Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - Wings of Forgiveness w/ Layla Ellaisy

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Did you know that wielding unforgiveness as a weapon reveals to God that W.E. don’t trust Him to protect us? Liiisteeen…if you can’t say amen, say ouch! This week on the podcast, SJR linked up with the thought-provoking Layla Ellaisy to discuss healing and intimacy with God. You see, Delegation, W.E. gotta do the hard work that goes into living a soft life. Our guest co-host shares her journey of suffering in silence and seeking validation in all the wrong places. It wasn’t until the release of emotional pain that Layla truly began to experience freedom. Sis, this episode finna have you soaring to new heights in the presence of God—don't say W.E. didn't warn you! Holla at us if you wish to co-host by emailing [e-mail]. Plus, hit up our sponsors at FirstRepublic.com + Lululemon.com + Bombas.com/Evolve + Noom.com/Evolve. Just in time to meet your holiday spending, gifting, & grubbin’ needs!

God can't bless you for ten to be or who you compare yourself to. He can only bless you and the lane that was created for you. I feel that for somebody. You don't need no itch, itch, itch, itch, you need boundaries. What? I don't need your lights, I don't need your validation. All I need is a God, pardon for me, that's their all things. All things, all things.

Try. Right before my podcast starts, I have this intro that says, I don't need your likes, I don't need your validation. And it's true, but only a little bit true because the truth is, we do have needs. We do need to be validated. There are moments in our life where we also need to feel light. So before you call me a hypocrite though, I want to qualify your needs. This week we are talking about the revolutionary care of your needs. And my girl, Layla, is going to slide through and we're going to talk about all of the feels, the way

that we need people, the way that we have learned to let them go, adjust our expectations and just experience people. It's a really good one. I think you're going to enjoy it and I know that it's going to help give you perspective on the ultimate source for all of your needs and how to engage with those who are just servants on your journey. Let's get into it. Hey girl. Hey. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you for taking time to speak with me. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. What's the weather like in DC? Oh, it is raining and nasty and cold.

Ooh, okay. Well, I won't tell you about the weather and Dallas thing, because that's not gonna help. And we're just building this friendship and we don't want things tearing as the parts go soon. It just got started. Exactly. Well, but I love the sunshine,

so I love to hear about it. Is it in the 80s? She out today. She outside today. She's doing one needs to be done. Yes. Hopefully, hopefully you'll be in Dallas this time of the year and for a woman, you'll have 2023 and you'll get to see. Oh, my God. You're last week. I'm so excited. We just literally I was sitting here. We just broke 14,000 women coming. I have to find somewhere for us to go.

We didn't outgrow. We didn't outgrow in the potter's house, which is a blessing. I have to ask you, Layla, I was reading all about you and your story and what you are doing to uplift the voices of black girls. And I want to know, at what point in your life, did you feel silence?

Because there's no way that you see this as a need. And less one, maybe you are affirmed and always use your voice and then recognize other people didn't. Or there were moments in your life where you felt silenced yourself. Wow. Oh, wow. There are so many moments in my life where I can say I felt silenced. I think growing up as an only child, I feel like I was always searching for validation, searching for inclusion and just searching for love and transparently a lot of the wrong places. And so I looked to force relationships, to force, I guess myself into the puzzle pieces

of what I should be, whether that was according to, the standards of my parents, the standards of my peers, the expectations of a job. And I feel like there's so many moments where I was not seen, I was not heard, I was not validated. And the rhythm of the rhythm of those silent moments, it wasn't until I honestly got older that I started to really shift into seeking validation from God versus seeking validation from the world which had always disappointed me which had always made me feel small, made me feel unseen, made me feel just not enough.

And it wasn't until I really started walking with God which was in college that I guess I really started to find value in my own voice and value and showing up for that voice because there's been so many moments that I've minimized, but that I've minimized my story, that I've minimized my experience, and that I have accommodated to the needs of other people instead of advocated for what I really needed. After living in California for almost a decade, my family and I are in need of winter jackets now that we live in Dallas.

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don't matter because at the end of the day for a lot of us in our communities in our culture because our parents were working so much the best way to be a help to your parents where to stay out of the way. And if you stay out of the way, it teaches you to not have a need to not take up space. And yet, in our relationship with God, I think that we continue to show up in that way where it feels like I don't want to ask for too much. I don't want to ask for anything at all. I don't want to take up space. And I do think it creates a disconnect.

But there is growth in being able to say, I do need peace right now. I need presence. Can you tell me, what does it feel like in practice to allow yourself to be validated by God? Like, what does that look like for someone who's listening? And they're like, I wasn't validated at home. I wasn't validated with my siblings.

How do I receive validation from God? Wow, that's such a big question. So for me, I've had to go along my journey and validation in Christ through what I call a cocoon through several seasons of cocoon seasons. And so what that looks like for me is I recognize that I am a naturally social person, just with working in the human services field

and how I show up and serve and just different relationships in my life. And so with being a social person, I have created space for others to come to me and also to show up for others. But what I was starting to see along the journey and just with different patterns is that I was also creating spaces for others to give me, I guess, their opinions and their thoughts and their perspectives of what I should be

doing, specifically, I think, just thinking from an early age from my dad. And I just had to start like hearing myself in my own thoughts because I was hearing so much from everyone else. And so practically what that looked like is me having to get off a social media, because social media can be just such a revolving door of opinions, a revolving door of images of success and perspective. I had to honestly put some practical things on my phone. So I sleep with my phone outside of the room, so that I can wake up and talk to guys, that I can wake up feeling like I'm not being pulled in this direction,

and that my responsibilities, the responsibilities that I have to the world can wait, because I need to hear what God is saying in that still small voice. It looks like me having to let other people know, like, hey, I can't go out. Hey, I can't, maybe in the season that, in the previous season, I was able to show up for you

in this way, but because I'm really trying to be intentional with my relationship with God, and really hearing what he has to say because I'm hearing everything else but him. So I have to, I have to shut it out. I have to, I have to show up for myself. And transparently that has looked like losing a lot of relationships. People not necessarily understanding the perspective of, of really like turning towards God and giving him your whole heart and ridding yourself of distractions. And honestly, if I'm being completely transparent, it's been lonely.

It can get very lonely when I have transitioned into that cocoon season, you know, because all of every wanted was to be seen, to be loved and to be adored and to seek that from from God which, you know, from a worldly perspective is not some may not say that he's tangible when you're, you know, feeling the spirit in your body, but it's it has it has been difficult, but I have had to put boundaries but it has been difficult, but I have had to put boundaries on just the way that I show up in the world so that I can show up fully for him. Oh, that's so good. Waste line, wear, stressed, who?

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And check out Noom's first ever book, The Nume Mindset, A Deep Dive into Psychology of Behavior Change, available for pre-order wherever books are sold. We talk a lot about pick me, pick me, pick me behavior, that's like a new catch phrase that everyone's saying. But I think that what we're really asking for, but maybe didn't have language for, is tell me, tell me, tell me I'm beautiful. Tell me I still have worth. Tell me I still have value. Tell me I can be confident.

And I feel like that need to hear that plays out in our lives and our actions and our relationships. And what I hear you saying is that you came to a space where you were able to create space for you to just receive what God is already saying. Some of the things that we're asking other people to tell us, tell me I'm fine, tell me I'm beautiful, tell me I'm confident, tell me I'm smart. God's already said it, but because we're so busy trying to hear

it from other people, we can't receive that it's already been spoken over to us. So when we create stillness and silence and space for us to just connect with the presence of God, we are able to receive validation about what God knows to the questions that plague our own soul. And yet to your point, it does create loneliness. In that loneliness, what are the things that you tell yourself

to keep your head in the game, to keep your heart in the game? And I love, first of all, I have to tell you, I love that you admitted that it's slowing because sometimes we're like, you know, I don't need you. You don't need me. And I'm fine. We'll do, right? Until it's time to go to the movies or you just want to share something with a friend

or you want to text and check on somebody. And it's like, I don't even know who I can trust with this version of who I am. What have you been doing to keep your head in the game and not going back to people who don't serve this present or destiny version of who you are? Yeah, I think for a while when I was talking to God in that quiet time and in my cocoon seasons, it has looked like me suppressing my truth and my real emotions with God because I was, I guess,

the way that I was going to God was God as this authority figure and God as, you know, this father who would be disappointed with the emotions that I was bringing to him. And so it took me some, if I'm being transparent, it took me some time to really sit in my truth and bring those emotions to God. And so that sometimes looks like tears

that sometimes looks like tears, that sometimes looks like me, just journaling and getting all, I call it, I call it, just like brain dumping on the page and every emotion that comes to the surface, just letting it out of my spirit. Sometimes it looks like worship music and blasting it in my apartment and my neighbors coming and knocking down my door telling me to turn it down because I live in a smaller apartment. But it looks different on a day-by-day basis and I think what I'm honoring more than anything in this season is that healing and intimacy with God is not linear. Like it not even is not linear doesn't look the same season by season. And so me choosing to show up moment by moment day by day, hour by hour in my truth that all times.

It's honestly been liberating you know to get to that point where I can say God I, I'm upset. God. I'm angry. God. I need people, you know, because for so long, I think you know, over the past couple of years in since living in DC and graduating like I've moved into a space by myself and I've really taken on this like independent demeanor and this independent aura like independent demeanor and this independent aura. And subconsciously, I feel like I was putting up this armor of not needing people and when people and experiences wouldn't go the way that I wanted or there would be a lack of trust or just unforgiveness and all of those things. I would just kind of step into different layers

of my independence and think, well, you know what God? Like, I don't need them or, you know, like, I'm strong enough to handle it by myself, but what I'm, what I'm softening my heart to in this season is really just being honest and saying, God, I want people, you know, like, I want to, I want to also be able to forgive those people and forgive those experiences and forgive myself for holding, for holding these feelings and emotions hostage even from you God.

And so that has been uncomfortable if I'm being transparent. I was going to ask you. You know, I love your language. First of all, you're using all of the words that I think make people really have a moment where they have to be honest and vulnerable, but you're honoring in the sea. That is my kind of language. I'm here for it.

You know, I love that you said that you had to come to this space where you're like, God, I want people. Because it is so much easier to be like, I don't need them. I can do the single on my own. But it takes another level of vulnerability to be like, I would not like to do this on my own. I want someone to be here with me. But if you are like me, it also makes you cringe just a little

bit to be like, I need people like I'm in this season in my life where I need people. I can't do this on my own. And I don't think that we are able to have genuine connection and relationships unless we honor the fact that we need people. And because we need them, when they come into our lives, we won't treat them like they are disposable. Because I need you. I need this companionship.

I need this connection. The hardest part of my marriage has been when my husband and I realized like we need each other, which sounds probably toxic, because like, why are you marrying someone you don't need? But you know, like I wanted to be able to be like, I love you, I'm married to you, but I could live without you, but we built our lives in such a way where I do, I need him.

But it takes a lot to admit that you need people. What do you think that is? Why can't we say that? I think it really is the... I think for me, I can say, it has been suppressing this pain that has come from unforgiveness of people. And, you know, it's so much easier to, well, maybe not necessarily that easy to walk away. Like, even though even in my season where I'm like, I'm just going to take my love, I'm going to snatch my, you know, like my affection from you and I'm going to rob you of my presence because, you know, that's what's really going to hurt you, but in all actuality, that still hurts.

It still hurts to let people go, especially people that you have chosen to love, that you have chosen to see, that you have chosen to be vulnerable and transparent and even like intimate in the most intentional ways. And so it's hard to say, you know, I am hurt and to walk through that hurt with a person, you know, the person that may have consciously or subconsciously caused that hurt. But I think, at least in my experience,

I thought that it would be easier to just snatch myself from relationship and from people. But I think honestly at the root of it is intentional forgiveness. And I'm still, I'm still working through that. I'm not going to sit up here and say that I am the master of intentionally being able to intentionally forgive people for either the conscious or subconscious pain that has been afflicted. I think that I'm learning and I think that the first step is learning how to forgive myself because there's so many things that I've carried longer than I should have. So in just the

learning to forgive myself and to free myself because it honestly is freeing to say, I'm extending you Grace Layla. Like I am choosing to love you past the mistake. I'm choosing to love you through the mistake. And it's definitely not always easy, but I think in choosing to show up in that regard, I've found healing and I've found peace. Waman Evolve is supported by First Republic Bank. Have you ever experienced a relationship with a banker who was available to answer all

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So I have a thought that I'm going to have to try and formulate it with you, but I feel like to come that level of unforgiveness and bitterness that we experience after we have been betrayed or disappointed by life creates a barrier that feels like protection. And I think forgiveness has less to do about letting someone off of the hook and more to do with saying, I no longer want to feel responsible for protecting myself from this happening again. Because unforgiveness feels warm and that it feels like I'm never going to let this happen to me again.

The pain is so close to my vest that I know for sure, this person won't come back into my life and to forgive someone makes us feel like I'm going to be living vulnerable, vulnerable. You're going to be living without consequence. And I can't move on from here, but I feel like there's something to be said about saying, I am going to trust God to protect me.

I am forgiving you, not because you deserve it, not because it didn't hurt. I am forgiving you, you know, if we go Bible because I've been forgiven, but also if we just come to the soul of it because at the end of the day I wanna trust God to protect me and to cover me and I trust God can take this pain, these wounds, these shattered pieces from what didn't go right

and some kind of way still turn it to good. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person and has everything to do in my opinion with trusting God with what's left. And when you really trust that God can do something with what's left, then it's easier to let the people who did it go so that you can receive the steps for your next.

Yeah, yeah. And there's so much, there's so much liberation and freeing yourself from, from that shackle of unforgiveness. And I think in just the, the work that I've been doing in therapy, the work that I've been doing in just my own healing journey and being intentional and just choosing to uncomfortably show up, even when it feels like it's sometimes at the most inconvenient times, excuse me, that liberation that I felt, that freedom that I have felt from saying. And I think for me,

And I think for me, what has come across as being able to see the humanity in people. And I think in my own forgiveness process, when it came to the people and those experiences that I had to come to terms with and had to forgive. Whether it was like speaking specifically to a parental experience, I think that when it came to the thought of hurt and blame, I looked at it from this perspective of, well, you're this authority figure in my life. And so the fact that you made a mistake or the fact that you, you know, did it show up for me and just casting all of this blame. But I think that the healing that I've been feeling is being able to recognize the humanity

in people, even if it is someone who, you know, I should be looking at as this authority figure or, you know, and once upon a time in a different season of my life, like I expected more of, but I think to be able to see the humanity in people, no matter who it is, whether it's your best friend, your parent, your colleague, that extension of grace is helping me to heal

in deeper levels than I knew that I needed. that extension of grace is helping me to heal in deeper levels than I knew that I needed. And then also, to add to that, I'm one of the biggest lessons that I'm learning in this season is that we do not possess people, we experience them. And so in choosing to experience people and not come from the space of possession in what's mine. And if it leaves, if it changes, if it alters, I feel broken, I feel unworthy,

I feel like these spaces of lack. But no, this was an experience. And I think it really, for me, I can say it's changed my perspective to look at it from the lens of an experience versus look at it from looking at it from this lens of possession and feeling like I'm lost without or when things change and shift. It does. It does. It makes, I heard Lauren London say something similar about Nibbsi Hussle at his service. I'm wondering, with that in mind though, how do you navigate parental forgiveness

when you had a legitimate need as a child that they were unable to fulfill? How do you come to a place where you are able to experience them without no longer having that demand that they fix what they couldn't give you. I have had to, I think a lot of times when we talk about parental forgiveness, it comes down to abandonment. And I think we really speak of it in terms of physical abandonment, but the truth is that

children can experience the physical presence of their parent, but still experience emotional abandonment or spiritual abandonment. And so I think abandonment has many different masks that show up in the lives of children. And yet I do think that at the end of the day, the obligation to heal lives with the person and the person alone. So how do you do navigate parental forgiveness without possessing their inability to show up for you? You using all the words, Sarah? We must have the same therapist. Because let me tell you one thing we are over here is a woke.

Okay, I'm sure white open. I'm sure white open. My goodness. So I read this book and I'm not sure if you're familiar with Alex L. She's an internet therapist. And she wrote this book and it was called After the Rain. And it's one of those books where you pick up when you're going through like a season.

It's not necessarily a straight through read book. But in one of the chapters, she talked about comparison and she was comparing her friend's relationship with her parent versus her relationship with her with her parent. And just in seeing, you know, the difference between how they interacted, how they showed up for each other, how they seem to be connected in their communication styles, made her, once she was already carrying a lot of pain from the experience and maybe even lack of choosing to acknowledge what the experience actually was. Because as we grow and we matriculate through life,

it sometimes we don't have those aha moments until we're grown. And so, but I just remember very specifically being reading that book and being on a plane. And something about, I don't know if it's like, what I'm on the plane, I'm closer to God, closer to heaven. Totally, that's probably what it is.

Yeah. So I was on the plane and I always have these like revelations and so I just started, I just started like, I guess journaling on my phone and it's crazy because I usually journal on paper but I just felt very inclined to journal on my phone. And I just felt myself going through like these layers of release when it came to parental forgiveness, going back to the piece about just seeing the humanity in my parent and how, you know, a lot of times,

the reason why there may be spaces of abandonment or misunderstanding in relationships is because there are maybe unhealed parts of their experience that they haven't touched yet. And so just seeing that, seeing my parent as a human and saying, well, in their humanity and in their human experience, this is how they're able to show up for me in that season. And then also choosing not to cast blame for what felt like lack or what felt like abandonment, you know, because I also felt like I wasn't in that season of my life.

I wasn't able to advocate for how I needed to be loved and put words behind what I needed and what showing up looked like. And also my parent was a very quiet person, a person of few words. And so just like being able to unpack the humanity and recognize that the root is love. It's hard.

It wasn't easy. It was tears that I was dropping as I was on the plane next to the stranger. But yeah, in that moment, I was able to see the human in my father. And with that, I was able to connect on a deeper level that I don't think that I was seeing because there were these blinders of abandonment, these blinders of hurt, these blinders of resentment. But the way that I think it, and it also helped the way that Alex

had went through her process and just describing like, this is all you knew. And a lot of times we want so badly for others to either learn at the same pace that we're learning or have access to knowledge at the age that we've had access or had that aha moment earlier in life. but we have to accept that they only knew what they knew. And so that's hard. It's hard, especially as a child, looking up to your parent. But I've also had to recognize that there is liberation in mothering myself or parenting

myself back to, back to fullness. I love that. I love what you said about not necessarily everyone having the same access to knowledge because that's so true. And I would just add that in addition to having the access to knowledge, you also have to have an opening for that knowledge, because a lot of people can't have access to it, but if they don't have an opening, a hunger for it, then even the access can't fill them. But what I love in communicating with you, Laylin, I feel like we're soul sisters because you know, you can tell that we have really accessed a lot of different information about

healing, about where our heart posture needs to be in order to really receive that and we're willing to do the work, no matter how uncomfortable or awkward or lonely it might be, we're willing to put in the work to get it done. And so I just want to commend you as one woman on a journey to another woman on a journey for not just having access to knowledge, but having the hunger forward and allowing it to really metabolize into your system and become a part of your identity because it is definitely allowing your light to shine so brightly. So though you may be going through a cocoon season,

just know that it looks like you're alone. There are just other women in cocoons right beside you and when we emerged together, we're better and stronger together because we were isolated in those cocoons. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think in recognizing that we are not alone, like we are not only do we have God, but I feel like, I don't know if it's me, but I feel like over the don't know if it's, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like over the past like three, four years,

maybe honestly, it may have been through the past like decade. People have become more open to talking through truth and not presenting truth as success and happiness and healthy relationships, or because I think that's what is portrayed through this lens of social media and just technology and things of that nature. But what I love about what's happening now,

and I think that may also be because people are having to sit with themselves and having to really acknowledge uncomfortable truths within their selves and within their journeys. But what I love is that people are on it. There are people who are choosing to be transparent and vulnerable in order to break the chain for the next person who is watching, who is begging to be seen, begging to feel connected, begging to just exist within the presence of others. I feel like when we take on this task of, or not even just a task, but when we take on doing life alone, it's so heavy, it's so heavy, it can sometimes be debilitating, but when we recognize that there are other

people who are life-ing and who are trying to exist and trying to figure it out and don't have all of the answers and don't present like they have all of the answers like when we're choosing to say I am only an expert in my experience. That's enough. That's enough. So I love that we have come to a place where we're comfortable talking about mental health. We have come to a place where we're comfortable talking about discomfort and growth and killing and love and abandonment and all of these things that we as people experience so loudly but also suffer so silently.

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bombas.com slash evolve and use Cody Valk for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash evolve code evolve for 20% off bombas.com slash evolve code evolve. Layla, I love you. I love your soul. I love your heart. I love who you were. I love who you were. I love who you are. I love who you are becoming. Thank you so much for this time together. I think

it's been incredible and I know it's going to help a lot of people because it helped me as well. Oh, thank you. And just thank you for what I want to say congratulations. Like I know this is like such a wild season for you, but you have literally saved so many lives. And you have, you are so touched by God. I mean, everyone's touched by God, but the way that you honor the God that lives in you and the God that shows up in your life in such a, and such a,

like I see myself in you in so many moments, so many sermons, I've, and I know that I'm not the only one, like me and my girlfriends, so that we fangirl, like, girl, there's only that sermons, did you see that sermons? I'm not the only one, like me and my girlfriends. So that's how we fangirl. Like, girl, there's a lot of service. Did you see that service? I'm almost earning. But just the fact that you choose to show up and show out in your testimony, it's something

that has saved so many lives, including myself. And so I just thank you for being obedient. I thank you for showing up as boldly as you do. I thank you for even when you didn't want to answer the call still slowly but surely pressing the fly from God and it's something that it has saved and will continue to save so many lives. So I just, I thank you for being you and existing as you exist. Thank you, Layla. I'm going to save this little sound by and play it when that call

comes again, and I have to slide across that screen. So good. I love serving you guys. It's honestly the best thing that's ever happened to me and brought me so much closer to God. So thank you. Send my love to your girls and let them know I'll see them next year. Thank you. We're going to be at that conference. We'll be at that conference.

Don't let them show it out. Thank you. Take care. Thank you to stay safe. Bye. Bye. I hate when we get to this part. It's like we're having the best girl time ever and then they bring the check and tell us we got to go back to work. Well listen, I hope that you enjoyed this week's podcast as much as I did. I know that the love that we shared is just beginning because I'm going to be back next week and I hope that you'll be back too. We'll be laughing, growing, and most importantly evolving together.

Be like Layla, bring your girls to Woman Evolve 23. It's going down, and I want you to be in the building. Go to womanevolved.com for all of the Deets Layla. You are a gift, a light. Thank you for sharing it with us. If you want to be like Layla and share your light with us, send us a one to two minute video at podcastatwomenevolve.com so we can learn how you're growing. Now ready to do that? It's okay, you can send me an advice

question to that very same email so I can mind your business with you. All right, take care until I see you again. you you