much um this has become a part of my life and the decisions and the choices I've made, who are entertained, the friendships and the relationships and things, all of these decisions, all of that. This right here, this me feeling unworthy, and this me feeling this. I don't I don't like that, and I didn't want my kids to feel it that. And so I had my children um say, listen, we gotta deal with these

Preparing For Retreat With Honest Letters

SPEAKER_00 7:25

things now. Mind you, we were going to a uh a retreat um this April. And that April, and so my son came to me and was like, Oh, mom, like I want to really like get this house to a place so that when we go up there to the mountains um for our retreat, that we leave everything at the mountains, and then we come back um like refreshed in the house now. And this is my younger son saying this to me. Now I was thinking it for myself, and not just for myself, like not from for me and the family, but the fact that I had to say it, that he was saying it was just like amazing. And so I'm like, all right, and then I got I realized like listen, I don't want us because my pastor also preached about um he preached a message uh about basically the state that we're in and how we stay in a specific state. And um like he really wanted us to begin to really deal with things so that when we go to the mountains, that you know, like we don't have to wait until we get to the mountains for for God to start dealing with us that we basically need to do it now. And with that being said, um, and most you know, the majority of the children, like I said, like um all my children go to except for one. Um and so they all were there. And I had a meeting with them, and I said, listen, you guys, we gotta we gotta deal with things now. We can't wait till we get there. We gotta deal with stuff now. And so let's write a letter, right? To as to release these things now, so that when we get there, that you know we're coming there with you know a little lighter, like we don't want to not saying I'm not gonna be heavy, but just you know, lighter for him to do what he do, whatever he doing than us when we come back home back to the valley. So they wrote a letter releasing some things. When they wrote a letter releasing these things, these things have like I it broke me. When they wrote the rather wrote the letter and they read the letter, it broke me. This is why, again, like I'm saying, like I didn't like I knew my children were hurting, but I began to see even more how much of their hurting. Um and I and again, like I really was um very adamant, like and that we and I'm still am. Like I think my children right now and to this day are tired of me saying, but I'm gonna keep saying it. Because the longer that you hold on to things, the harder it is, right? The harder it is. If I'm 40 and I got 40 years worth of stuff, I don't need my kids to be 40 and got 40 years worth of stuff. I want them to be at the ages they are now, dealing with the how many years they are now, and then keep moving and be on a clean slate. So if they at once they get to 22 and 19 and 17 and 15, that whatever they do with at 15 and it was 17, 22, and 18, 19, they'll deal with deal with that. Um, they're not dealing with 19 and under, you know. Um they will deal with whatever they need to do with at 19, they deal with that they need to do in 20 and so on. Um because this is hard, it's harder when you have to go back. You know, I talk to a lot of us, you know, who are listening to me, who knows me, and I talk to a lot of us who are my age, and we'd be sitting up here like we all in therapy talking about some when I was five. Mind you, we're like 40, 45, 50, talking about when I was five, you know. Oh god, and mind you, the older you are, the harder it is to go back to five, to that five-year-old self, talk about something when I was five, and trying to deal with that five-year-old little girl, little boy, and how that's affecting you at now at 40, 50, 55, 44, however old we are, right? And so I literally was like, listen, it's not just me and mommy, you know, Dylan, because they've been knowing from up until now that mommy's really been working on herself. They have even seen the difference in their mother um from where they where she was when she first started and where she is right now. And so it's like, listen, I'm telling you, and I'm telling you, we need to deal with things now. You need to deal with it now. Don't keep holding on, don't be like, oh my god, it is how I feel, and I'm just gonna keep moving. No, no, no, no. How do you feel? What is it? What is it? Are you angry? Why are you angry? Um, I really literally was serious about this thing. Who you need to talk to? Let's find about it, let's find therapy, let's let's let's figure this out now. Um, because you don't want to be like mommy in this way. So um now. So we now the letters that they're written written to us to the parents.

Parenting Without Assuming Everything Is Fine

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Because let me tell you something right now. Now I'm not that type of parent that just assume that my kids is are my kids love me and just like and I'm not saying they walk around hating. What I'm saying is like they don't have no issues, they don't they're not angry at mommy for I'm not that type of parent because I know growing up and I know I'm not the only one who grew up angry at their parents, and the thing one of the biggest things that I had to deal with as now in therapy and things like that, um, is the anger that I have held on for my parents for years. And it has really just done a lot for me, even as trying to parent. Um, and some cases of me trying not to uh do the same things that I felt like my parents should or should have not done, whatever case may be. There are times when I overdone things, like you know, um, when it comes to raising my children. And so this is why I also was like, listen, I don't care what you feel about your mama, let her know. Like, you know, um, you gotta deal with it today. I'm just not gonna sit up here assume that you don't. Um, I was then, which I realized later, because I didn't feel like I was a good mother anyway. And so to be honest with you, I wasn't keeping it quiet. I would walk around and say, I'm not a good mama, like whatever. Now, I learned later, this is why I learned later that these this really was detrimental to my children. But again, we don't know if we don't have those conversations with stuff. Now I'm able to have these conversations with my children. I'm able to do this with my children because I've started doing the work in myself first. And which made it easier. I think as far as me growing up, and this is no like shade against my own parents, but they didn't learn this, these lessons that I'm learning. I don't think they learned these lessons of how to really heal first. Like we didn't learn how to heal first before having kids. Now, to some instances, you know, kids came when, you know, not necessarily planned them to come, obviously, necessarily. Um, I'm not gonna get into whether I was playing or my sisters was playing and blah blah blah. Does that cause right now we're not there, but once you just because you didn't um heal first while we before you actually got into a relationship and and um and then had children somewhere down the line, once you realize how unhealed you are, that you could have, you know, learned how to heal. And now I'm not like I said, it's not a shade or going throwing at my parents, but this is something that I realized that you know that didn't they did not do. They did not heal first and before having us, they did not heal first before they got together to make me and my sisters. They did not heal um while even in the instances of raising us, and so I had to do differently. I cannot control what I inherited, I cannot control what came through my family line that I have, you know, endured because of the cycles and everything else, but but what I can do is control from here and the family line from here, the lineage. And I was serious about this, and I was telling my children this now. Mommy has been working on this healing, and she's been healing, and she's been healing, and I'm telling you to heal, okay? We're going to heal today, we're going to work on healing today, and we're going to do it in the way that we know that we need to do it, um, which is through God. Um, and I'm saying because like there's a lot of things that we tell ourselves, we like I said, I just had this whole com this whole episode last of these lies that I was telling myself that it became my truth. Like I literally was taking these lies and believing it more than even the truth that God himself was trying to, and it was evident that he was portraying in front of my face, but I was rather I rather believe the lie than the truth. And to be honest, because that's what I learned. I learned to believe a lie rather than the truth. The truth that is so evident that God He is the truth. And even what He was saying was it, nope, that's not it. This is really what it is, God. Like, literally, I was telling him, He was telling me, child, tell me this, you're not too much, you're not this, this is really what's going on. It really wasn't you, it was them. Like, stop taking things that don't belong to you. And I'm like, no, God, this is me. It was me, it was always me, right? Because I know that you're the one, like you the one who I'm not even mad at him, like he created me to be this way. In reality, they should have just, you know, went to him to figure out how to really be the father, be the pastors, be whatever they needed to be for me in my life. Um, so that that part was on them, not on me. But I took on that because it just had to be me, and I lived in that because that is my truth. So, and that's what I learned. I learned that absolutely from them, from the people in my life, from the adults in my life, especially those in the church, to believe the lies rather than the truth. Why? Because whatever reasons or things that they had to go through to learn, and if they do, I pray. I really do pray. I'm not, like I said, I'm not throwing no shade on my parents and things like that, but I really do pray if they're not, that they do, you know, begin to literally to like, you know, write down what I what I perceive me to be, what others perceive me to be, and what God really perceived me to be, what he really perceived me, who he really said that I am, right? Because we grew up and um like I I really was, you know, dealing with a lot of things like oh, I'm really shy. But that's who said I was that I said that I was shy. I would say that I was shy. Even at this time, I would say that I was shy. But that's not God. So you ain't shy. I didn't make you shy. I had to learn that. So we take these things that you know that um these lies, and we make them our truth, and we're walking in it, and we making it, and that's but that's and we wondering why we are feeling like a fraud, because in reality we are a fraud. We are a fraud because that's not who he created us to be, and we only know that once we set sit ourselves down, stop with the everything we doing to to try to drown out the truth, you know. What we're both using work and people and always going somewhere, always doing something, being so busy, drinking, smoking and high, and all these things like that. Sit your toe down and have these real hard conversations with yourself. And it's gonna take more than a day, it's gonna take some time and heal, go to the father, allow him to heal you, whatever you need to do in your therapy. Be, you know, be more honest in your therapy, whatever you need to do, so that you can begin to realize what is the lie, what is it just your perception, based upon fear, based upon the things you have endured, and abandonment, the rejection, and that you just conjure up and say, This must be who I am, and this really wasn't who you are. Um, but this is this is the moment, this is the time, this is where I really had to kind of like all right, so because I we they read it um, I think like a week or so before we went to the mountains, um, the letters, but when I Talked about writing the letters. At first they were um like they didn't really wanna everybody didn't really want to do it. And then I had to explain like you have to. You you have to because if you don't write this letter, if you don't at least start have the starting point, you're gonna not, it's not just that you're going to um walk around and hold this inside every day or day and walk through here, whatever, because it's already affecting everything that you're doing in school and your schoolwork. Um, you're walking around, you're angry, you're frustrated, you know. Um, I even had to deal with you know behavior issues in school for the younger two, um, all these different things, and it's because of this right here. You're you're not releasing this, and we gotta release these things now. Uh and so I had and I had to fight with that, especially with I was dealing walking around, um, still feeling like you know, like I said, I embraced at this time. I realized, well, like your mama was just too much. Now I say I didn't say this to them, but I was embracing that I'm just too much. I just cost too much. That's why people wasn't where I am in my life, but I'm gonna do different for my kids, right? And um, this is what I was just trying to embrace it, like not feel so bad about it. Um, but this is who you are. You just you just have a high price on you, you just a high value, high maintenance, right? Um and so um, but I so um yeah, so before I get into the other part, so the book that I was talking about that my sister had, the book is called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, How to Heal From Distant, Rejecting or Self-Involved Parents.

Emotionally Immature Parents And Old Wounds

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Now, again, I'm gonna let you know that I didn't even get to read the book, uh, which I probably should read it. Um, the the uh title alone was a lot. Um I skimmed through the book um when I was when we was at the mountains. If we was at the mountains, she showed me the book, and I skimmed through the book, and there were some things that I seen, I didn't, and I just it this had me all messed up for like a um at least a month, at least a month. Um again, I'm not throwing no shade against my parents. My parents, I believe I'm not gonna it's not saying like I don't believe that they did, they did not do the best that they could. I'm not saying that. Um but there's things that we do and don't do, decisions that we make um as humans, let alone being parents, that does affect everybody. And not healing, not healing, like not taking the time to really heal does a does not just affect us in our own and everyday life, but affects everybody around us. It affects every single body around us. Um, even as I'm looking back over these years, these last, well, we in 2025, right? And I told you I made up my mind at the end of 2020. So you're talking about 2020, all of 2023 or 2024, and now we're in 2025, but in reality, we in we're actually in 2026, as I'm here in August 2nd, 2026, and looking back at you know, the process that I have gone through from December of 2022 up until now, and as I continue in my healing journey right now, um, I'm realizing even the more so how it impacted everybody, not just me as a parent, and how it impacted my children, how I raised my children, the years that I have raised them in this unhealed state, how they developed as a as a as from each stage of their life, as from baby from infancy infancy up until now. I have about in in um in 12 days I would have three adult children. And how it impacted their lives. Now, granted, I get it. You only you know you you when you know better, you do better. But it's it's it's that right there when the question is we know that when you know better, you do better. But there was specific times in my life where God has been pulling on me to heal, and I refused. Some issues, and I refused. Oh, how different my life would have been had I not refused to heal. So, yeah, when you know better, do better. But there is if we are really honest with ourselves, that we refuse to know better because we understood that if we know better, we'll do better. But at some point, there's times where we actually refuse to know better because then it'll be expected of us to do better. And at that moment, for to be honest with us, if we really was honest with ourselves, we really don't want to do better. There's sometimes and certain points in our lives where we know we should heal, we know we should let go, we know we should forgive, and we refuse not to. So we don't understand that those choices right there didn't just affect us in our life, but affected everyone that's around us. Those that we have counter daily at school, at work, in the supermarkets, in our daily lives. Our very relationship with God Himself, the idea of the relationship with God Himself. And so, um this like my sister, she's way older than me. I was, you know. And we were sitting there just like in tears when she read, like sh I I just like I was just crying. And I I didn't even go to sleep. I left her room, I didn't even go to sleep, I just kept crying, like I literally was on that floor at the mountains and was just bawling. Went to prayer, just bawling, like just crying and crying and crying and crying. Um because I really it really, really um hit the because to be honest, I really didn't even have a childhood, you know. And and I was just like, why, you know? I don't even know how to be a daughter. Um I've been in this leadership role for a very long time. I don't even know how not to be mad, and but I I need to do that in order to even be the mother that I need to be for my kids. There's just a lot of stuff that hit at one time.

Breaking Cycles So Kids Heal Earlier

SPEAKER_00 31:14

I can't really go into everything that would that hit. And this is not necessarily to um, it wasn't necessarily to like, oh my god, my parents was immature, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't even that, it was really dealing with the stuff that I need to do with because I don't need to be immaturely mature parents to my children that I'm raising as as we speak and as we spoke at that day. So I was bawling in tears to be distant, to be rejected, that abandonment. And I cried for even my parents at that moment, too, because my dad abandoned us because he was abandoned, you know, and so the best way for you to not continue the cycle is to heal, like literally heal. We say we don't want to be like our parents and things like that, and we become our parents because we don't heal. That is one thing that our parents did not do, they did not heal, and instead of like, well, I'm never and you just walking around here angry, uh, you don't want to take you are basically becoming naive and not paying attention to that that that's an absolute trap of becoming your parent, but worse than your parent. Because you didn't take the time to understand exactly what it would what does it mean to be like your parent so that you won't be like that parent. And so, um I now again like I I didn't see myself as a strong one. I didn't. I know that I have been put in the position as a strong one, but I didn't see myself as the strong one, right? Um, but I was so exhausted of being in that position of a strong one, of being in that position of that, and I just was like, I'm tired, God. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Um, this is at the I said this is at the mountains. Up leading up to the mountains was alright, kids, let's go. Like we and I really know I needed God to do something because I was I was tired. And I wanted to, I like at I'm not saying I was at a standstill in my healing journey, but like I felt like there was a wall that I that I have hit in this healing journey um up until then. And I understood, and I was on the outside, and I just wanted to be just rest in his presence enough to just like whatever, and I know I couldn't get there because this right here is hindering me to get there, and I couldn't understand why, like God, I understand that that you know that I'm not worthy enough, but you know, for them, but what what and but why I'm still feeling like I'm feeling hitting the wall, and this this is why that I was hitting this wall. So this book, um, again, I never read the book, it was just the title in itself, and we just start talking about the different things, and I started talking about the different things, like you know, with my the distance, like even though my mother was in church, it was for the most part, to be honest with y'all, I felt very like I felt like we were distant, like we're close but distant that makes any sense. There are things that I really could not um really express to her because I felt like she just wouldn't um understand. And as far as my father, we already know he was distant, you know what I mean? Um, we barely talked even as an adult now, you know, um up until uh the year before here when I tried to really go into stuff about where I was and where I stand and this and the other, I have very unsuccessful attempts. Um and so and and and I and again, like I said, and I already feel like I'm too lucky because one thing I'm about, I'm about truth. Like I the truth, right? It's like how can you heal a lie, right? And and and I get it because as much as I'm up here trying to take this lie and run with it, God was like at least I refuse to allow you to do so, you know. So he kept allowing things to happen. So if he is that for me, I just can't do that when it comes to other people. I try, I do, I try because people don't like the truth, but that's I can't. I tried, I did, I tried and just like, well, that's what they say. I'm just gonna believe it because that's what they believe, and I couldn't do it. So um here is where you have to understand the impact of not healing and what it does for not just for you, like you like really pay attention and take an account of how much it has really affected and impacted your very life up until this day of not of choosing not to heal. And make a decision whether you're gonna stay here or you're gonna move from here. Here is where this is where I was. This is where I was when I was really learning on here. It was this after telling having my children, like I didn't, like that was it. Oh no, we gotta continue on healing because it's affecting my babies, like even the more so. Like you literally, you remember at least like you you were depressed for most of the years, so you raised them in this depression. So when they start something and don't finish, and like it really was, I really was understanding, like seeing even in this layers to this thing, and that was even layers of seeing the impact of my decisions of not to heal and how it was affecting my babies. Um yeah. So from the time that they read and they like I said, they read the letters just right before we went to the mountains. I was all messed up because I understood the impact of what happens when you don't heal. Um and I was like, I gotta, I gotta, I have not that I wasn't, and that was and I did a a tremendous uh like I I went I I jumped hoops through healing. But again, like I said, it was now realizing like wow, this is what happens when you don't heal. This is what your babies was dealing with, and it wasn't even everything, right? There's a lot of things that they didn't say that they didn't write on that paper, and that was the thing, and that was that was really what hit me because if this is what they wrote on this paper, what are they whether they're not writing on the paper? What is their inner conversations with themselves? And then I see this book about emotion. I said, God, I don't want to be like this for I don't want to be like that for my babies. I don't want to be distant from them. I don't want to reject them. So I I I need to I need I need to do something. I need to fix this. I need to fix this. Um I need to fix this. And that's that's where we are. This is this is where we are. That's where we're that's where we were at that moment. I need to fix this, God. I need to fix this. And um and that's uh I I can't stay here. Um so we gotta figure this out. And that's and that's exactly where I was, God. We gotta figure this out. And so um, this is this is maybe deep, this is handy, whatever. This is deep, but again, you talking about healing, you gotta be willing to get to hit them real hard truths and the hard having them hard conversations with yourself.

The Final Questions About Healing

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Because at the end of the day, you are um I'm gonna ask this question. So I'm gonna end this podcast with these with this question, and I think I said this beforehand. I'm not, I don't remember, but um, so I said this, and I'm asking these questions. If you don't, if you heal, what would it do for you? What would it do for your family or your community, and what would it do for the world? And then ask yourself if you don't heal, what would it do for you? What would it do for like your family and your local community? And what would it do for the world? Ask yourself that question, answer that question. Don't just be like, I don't know. I don't know is not a definite answer. If you really don't know, fig really sit yourself and figure it out to turn that I don't know to something else. What do you think will happen? What do you how do you think it would impact you, the world, your looking community? What do you think? And until next time, no, I do love you, good. I love y'all. I do love you, but you are loved. You are loved. Um, you're loved, not just a little, but greatly, not just a day, but forever, and not just by some, but by the one who created you in his absolute love, and he's not the only one that loves you. We love you unconditionally, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can do to change that until next time. So I am a big clay.