A Song About Overcoming & Giving Into Brokenness -

This may sound a little corny but I wanted to do a “behind the music” post on my recent video and song about overcoming. Not for some vanity reason but because I REALLY REALLY wanted to make a song to encourage those who are struggling and I want to make a video that showed that. I wanted both a song and a video that not just spoke about going through hard times but would also give you healing and hope in the MIDST of your brokenness. When you watch the video it is not your traditional uplifting song, but it is real, and that is what I wanted to show and that is what I wanted to portray. Because that is how brokenness feels. Not some happy go lucky the sky is blue and everything is peaches and cream. When you watch the video it may be a little intense, You can watch the video below and also don’t forget to subscribe to my channel by clicking here.

I know when I was going through my hardship that is the last type of video that I wanted to hear everything was not peaches and cream. So I wanted this video and son to be real. Before we get into it quick facts: A few months ago I put out a song for single moms (which you can click here to read about) not because I wanted to be a singer but because God is on this whole thing where He is MAKING me (YES MAKING ME) step out of my comfort zone. Therefore, before we get into the point behind the video and song I want to make some points:

You have gifts, use them, and share them with the world.

I like to sing and write music but I never considered them as gifts and I just shared them with myself. It is out of fear that we choose NOT to do things or because we do them so much we do not realize that they are actually gifts. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. And God was right by the way, I loved making this video, this song, and it pushed me to be creative and to encourage others in a way that I had not thought of.

If God wants you to do it He will make away.

I did carry this song and video making out for months before creating it. I didn’t even know if I would put it out. We often make a lot of excuses but the fact of the matters is, I was able to make this song all by myself for like no money. Written, sing, produce, and even video shoot. Not to brag but to show you that if you want to share or do something then you can if you REALLY wanted to. (affiliate links)

And I used some broken behind headphones to hear myself. No, headphones are not expensive but there was nothing wrong with my broken ones so I used them. It is not about the cost of something, but about what you do with what you have.

The first lesson about overcoming is this.

If I can overcome the fear of putting myself out there. Looking a hot mess, for the world’s judgment (because you know how people are), then you can overcome in the privacy of your own home. Now on to the meanings behind the songs and how it can help you through your overcoming journey:

I could show you better than I could tell you.

I think because so many times people see me with this wonderful smile on my face with degrees that they seem to think that things were never hard or like I may have never endured suffering. I have and I have written on it on my blog before and have even made videos on it before. But regardless of that I still get messages or those who tell me stories and even comments from others and even as I offer them hope I can see them wanting to brush me off. Thinking I do not understand and not knowing what I am talking about.

I have degrees, I am smart, I am smiling, I must be lucky…. what do I know about suffering and pain? If only I knew what it was like to walk a mile in their shoes then (fill in the blank). I know that because I used to be the same way. I did not want to hear what anyone was saying to me. When I was depressed, broke, suffering, and life sucked I did not want to hear their positive words or none of that. They were lucky I said and I was not. And now flash forward a few years and I am that person. The lucky person that has not seen pain because I do not look like I have seen pain.

This is why I wanted to show you that visual representation and I even wanted to look a mess on camera for you because that is legit how Iooked at that point in my life. I just walked around the house with matted hair all depressed all the time.

I wanted you to feel what I was saying so that if you saw what I looked like at that point ( I probably looked worst because my skin was bad and my hair was dry). When you don’t take care of yourself it’s all a hot mess. But, if you saw me then and saw me now then you will know that things can change and that this moment in life is not your FOREVER and that you can CHOOSE to move on.

In my “ways to get over depression blog,” someone commented that getting over depression is not just about changing your mindset and that I make it seem so easy. It is NOT easy, but A LOT overcoming anything is about changing your mindset. I know that first hand (click here to read my story on anxiety and depression) so I do not just say this because of I a mental health professional or some person on the internet, I say it because I know it. And I have lived it and I know what I did to come out it and I know what will happen if you stay in it. And that is what this song is about.

How can a song help you overcome anything FOR REAL FOR REAL

In the video below, I spoke about how to hear from God. And we know that music can have healing properties from the Biblical account of Saul and David:

Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented and terrified him. Saul’s servants said to him,

“Behold, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord now command your servants who are here before you to find a man who plays skillfully on the harp; and when the evil spirit from God is on you, he shall play the harp with his hand, and you will be well.” 1 Samuel 16: 14-15

So it came about that whenever the [evil] spirit from God was on Saul, David took a harp and played it with his hand; so Saul would be refreshed and be well, and the evil spirit would leave him. 1 Samuel 16: 23

Music can bring about healing in many ways for a lot of people notice in this case it was a harp. Music, can heal, touch, and do many things for many people in many different ways. For me personally, I like using words in my music and telling a story. Which brings me to…

Telling You A Story About Brokenness

This is why, if you were to listen to the words of this song it is like a dialogue. One that we may to ourselves or one that we may even have with God. I know, it was a conversation that I had with God when I was in my season of suffering and being broke. I had this conversation so many times with God, if it was within God’s ability to change things then why won’t He?

I think this is a conversation that so many people have with God that so many Christians are afraid to tell people because we are not supposed to be mad with God. These are not things that we are supposed to say as Christians. We are supposed to always be filled with the joy of the Lord and never disappointed. But we are, I was, and sometimes that disappointment is directed toward God.

God does not resent or hate you for this because God already knows you. This is why as a Christian I wanted to show you the brokenness in its true form. Not to mask or hide it and what REAL people do. Christian or not to conceal it and sometimes it is not always happy.

The Brokeness can be:

In the video I showed drugs as the brokenness, I chose that because drugs are something that is obviously harmful, that you put in your body, that can kill you, and it is addictive to the point that you cannot get away from it. Your body has a chemical response to the drug and as it becomes apart of you, you cannot get rid of it. A drug is something that can destroy you and most people have a “drug” even if it is not a literal drug.

It could your mental health, depression or anxiety for example. It could be self-esteem, it could hardship, it could be hopelessness, feeling directionless, abandoned, being lonely, depression, feeling unlovable and using sex to feel validated. A “drug” could be a lot of things. But it is that thing, that it is within us that we cannot seem to shake but we KNOW is dragging us down.

And like that drug in the video, it is not as simple and just saying a prayer and poof everything is better again. Some prayers work like that but there are some hard times in life that you go through for years at a time and you feel like “no matter what you do” nothing is working, which is something that I said in the song. That is the type of pain that I wanted to show.

Not the pain of having a bad day, but the pain that you “feel” you cannot get rid of or the long-standing pain you “feel” you cannot do anything about. And maybe even the pain you blame God for or the pain you want God to stop but He won’t. The one that you keep praying about BUT you still do not see any changes for months or even years at a time and you just don’t care anymore, which will lead some people to try to cope on their own. Which I also showed in the video.

Trying To Cope In Your Own

As people, we like things that are within our control. We like to cope on our own, we do not like to trust in the unseen and that is God, even though we should. Yes, we love God but when things are going out of whack we are the FIRST people to take things into our own hands to try to fix them. That can be good at times and it can be bad. When what we are trusting in does not work well, or is bad for us, then that is when we have a problem.

I talk about this in my book for single women and also in my Samaritan woman blog where this woman was using men to feel a void in her. That is why she was married so many times and was jumping from man to man. To cope with an unseen issue, that she had a void in her and she was filling it with men, something women still do today.

Now, back to the video,

In the video, you will notice I was taking pills and I was drinking. As a mental health professional, I am not against medication BUT WHAT I WILL say time and time again that medication for mental health is not a cure, you still need to learn to cope. Medication like most medication is a chemical that masks the symptoms of what it is medicating.

So even if you are depressed or have anxiety, then I urge you to go to counseling to learn actual ways to deal and not just rely on medication. I have ADHD all day every day and do not take pills because I was born in a day where when I got diagnosed the doctor told my mom how to deal with it, not to medicate it. So although I am VERY ADHD, I have harnessed a way that works for me.

I noticed my ADHD right there because I got off-topic back to the medication point I was making. Medication is not healing, but just covering up the symptoms. Even if you are not taking prescription drugs, regular drugs or even alcohol (the overindulgence) you are simply self-medicating so that you will not feel the pain.

Think of it like this, when I got my wisdom teeth removed the doctor gave me medication. I did not feel pain when I took this STRONG medication and I decided to eat something, which my stitches burst open I did not feel it because of the heavy medication. But when the medication wore off I felt that pain. Because the pain was still there. Me taking the medication did not heal me, it just masks the pain.

That is why I showed the drugs in the video both prescription and illegal and how it was not helping. Because there was a deeper issue. Healing needs to take place and not just something someone can take to numb themselves from the pain but to heal from the pain. Which is why we see in the video her getting worse.

You can Overcome But Then You Can Choose Not To

Remember when I told you about that internal dialogue between God and me? Well, God would always talk back. This is why if when you listen to the song and watch the video you see this back and forth one encouraging voice and of course the depressed one.

You know the voices that say

“ I regret being born” maybe you may want to die, waste your life, want to give up, telling God to kill you, asking God why did He create you, cursing the day you were born, and just all the rest of it right? All of which is very normal by the way (or maybe not normal) but humanly. In fact, we see Elijah (one of the greatest prophets in the Bible by the way) do it when Jezebel threatened to kill him. He called himself running off into this woods with this whole dramatic scene asking God to kill him:

And Elijah was afraid and arose and ran for his life, and he came to [b]Beersheba which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there. But he traveled a day’s journey into the wilderness, and he came and sat down under a juniper tree and asked [God] that he might die. He said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 1 Kings 19: 4

BUT my point is this will you choose to feel sorry for yourself or will you choose to stand in your power. Elijah chose to stand in his power going back, calling fire out of the sky and killing the men of Jezebel. OR you can choose death.

What is death?

Death is like a drug. In the video, I chose to be very literally with death. In this case, I was pretty young, and no matter, if I died of an accidental overdose or killed myself, it was not the point. The point was this:

That I had a lot of life to live and that I caught up in a bad season in my life that I decided to die instead of getting over it. And literally, you have the “me” from beyond the grave, here to warn me to hang on to my life. Because here she was dead (where the living person wanted to be) and the dead person was telling her “NO YOU WANT TO LIVE.” And that is the overall message for whatever that “death” is to you. And that is what God told me.

You can sit here and cry, waste every day doing nothing, drinking, self-medicated, cursing the day you were born, wishing you were dead, putting yourself in situations where you may die, or even killing yourself that will not do anything or get your anywhere. When I took a suicide prevention workshop the instructor gave an interesting account of survivors who attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and of course, it is called an attempt because they survived.

The moment they let go, they snapped back into their senses and realized something. They did not want to die, that the problems were not that serious, and that with more time, more patience, more understanding, and if they had just (fill in the blank) everything would have been okay.

And that is what the struggle is about. The “dead me” is the one who knows that and is trying to warm the living me but she just won’t listen and she is bent on just dying. But in the end, that split moment of death where she screams it is like that letting go at the Golden Gate bridge, realizing that you don’t want to die. But now it is too late because she is dead and has turned into the woman in black the same woman back from the dead that tried to keep her from making the mistake in the first place. (DEEP RIGHT).

Even this moment in the mirror was just the “dead me” missing just being human. Maybe the “vanity” side of it but looking in the mirror and putting on makeup. While regular me was looking a hot mess the same things she took for granted.

The Overall Message About This Song On Overcoming

That you can overcome any and everything no matter what it is. We all have struggles, some are worst than others but you have to get through it. Sitting it, standing still, or remaining stagnant will get you nowhere. And whatever your adversity or hardship is just a moment in time. It is not your forever, the moment you allow it become your forever that is where you will live. Missing your out on a great life and destiny that God has for you. And you have to think to yourself, do you want that? You do not have to be a victim of life or just let it happen to you. You can be apart of the healing.

If you know someone who may near to hear this song or perhaps you may just need to hear the message behind the song then share this blog post with them.

A Song About Overcoming & Giving Into Brokenness