I do believe my daughter is gifted as well.

She dreams sometime we cold dream.

We've done that over the years.

Wow, being the same dream, it's the most craziest thing.

We don't know while we're in it, but when we wake up and we're like, did you and we can finish the sentence, it was like we were in the same dream.

Like we both can know when somebody's pregnant, right, it'll go dreaming.

Like one of my friends, she.

Sent me a text and she was like, Mommy, I think John Till might be pregnant.

She was like, and I think it's a girl.

And so I text a screenshot of it to my girlfriend John Till and she text me back the picture of the pregnancy test and a video where they were just going to tell their family that they're pregnant.

With the little girl.

Oh, and so she calls at her baby.

And then when I text her back, I said, I told you got mommy's gift.

She sends like the crying of mojors.

No, I don't want it.

I don't want it, Bobby.

This episode is brought to you by boost Mobile by so many things to talk to Tabitha about today.

Today's This guest is proof that obedience and authenticity can change your whole life.

Born in North Carolina, she moved to la twice.

She came back with faith and a new plan and a simple vegan sandwich to review in twenty seventeen that turned.

Into this global Calling.

Today, she's like America's Auntie, Emmy winning host of tab Time, author of Feeding the Soul, Cooking from the Spirit and I Did a New Thing, and founder of Donna's Recipe.

She's a mother, a wife, and now a star of the new holiday film Unexpected Christmas.

She cooks, she actually motivates, She heals.

She is Tabitha Brown, and she is our against in real life fa girl.

And she is also like your energy is just I don't know, it's it's it's next level good.

No, it's next level good.

Like you can't walk into a room and people don't just be happy.

To see you, right, Liz said, I'd be shipped in the atmosphere.

You really do we don't have the ability to do.

Do you do that intentionally or is it just a gift that was given to you?

Even when you often hear it was like oh and I just had but I just wanted to.

Give you a big hug.

We all have the ability to shift the atmosphere in the whatever space we occupy.

Because I could have came in and been like, hey, how y'all doing?

Oh my God, and it would have changed the whole atmosphere for sure.

But I come in with joy and love and I'm excited.

Where does that come from, Tabitha?

Where is you know what?

I know where it comes from?

Right?

But I mean, when did you learn that?

When did it hit you?

I think it's really been my whole life.

Like my family would tell you.

My husband always like my wife is just a joyful.

Spirit, and I'd be happy.

That's real it is.

I've also been in very dark places and it's no fun.

And so I remember the last time I was in a dark place, my prayer was, God, if you get me out of this, I will always choose light.

And so that's what I do every day, is light.

So you choose it?

A Choice's a choice, absolutely, because I think.

Probably some people.

I think obviously that's why people resonate to you.

You bring this joy, this light.

It's the light, right, It's the light people want to feel.

People want to feel that nobody likes it dark.

No, but I think sometimes people don't know how to get out of it.

Yeah, sometimes we can get stuck.

But also sometimes the dark cast purpose, right, you have to be there for a while so you know that you don't like it.

Oh that's really good.

Why are you giving me a word?

And you just got here.

You just sat in my chair.

That's the truth, bru in the chair.

Yeah, you gotta Sometimes you got to go through it so you realize, you know what, I don't want to go back there.

Yeah, because if you go through it too fast, you don't care.

Yeah, you don't catch it.

That's why that's stuckness.

Sometimes take a while.

Oh that is a good one for today.

We don't like to get to today.

First of all, what a lovely way to live your life, but also to create a business and a career around that.

Being myself, I never could have imagined, really, I never could have imagined.

No.

I always just dreamt that I was going to be a famous actress, like that was my whole thing as a kid.

I just wanted to grow up and be the famous leading lady.

But I did not think that I would grow up and become free and become successful for being.

Myself, become free?

What do you mean?

Yeah, Because so the first part of twenty years of pursuing my career, in pursuing acting and entertainment, I wasn't free.

I was conforming, code switching, trying to fit in, trying to dress how I thought I was supposed to dress well, my hair one way, talk one way, and that's not freedom.

I was trying to live to please and fit in.

Why would you did you learn to do that?

Absolutely?

I'm from the South, right, so you learned it early without even knowing.

I learned to code switch watch my mama like pay bills or go to the bank or talk to white people.

And I'm like, oh, that's how we have to talk to them, Okay.

So when I would even go switch in school to my teachers, because I saw my mama do it, So this is how we are accepted.

It was just a natural.

And then like starting to have a job and do all the things like I did it in corporate America before I did act.

And then I started taking acting classes.

And I remember when I first moved to LA I had a casting er that I did a workshop and they were like nobody wants to hear that accent.

You'll get stuck in one character.

You got to learn and masket.

So I was already masking it in corporate America.

So then I started trying harder to mask it even more to the point where I lost who is the up?

And I started to believe this version of myself I created.

And I also feel like that's why I got sick, you know, because I was suffocating the true me.

And once I said, okay, Lord, no more, I'm gonna just be who you created me to be able to take these layers off, and I'm gonna be obedient and every day I'm gonna just show up and try to be myself, the same meat that I didn't know, the same meat that my sister know and my husband and my children know behind closed doors.

That's what I'm gonna be for the work.

But does this happen that ship?

That's a big shift.

It's a big shift.

Does it happen in one day?

Does No?

The realization happens in a moment?

Right.

It was like it's like a wake up call, like it was in prayer for me, right, So it was my my prayer was when I would see God if you heal me, you can have me, because I really thought I was gonna die.

I never thought I would see forty.

And in that moment that I meant that prayer.

You have the auto It was something autoimmune that they never diagnosed, right, which is why I went't beging And.

So you were like feeling bad.

Well a year and seven months, I had a headache in the back of my head and debilitating, so I lost my vision for a day, I would fall when I would walk, like I had chronic pain, chronic fatigue throughout my body.

I would sleep all the time, then wake up still be.

Tired, but my head would hurt non stop, like some days would be better than others.

But I was on disability for a year, like I can even go to work.

So then it turned into like manic panic attacks, and you know, I could be having this conversation with you and then all of a sudden, I'd be like I just couldn't breathe.

And so.

Also that was like the darkest time of my life, and I thought God had forgotten about me.

And what I realized is I had forgotten about.

Him in a way where it wasn't even that I had really forgotten about him.

I didn't really know.

I knew what I was taught, but this was the season where he said, I got to take you to the darkest place so that you can really see who I am and really accept me.

And so when I did, my whole life changed.

Like in that moment in my bathroom when I prayed that prayer, I wasn't healed in that moment, but I felt a shift in my body.

Something felt different.

And then from that day I just continue to just take the layers off every day.

And I was very afraid right because I didn't even used to do content.

I was a an actress and I worked the nine to five.

I was doing stand up.

I was doing everything I could to try to like make it.

And two weeks after I prayed that prayer, I had a dream and I saw myself on a TV show and the screen was very small and I had like no hair, but I was completely like myself.

And I've had dreams ever since I was a Child's a gift that I have that they come to pass.

And so I woke up and I.

Prayed, Lord revealed that to me, what was this this dream that I had on the show?

Because at this time.

I'm not auditioning, I'm not doing stand up.

I'm not doing anything that could get me a show.

And I heard a.

Voice that said, start doing videos, and I was like, start doing videos.

I don't.

Why would I do a video like d I'm I'm hearing things now I'm tripping.

The voice again was like, start doing videos, and I was like, well, lord, I'm an actress.

I don't do videos.

He was I remember the two weeks ago in that bathroom, you said if.

I hear you, I could have you.

And I was like, mm I did say that.

Lord, Well I guess here goes obedience, right, And that is the only reason that I started to do videos.

And as I started, I.

Realized, in the very beginning, if you could find like my very old videos on Facebook, I still was very scared.

I was still trying to talk a little bit proper, a little bit like, Okay, I want to be accepted.

I'm gonna tell my stories and things, you know, because I would just be a sit down comedian on my bed because I said it was not well.

But as the days went on, I just kept pulling it back, pulling it back more comfortable, more free, and then over the years.

It just said, honey, here she is.

You ever notice how everything keeps going up?

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Did you know that was his voice?

Because people always talk about a voice.

I always find that interesting because how we hear or connect to him?

Is I think different?

So different from you?

Absolutely?

Yeah?

And so I wonder somebody listening and who's looking for that moment in their life if they don't hear actual voice, you know.

So I'm just curious how you know when it's the voice of God, right, or it's you know, how do you know in that moment that that's what it is?

So for me, I've heard I'm a seer here.

I cannot control it.

It just happens, right, So I hear in different ways.

Sometimes it's like a flutter in my ear, almost like a hummingbird would be, and you could just hear like a whisper, right.

And then sometimes just like I'm talking to you, I can hear a voice.

Yes, I've heard once in my life a voice that sounded like thunder.

It is the biggest change of my life.

That scared me.

And other times and for most people, the voice won't let you rest.

So sometimes you'll be thinking about something.

If it's you, you'll think about it a couple of times, you might forget about it, don't think about it no more.

But that thought that keeps coming back.

It wakes you up.

You're doing something, you think of it again, it just will.

It's a nag.

That's Holy spirit, right.

And then also he uses people to speak to you, and it's somebody that you don't know or that don't know anything about what you've been thinking, will be like, you know what, as you ever thought about moving to Miami permanently you know you love it there, and you'd be like, I ain't told nobody that, And that's Holy Spirit.

Wow, right, So he will you.

He can use anybody to bless us and to speak to us.

Wow.

It happens differently.

Does that ever scare you?

Not scare you of him, but scare you of your own power, like you know what I mean?

Or maybe in any way, I don't know.

Just wonder if it ever scares you.

When I was younger, it used to scare me, right, My sister used to tell me it was a boogeyman.

So you imagine being this little girl who's six or seven and would see things at night or during the day, or would dream stuff, and then it happens.

I remember it, you know, as a little girl, like telling my mom about like my granny's uncle, I had dreamt about him, and she was like, you don't know that man has been dead twenty years.

I'm six or seven years old.

It was very early for me.

And then you the looks you may get from people or the responses, but then also seeing people that you don't know while you're awake and nobody else sees them was very scary and you can't control it.

It just happens.

I was very afraid as a little girl, and I did believe my sister there was the Boogeyman.

But then when I got grown, and I still had to have a night life because I was scared when me and my husband first got married.

Up until.

Eight seventeen years ago, I met my husband twenty seven years.

First ten years, I always had to have a nightlight or a television on until I fell asleep because the dark I would see things right, oh wow.

And so when I got older, I was like, this can't be the Boogeyman.

You know what I'm saying, Like this is real, Like I'm having these experiences.

And then I tried to pray it away.

I talked about this in my first book, Feeding the Soul.

I was like, I don't want it.

Also, I didn't want to be the messenger anymore.

I lost a lot of relationships.

When you are a messenger, it can get scary, heartbreaking even and I remember I had a pastor who was mentoring me because before my mother passed, she said, you need to find somebody who can help you with your gift.

And so I thought that I could, you know, like have this pastor you know, helped me out to Newton very well, and he was helping me, you know, to try to understand the gift and the different experiences.

But then I started to see things in his life.

He stopped talking to me, and I was like, now now what Wow?

So I remember I was like, God, please just take it away.

I don't want it.

And for about I would say, like a couple of years.

It didn't go away, but it was it seemed to be weaker.

And then I felt like something was missing.

And then after I like went through my journey of sickness and had my you know, my last I called my meeting with Jesus, you know in the bathroom.

He came back in a way like never before.

Wow.

Do you think it was that prayer too?

It was just all I think.

I was ready, you were ready.

I was no longer afraid to be the tap he created me to be.

What is the exact Perriican?

You asked him, if he heals.

You, heal me, you can't have me wow, yeah, and are you mindful of that every day?

I was telling you this before when you walked in.

I always have to remind myself to stay disciplined about surrender because I don't know if I'm because I'm a Capricorn, because I'm.

Type Hey, I don't know what it is, but I'm always.

Like trying to like manage things.

And then but when I'm doing my best is when I do the fine line.

You still work, yes, you still got to work and everything, but ultimately the surrender is like really important to just living the life you're supposed to live.

And I just me, I struggle with that because it's hard for me not to always remind myself.

But I would imagine that you are locked into that all the time.

I'm locked in, but I'm still flash right.

So obedience is is constant work because there's many times where you'd be like, no, I can do it.

Like the video we was just talking about, and in that.

Moment is when God said to me, he says, see, sometimes we can get hit and it might daze us.

We might be a little sore, but we think that we're okay, but the impact, the damage of the impact shows up later in our life, and I said, my god, today, Lord, some of us have been hit a long time ago, but you're.

Living right now in the effects of the impact.

I thought I was in control.

Oh my god, that video is so right.

I literally had just went that morning.

I had because i had hip surgery last year, so I'm already in physical therapy right now.

Normally my physical therapy is by my house.

That day, my doctor said, you know what, today, I'm down here in Beverly Hills in this office.

Can you come here?

I said, you know what, matter of fact, I'm in that area.

I'll go on over there.

Had the best session that I've had in so long.

I was like, oh my god, my back feels so much better.

I left that doctor's office and I put the you know the address and the GPS thing and it said that hour in fourteen minutes.

I was like, oh my god, because I had a flight to catch.

I need to go home, finish pack and get to the airport.

I was like, I ain't got an album forteen minutes.

I can go this other way that I know is probably quicker.

And I turned to go that way and the time went up to like an hour thirty one minutes or something like that.

I was like, Lord, now this that's an adding more time.

I went up, U turn to go on back the way I was going from the beginning, And thirty seconds after I turned around, I'm sitting.

At a stoplight and I got hit in the back.

I mean it hit me so hard that it dazed me, like I was confused for a second.

And in that moment, I was like, I just got hit, Like I couldn't believe it.

And I like when I came to like somebody was talking to me.

It was my radio talking to me.

Because the radio the impact had called the paramedics.

My car automatically did that.

I didn't even know I had that feature, so baby, I didn't know who that was in the car.

I was like, wait a minute, and did I die?

Lord, what has happened?

Oh my god.

So they were like, missus Brown, is like your car alerted that you've had a hard impact, like we alerted the par So I said okay.

And so then the man was beside me trying to like open the door or you know, tap to like get me to I guess respond to him.

And I was dazing.

Then I was like, oh, so he calls now on one so I was like, no, I'm fine, but my.

Seat belt had locked me.

When was this?

This was sixteen yes, oh, a couple of weeks ago, just three weeks almost yeah.

And my my immediate thought was like, lord, I got to get to this airport.

I got to get home.

You're still trying to I'm still I'm still in it.

The paramedics show up, ma'am are you we need to assess you.

I said, I'm all right, I'm okay.

I gotta go car put stone in in the bag.

I said, I can drive it.

I got to get home.

I called my husband.

Of course he's a retired police officer, so he's like, you need to get in the ambulance.

I was like, I am all right.

I'm still in control.

I'm still doing all the things.

So as I drive home, I realize my electrical it's not working.

Radio won't come on, air won't come on.

So now I'm driving hot to the valley in La.

I get home.

Musban's like, you don't need to go to London.

You need to go to the hospital because I'm like, I just left physical therapy, I already had surgery.

Like everything needs to be checked, but I was like, I can probably get a check when I come back these people over here in London and pay for these tickets.

I'm literally still that's all I'm thinking about.

And God just rebuild it to me in that moment, like he silenced everything.

He was like, I want you to go back, and I want you to like re drive yourself home.

In your head.

Nothing was working.

The air wasn't working, the radio wasn't working, the car was still moving forward, and it took me longer to get home then it was gonna take me either way.

Right.

He was like, this is what happens when you think you're in control, if you had just trusted the first way.

And I was like, right, god right yeah.

He was like you can get hot out there, because baby, it was hot.

Yeah.

I was like, hm hmm, you're right, Lord, I trust you.

I trust you, you know.

But we flash so every now and then because sometimes you thinks could be going so good.

Sometimes you'll get to thinking that you're doing it.

Yeah right, you get to thinking that it's you.

Yeah, I'm so good at I'm doing so good right now.

Baby, I noticed GPS is hooked to all the satellites, but I know better.

No you don't.

Yeah, you know that there's a source that we're all hooked to.

Yeah, and sometimes we're gonna have to be obedient to it or it's gonna get hot.

It's really good to have it that.

It is really good.

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You really are gifted, my dear.

How does that operate in your family?

How do people like.

I don't know, just I would imagine that it's it's inspiring to even people closest to you.

But sometimes in your house, like your child might be like, oh, mom.

You know, I think when it comes to my kids and I and I do believe my daughter is gifted as well.

She dreams sometime we cold dream.

We've done that over the years.

Wow, being the same dream.

It's the most craziest thing.

We don't know while we're in it, but when we wake up and we're like, did you and we can finish the sentence, it was like we were in the same dream.

And she'll, you know, she'll dream something like we both can know when somebody's pregnant, right, it'll go dream Like one of my friends she sent me a text and she was like, Mommy, I think John Till might be pregnant.

She was like, and I think it's a girl.

And so I text a screenshot of it to my girlfriend John Till and she text me back the picture of the pregnancy test and a video where they were just going to tell their family that they're pregnant.

With a little girl.

Oh and so she calls at her baby.

And then when I text her back, I said, I told you got mommy's gift.

She sends, like the crying of motors.

No, I don't want it.

I don't want it.

Bobby.

She was like, that's that's much because she's been you know, she's my daughter, so she knows what I've gone through over the years.

But you know, my husband, who is my best friend.

Right.

I grew up in the church, but that doesn't mean I grew up knowing the Lord.

Right.

I was taught, but.

Then really like letting God deposit in me, my whole relationship change.

So my husband did not grow up in the church.

He grew up with no knowledge of who God was, who Jesus is, none of that stuff until we got together.

The best part about being gifted and having this walk with the Lord is that my husband, when he is asked about my gift, he'll say, this is how I know God is real.

That's the best part.

That's pretty great.

Yep, come on, now.

Okay, that's the best part.

I said, Well, Lord, if I don't have to do nothing else I've done enough.

It's interesting too because when we've had people, we've had a lot of people, it's in real life, right, So the podcast is actually meant to learn things about people's real life that we can then yeah, deposit into our.

Own when we're in moments of confusion or whatever.

But anytime relationships come up, and some of the best conversations about marriages and relationships.

The core is always their.

Their connection to God, that they have a shared you know, equally yoked, right, they had Adrian in Israel.

Even Sierra was just here earlier today and she that's what she credits her her.

Marriage to I just it's so obvious.

Yes, I mean you got He's so intentional, Like how could you even have a healthy relationship without.

But also like look at the big picture.

God used me to introduce my husband to him.

Oh yes, do you understand how I do like it?

Like he used his wife to show himself how many years married?

Now we are twenty two years married, twenty seven.

What has been the toughest not toughest part of that, what's been the most challenging thing that you've had to face to be.

A good wife For.

The most challenging thing was saying yes to myself right.

Because I'm from the South, right, so I grew up seeing women serve right when it comes to their husbands.

Right.

My grandparents were married fifty two years.

My mom and daddy were married for twenty five before they separated.

But I've always seen it, like my uncle's aunts, everybody's married.

I've always seen it, and so I always did everything.

Every my children and my husband always came first, until I got to the place of like, Okay, I'm sick.

I haven't been really good to myself.

I've put myself last for many years, and I enjoy serving my husband right.

It was very hard.

For me to say no.

It was so that I could have my own yes.

It was hard for me to say I'm tired.

It is.

It's still a challenge for me.

Yeah, right, because you even like saying it, just I didn't like saying it.

It's tough because and my mama told me this before I got married.

She told me, she said, don't start nothing you don't want to maintain.

She told me that.

I said, girl, what you're talking about.

She said, I'm telling you don't start nothing, you don't want to maintain and I have always, but I do enjoy it, right, I enjoy like cooking for my family and I always six to my husband's plate first.

Everybody know that.

And now I have my son, so my husband get his plate, my son gets his plate.

And so it was.

It was was it last Thanksgiving?

It is either last Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving before last.

I had a whole moment.

You don't go with tough pairmenopause.

Yeah, I told my husband.

I said, you know what, you don't never fix my plate.

I had a whole attitude, girl, I had a whole attitude.

He said, well, by you you did you want me to fix?

I didn't.

Do you want me to pick your plate?

I said, why shouldn't have to ask you?

He said, well, I I didn't.

Know that you was upset about.

I didn't even know what the thing.

And I had to walk myself back and I was like, girl, you created a routine that he is used to and now you mad at what you created.

And all I heard was my mama said, don't start nothing you don't want to maintain, because what could have been more like simplified, or I could have started a difference between me like on this day, I want you to cook for me, or like less agreet it like you cooked this day, or you serve me or whatever little things.

But I never did.

I just continued on because I did enjoy it.

But now, girl, I got fifty leven jobs and then you have kids and all the things.

But your needs change, you need you change.

Right, He's changed, We both changed.

That's the thing about marriage.

You have to know that you're both going to change.

Some of them seasons you're gonna love it.

Some of them seasons not so much.

Right, you just both have to agree and understand that.

Baby, when we in this change, we won't have to respect each other.

Right, We got to change into whoever it is the next season that we're going to become or be.

But that's been the toughest part.

Right has he adapted to that?

Listen, it's tough for him too, But he's also like me and are are simple.

You just got to communicate with him.

And that's the thing as a woman I had to.

I literally had to realize, girl, he can't read your mind.

Even if I think he should know, I can never assume that.

Also, how would I feel if I just think, I mean, if you know if he thought the same of me and doesn't tell me, like you got a issue with me, but you ain't telling me, And I think I'm doing everything right, it ain't fair.

Right, it's the same thing, but it's some for whatever reason.

Women, Because I think we are natural nurturers, we just assume other people feel the same way.

We don't want to ask.

I also think asking for you what you want sometimes requires you to be vulnerable.

And Nope, if people want somebody to just know what they want to do they want, it's not really fair.

But also because I have I spent almost twenty years learning everything.

About him, what.

He likes, what he doesn't like, how he wants his food, what he wants to eat, his clothes, like, his hobbies, like all the things I know my husband ruin through.

And if somebody come and try to tell me something about my husband, I.

Be like, you use a lie, okay, I know that means okay.

And then I realized I knew more about him than I did about me.

But when you spend that much time getting to know someone, because I wanted to be a good wife, right, and nothing is wrong with that.

It's great that I did that, but I also got to give myself that same energy.

Yeah, you know, because what happens is when you learned that, you expect them to do the same for you.

But the best way to show somebody who you are is to live your life out loud.

So I got to treat myself the way I want him to treat me, and then he'll know how to do things without me having to ask.

So I couldn't.

I had to stop trying to be in control of everything like I do it.

No, I got it, Oh, no, I do because you know I want to do them right.

The holidays season is upon us.

I know it came so fast, right, So.

One thing I am working on in my home is trying to make my home feel festive.

And also I have a lot of people over for the holidays, so sometimes that means any extra chairs and things.

And I started thinking about my grandmother, my grandmother.

I come from a family where my grandmother would host every year with second cousins, third cousins, and she had a very small home, but she hosted a big party and everything in the house would be dripping in holiday things.

I mean everything.

The toilet had like a Santa Claus on the toilet the napkins in the house were Christmas napkins.

I mean, if there was an inch of her.

House, it was dripped in holiday And I don't want to do that, but I do like the idea of recreating that much joy and that much festiveness in my home.

And there's so many things at Wayfair that you can get for that, and they don't have to be like the Santa Claus on the toilet, whether it's candles or tablecloths or just extra seeding because I do have extra people come in the house.

Folding chairs, you can get great folding chairs at Wayfair.

And the good thing too is you can order that stuff and it comes right to your house without having to pay for delivery, which is super helpful or out lugging it having to run to the store and get all that stuff and packing in the car and.

Then pack it out it know who wants to deal with that.

So for the holidays, really it is a great It is my go to place for just like judging up the house to feel festive around the holiday season and also setting up to host to invite people over and the more people that are normally in my house and to accommodate for that, which usually means extra chairs.

Maybe you wanted to get some new you know, plates or tableware, and of course Wayfair has all that great stuff and all the things to make you feel really festive.

So I'm gonna be spending a lot of.

Time with Wayfair over the next month getting my home ready for there.

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Yeah, so sometimes we do that right.

Sometimes let them just wrong.

Sometimes let them do it wrong.

Sometimes let them do it wrong.

Sometimes let him do it wrong and then say, you know what back, thank you for doing it, but next time, can you do it like this?

That's so funny.

One of my girlfriends we were talking to other friends who just had a baby, and she was complaining her man wasn't doing this, he wasn't changing the diaper and he wasn't And my other friend was like, he's not going to do it the way you want to do it anyway.

Yeah, so just do it yourself, don't complain.

I'm like, I don't know if that's healthy, but I totally get it.

Yeah, Or we like be okay with not being in control all the time.

Yeah, all the time.

They take you a nap and let him go ahead, let them tear it up.

If they tear it up, either do it yourself or be okay with it.

Not be and the way you won't.

Yeah, absolutely, that is really good.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, on another note, I am so happy for you to see because now that I we we've watched this career of yours blossom and where it started and what you've been through, and to now know you're like in this movie.

I'm so excited and doing this movie.

It's like, so you've really worked for this moments, Yes, right, like you really have.

This was my childhood dream to you know, being a movie, being a big screen, like all the things.

I've been acting for a really long time and people did not know me from acting.

So I'm so grateful.

Like Unexpected Christmas is a film that not only is great for the entire family, but for relationships like mothers and daughters and family.

Yeah, it's so good.

It's conversations.

This is some drama in there, but it's healthy drama, right, But it's comedy.

It just feels good.

It's one of those ones.

It's like for the culture.

We will watch this for years to come.

Oh, I love that for you.

I'm excited and I get to cut up in there, get it cuts up.

I wear a little red wig on Donna.

Hut I could have.

Now.

I feel like this is going to be like every year you'll do one of the house.

Yes, come on and speak it.

Yeah.

I feel like this could be like a reoccurring, like a series of these could happen because it's so.

You know, sometimes things just make sense exactly.

This just makes sense, right, See you just said it.

That's confirmation.

Yeah.

I love to take you.

You deserve that.

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Walden University set a course for change certified to operate by chev We have it in real life bowl.

Can we go into it with the life boat?

These are just some questions to start up.

You're so lovely?

Oh okay, just pick one and see.

Yeah, just pick a question, all right?

Do I read it?

Yeah?

What's your question?

It says, what's one thing you hope never changes about you?

You have to answer or I have to answer.

It's you about you?

Oh girl, I hope my freedom never changes.

You know.

I will never sell it again.

You will never sell it again.

And it was in that moment that you found your freedom.

But it took it took a long time, It took the steps to it.

You know.

The thing about it is you can still get triggered by your old habits.

Right, that's like healing.

Yeah.

I don't think we're ever like completely like healed.

You're you're always healing because you can be triggered by something that the great thing is like, wait minute, let me check it right?

Yeah so but.

Yeah, so what just just take me back to the freedom for a second.

What does that feel like?

And what does that mean for you to be in the moment of it?

Like, what does it mean to be free?

Oh?

It means honey, I can walk in any room.

Maybe you see Donna, you know, normally have a big afro act.

This is pretty.

I don't code switch, I don't conform.

I never walk into any space with the intention to make other people feel comfortable.

I walk in making sure I feel well, that I can show up exactly who I am and feel so good about it and just like make my own choices right, choose joy every day and just continue to just show up as who I am.

It feels heavenly.

It's a very good girl.

How does it affect you when somebody, uh doesn't respond well to that?

Now?

Now, in this new free version of yourself, because the old you want to people please them.

Probably, So what happens now.

If you walk into a room and you come in with this bright, beautiful energy and somebody doesn't give you that back or somebody responds poorly or receives you like, how do you respond to that?

Now?

Well, I still give them love and grace, right, because their response is not to me.

Their response is that I become a mirror.

And so when people are not in their own freedom work, my freedom makes them uncomfortable.

Right, So maybe what I'm gonna do, Okay, Well, honey, I wish the best for you, right, So it's not about me.

It's like, that's that's your stuff that you're dealing with.

I'm gonna still give you love and peace and all the things, but I just don't you know, you don't feel the need to.

Yeah, yeah, but listen, I also still have the ability to shift.

Right.

So I've had moments where people are a little you know, a little cold, I still give them tab By the end of whatever we're doing, they're like, you know what, I was having a terrible day because somebody always going through something they don't know nothing about.

So you don't ever personalize it, don't ever make it about you, right, I don't ever go into anything making it about me.

I just like just show up and if it's a little cold or off putt, and I'm like, you know, what they might be having a little something.

Now if you just flat out being rude, you know, I ain't gonna take that.

You know, I also know how to remove myself from a situation.

People sometimes think when you extyin.

Grace that you're okay with being disrespected.

Yeah, that ain't what I'm saying.

Yeah, okay, that is a line line right, You ain't.

Got to listen and you have that boundary.

Yeah, because Benita be trying to creep out.

That's you know, will come get you as I believe that.

Okay, they probably deserve it, and they deserve it.

I'm sure in real life?

What are you most proud of?

Let's talk about your career for one second, because I know your connection of God and your family is important, but just in your career, what you've been able to accomplish, Like, what are you most proud of about?

That?

It's so much.

I mean, I think the thing that makes me most proud in everything that I've done is that I've been able to do it just being tailed right, that makes me so proud.

Like me and my dadd if we talk about that all the time, He's like, you know, I just be so proud that that's my daughter.

That's my daughter from Eden, North Carolina.

Like he says it every week.

He'd be like, I tell you every time I see you do something like y'all know where she came from right here, you know.

And to have made him proud and to be able to keep showing up, you know, and all the things.

Also, I mean, I'm so very proud of my children's show tap time for people to trust me with their children.

You know.

The show was such a success.

That means you have people have trusted me with allowing their children to watch.

That says a lot, you know, And I want to end me for my children.

Trying to do so I'm the good in the world.

I never imagine that show I could even win an Emmy because I was like, it's a YouTube show.

It's YouTube original, but it's YouTube.

I remember the first year I got nominated.

I was like how how but real like my mind.

Was blown right, look at God, Look at God.

But God said, you're gonna put limitations on me.

I can do anything.

I said, you show Lord right now, honey, it is sitting in my have a bar area that you got to walk through to get to the kitchen.

So when you come into the house because whenever you know people come, then I want.

To to see it.

I get to walk by and see it.

I got my it hits up on like I got.

Like a little record player thing.

And then I have my four Image Awards beside it.

Come on for Image Awards.

It's like, I'm so proud I put you'all to see it.

I was to put it in my office.

I was like, everybody, don't go into office.

Let me just leave it.

I love it.

I love that proud as you.

We have some We have a new feature with boost Mobile.

It's a voice note.

Oh boost Mobile voice note.

And so this is usually somebody from our comment section or from our Instagram.

Somebody sent you a note today or a question.

I'm not really sure what it is, but let's let's hear it.

Hi, Tabitha, you're the Auntie inside my head.

You've trained my life in so many ways.

I recently watched your video Are you living the life you were born to live or the life you.

Were influenced to live?

And I've gone from feeling stuck and waking up miserable every morning before work.

But now I still have the same job, but I've made a lot of changes that are making me feel happier, but I am going through some discomfort.

How do you personally tell the difference between discomfort that is growing pains versus discomfort that's actually your spirit saying this isn't aligned for you.

That's a great question.

Yeah it is, so, she said, I'm still in the job that she don't like, but I made some changes and she's still uncomfortable.

So she's gonna be if she continues to be uncomfortable even after the changes, it's time to go right.

And the other thing that you know, God would make you so uncomfortable sometimes and if you choose not to, he'll push you out of there.

Mm hmm.

And she also said you was like auntie her auntie the word auntie.

Mary J.

Blige does not enjoy people calling her auntie, and I understand.

Sometimes demands will be like how old are you call me auntie?

But you know what I'm saying, how do you?

But people do refer and feel that about you?

How does that land for you?

I love it.

It's a term of endearment for me.

But in real life, I've been an auntie since I was ten.

My nephew was born when I was in fifth grade and really the best auntie listen I have and.

Other people's kids.

My friend's kid is like, I love it.

But I'm also I'm from the cell.

Yes, yes, I'm forty six, but my spirit probably two hundred years old, you know, because I have had an old spirit my whole life.

That's why people are like, I thought you were like sixty years old, but then I look at you.

You don't look sixty, but you you have a whole friend.

I'm like, I have an old spirit.

I know that about myself.

And I also been mothering and with my husband for twenty seven years.

My bonus daughter is thirty.

Wait how old were you when you got married?

I was twenty three.

Wow, that's you knew a difference.

Four Yeah, girl, I was still a girl.

The fact that the two of you have made it through all those phases in life, it's really a blessing and lovely because that usually when people grow, sometimes they grow in different directions.

Where you guys have managed to have that experience together.

I'm so grateful.

Yeah, I love them and I like them.

Oh yeah, that's what does you know?

Because we all love by the fault like naturally we love because we all have a heart.

We were designed to do so, but we were not designed to like and you both but I like them.

Good for you this week.

I like them a lot this week maybe next one.

You never know, you next week, you never know.

What do you think about your legacy?

Do you think about that ever?

And what do you think that will be?

I am often uh asked that question?

And I hope that my legacy was that you know, she lived her life freely, but her intention was always to to bring love and joy, to make people feel seen and heard, but to always make people feel like they had a friend in me.

Yeah, what are you doing?

Do you ever have these moments still?

I mean, I guess we all do, even when you're in as much as clear as your purpose as you are, just a day, bad day, or day of doubt or yeah, well you.

Question, am I who I think I am?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, do you still have those moments in your life?

Sometimes it's not the am I who I think I am?

Like?

I know who I am?

But I definitely have bad days.

Gradually got hit in the bag trying to be in control.

But I absolutely have bad days.

I have days where I question, like, God.

Was I supposed to do that?

I prayed about it.

You told me, but it feels uncomfortable.

But he still.

Says, like you I didn't say you could have everything without discomfort.

I said, Oh, you didn't say that, did you.

I said that.

I thought, Oh, that was tab saying that this should be comfortable because the Lord gave it to me.

That ain't what he said.

You know, he said weapons before them, but they wouldn't prosper.

Okay, so sometimes the weapons might hurt a little bit, but they won't prosper.

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Give it a quick What about your connection to food?

And this is more than food right for you, especially in your career and what you've built, But like even how you've chosen chose to eat and be in lifestyle and health, I just I don't know what have you learned about it is?

What is its role in your life?

When I decided to go be and I did it after watching the documentary because.

I was sick, what the hell?

Oh yeah, So my daughter came home from school, she was fifteen at the time, and she said, Mommy, we saw this documentary at school.

I think you should watch it.

And it was what the hell?

So me and my husband was like it was on net place.

We was like, okay, let's watch it as a family, and they started talking about not all diseases are hereditary, right, Sometimes things run in the bloodline and it reacts to the food because everybody's eating the same food.

So I started to think, like, Okay, my mama died at fifty one of a rare disease.

Als there's no cause or cure.

At the time I did it was sixty five.

He's now seventy three or just curting seventy four.

He's the oldest man to ever live in our family at seventy three years old.

Wow, right, And I thought it was similar reasons.

Similar license.

They have massive heart attacks, strokes, all these you know things are just happening.

They die young.

And so I just thought, well, I've tried every drug the doctor has offered I.

I I even was getting like shots in my head.

I was getting all kinds of stuff.

I was a guinea pig, but I had not tried that.

And so I was like, well, maybe I do a thirty day Beacon challenge.

And I asked my husband, like, can.

We do it together?

And he was like, y'all do it with you.

I was like, cause what I have to lose.

In the first ten days of doing this challenge, that headache I had every day for a year and seven months disappeared Wow, and I was like, okay, I'm onto something, right, So I continued.

Even after thirty days, I decided this is going to be my life.

I don't know how it happened, but people started to see me different.

They would be like, you seem like you just have this light and I'd be like I do.

They were like, I don't know your skin is going.

I was like, maybe it's I'm even gland.

I'm drinking water, you know.

And I wasn't a bad eater before.

I haven't had read meat a pork in over thirty years.

I'm allergic to dairy like most of us.

And I was a very mindful eater, but I was never eating to feel well.

I used to eat to look.

A certain way, which is also a sickness, right, because now that's like like I don't care if it's hurting me as long as I look good.

That's not good, right.

What I found in being vegan after healing myself, you start to read more, and you start to you know, do different events that are begging events, and you get invited all these things, and then you start realizing, like, oh, I started connecting the animal to the food.

And I was like, I'll never be the you know, a person that make anybody feel bad for what they're doing, because I will be hypocrite, Like I'm the only vegan in my house.

Right.

But I started to do this research about chickens.

Right, chickens because of the high demand for them, they're doing this mass producing of them.

They're always in a constant state of panic.

They're having panic attack after panic attack.

Now, when I was sick and I had manic panic attacks, I eat chicken every day.

And so I just started in prayer and writing down and research, and God was like, there's a sand You are what you eat.

And I was like, I was eating manic, panic, fear, all the things that I had been feeling.

This is my own journey for myself, my own feelings inside.

And then I just was like, I also kept doing like I'm going to die.

I was eating death every day.

Then I started to eat things that were alive plants, and I started to feel more alive, and I just, I don't know, I just my mind got more clear, right, But then I had more compassion.

I always loved animals, but I never connect them to the plate.

It's just because you go to the store, they ain't gonna show you.

You go, you don't you know, chicken ain't gonna be no chicken sitting there looking at you like, it's just gonna be the meat, you know.

But I started to see it differently.

Yeah, And I would go.

To sanctuaries and spend time with them.

Even with the pigs.

You know, everybody says, you know, pigs are these like builthy animals, right, They're so smart.

They're the smartest animal.

They will not use the bathroom where they eat.

If they're the dirtiest animal.

Why do they do that?

They say that because they roll in the mud to cool off.

That's how they get their skin from getting burned.

Right, But they're also so amazing.

You can take a farm pig right and put it into the wild and it will grow hair and tusk to blend in, to become wild.

I said, say what now, I couldn't believe it.

I said, how you do that?

Talk about God's creation?

God said, I'm gonna protect you so you can blend in over here.

It just blew my mind.

Cows are like big dogs, you were like, right, Like, I mean, I won't eat it no way.

But I just like, as I was learning, they're just I mean, my dream is to, you know, move back to the.

South, get me a whole bunch of land and get animals.

But I really want a cow so I can raise it like a dog, so I can just show people, like, look at this right.

They are so smart.

They they're playful, like you see a young Oh my god, girl, look up cows playing.

You can do that.

They'll go get the ball, bring it back with that.

It is the it's mind blowing.

I'll be telling my husband all the time, I'm gonna you're gonna come home one there's gonna be a cow right here, and I'm.

Raising just like a dog.

There can't come in the house.

And I got to draw the line somewhere because I don't know if you can train when you use the bathroom and stuff and.

They get big.

But you have those little miniature ones in like other countries.

I might get me one of them.

Yeah, absolutely do it.

That's my dream.

One day I'm gonna have them.

And so how many years now have you been eating like that?

Eight years?

Eight years?

Wow?

Yeah, eight years?

Whole life changed.

It saved my life and changed my life.

Yeah, I'm just so grateful your parents.

Ever, my daddy went began him and my stepmam for two years, and I'm so grateful for the two years that when he did go right in the beginning, it was about it was March yet March twenty eighteen, he was like, we're gonna try it, and I you know, it was still new for me.

And in October he had a stroke and I had to fly home because they were like, oh, they found like this, you know, leak on the brain, all the stuff, they're gonna have to do brain surgery, like it was bad.

Had the airlift hi because I'm from a small town, so they had a airlift him from on a helicopter to the next biggest city to the hospital.

So I get there.

He's in intensive care.

Now, mind you, I was talking to my daddy on the phone.

I'm daddiest girl.

So me and my dad, you know, we talk every day.

He was at work.

This is before he retired.

He's worked at the meal in the factory and me and my daddy we have a thing that you know, we we call each other every day.

So when we answered the phone, if I s if I call him and he'll say, uh, you know, I'll say.

Bruce Thomas, what's going on?

Man?

And he'd be like, ain't nothing going on?

What's going on?

Tap?

Like we just do that.

And so I called him and when he answered the phone, I said, Bruce Thomas, what's going on with you?

Man?

And he said, well, I don't know.

I'm sitting here at my desk and I'm trying to write my name.

I can't write it.

I said, there are you having a stroke.

There are you having a stroke?

Cause the strokes also are in my family.

You caught him in that.

In that moment, I called my sister.

I said, go go to the meal.

Daddy having a stroke.

He said, well, I can't have a stroke.

I got too.

He's also a barber the barber shop right by the meal and so I can stroke cause I got two heads to cut.

The dass it, diddy, you you got to go to the hospital.

You are having a stroke.

So my sister I call her.

She's about fifteen minutes away.

She head down.

He then left the hen left the mill, drove his truck to the barber shop and he cutting hair.

This is like you on the highway, baby, You know what you right?

I'm with you when you're right.

Now, you're right.

It's just like you that highway, my sister.

He would not leave the barber shop.

Now.

I don't know what them heads looked like when he finished cutting.

Man, you just had there having a whole stroke, and youn gave two people a haircut.

Then he went to the hospital.

Within an hour from him getting there and them scanning, is when they put him in that helicopter to fly him to say, so anyway I get there, I had to fly in.

So the doctors come.

He's in intensive care unit.

Everybody on this floor has had a stroke similar or less than the one that his chart was shown.

They were paralyzed, some of them had went blind, like literally couldn't talk everything.

Wow.

He had a slight slur, very slight.

You could barely tell he was walking.

His hand was like a little bit weak.

When they came in, they were like, well, we were going to do the surgery.

But when we checked it, the blockage like it just like it dissolved and went back into the blood stream.

And I asked, and it was a team of doctors.

They were so perplexed.

I said, tell me this, if you're seeing everybody on this floor has had a similar stroke or less than what my daddy's chart is saying.

And they're all in the condition they're in and my daddy is literally sitting up talking and can walk.

Is anybody on this floor vegan?

And they said no.

I said, my dad had been eating vegan for like six months.

And there was one doctor.

He was Indian.

He came back in after he said that is what Savior did.

Is like, wow, he said, because it didn't there was no the blood didn't thicken like it was literally just it just dissolved back into the stream whatever the medical term is.

And I said, oh, he said, I believe that that is He said, that's the only difference he's eating differently than anybody else on this little Wow.

Yeah.

I was like, well, Daddy, you see that.

But then a couple years later, what he do?

That chicken had a hold on it, and maybe that's his business.

He eat that chicken in that fish, but he don't do no red meat, no fork of that.

Maybe it was just that season that was meant to save him.

Listeners.

It was also you know, he probably thought he was in control because he'd been you know, he's supposed to had been retired.

He was working forty eight years and was like, I believe I can do another two years, Daddy.

The meal is shutting down.

Ain't nobody been in there working no more?

They had laid off almost everybody except my daddy.

Oh my god.

So but yeah, yeah, he sounds amazing.

He is.

He is.

He must be very proud of you in this moment.

He is, and I'm grateful that I made him proud.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Has he seen the movie?

He had not yet, and I was trying to everything.

I was.

I'm here, of course, and then I got to go to Alabama this weekend, so I wanted to go home in North Carolina and watch it with him.

But he's gonna watch it.

They're gonna watch it this weekend.

I'm so happy.

Congratulations, my love.

You work for it, and it's here, and it's gonna happen every year.

You're gonna have it every year.

Okay, Christmas?

Okay, there it is in real life.

Thank you, I love you, Thank you.

Hello there this tap of the Brown in real life.

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