Doing it Afraid: Not Confident but Courageous

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I'm doing a special episode with a really dear friend of mine, chardae Young, also known as Love Freely. That's how I initially knew her because we just struck up a really great friendship from us. Seeing her on stage and she kind of struck a really close relationship with my daughter just through eye contact on stage and seeing my daughter standing up front and center and my daughter just connected with you right away and I knew that there was something special about you and you didn't even hesitate to connect with her and then you came right over to us and then the relationship continued to the rest of us. I always call your band like the misfits. You know it's. You guys are a bunch of misfits that get up there and you're real and authentic and you reach people and I call it hippie church. Whenever we leave there it's like you know and we were completely inspired. So you guys are just a bunch of people that love to give back Pretty much.

Speaker 2: 1:18

You nailed it. When you said that to me for the first time, I'm like oh, you hit the nail on the head. I never knew quite what to coin the band, but that's perfect. It's a bunch of misfits who all came together to spread the light and love I guess we always wanted to receive.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Yeah, you guys are absolutely doing that. I mean, when we first came to visit and see your band for the first time, it was because your guitarist is my son's guitar teacher and he just really took to him. And now I mean your band is love.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Oh, how about that? Yes, I love that. That is, though, mikey, the lead singer, will love to hear that too, because that's pretty much it. That's what we do. You have to give what you want, what you wish to receive, and that's ultimately why my name is love freely, because I feel like that's what we all are here to do, like love is all there is and we're just making everything else up.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Well.

Speaker 2: 2:16

I'll tell you.

Speaker 1: 2:17

every single time that you stand up on that stage and I've told you this, but this is for our listeners Every single time that you get up on that stage, you are making a difference in people's lives.

Speaker 2: 2:31

That is beautiful. That's the hope, that's my entire purpose of everything I do is to be of service and hopefully just let people know that they could do it. Like whatever it is, you could do it. If it's on your heart and your mind is already yours, just get up there and do it, even if you are afraid.

Speaker 1: 2:49

See, that's why we named it this, because we're going to be talking quite a bit about doing it, afraid. You know, the reason I started this podcast was because I had a story. I had a story and so many times I had been told to keep what happened in my home a secret and not to tell the world what was going on in my life. So I have created my own platforms, and one of the things that I also did was I got a master's degree in helping people let's go and I became a director of a battered woman's shelter and rape crisis hotline and I held hands with women and children who had been raped or molested at the hospitals and I worked at the jails. And I also was in journalism and I wrote for media for eight years, trying to make a difference in people's lives.

Speaker 2: 3:43

Wow, I did not have In print.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Yes, I actually had a column called Against All Odds and I would just write from people in the community that either were making a difference or had a need and I would connect people, got houses for people. You know we did all kinds of things. You know that's my whole entire purpose. That was my purpose for getting my degrees and going in the direction I did with in the helping profession. So would you say that that's what your goal is up there on stage, because that's what it feels like.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Yeah, and that's. That's pretty much what it is. I feel like we're doing the same thing, it's just different areas, that's all it is. And I feel like, ultimately, here, in some of the things I didn't know about you, I think you just see yourself in me, like because our mission is the same, like even though I'm just singing and speaking most of the time, we have the same mission we want to feed the hearts, minds and souls of others and let them know that it's OK not to be OK and you can get through this, and I'm big on. Things are happening to you. They're really that's how we feel it Like this has happened to me, this has happened to me, but a lot of this is happening for you and not necessarily to you. And once we break that barrier to let people know that, hey, you aren't sure circumstances, these are things that have just happened around you, but it does not define who you are. So that's a lot of what I wanna pour into. People Like you are worthy. Even though this happened to you 20 times over, that doesn't diminish your worth as a human being. So that's my big. Thing.

Speaker 1: 5:29

It doesn't define you. There it is. I just saw an article about Mariska Hargitay, who was Olivia Benson on SVU. I don't know if you watched it.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Yeah, I love Olivia Benson yeah absolutely.

Speaker 1: 5:42

I know she's been doing it a long time and she just came out in an article saying that she had been raped herself 30 years ago and it was something that she really had and has let people know. But now she is telling her story. But we all know that what her purpose on that show is, which is really amazing that she's been able to pour that hurt into that show. But her mantra in life she asks herself this question what would you do if you weren't scared? And that really hit me where I live, I gotta tell you. I mean, you said you live afraid and I do it all the time.

Speaker 2: 6:24

Yeah, you have to do those things, and that's a good mantra, because if you hide behind the fear, you'll never really realize anything you want. So just do it anyway. Like a big part of you, even knowing who I am, it's me doing it anyway. It's like I used to have. I guess you call it stage fright, but I would have full of which anxiety attacks before I would get on stage like hyperventilating, everything. When I first started this four years ago, like going out and performing, it was even though I went to church and I sang in front of thousands of people. It was a different experience being on the stage. I don't know why, because it's innately the same thing, but it would freak me out and I just did it. And then eventually it got easier and it just gets easier and then you realize you really had no real reason to be afraid. So I think you find everything. Everything is found on the other side of fear. So you just have to step your foot in on the other side of it to see that I had no real reason to be afraid anyway.

Speaker 1: 7:36

I say that all the time, yeah, that you said it every single time. And we've actually done episodes on stopping short of success. Yeah, and it's like stopping right before it's gonna happen. And I've done that in my life and I talked about that on this podcast because when I was 11 years old, my dad it was one of the most successful times in my life because I was a really great swimmer, was traveling all over the place and when I was at a swim meet, my dad died, oh my goodness. And I made that association. You know this and this my dad died, success. And every single time I got to the point where I was right on the verge of success, I would stop myself because I just I associated it with my dad's death every single time. So, and then there were other times in my life where that would happen, but I too, have been to the point of such a stage pray, and it's really interesting that God has called me to speaking because I was that kid in the room that was the quietest kid in the room. I'm autistic myself and my uh, what normally shuts down with me? One of the first thing that shuts down with me when I'm nervous is my voice. So when I get up in front of people and I used to be a preacher in the jails, you know my heart would be pumping. I would be scared to death. I would be up on stage with all these women in the jail looking at me in the chapel and I'd be like you know what? I am scared to death, but I did what you said I would get up there anyway. One of the best things you said to my daughter, who's eight years old and scared to death of singing and she's got a beautiful voice and she's like I'm not doing it and your story to her of explaining to her how afraid you have been doing it but you get up there and do it anyway, is a mission. You know it's something that we're telling her all the time, so hopefully you know she will get up there and do that too.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Yeah, you just gotta be placed in those situations. I think I had to say fear, but fear is a good thing. Now I'm seeing it as a good thing because if you're not a little scared of it or it doesn't sound insane, then it's not really something worth it. And then once you get to the other side of it, that's when you feel that accomplishment, that's when you feel like, hey, once you do it one time, you know that you can do it a million times over. So if she gets on that one stage whether it's a school play, it could be 10 people in the world and she does the thing. The next time the thing comes up, she'll do it, cause it's like oh, I did it. I did it and it was okay. You know I made it to the other side. She'll still be a little afraid cause it took me almost a year of like singing and venues to just go out there and be okay with being out there and then it'll take. I noticed it took like three or four songs in. Now I'm comfortable but honestly, until I got in Apostle Jones. Apostle Jones is where I really felt free. I've sang with so many people but once I got in that band it just felt like it was okay to just be me and it just made it better for me.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Right, You're in Apostle Jones, which is a band that was rated like the best in Cleveland or something like that. I mean, and I attest to that you guys are. And then you're also. You have your own band called Mixed Feelings. Yes, and then my sister.

Speaker 2: 11:25

Yeah, oh, is honey your sister? Well, she's not my real sister, but we call each other sister, okay. So yeah, honey's also in Apostle Jones, and her and I created Mixed Feelings in 2019 before we got into Apostle Jones. I think we joined Apostle Jones in 2021.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 11:47

All right.

Speaker 1: 11:47

And then you also do some side a side band.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:52

You know what band is that again.

Speaker 2: 11:54

It's so much. So. A new vibe is also three best friends, so me honey and Journey Blue. A new vibe is more spoken where hip hop, neil Soul, so I have two of my own bands, and then I sing with Apostle Jones, and then I sing background with Trapordellic now and then so many other people, so we basically background singers for different entities.

Speaker 1: 12:24

Which you and I have had this discussion Mm-hmm that you, you could actually be at the forefront by yourself. You don't need to be somebody's background singer, I mean, if that's where you're comfortable and that's where you wanna be. But it's just. I've seen you and I've you know, I've recorded you singing and it's just so beautiful. You're angelic when you sing and I guarantee if you went on the voice you would get a four chair turn.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Oh, thank you. That means a lot Cause that's a lot of my fear. So to hear you say that and honestly, the last few months I've been hearing that and I think it's a lot of God calling me out because I like to hide myself it's like, okay, I've gotten comfortable with this, but I've always felt like I wasn't good enough to sing front. I don't know what that is. I think it's cause my voice is different and so I grew up singing in church and church has a sound and, excuse me, I've never had that sound. My voice is kind of soulful and just different. So I felt kind of I don't wanna say other cause nobody really too much made me feel bad about it, but I've always felt like I didn't have the voice to be up there. Even though I can hold down the harmony, I didn't have the look or whatever was needed, whatever I told myself and I did have a few people say you know, you can't sing. So I think that's a lot in the back of my mind, to where it's like I'm more comfortable with having people around me, like they can shield me, but I want to be a solo artist, like that's my. I envision myself doing it, but it's. That's another fear situation. So that's gonna be another thing that I have to just do, afraid and see how it works. But to hear people tell me that I can and that I'm capable, it means a lot, cause that gives me a push. So thank you for that and that's just. I'm proof that you could be knee deep and success of what people consider to be success in different bands and different entities and still be afraid of certain things, of certain heights. And having a fear of success is a thing too. Like you said, when you get to the top of the mountain it's like oh no, cause you're associated, you associated your success with something traumatic. So with me, I'm just afraid. I guess, to be honestly, don't know why I'm so afraid in that area. I guess it's just to be alone and there's no one else there to fall back on and you only hear me. So I don't know what that is. It might be that, but I'm in a season to where that's another fear I'm trying to conquer.

Speaker 1: 15:19

Well, if you'd like to hide, if it's just you, you can't hide.

Speaker 2: 15:26

Right. So it's just like, okay, I can't say, all right, honey, saying this part, it would just be me, it would just be me. So I'm thinking is that because I've been trying to search my mind as to why is it that I haven't done it? If it's something I want to do and it's another fear, I assume. And then I have people like you was like oh, you can do it, I can see you on a voice like me. Personally, I could never see me there, because all the voices I've seen there is like no, not for me. I don't know why, but I do feel like that.

Speaker 1: 16:01

Well, you remind me of some people that have gone all the way to the finals. So I don't know.

Speaker 2: 16:06

Thank you, thank you. That means a lot. You have no idea. It means a lot. So it's just about me being comfortable within, my voice being different, I guess. And then I always tell myself sometimes you got to believe. If you don't believe in, you believe the things that others are saying. Believe the good. We are so quick to believe in the negative. We attach to the negative things people are saying. Like when children, you thought a child bad, now they just think they're a bad person. But when someone says you're a great person, you can sing very well, we should believe that just as wholeheartedly as we are so quick to believe the negative. So I'm trying to adapt that, adapt that into my life as well.

Speaker 1: 16:49

You know it's amazing that you have these messages because you're also a teacher and you were. You know, on the weekends or whenever you do these gigs, you do your music and you're up on stage, but you also, during Monday through Friday, you know you're in the classroom and you're making a difference in children's lives. So I mean you have dedicated your life to making a difference.

Speaker 2: 17:16

Yeah, that's pretty much it for me and everything I do. I feel wholeheartedly that we're all here to serve. A lot of us have forgotten that, but I think we're here to serve the collective Like each and every last one of us are in this cosmic dance together whether we like it or not. So to me, we best get along and love on each other. If I can give to you, you can give to me, and I think it will innately make the world a much better place if I see there's a need in you and it could be as simple to say hey, you look beautiful today. I tell my students that all the time is, look at the person next to you and just say something nice about them that can change the trajectory of that person's week, month, year. Just you saying I love the way you dress, I love the way you come in with a smile. Because they could have, they could be a home getting abused, anything could be going on and all they needed to hear was that they look good, they're a good person, you make me happy. So you have no idea what the hello. How are you that could have made a person's life a world of different, because no one ever asked them how they felt.

Speaker 1: 18:29

You know we have this thing on the podcast, especially with my guest co-host. We talk all the time. Her name's Denise Bard. We talk all the time on these 30 second moments and how you can make a difference in somebody's life for just 30 seconds. Yeah, because she's talked to people that have as teachers, who have said you know, but I've got 30 kids in my classroom, I don't have that much time and she's like, yes, you do. I mean, the things that have made the biggest difference in her life was she didn't have, you know, a really great mom, and so she had a draw picture of her and her mom and you know something that they were doing in school and she can look back and the teacher just putting her hand on her and smiling and just those were the kind of things. As she looked at her picture and she was scared to death. What is the teacher going to think? You know, because I'm not putting anything out there like all the other kids, the teacher is just like you know, and I feel you, I got you, I understand you and that's all it took you know it doesn't. It doesn't take much.

Speaker 2: 19:35

It does not and I think we just make. We make we tend to make things harder than I have to be. Just a simple care, like you said, a touch on the shoulder you can feel where energetic being, so you can feel when someone's in a space, you can feel it. So just, hey, you can offer a hug, offer a handshake, that alone, that's it. Or just you're doing great at life, but that's it. Because that person may be thinking they're struggling, you can say you're doing, you're doing good at this thing called life. That can change them from being a doubt, being bogged down, and say you know what, I did, enough today and I can move on. And it's simple, simple things, especially with children. A lot of it is attention based. Our babies like a lot of attention and so just say hey, girl, I see you. But people just want to be seen. Even adults, people just want to be seen. So just see them in Reverend's beauty. When you see it is beauty in everything. It could be something as simple as a curl in someone's hair. I love your curl. Just reference it, just represent the beauty you see is huge. I think it was a color purple, where she said you can't, you shouldn't walk past the color purple and not smile or something I'm paraphrasing, but just something simple as the color purple, just every time you see it and just saying God did that or you shouldn't walk past anything you deem is beautiful and not represent speak to it. And it's beauty in everything, even the worst the person. So if you focus more on the light and things, it'll bring more of the light out. So especially the children we deem is bad, I try to make sure I point out the good. You know you're a great reader, even though you're causing the ruckus in my class I point out hey, you're awesome reader. Because they probably always hear I am bad, I am bad, so they're going to just be that. That's what they think they are now.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Well, my son and you you know a little bit about this, is you and I have talked about this. I mean, he's just not going to school because of how a teacher made him feel, and it's all about how we feel and kids and adults, but especially kids, will always remember how you made them feel. So I mean now we're looking at other schools and we're trying to figure out how to help him come out of this and, like you said, you have no idea where somebody's been, what's going on in their life, and just a simple smile and letting them know. And that's what you do on stage and you do it. I mean, how many people were at that Cleveland concert? Like thousands, I forget it was like 30.

Speaker 2: 22:24

At the 35.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Yeah, there were so many and you were on stage and the things that you were saying. You were so eloquent with your speech that you know you. I guarantee you were touching every single person there, making them believe in themselves and knowing that they had purpose.

Speaker 2: 22:42

Yep, and that's major. That's a huge thing for me. Everywhere I go, I have to say that, and I don't even know what I'm saying. It's just something comes to me and it's like I need to speak to the masses If I can get a mass amount of people in the room. The first thing I'm going to do is tell them that they are loved, because so many people walk around, walk around daily, and they don't feel it. They don't feel loved, whether it's systematically from their parents, from the school, they feel other. So, no matter what you're facing, know that you're loved, know that you're worthy, know that you can get out of it. And every day and every way we're getting better and better. It's one step at a time and a lot of us we don't know that.

Speaker 1: 23:31

Can you remember the times in your life at growing up? I mean, do you know the people that made that difference in your life and made you feel special?

Speaker 2: 23:40

Honestly I would say everyone around me. Mostly I was the baby girl. I was the baby girl, I was the first granddaughter and I was the youngest. So everywhere I went like from my mom, from my dad I was being told, I was loved, I was being lifted up. I don't have like a tragic childhood story. I was poured into by my church family. I have a large family in itself where we poured into each other and they poured into me. They all allowed me to just be myself. But like I had cousins, I got to see other people. I learned at a young age to have empathy and I could see everyone was an experienced love. I had childhood friends, even cousins, and then my mom adopted two children who came from totally different circumstances. But they never experienced being told I love you. So they never experienced being a part of a family dynamic. So even as a young child I would take my allowance and go by the girl at school some tennis shoes, because hers was down and people were picking on her. Or I knew how to braid hair younger and if somebody here was messed up I'd braid their hair so they can go to school and feel like everyone else. So I've kind of always been of service in that sense, and I couldn't stand bully, so I was the person who would defend people from bullying, and that's just carried me throughout my whole life. And then I had, as an adult, experienced things where I was othered. So I did experience situations where I was othered, but as a child, my mom, my godparents, they all kind of poured into me love and also accountability and just service. Everybody around me are service workers. My mom's a nurse, my stepdad is a well, he was. He's a retired detective, so everybody around me was kind of at service, so all I know is service. My grandmother fed the community. This is where I came from, but I also got to see other people's struggles, and a lot of people's struggles is that they just haven't experienced the other side, so they don't think that it exists. All they see is pain, so they associate that pain with themselves. So my job for me is to let them know that, no, what's your mom and dad went through or put you through really had nothing to do with you. It had everything to do with their own personal trauma and all they were doing was loving you with all the love they had. So thank them for what they did give you, because to them that was love. That's all they knew, or they were fighting their own demons. So now you go out here and you create your own experience of love or what you needed from them, because ultimately, anybody in our lives are just giving us all the love that they have. We only know what we know, you know, and then it's up to us to create the lives you want and to surround ourselves with people and information to let us know that we are whole, we are OK and I could do anything. So that's how I don't know. I don't have most people around me lift me up, and I'm thankful for that. Even in my adulthood, I'm surrounded by people who lift me up, and I think that has a lot to do with attracting the energy that I am.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons that we connected, Because we have that same more like that kindred spirit. We have that same kind of attraction where and I don't want toxic in my life and I like to draw really great energy to me and I felt that about you immediately and I've had a different growing up than you did, but what I've done is I've turned all the pain and everything into giving and I don't want to focus on the negative part of it and there's so much healing and so much that we can give to others, even through the pain that we've experienced. And that's part of what I see with you up there. Even though you have gone through I had a great growing up I can still see the pain and the vulnerability with you when you are up there and with all the other BAM members that are up there. One of the things in that Mariska article that I read is that you can be vulnerable and be a badass at the same time. Yeah, I love that man. I was just like that's me and I think that that might be you as well, Because I kind of catch that with you a little bit.

Speaker 2: 28:54

I think my vulnerability makes me a badass, if that's making sense. I think a lot of us just being vulnerable is simply being you. Yeah, I think once you get to a place where you're you, you're no longer identifying with your parents, you're no longer identifying with the religion you were raised in, you're not identifying with the job title you have, once you strip or detach yourself from all the things that you do and realize they don't equate to who you are, that makes you vulnerable and that, to me, makes you a badass, because you have the courage to stand up in the room and just be you.

Speaker 1: 29:41

We're going to cut off the interview with Chardae Young right here, but stay tuned next week because it is going to continue and she has so much more amazing things to say. Thank you so much for listening and see you next time I'm on it.