Unlocking Everyday Peace: Dr. Dravon James on Empowering Women to Achieve Their Next Level of Greatness

Dr. Dravon James is the Founder of the Next Step Leadership Academy, a company that empowers women to use everything that shows up in their lives- good, bad, or otherwise to reach their next level of greatness.  Dr. Dravon is a Transformation Specialist using her Everyday Peace philosophy to coach women on how to master goal attainment.  She is the author of Freedom is Your Birthright.  As a leader in the healthcare industry for more than three decades she is the recipient of the Secretary McDonough Coin of Recognition for her leadership efforts to combat the COVID pandemic, Radio Host of the “Dr. Dravon James Every Day Peace” live, weekly show on Unity Online Radio, coach on the SiriusXM “Road Dog Trucking” show, and an actress whose career credits include a recurring role on HBO’s acclaimed “The Wire.”  Dr. Dravon uses this training and experience to lead women to their victory using the power of Every Day Peace to achieve their Next Level of Greatness in life and business.

Transcript

Erin Brinker: 0:00

Erin, welcome to the making hope happen radio show. I'm Erin Brinker, and let me tell you that I am filled with joy today. Fall is underway, and the weather is cooling down. Whew. It was a brutally hot summer here in Inland Southern California, as I know elsewhere, our season stretched into the third full week of October. So basically, last week, in a morning radio show that I used to host, we had a regular segment, Segment called gratitudes days, which focused on the power of gratitude. Gratitude changes everything, and today, I'm grateful for cool breezes, long sleeves, clear skies, comfort foods like soups, roasts and chili. I'm grateful for football season, Though admittedly, I don't watch like I used to homecoming at my alma mater, both high school and universities, and getting ready for the holidays. I'm grateful for weather that makes taking a walk outside or a hike in the mountains pleasant and refreshing, though, I have to admit, I get winded much easier after spending a summer indoors. Yet we're just I gotta fix that. I'm grateful for my church, my friends, my family, my listeners, and even my furry family. So what are you grateful for? Gratitude rewires the brain and has a measurable impact on people's lives. We have the power to change how we think about the things, about things rather and about ourselves. My guest today takes a deep dive into the power of gratitude and changing how we see and react to what we experience. Life can be hard, but it doesn't have to devastate us. Well, everyone can feel right now. How shall I use the word tense? Shall I use the word divided? How? Just people are amped up to 11? You know, if you okay, I've just dated myself. But anybody who saw the movie Spinal Tap, 11 is like the amps only go up to 10, but this one goes up to 11, so it's even louder. Other one blew out your ears, but this is even louder. And so we kind of are there as our as our kind of Zeitgeist for the country right now, because of the election and because of everything else. And I'm thrilled to have our next guest on Dr Trayvon James. She's the founder of the next step Leadership Academy, a company that empowers women to use everything that shows up in their lives, good, bad or otherwise, to reach their next level of greatness. She's a transformation specialist, using her everyday peace philosophy to coach women on how to master goal attainment. She's the author of freedom is your birthright. As a leader in the healthcare industry for more than three decades She is the recipient of the secretary Madonna, calling Madonna coin of recognition for her leadership efforts to combat the COVID pandemic. Radio host of the DR Draymond James every day peace, live weekly show on unity, online radio coach on Sirius XM Road Dog Trucking show and an actress whose career credits include a recurring role on HBO, acclaimed The Wire Great show. Dr drevon uses this training and experience to lead women to their victory, using the power of everyday peace to achieve their next level of greatness in life and business. Draymond, welcome to the show.

Dr. Dravon James: 3:19

Oh, thank you, Erin. I'm so happy to be here.

Erin Brinker: 3:21

So tell us about your life. How did you get to this point?

Dr. Dravon James: 3:27

Oh my gosh. I love telling the story, because you never know where life is going to take. You, do you?

Erin Brinker: 3:33

No, you don't.

Dr. Dravon James: 3:35

I gotta start at the very beginning. You mentioned about being an actress and so funny. I had acting class yesterday, and they had me do this exercise, which I confided in the coach that I wanted to be an actress since I was in the third grade. Oh, and it all happened, because it was, I remember like it was yesterday. It was we had recess, but it was raining, and I want to date myself too, because this is when there were albums and there were plays on albums, so the teacher to amuse us play, put an album on, and it was a play, and it was called ladies first, and of course, it was all audio, but little did I know we're going to actually perform that play. And she put that on, and you could sit there, you could put your head down, you could color. I was captivated, and so I didn't know really what an actress was or any of that stuff. I guess I lived a sheltered life as a third grader, but I knew that that little girl who was doing that lead role, ladies first in that play, I wanted to do that. And I went home, I told my mom all about the the album, and, long story short, I got cast as a tree in that joy with no reason, no lines, but so I go on. You know, that's third grade, and you gotta decide what you're going to do when you're 17 years old for the rest of your life. How? Crazy is that? And so I got, I just decided I was going to go to a medical school, and not because I wanted to, but because everybody, my family, told me I was going to go there, because I was great in math and science. I later decided that I just, you know, so I guess fortunate, some people came to my high school, introduced me to pharmacy school, and I worked in a pharmacy. I didn't hadn't thought about it, and I got my doctorate degree in pharmacy. But what happened the summer before I left for college is what really cinched it for me. My brother, who's a year younger than me, gave me a book The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale. I always thought that my brother bought that book for me a couple years ago, he said, No, no, no, I took that book off of mommy's bookshelf.

Erin Brinker: 5:46

Like, I like the other story better. So that's the one I'm going to keep.

Dr. Dravon James: 5:51

Was it? He was a kind of kid quite different than me. He was always reading. My mother read a lot of self help and and, you know, she went to New Thought church as well as a traditional church. So my brother read a lot of scary stuff. I was a romance reader myself back then, but I read that little book. And I don't want to exaggerate, but I know I read that book over 20 times that summer along. It's a tiny little book, and it changed my life again. I'm reading this book. I always I still wanted to be an actress, but and I was going to school, dear pharmacist. Okay, so then we get two things on board already. But when I read that book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, I knew that whatever he did for me in that moment, whatever box that he had a lot inside of me. I want to help other people do that. Wow, and I was 17 years old, and I go back, and I've kept journals since maybe before 17. I go back and just randomly read stuff sometime. And at 17 what I thought norman vincent del had taught me, gotta grow up, but you gotta give yourself grace and mercy. I thought he had taught me how never to have another problem in my life. Oh, see, I grew up in a financially impoverished home, and there was a lot of financial need, a lot of lack, and he taught me how to and my mom did too, but he just, I don't know, maybe because he was a stranger, because my mom was big on, you know, visualizations, and if you can see it and believe it, you can be it, and, and, and he was saying almost the same thing now that I'm older, but it was in that moment that I decided that I want to do that for other people. I didn't know. I had never heard the term motivational speaker. I knew preacher. I didn't want to be a preacher, necessarily, but I just thought I wanted to help people. And my life went on, and I went to pharmacy school, got a doctorate degree, and went into acting, and I'm still doing that. And I thought, Well, hey, I still want to help people. And so I started out in my pharmacy lectures, I was a consultant, I got the courage to start doing a little, what I call everyday piece, sharing some hope with providers and and even patients at the end of my lectures, and just giving them an alternative way to think about life. And I don't know if it was new to them, but it was new for me, sharing and I didn't know how well it was going to be received, but I got invited to come back and do a keynote speaker at a health care event, which I had always done those but they specifically said to me, please don't discuss anything About pharmacy or anything compliance or regulations, only talk about that everyday peace thing that you do at the end of your lectures. And I thought, What, hey, this is really helping me. So that's kind of how I got started and but I've been on this journey since I was 17, and it's hard to believe that, you know, so many decades ago, and I still have so much more to learn, but I attribute everything that I have thrived through, and my continual zest and zeal and curiosity and about life, I attribute to This learning about what I now call everyday peace.

Erin Brinker: 9:22

It speaks to it speaks to everybody has this need. We, the human beings, have two needs. They need to have purpose in their life, and they need to have a way to feel peace in their life and that connectedness with other human beings. And so those two things, if you have those two things, that regardless about not everything else, but a lot of other things. You can then find yourself having a positive experience. And I've talked about this on the show before. There is a documentary called happy, and I love this documentary, and this documentarian goes around the world and interviews people and talks about happiness and the person that. They found who is the happiest? And I believe he was in India, but he could have been another neighboring country. The man had nothing. He had nothing. He was and i It's not called a rickshaw in India. It's called something else, but essentially that he's, he's, you know, carrying a taxi. That's, that's his job. And he goes home to a clapboard house, and he's absolutely filled with with love. He's surrounded by family. Has great community, and it's this incredible positive energy. And they found, as they went around to other cultures that didn't have that maybe didn't have this, what you have this, this everyday piece they were very unhappy in that it dramatically impacted their mental health and their physical health and everything else. So you have found and unlocked the purpose, right? You have found the key.

Dr. Dravon James: 10:48

Yeah, and I'm glad you hit on that too, because I tell people, my clients, when I work with them, My Life Coach clients, that the definition of peace that I use is wholeness, completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken, totality. And in that definition, I hope, and I hope my desire is for people to see that in there is room for everything, The Wanted and the unwanted. It's like a puzzle piece. So if you pull out one part of your life, Oh, that wasn't what I wanted, then it's not whole, right? So all of these things and I, and there have been so many times in my life, probably a couple times today, where, which, well, I could just snap my fingers and make everything just the way I want it to be and and, of course, we know that isn't true and so, but to learn to be whole in all situations, in order to complete, to tap into peace, that wholeness and say, this is happening in this moment.

Erin Brinker: 11:52

So for you know, your wholeness, complete, completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. You know, I help it. I can't help but think, you know, sometimes, sometimes I am broken, and that, you know, and and parts of my life that, and often, and I don't think I'm unique, there's things that are out of my control that have quote, unquote broken me. So how do you heal that? How do you bring, bring yourself back to completeness? Yeah,

Dr. Dravon James: 12:21

so that's interesting, right? And so we, I feel that way too. We all do that. That's what I call that's the unwanted, right? There are things that happen in their lives, and I don't do I don't want to be poetic, like, oh, it happened, you know, so far, long, oh no. They happen right now in current life, things happen and they don't feel good, and we need to heal from that. But when I talk about being not broken, I mean that that thing that happened is part of your zigs zigzag puzzle, right? That's part of your life. That's your personal puzzle piece. And if you were to take that puzzle piece and throw it in the trash, that peace will forever be missing in your puzzle because it has shown up in your life, and it's there for a reason, and whatever that reason is, is different for all of us. But ultimately, I believe that everything happens so that we become more self aware, more in an opportunity for us, for us to grow more in love with ourselves, and we push that love into the universe, right? But we can only be there if we're not dwelling in shame, guilt and condemnation, right? So it I agree with you that we do things do happen that make us feel like I need, I need to be repaired from this. We need to heal from this, and that's that happens in all of our lives. But we're still whole in the sense that we are one, accepting what has has happened as it happened. It happened if we didn't want it to happen. It didn't feel good while it was happening. It hurt. It may have taken some things from us that we held dearly, but it happened, and it is part of my unique story about me. Now here's the beautiful part of that I now get to determine what I will do with that. Am

Erin Brinker: 14:19

I going to let it define me, or am I going to define it

Dr. Dravon James: 14:24

exactly? It has this thing. It's this thing in a western that I heard many, many years ago, and I've been using it ever since. It's it was a guy, and his tagline all the time was, this has not come to destroy you. And I thought he said, this will not be the death of you and and that is so true if we, if we go and review our life a retrospective of our of our life, we are 100% victorious over the things that hurt us right and that they did not cause the end of us. We are still here to tell the tell of that story. So we have to become the. Better storytellers, right? Not tell it from the place of on the bottom. And it hurt. It did hurt, and it's okay to admit that. But the truth of the matter is, no matter how bad it hurt, it didn't ruin you. You were here. You are the victor over that situation, because only the Victor tells the story.

Erin Brinker: 15:19

Oh, I love that. I love that. So, yeah, and I'm thinking about the stress and, you know, and at the, at the top of the of the conversation I talked about, you know, we're in a time of of, you know, the presidential election and all the the controversy that goes around very divided nation, and the stress can eat you up and it but it's not only that. It's a stress from work and life, and we're disconnected from each other. People don't know their neighbors, etc, you know, I know, for me, I'm a ruminator. If there's something negative going on, it's going to swirl around my head until I physically and, you know, intentionally and deliberately remove it from my head. You know, so resisting stress takes up so much time, and the act of resisting, kind of white knuckling, the resistance of that tension takes up even more time and makes you then feel guilty and whatever, how do you move beyond that cycle?

Dr. Dravon James: 16:14

Oh, I love it that you said, Erin, that you're a ruinator. Oh, I totally am. That's one of my special powers. I'm glad right? Are we lucky, right? So Sunday, just to tell you how bad it is, Sunday, I jokingly made a statement to a friend of mine, and I didn't like the way it came out. And it was a quick exchange, and we parted ways, and I ruminated all over. I couldn't even sleep Sunday night thinking about it. And, you know, and through that process, I had to keep forgiving myself and keep forgiving myself, and keep forgiving myself and and keep, you know, showing me myself self love. And, you know, finally saying to my friend the following day, on Monday, you know, I was joking, but that didn't come out good. And she was like, oh, yeah, I don't remember you saying that. Imagine that, but that's how this rumination, rumination in your own mind, but to your point is, go ahead.

Erin Brinker: 17:12

No, I just I've done that. I've done that, where I'm like, I say something, and then, oh, that was stupid. I shouldn't have said that. And they go to the person the next day, and they're like, Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about. And in my mind, it was so big, and they, they, they didn't even notice. Yeah, that's the

Dr. Dravon James: 17:27

superpower of a ruminator, right? What can we do? But so, so you write stress, resisting stress. So I'm just going to use that example, because our life moves in the direction of our most dominant thoughts. We must always remember that our life moves in the direction of our most dominant thoughts. So if we're spending a lot of time trying to resist that which we believe exists, I'm going to say, in my mind, I believe that I had made an offensive comment this past weekend. And so I focused on that, and I kept focusing on that, and I kept focusing Well, what you say that, and, you know, and that sort of thing, right? And so what was that, that that sort of the alternative, when I was able to finally calm myself down, I was able to say, Draymond, you said something that you didn't want to say. That doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you an insensitive person. It makes you human, my dear. Mm, and this is me talking to myself. It must be Now, mind you, that happened. That happened around 12 noon on Sunday. It's now about one o'clock on Monday morning,

Erin Brinker: 18:48

and it's still swirling around. It's still swirling around,

Dr. Dravon James: 18:52

right? And so I finally engaged with me so long until I had to go back and think of my processes. I'm like, wait a second. And so here is one that I absolutely love, is to speak to myself as though I were a middle schooler. Because, you know, middle schoolers can get themselves in some prickly situations, and what they need is love and acceptance, right? They can start to really feel bad about themselves, about if, you know, they're just learning the world and they're navigating their own strength. And oh, this is what happens when I do that. And so I had to have that moment with myself, where I where I stopped resisting, and I started accepting myself, and I saw this beautiful, yeah, I want you to know that I love you. Drayva, I know you didn't mean anything by that, and I know you're courageous enough to apologize tomorrow, right? But I do need you to get some sleep because you have a big day today. Um, you know, it's now already Monday. Big day Monday. But if you can't sleep, I forgive you for that too. How about we just lay here for right? And I just started talking about and you'd be amazed how. So, you know, my muscles start to uncoil and and, you know, relax like, oh, wow, waiting for me to accept me, waiting for me to love me. And that's really we. We are the people saying you're, you know, the world doesn't revolve around you. Oh, my dear, it does.

Erin Brinker: 20:21

Yes, my world revolves around me. It does because I'm the only one I'm with all the time,

Dr. Dravon James: 20:26

absolutely and when you allow your world to when you start accepting yourself and loving on yourself and figuring out what you need, you become, and I become more useful and more tolerant and more patient, more loving with the external world.

Erin Brinker: 20:41

So what you're really talking about, I mean, because there's people could say, oh, only a narcissist thinks the world revolves around them, that's not what you're talking about. You're really talking about becoming self aware. Self

Dr. Dravon James: 20:51

awareness is absolutely it is the biggest gift. It's the gift that keeps on giving. It gives to you. It gives to everyone around you. When you become more self aware, when you become more curious about yourself and and and start to put away the judgment, right? It doesn't mean, you know, I still was displeased with with the comment. I didn't like it. It doesn't mean that I'm going to say, Oh yeah, everything I do is perfect. No, it I'm going to say I love you enough to say to you that I think we can communicate on a better level than that. I think our joking and our, you know, whatever, can be better than that, and it doesn't change how I feel about you. Absolutely love you. I'm not going to quit. I'm not looking to criticize myself, because when we criticize people, they don't want to be around us. Do it? Do that, right? And it happens with us too. When we start to become so critical of ourself, we start to hide internally person. We start to, you know, don't look at that. Oh, I'm ashamed of that. Oh, tuck that away. And we can't, we can't be our best self when we're hiding from ourself. You

Erin Brinker: 22:01

know it is, and I don't I can't speak to whether men do this, but I know women do this. We are so hard on ourselves. And you become you find yourself being in protection mode because you think other people are going to be as hard on you as you are and and most people aren't, because you're not the center of their universe. You're the center of yours and and so you are. You are right on about, you know, giving your self space to forgive yourself, which is really hard to do when you think about forgiveness. You think about somebody who did you wrong, and you don't generally think of it as something that you would apply to yourself,

Dr. Dravon James: 22:42

right? And looking to forgive yourself is so very important because now I've studied the Course in Miracles, and I don't want to get this wrong, but I remember I always thought that forgiving myself would help me to be forgiving of other people, and I'm not so sure that that's not. It doesn't work that way for me, but I remember studying in the Course in Miracles one time it said to when you can forgive everybody for everything, you also are more forgiving of yourself. So either way, whichever tactic you works best for you, whether you're a person who needs to forgive others first before you can extend forgiveness to yourself, or whether you're that person who says that I have to forgive myself, I have to be patient and kind with myself, because that helps me to be forgiving and patient and kind to other people. Either way, two sides of the same coin. In my opinion, forgiveness is so important for your happiness, you will meet people I have met people in my years of life coaching, who are well in their seven decade of living, who are still very unforgiving over something that may happen to them, in priests, in in their primary years of school And in elementary school and middle school, and they just can't forgive. And the teacher said this, or the you know, and I'll say to them, will you allow for the fact that that individual was also trying to learn how to navigate life and making mistakes, just like we are. We're always looking for somebody else to know, the way to know more than what we know, what the truth of the matter is. We're all really trying to figure this out, and along the way, there are going to be some some things that we that we'd say to ourselves. One of my friends said, I would never do that. I said, I understand that, but this is a different individual. That's not you. That's the bad individual

Erin Brinker: 24:47

indeed, you know, I it's some point, if you're if you as an adult, sometimes, at some point, you grow up and realize that your parents were just muddling through as well. You know? When you're when you're a teenager, you think your parents have it all figured out and that they just cared about you. They would do this, that, or the other thing. It's very typical, and part of separating from your family so that you can leave and be your own adult and be your own human and then somewhere in the mid 20s, maybe 30s, if you're, if you know you're a little slower, you realize, well, my parents, they were, they were faking it too, until they figured it out. And, you know, because, because we were all just kind of muddling through this life together and and we have to give ourselves space to be human.

Dr. Dravon James: 25:37

So I love that space to be human, right, and I like to do a lot of journaling, and I tell people, that's a great, that's a great journal prompt prop right there. You know, what does it mean to you to be human right? And we're not robots, you know, we're, we're not this. You know, we got a lot going on with AI and all this. If we are human. We are human. Sometimes we're going to say things that we don't even like you might go back to my example, or say things that we don't even know are offensive to other people,

Erin Brinker: 26:12

right? Because I don't have the same life experiences that you do, so I don't know what's going to trigger you, and so I may say something completely innocuous, but it reminds you of so and so in the fifth grade who used to beat you up. And you're going to react strongly to that, and I'm going to be confused,

Dr. Dravon James: 26:28

right? And they here we go, and this is where we go back to the other point. We talked about self awareness. So if you are self aware enough, right to know that, oh, there may be something else going on with this individual, why they reacted so poorly to my suggestion, or or this in the meeting, then you don't get offended, right? Right? Then you become compassionate, right? Right? That you place offensiveness within compassionate. I'm compassionate. And you even become curious. You may ask when it's appropriate. No, I noticed that when I said that your demeanor changed. I didn't mean to be offensive. I don't want to pry, but I do want to make sure that I don't make that mistake again, right? Another story, I have a team of people that report to me at work, and one day someone came to me. She sent me an email, and she wanted to have a meeting with me. I said, sure. She came in that afternoon and she said, you said something today. She said, No, You embarrassed me today in the meeting. Oh, I thought, and I'm going through my mind, like, how did I do that? She was yeah, I mentioned something, she said, and you just shut it down immediately. And I was so grateful to her for coming to tell me that right, because I do remember her mentioning it. I thought I responded. I went on to the next topic and so but again, I was grateful to her that she had the courage not to harbor that right. That's some self awareness on her part to say, hey, wait a second. I don't know her to be this kind of person, but this is enough on my heart. It's impacting my day. I don't want to go home feeling like this well, and

Erin Brinker: 28:12

it speaks to her trust in you. If she didn't feel safe saying that to you, she would have kept that and it would have festered, right?

Dr. Dravon James: 28:20

And it could have turned a work relationship really Sarah, really fast. And so we talked about it, and I told her, I said, so, you know, I really remember the incident quite differently, but her perspective is important to me, right? And so here me, I'm rushing off to another meeting that I have, you know, that's going to short start shortly, and I want to deal with this and that, but it's just perspectives, right? And in that, in that self awareness, and in her being, having that awareness of herself like this hurts her, having that trust in the other person, although she didn't know for sure how I would handle that, right, but giving me the opportunity that's respect to right, giving me the opportunity that's we don't often do that. Yeah, I hear people say, you know, when people hurt my feelings, I can't address them. Well, that's unfair to them, right? The opportunity?

Erin Brinker: 29:15

Yes. So she, she gave me that

Dr. Dravon James: 29:17

opportunity to to explain and to apologize into, you know, and I said to her, I said, Well, we're going to meet on this at least three times, so that way I have an understanding. Because sometimes you'll hear things here. We're going to interact with each other many, many times before, you know, you may feel that I've done something again. I just want to keep checking in so we're having proper communication. But all of this comes into play when we're talking about stress, because with where two or more gathered, for sure, there's an opportunity for there to be misunderstandings based on our perspectives, absolutely

Erin Brinker: 29:51

even. And I've been married for 31 years, and my husband and I still have disagreements, and I don't think he know there's anybody on this earth who knows me better than he does, and vice versa. So and so. You know, wherever two humans are, you're going to have an opportunity for misunderstanding, but you bring up the question of stress. My dad used to stay stress makes the world go around, okay, dad, and in some to some extent, it does. You know, there's so many things in life that we cannot control. So how do we change our perception of stress from one of negativity and the expectation that life should be free of it, because that is a completely unrealistic expectation. But then, you know, turn it around so it's working for us.

Dr. Dravon James: 30:32

Oh, very good question, because you're I agree with your dad that, and with your statement, stress is always going to be with us. It's not always a bad thing. If you're planning a wedding, it's a bit stressful, but you still want that wedding if you're going to move across country for the dream, for the job of your dreams, that can be stressful, having a new baby, building a house, all those things are stressful, right? What we don't want is the stress of losing a job or a loved one, but that is oftentimes, unfortunately, part of this journey, too. And the answer for because from that, I have found to be very helpful, is to become curious. Curiosity is a cure for so many things, right? Is to become curious about stress. When you're feeling it's, you know, just to Oh, where do I feel stress? Well, I feel it all over. Well, let's sit down for a few minutes and let's see if we can isolate it is what part of your body is responding more so than the other thought. Now, for me as a ruminator, it used to be in my solar plex area and in my, in my in my head, like I couldn't stop my head from going, you know, 1000 miles per minute. So become curious about, why does it impact me there? Why can't I get rid of these thoughts? Is there anything else I'd like to think about just asking your those questions takes you out of the past or the future and catapults you right here to the present and in the present moment, we sort of realized, well, I'll go back to my to my thing that I was stressed about over Sunday, making a wrong comment in the present moment. I'm not making any comments. I'm safe here, right? It was in the past that I made that comment, and I'm so afraid that I was offensive, right? It's in the future that I'll have to apologize. I'm afraid that they'll tell me they don't want to be friends with me anymore, right? And so, but in the when I start asking questions to myself, what that does is puts my attention back on the present moment. I become curious about things in the present moment, and that helps change my my perception of things, because I become curious without judgment, like, oh, I can see how that could be funny. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be funny in that way. And I just start, you know, relaxing myself, because I'm changing the perspective, the perception of stress through curiosity, curiosity that is absent any judgment or shame or condemnation, condemnation, just being curious. You know,

Erin Brinker: 33:07

I have to tell you, change how much and I and I apologize for interrupting. I i How much time have I wasted in my life with my head stuck in the past, worrying about things that that are already done and put to bed and maybe decades old, or deal with people who are no longer with us, but I'm still spending my present ruminating, dealing with those things that are long gone. What a waste of time,

Dr. Dravon James: 33:38

right? And we almost feel for people who are ruminators, like we have no control over the brain, and I find that curiosity helps that too is to, you know, ask my brain questions like I did, you know, why are you still thinking about this? Do you like feeling sad? Well, what is it about this particular thought? Did anything else happen today that you may be happy about Yeah, but okay, what can can we think about that for a little while? Do you understand talking to myself really?

Erin Brinker: 34:07

Doctor Phil's head voice in my head, going, how's that working for you? Yes,

Dr. Dravon James: 34:14

yes. Do you know that you can stop I can't, right? So just playing a little game with ourselves, and that will help it when we do that, what I do find often times, is that if you're a person, gets aware of how stressed, what stress does to your body. You know, for a lot of us, we find that it makes us hold our bodies stiffer. So we're clinching, whether it be we're clenching our shoulders and our shoulders up, and our back and shoulders are so tired. We're clinching our jaw. We're holding our fists and our hands tight. And when you start to become curious, you'll, as you start to watch your body, you'll find that there is a looseness to wherever you are holding that stress, right? It starts to loosen up, and you start to get this almost like a child, like energy, because children are the most curious people I know. The planet, indeed, for everything, but why, but why, but why. And none of it is meant to be annoying or or troublesome. It just is wanting to have an understanding here. We're wanting to have an understanding of us so that we can so that. And the whole goal of this is supposed to say, Yeah, I understand you and I love you.

Erin Brinker: 35:21

Wow, that is really enlightening. I and the only people, the only person that can, that can employ that curiosity and change the way that you know, change the neurobiology even is is by is you. You are the only one who has control over your own mind, and you are the only one who has that power and but that also means that you have that power, which is like, oh my gosh, that's revelatory,

Dr. Dravon James: 35:52

right? You have that power. You have that responsibility, and lots of us would love to when I'm talking about being a transformative transformation specialist, Isaiah, so that you do all of this work, and it's not really a lot of work. The work is not that hard. It's what I call simple hard. These are simple things you're going to do, have to do, but what you might find hard is the consistency. And every time you fall off that tricycle of becoming more self aware and more accepting of yourself, you get right back on it, because you're worth it. These things are not difficult, but only you can do them. I can say them to you all day is when you start to say them, your mouth, your ears, hear your voice. It starts to perk up, and it says, What are you saying? Oh, you don't really believe that. And then you say it again. You don't and then you start saying over and over and again. And the voice is part of you that says you don't believe that gets quieter and quieter. And he mentioned it gets curious. Well, do you believe that

Erin Brinker: 36:49

you have to be a bit fearless because you are that that that stressful, negative place, especially if that's a pattern that's been part of your life for many, many, many years, or maybe your entire life that's familiar. Moving beyond that is unfamiliar and a little scary, you know, if you really start thinking about that change and and you know, part of you says, Yeah, I want to be free of this. I want to be out of these chains, but, but those chains are what you know, you know, it's kind of Plato's the cave, right? You're looking outside. You don't really know what's there. You can imagine what's there. You have to unchain yourself and then walk outside, and that can be scary for some people. And for me, I would say, yeah, that's because it's unfamiliar. It's necessary, but it's unfamiliar,

Dr. Dravon James: 37:34

and you're so right. And that's what led me to really start doing coaching in life, in group coaching especially, is because, first, I believe that everybody needs a coach to go through life their highest level, right? Yes, you can definitely do go it alone, but if you have a coach, you just mentioned there are places, there are places within us that are dark and scary that we don't want to go into. And coaching is not like therapy. That nature, we don't seek to give you any of the answers anything that nature. You tell us what the goal is, and we help you plot out a path that you get there, and we hold you accountable, but we do hold on to you, right? And one of something that I tell by people when they're struggling is, I said, a good coach is a record of it keeps a record of your wins, because you'll need to be reminded of them. Oh, for that.

Erin Brinker: 38:26

Oh, I love that. A good coach keeps with the record of your wins. That's fantastic. You know, Olympic athletes need coaches. You know, I am not better than an Olympic athlete, so I think I need a coach.

Dr. Dravon James: 38:40

LeBron James has won how many championships Exactly? So, yeah, yes.

Erin Brinker: 38:49

So let's talk about, I mean, I've heard that the that, uh, that uh, it's generally a mother's negative comments to you as a child become your inner voice, and those words have our but long after your mom has that power over you anymore, and I'm not just picking on moms, and I was a mom, and I've told my daughter, if you ever need to go to therapy and what need me to hear, what you need to say, I'm there. But you know that those those negativity can become your inner voice and morph and and metastasize. So how do you turn that around and start hearing positive words. How do you do that?

Dr. Dravon James: 39:25

Very intentionally. So they say, sticks and stoves may break my bones, but words will scar me for life. But words of others don't have to scar us for life, because the most powerful voice that your ears will ever hear is yours, right? And it can undo anything if you are persistent. And so I encourage people to have a language of self love when they talk, when they do the self talk. None of this. Oh, that. I can't believe I did that. Oh, I can't believe I'm so stupid. Oh, I, I can't believe I just used me for ruminating. You know, you. Teach this and you still ruminate, and you're a loser. You can't get a handle on this, and we have to change that talk, and we have to be intentional about it, and that's why I love the idea of treating ourselves like we are middle school. Most of us have had at least some interaction with middle schoolers, and you know that is, to me, the most difficult time of childhood, with so much going on their little bodies and so much going on in the world and trying to navigate all that, they frequently have not so great days, and

Erin Brinker: 40:32

you feel every emotion so intensely at that age. Yes, everything's into the world, everything, everything's a tragedy,

Dr. Dravon James: 40:40

right? So as a parent, and specifically as a mom, because that's what I was, what you were, right? We would never sit down with that middle school and say, Well, you know, you just are a horrible person. You just, you know, you just had the same problem last week. You're having it again. You what you have here is a failure to understand, and you are just not a great person. We wouldn't do that. You know what? You know? I feel that this is you keep getting shown this opportunity, because you're going to get better and better and stronger and stronger, and maybe one day you're going to teach somebody else how to navigate this. Yeah, this is the kind of way we have to talk to ourselves. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you for coming to me and letting me in. Because, believe it or not, we hide from ourselves. We often times don't even want to see the truth of what we've done. We're so ashamed. Yes, that's so true. We're blaming other people other circumstances. Well, if this didn't happen, then I wouldn't have done this. No, no, no, I did that. And I have my reasons and and they're not good reasons. If I had to, if I, if I were able to slow time down and go backwards, I do it totally different again and to myself, I would have to say, Do you still love me? And my answer be Yes, I still love you. Of course. I love you. Of course I do. Now let's see what we can do about this. Oh, my God, just like I would say to my middle schooler,

Erin Brinker: 42:07

that's good give yourself permission again to be human and to and to provide that self love, you know. And self love is not just people say, Oh, it's a spa day or it's getting your nails that. No, it's not. It's your inner dialog. It's, it's how you treat yourself, and a recognition that you are worthy of that love. Yes,

Dr. Dravon James: 42:30

you absolutely are, because you could be sitting there getting a massage. I've done it, you know, and still

Erin Brinker: 42:35

ruminating. Indeed, that's my superpower.

Dr. Dravon James: 42:40

It's a superpower, right? So in that, and so in and I'm we're laughing about that, but for everybody who's dealing with anything, I will tell you this, everybody is dealing with something. Indeed, everybody is dealing with something. And that's what, that's what has the ability to make us so compassionate with each other, is because I know what it's like to be ruminating from about something from 12 in the afternoon to one o'clock in the morning and and to feel badly about my my choice of words and just, you know, just really almost to the point where you're just fierce drunk. But then I also know the power of when you come to yourself and you allow the practices to say, Aha, I have a technique for that. And one of the easiest techniques you can have is the power of positive self talk is to say three things that you're grateful for about you. Oh, I'm grateful that I even care. Yeah, because if you didn't care, if you ruminating, although I don't encourage it. If that's not your superpower, do not pick it up. It's no fun here, right? It's no fun. But you can say I'm so proud of myself that I that I care enough to give this some careful consideration and to figure a better pathway so this doesn't become part of who I am and how I communicate. I'm grateful for being the kind of person who cares. I'm grateful for being the kind of person who is willing to correct herself, willing to go ask for forgiveness. Find things that you're grateful for. They could be so small you're not. It doesn't have to be, oh, I went out nice and I would say baby seals or something, right? It'd be something so small the smallest things, the smallest things are just as important as the largest things. Indeed.

Erin Brinker: 44:29

You know, we talked a little bit about superpower, and I was joking. I certainly I recognize that, that that ruminating is maladaptive and that I need to put an end to that. But, you know, I would say that your superpower is clarity and discernment and empathy. How do you recognize and that's just me, from our conversation here. How do you recognize your superpower? Because everybody's different.

Dr. Dravon James: 44:57

Everybody is different. This is so. Um, so that's such a little technique that I have my my my clients do on a regular basis, and is that at the end of the day, we end every day as a superhero, right? And then whether you feel like one or not, you end every day as a superhero. So you'll sit down, as many of us do unconsciously, as we get ready to drift off to sleep, we replay that day in our mind, and we source out the things that we didn't like about the day, and we go to sleep with those things in our mind. Well, I didn't like the way the boss ignored me in the elevator, or I didn't like how my point wasn't well received in the in the meeting, or I didn't like how the how the teacher didn't smile at me, whatever it was, and that, or how I lost my temper, and we sort of let that play in our head. But what I encourage people to do is to immediately, when you lie down that bed, you think about the things that made you even the smallest bit happy. There's some other tech techniques we use for the smile journals and those things, but we'll talk about things that made you smile. Did you did you smile at all today? You say, I don't remember smiling. I must have smiled at one time you sit there, you think, Oh, I smile when I saw the little boy who got an elevator his teeth were missing in the front. He was cute, right? So in those things, right? In the things that made you smile, right, those things that cause you to smile and tap into your happy place. There's where you're gonna find your superpower. It's different for all of us, but it is the thing that taps into your source of love, your source of relaxation, whether it is, oh my gosh, I see beauty and sunrises, oh my gosh, right? When you see a sunrise, you speak kind words, or you, you know you're you're a bigger tip, or whatever it is, this is the thing that is for you say, Oh, I'm compassionate, right? I'm charitable. I did the following things. That's who you are. Now, you may not be finding yourself displaying that part of yourself on a regular basis. Well, we'll work on that right? Because you realize that you are happiest when you are living in that superpower, and you're absolutely right. We're joking about illumination. Illumination is crippling if you don't get that check. But so, but behind there, there is something, yes, there is something, there's another side to that, and we choose to focus on the dark side that makes us feel unhappy, right? That's the part that you say. What made me feel down today? Most of us can rattle those things off. Oh, you know, you can rattle hold this thing that made us feel down. So now we're, we're saying, you know, there's, they call glimmers, the things that made us feel connected to our peace and our happiness, our gentle softness. What was that is, you'll

Erin Brinker: 47:47

find your superpower there.

Dr. Dravon James: 47:49

What did you do in that moment? What did it mean, even if you didn't follow through on it? What did you feel like doing? Uh huh. Let's start writing those things down and through there. We will go back and we'll look at that journal, and we'll say, Okay, we think we've identified some consistencies here, and we're going to, we're going to work on operating more and more out of this space, because you feel good when you're tapped into this. It's liberating. It is liberating. It is liberating. We talked a little bit before the before we got our air about the things that make us just feel heavy, like there's a cloud over us. And that's some of that. Is that complaining, it seems like small talk, and it seems like it's innocuous, but it's absolutely draining. It is.

Erin Brinker: 48:36

It's exhausting. And, you know, I think everybody I took a vacation, so to speak, from Instagram this summer, I was went like six weeks without being on it. And, you know, I was happier. It was, you know, having that freedom from Doom scrolling was really nice. It was, it was, it was very nice and helped me kind of focus on what was important, and that's what the people immediately around me, not the people in Washington, doing whatever they do.

Dr. Dravon James: 49:06

You know exactly, exactly. And we're not suggesting that you, you know, you completely tap out of society, but you reduce that and spend more time, which in the beginning of our conversation, we you mentioned self awareness, and self awareness is the cornerstone of all of this, understanding and paying attention to how you feel when you engage in certain activities is the key To this, to the inner journey, to your happiness, your your your space where, oh my gosh, I can, I can, I can breathe easily. I can, I can navigate things better, because I just feel so grounded here. And then there are other places, other things that are happening, and they have us wired. We feel so anxious. And you. We're like a ticking top Time Bomb, right paying attention to what what activities that I'm engaging in that make me feel grounded and secure, versus like a ticking time bomb.

Erin Brinker: 50:15

You know, lots of faith traditions have have this as part of their focus. You know, thinking in Orthodox Judaism, they unplug from everything and spend time with family, to reconnect with the people that are important to them on the Sabbath. That's how they spend the Sabbath. They're not even allowed to drive or use the phone or anything like that. In Christianity, there are we're supposed to on Sundays where it's not that rigid, but on Sundays, you're unplugged. You know you're not. Don't spend that day necessarily going shopping. Don't work on that day. And there are other faith traditions that do something similar. And, and it's true, you have to be intentionally unplugged from the things that stress you out. And I'm thinking stress in the negative way. And and make it, make it a priority for you and for your family, right, so that you can have that peace within your the sanctity of the home or in a community. So, yeah, that's really important,

Dr. Dravon James: 51:12

absolutely, and I love you. Brought up that piece about you know, get become intentional about your space. Become intentional, whether it's through the practice of religious practice and or just discipline within yourself, but become intentional. It's funny. You mentioned you took a break from social media. I sent my son a Tiktok. He's 21 in his last year at college. He's he said to me, he sent me a text message back, Hey, Mom, I stopped doing social media over the summer, good for him. And I thought, wow, how wise is that? Indeed. So people are catching on

Erin Brinker: 51:48

so, you know, I your book is called, freedom is your birthright. And you know, again, back to faith traditions and Christianity and Judaism, those are the two that I know the most about. You know they, they talk about being, being living in freedom and and not being yoked by things that are that you don't need, like if they become a burden, to lift your burdens off by giving them to the Lord, for example. And I know other faith faith traditions do that in Buddhism, you, you forego material desires because they can become a burden, etc. So talk about your book. And kind of you know, the premise of the book beyond, you know, in addition to what we've been talking about,

Dr. Dravon James: 52:29

oh, thank you so much. So, yeah, I wrote that book freedom age of birth, right? Because I wanted people to understand that an expression that my mom used to say, rain falls in everyone's life, right? And it does not mean that it is rain is used to grow flowers, so there you go, right? The end result can be beautiful, right? Freedom is definitely our birthright, but it is it freedom, cost is not free, right? We do have to say, I will take, I will take this in exchange for that, and the that that we're going to give up is the fact that we are powerless. I may not be able to control everything that happens in my health or in my children's life or in society as a whole. Absolutely not. But what I can control what I'm what I'm working to control is how I respond, what my will my response be, that I can use that to consciously create the life of my dreams, or I will let that be used to stunt my growth and forever keep me stuck? Is it going to be a stepping stone towards the life I want, or a stumbling block keeping me stuck where I am? And we have that simple choice, simple yet challenging choice to make with everything that occurs in our life, and that's what this book is about, is making those decisions. It's under 100 pages. I encourage you by using I talk very, very plainly and very, very simply in the book, as I do in life, is about here. Here are the things that we're going to do, some of the practices we're going to do. We talked about, one that I'm really big on is self talk. Here's what we're going to do in order to get to what we want in life, we're going to really monitor that self talk, and we're going to take care that when we catch ourselves as we will engaging in things that bring us down, that we will quickly readjust. So the whole book, in under 100 pages, is designed to have you have us tap into and utilize everything in our tool book of our life to help us reach and achieve our next level of greatness, and that's in everything in our self awareness, in our interaction with our loved ones, in our careers. Because when we become our best self, as compared. To no one else. That's when we live our best life.

Erin Brinker: 55:04

Oh, that's so great, and we are just about out of time. Dr drayon James, tell people how they can find you and follow you on social media and maybe hire you as a coach, etc.

Dr. Dravon James: 55:17

Oh, thank you. So my website is just my name. Dr drayon James, com, if you go there, you're going to see lots of information, even free courses that you can take there. And you can also find out more about our leaders in high heels, which are is our 12 week group coaching. My podcast is on. It's changed our mind, body, spirit FM, and we're you can find listen to that. And yeah, I encourage them. You can connect with me on social media under the same name, Dr Draymond james.com and as you mentioned in the intro, I'm on Sirius XM once a month as a life coach on The Road Dog Trucking show.

Erin Brinker: 55:55

Well, Dr Dray van James, I have loved this conversation. You are an absolute joy. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Dravon James: 56:03

Thank you for having me.

Erin Brinker: 56:05

What an uplifting and engaging conversation. I just absolutely loved it. I hope you did too. That is all we have time for today. For more information about the making hope happen Foundation, go to www.makinghope.org That's www.makinghope.org if you have an uplifting, engaging or important topic that you want to talk about, please shoot me an email at show at making hope.org. That's show at making hope. Dot O, R, G, I'm Erin Brinker, and this is the making hope happen radio show. Have a great week. Everyone.

Noraly Sainz: 56:59

Hi. My name is Noraly Sainz, and I am Program Coordinator at Uplift San Bernardino, a collective impact initiative at the Making Hope Happen Foundation. And this is my story. In November of 2017 my husband, our four young sons and I moved away from our families to San Bernardino with the hope of reaching our goal of home ownership in 2018 as our oldest son started kindergarten, I connected with the school district and learned about making hope happens Kids program with my oldest in kindergarten and my twins act preschool. I had the opportunity to tote my youngest to the kids parenting classes. In January of 2020, my husband and our family's breadwinner unexpectedly passed away, I found myself in a pandemic with my sons in an uncertain future. It was then that that oasis that I found at kids turned into my support system, as the staff and friends rallied around me while my sons and I struggled to find our new normal. In October of 2020 after seven years as a homemaker, I joined the making hope happen foundation as a program coordinator for uplift San Bernardino, this career opportunity reignited my family's dream of home ownership in November of 2022 through the mutual support of the Uplift San Bernardino Housing Network, my family was able to buy our first home in my role as program coordinator and As I connect with other families in our community, I can wholeheartedly attest to the opportunities that the foundation is bringing to our community and truly making hope happen. For

Erin Brinker: 58:30

more information about the making hope happen foundation and to make a donation, please visit www dot Making hope.org That's www.makinghope.org your donations make our work possible. You.