Sex, Drugs, and Jesus

INTRODUCTION: In this bonus episode I read four dreams I had in the early morning hours of May 4th2023 and go over the interpretation.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Dream Revelation·      Dream Interpretation CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO·      Sex Addicts Anonymous: HTTPS://WWW.SAA.ORG ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: De'Vannon: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your Hoston and I'm here with another bonus episode for you called What Dreams May Come Now. The book of Jeremiah, let me see, chapter 23 and verse eight, I'm sorry. Chapter 23 and verse 28 says, the prophet that has a dream, let him tell a dream.And he, that has my word. Let him speak my word faithfully. And so I had a dream. Early this morning, and this is the 4th of May in the year 2023. And I wanted to read this dream to you and, and kind of go through it. I'm here in Port Bay right now and have, you've been following me on social media. You know, I've been doing hella drugs, [00:01:00] you know, I started with Ayaka, I moved over to some L S D this weekend I'm scheduled to do me, you know, little something different, you know, that would.You know, that we'll be talking about, you know, all in an attempt to try to heal myself or to, you know, to, to get healed. Totally invited God into all of this. From, from not just a breakup, from, from Ethan. My, my former boyfriend, the covert narcissist who you know, who I found out on Christmas morning was running around with all these men cheating when he had covid, didn't care who he was out there killing or whatever.But as my hypnotherapist, Elaine Perils was explaining this experience with, with Ethan, with the ex, you know, has cleansed me of all the narcissists that have ever impacted me in my life. And I, I went back and started counting 'em. We're working on at least like seven. These are not all people I've dated.You know, you're talking siblings, parents, [00:02:00] you know, different people I've worked with, and both of my parents are not narcissists, just my dad. And hell, it is what it is. And so, and so I've posted you know, a blog about this. I've put resources on there. There's meetup groups, there's different groups online if you've been affected by a sex addict you know, at everything like that.And so, at any rate, I'm gonna read this dream from my dream journal and we'll go back and kind of. Talk through it. I know I'm not the only person God speaks to and dreams, and I want y'all to know that you're not crazy. You don't have a hurt mind. There's nothing wrong with you. If you see things in your sleep, if you have waking visions, you know you can go on the website onto the internet.I recommend the website called dream moods.com. That's Dream moods.com. To help you sort through the interpretation of these things. You can always reach out to me through my website, sex Drugs, and jesus.com, and I can help you try to find. The meaning of what it is you've been shown. Let [00:03:00] us not discount our dreams as the Lord speaks to us in various ways.For me, it's a whole lot of dreams, but I know a lot of people dream too because I've talked about it and many of you have told me. So let me get on right into this. So this morning as I lay in my bed in Mexico, I smelled a foul spirit. My dreams. I saw Ethan and it's like maybe he was with a guy at a public event.I entered the room and was part of this event's a lineup. I was wearing all black and was singing the line from Taylor Swift's song style, which says, so it goes, he can't keep his wild eyes on the road. As I sing this, it's like I glanced with minimal effort to look over at Ethan. What I'm thankful for is [00:04:00] that my emotions remain level and calm.This was done and stated more in a matter of fact way, and I felt a sense of acceptance for the current state of things. The next paragraph, Because I had about, I had about three, four dreams, you know, you know, in rapid succession. This morning, you know, in this same morning I saw myself in like an optometrist or some other type of doctor's office.I heard my name called the first time, and I believe I went into, into speak, speak to someone. My name was called again and no assistance came. I felt like they were playing a game with me. As I stood in the hall, there were two halls on two separate sides of this doctor's office building. As I stood in the left side, I [00:05:00] hollered out loud enough for both sides to hear me asking who called davanon?It's like I wasn't going to be played with Kip. Next paragraph, I think. I think in this same office there was an older lady reading a newspaper and waiting with her older husband who seemed to be disabled. Like he wasn't moving or talking. I think the lady who plays Tina Turner's mother in, in the movie What's Love Got to do with It, with a Worker there and came out.And asked this old lady a question. She questioned the lady in a complicated way and the old lady responded the best she could and stayed calm. The worker, the lady who plays Tina Turner's mother, and what's love got to do with it, [00:06:00] told this older woman that the older woman's response was complicated and did not have to be.After this woman who plays Tina Turner's mother left us, the older woman who was hanging out with her older, even even older husband, she turned to me and said that, said that she didn't feel that she had been complicated. She didn't feel that she had complicated that conversation, that I confirmed that she had not.Tina Tina's mom had projected her complicated nature onto this older lady because she thought this older lady was a weak in feeble and that she could get away with doing it. Skip a paragraph. In the same morning I saw like I was running late. For returning to a class or group of some sort. I was called [00:07:00] to come along with some, some of the other rebels who weren't exactly back on time.But once we got to the door, I stood in front of the reception podium. They did not tell us what to do nor bring us into the room. I stood for a little bit then, then I broke ranks in in order to challenge them on playing with us like that. I'm happy to see that I am no longer willing to let anyone play games with me.So, and then these conclude the dreams that I recorded from this morning. And I'm really, really praying that the Lord begins to open many of y'all's third eyes. You know your eyes so you can see what's, what's what's happening to you like in a spiritual sense. The Lord speaks to us through dreams. So I pray and speak to y'all's vision become open, and that the Lord speaks to you in unique ways, that you're gonna know that it's him because the Lord be speaking.Just [00:08:00] gotta want to hear and see.So, so Christianity, you know, in God comes from like the Middle East O over there. Like when you're reading something in like the ancient languages Hebrew era make and different things like that. If something's doubled, then that means that it's like a sure thing. That's why Jesus would say something like, verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto you.They don't necessarily use the word very, a certain adverbs to emphasize something. If something's emphasized, they might just say it back to back or twice. In the Bible when, when the Dreamer Joseph was interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, the one about the plagues that were going to hit, really the whole earth, you know, He Pharaoh had to dream about the, the cows and the corn.The skinny cows come about. The Nile gobble up the fat [00:09:00] cows and the cows, the skinny cows, you know, are still just as skinny as they were before. Then you have the seven ears of corn. The, the, the blasted corns, the, you know, the, you know, the, the fucked up corn, you know, eats the good corn. And then they still, they look like they eat anything at all.And so that's how Joseph knew that Famine was coming to the land and he said, because the dream was double. That means the thing is, sure. Well, this here was four dreams. Okay, so, so this thing here is doubly sure and this, this all has to do with the process the Lord has been putting me through, with unraveling me from the power of narcissistic people in my life.And I'm gonna tell y'all, I looked up statistics on narcissism, and I'm not even gonna bother to tell you the bullshit because. The numbers are not high enough. There's far too many people. I was just talking to a lady today, you know, I was out on a tour at like a timeshare thing and [00:10:00] you know, she, she had to break up with, with, with a narcissist.It, they lay everywhere. They all over the fucking planet. I don't see how anybody could have a kid and, and let them start in dating. And I teach them about narcissistic personality disorder. It's, it's just everywhere. And But God doesn't God a process. You know, the Lord knew exactly who my ex was. That's why he warned me against this in the beginning. But there was a process that, that, you know, in the beginning of the relationship. But there was a process that I still had to go through, and I'm happy that this has happened.So I can share this with you. So, So the first line that I said was talking about smelling of foul spirit. A spirit, is that issue forth from Lucifer, from the devil, Satan, you know, whatever you wanna call him. I am going to be calling him Lucifer in a lot of [00:11:00] episodes moving forward because the, you know, you gotta name something what it is, and I really wanna drive home the personhood of the devil.I know a lot of people don't believe in hell. I don't believe in the devil. Okay, that's up to you. But you, but, but, but naming him for me reminds me that he is a sentient being with an individual will who likes to go out and hurt people. I. I view people with narcissistic personality disorder. We have this fancy term psychology has given them, I don't know, care if you wanna call them, sociopaths, assigned to them, istic tendencies, whatever.You know, spiritually speaking, they as is, are just evil period. Okay. Whatever the hell you want to call it. It's just fucking evil. And So when you, but, but there is a way in the spirit, like you can smell like a demonic force that comes around you and it's, it's like a wave, you know, [00:12:00] comes over you, different things can be smelled.You know, when Evangelist Nelson would, would preach in church, she could smell, you know, new life. To my knowledge, I've never smelled that before. But she could smell, you know, spiritually if like a woman was pregnant. You know, you can see in the spirit, you can sense in the spirit. You can taste in the spirit.You can smell in the spirit. There's a lot you can do in the spirit. And the Lord works in mysterious ways. So I smell this foul spirit. You and you got anything like that hanging around you. You gotta banish it and dismiss it, and it got to go. What I think it is, is I'm smelling that, that that demonic force, that possessed, or that is in possession of my ex, that was, that was controlling me through him and this whole time, and now that I've started to break away from him, that thing is acting up because it don't want to turn me loose.[00:13:00] While I've been here, not only have I been doing hallucinogenics to untie myself from Ethan, but also, but also there's a, a lady who I've met who is super powerful, super helpful. I'm gonna be listing her information on my social media later on. You know, and she's, and we, she and I started working together yesterday and consulting with the Seven Arc Angels, you know, and a few other things that Ethan and his demons won't be able to stand against.Okay. Because I realized that I was under a spiritual attack because I'll be sitting down somewhere. Just doing whatever, you know, coloring, working on whatever, writing or whatever. And it's like, it's like there's a dark force will, were used to walk up to me and try to make me sad about him. You know, sad about the relationship ending or sad about, you know, whatever, and try to make me think about, you know, who he's with or what [00:14:00] he's doing.And I was like, Uhuh. You know, I've been happy all day. This is not something that's on my mind like this. Like I could tell it was something walking up and trying to force me to not be happy. And I said, I'm glad about this in a way, because the devil cannot come and try to take away what you don't have.So Satan sees that I'm actually happy that I've been relieved and I've been free, and he's not pleased about that. You know, but I could tell that I was actually under a psychic attack with this and I was like, oh hell no. You know, we, we got to change this. I was not the one sexually insecure in the relationship to begin with, you know?And I was totally okay with us being open and working on that, you know? So whatever, you know, Ethan May or may not be doing didn't bother me when we were together. It's not gonna bother me now. You know, it was him with the issue, him with the insecurities, him with the secrecy, him with the line. I'm like, I'm not about to be bothered about this now.You know? It's not gonna happen that way. I got my own life to live [00:15:00] and so, and so, I've been really, really battling this and so I, I smell this falmer, and if you ever smell a devil, you gonna know it's like, It just is like, it just like wraps around you and it doesn't, it smells, it just smells like decay.Not like any, it does, it doesn't smell like a rotten egg or anything like that. It just, it stands out and it's just like, it, it is almost like a premonition type of feeling where it just takes your mind away from the conscious moment. Mm-hmm. And and so, so when you're in the dream space, understanding works, you know, works differently.You know why? So in my dreams, I saw, you know, my ex with another guy. These are the things people tend to worry about. You know, Ethan projected his fear and anxiety on me, and I took that shit on, and I should not have. When you're in a relationship with somebody, you can take on their characteristics, [00:16:00] oh, and they can seep into you over time.Especially if you're having unprotected sex, there are spiritual qualities that come along with like say, vaginal fluids, semen blood, sweat, urine, your hair, your skin cells, D n A, and different things like that. You know, whether you wanna believe it or not, but I'm gonna tell you, you know, witchcraft and things like that are real.If you let somebody get a hold of anything that has your particular d n A in it, fingernails, eyelashes, anything like that, your tears, anything that's just unique to you. Honey, they can cast a spell on you and do a work on you that you're not gonna be able to get out of unless you filled with the Holy Ghost.Or unless you know somebody who is, who cares that to struggle and fight that battle, you know, on your behalf because you don't have a time getting away from those people. You know, because the, the, these things carry our essence. You know, I know people go around squirting com all over [00:17:00] the place, you know, and sucking it up and swallowing up.Like it's just, you know, 10 cents a, you know, a gallon or whatever the case may be. But from the beginning it was not. So, you know,and so when you're in a relationship with somebody and you're constantly coming, coming, exposed to things that carry their essence, that's another way that you take on. Them. And if you think sex is just a physical act, you fooling yourself. I don't care if you know the person or not. Every time you cross ORs with somebody or spirit spiritually, you get that.You get that close to somebody. You take on a bit of them every time. This is a huge reason why highly promiscuous people are not happy, because they're super confused energetically. I just met somebody down here the other day trying the bone and no, I didn't let him. You know who, who has a husband, who has kids who was just suicidal a few months ago, who has all these things and [00:18:00] has had so much sex there in Puerto Erta.He's almost sick of it. And yet he has that neurological path in his head that he can't get out of it, you know? And I said, no, and I haven't gone through all, I've been through. Could just have cheap sex with people, you know? And now I didn't meet him on an app or anything like that, you know, sex flows in the streets here in Port Bay.Just expected. And I, and I'm like, I'm not doing it. But so, so why was Ethan at a public event? Mm-hmm. You know, he never really was the type to, to, to, to go out in public anywhere we went, you know, was my idea. Now look, not everything within the dream space. Is going to necessarily carry, meaning some things are just like fillers. Sometimes we don't have a dream and it's just a play dream.So you're gonna have to kind of sense could be public because that's all the exposure that has come to this rela to our, to our former relationship. I don't know. I [00:19:00] haven't had time to really look up the exact meaning of why I was wearing all black, but I know that it has to do with, you know, deep consciousness and things like that.Also, spiritually speaking, working with the color black is not necessarily evil. Black has a tendency, especially when you use it in like candles and things like that to consume evil, you know, so the color black is actually a powerful color to help to protect you. You know, not, not like, not, not necessarily like how Hollywood would portray it.Black is not bad. Now why was I singing Taylor Swift? Because the, the bitch is bad. You know, I, I mean, I like her. I didn't really pay too much attention to her until after all of this, you know, stuff happened here. Now when I go back and listen to songs, they make more sense, you know? I've been jamming the hell outta Miley Tyrus as flowers.Yes, baby. Today I bought myself some flowers. I had myself a nice sunset dinner out on the beach. Yes. And I [00:20:00] got my fucking life. And I didn't feel alone. I didn't feel lonely. I miss my ex. I was fucking happy and all, all I sensed was peace. Peace that I hadn't had in five years. That that's what I sensed, you know.So that line from Taylor Swift's song style when she says, so it goes, he can't keep his wild eyes on the road. I mean, I mean, I mean that, that is why our relationship ended was because, you know, because my ex could not control his sex addiction and his in his promiscuity period. Why, you know, then I look over at him, you know, in the dream with minimal effort, you know, it used to You know, all of this used to upset me, and this doesn't anymore.You know, I, I've, I've learned to, I mean, I've forgiven him. I mean, I had a dream the other week and the, and the spirit was telling me, you know, I have to, you know, it's time to move on. You know, I had a dream the other day about like how I was loading dishes and a dishwasher. A huge [00:21:00]dishwasher larger than anyone I've ever dealt with.And in the dream world, when you dream about, you know, washing dishes, that's, that's, that's you moving on to a new phase. That, that's what that means. So, so the spirit keeps telling me to just move on and to move forward and to move forward. The, the reading I had yesterday with my, with the Shaman, the girl, the, the Lil D who consults with the seven Arc angels, you know, she was one of the assistant shamans at the ayahuasca ceremony that I went to, you know, and that's what came up on the cards.I think those were tarot cards, you know, that she had showed me. I have Another reading with her tomorrow to follow up with this. And it was all about forgiveness. Opening my heart, letting go of the past, being present in the moment and not worrying about none of the nonsense that, that, that Ethan did, or more to the point that the devil did through him.Cause I'm gonna tell you something about narcissistic people, narcissistic personality disorder, whatever the hell you want to call it. Them [00:22:00] people like I'm a light worker. I work with light. I'm a very empathetic person. Narcissistic people are dark workers. If you have light workers, you have dark workers.I need y'all to learn that and to just accept it and understand it, cuz it is what it is. It's time for us to stop being naive, you know, and open up our eyes to the truth of the way that the world works and what goes on in it. These people are conduits of the devil. Their nexus points for, for, for, for all.That is evil. Satan was the first dark worker. He was the first arrogant one, the first narcissist, and the first person to think themselves so high, you know, is to think that they could overthrow God. And you imagine, you mean as mad as I was about Ethan running around with these men and looking me in the face every day and not telling me, Can you imagine how God felt, even though he knows everything, he still has feelings.I tell y'all this all the time. Talk to God like a hu, like he has feelings. Not just somebody you want to get [00:23:00] shit from all the time. Ask him how his days going, you know, and things like that. Make it personal, but can you imagine, you know, Lucifer rallying the angels together to try to overthrow, you know, you know heaven, and then coming to serve God and his presence and smiling like he wasn't doing that.And just to be clear, the devil is not God's equal. If you were to try to rank something, he might be the art angel saying, Michael equal, but there is no debating with God. You know, in the Bible we see the devil arguing with Michael over the body of Moses. I think that has something to do with an ancient Hebrew tradition.But there is no devil trying to, to argue with God. Now, we see the devil asking God's permission for things like in the Book of Job, but, but there is no debating with God. And so, but, but, and then Jesus calls Lucifer, the father of lies, narcissistic people. [00:24:00] Are also people who don't mind lying. So when they go forth in their strength and their evil strength, these people are, are perfect conduits for, for Lucifer himself.Anybody who can tell a lie and be totally okay with it are in league with the devil, and that is all the the is to it. Okay. I look at them like Emperor P Team from Star Wars. You know what it is? May the fourth. May the, may the fourth be with you. And tomorrow we gonna have some revenge of the fifth Hall, Lou.But you know, you know, when I look at movies and things like that, I don't just look at it for entertainment. I wanna talk about what it means. What is God saying to us here? Can we get a little bit more out of it than entertainment and popcorn people? Please? Can we take it a step further? So let us examine emperor pa.This feeble looking fucking old man. Somebody who you would not think was a ringleader of all that is evil in the galaxy. Okay? Somewhere along he was a politician, a senator, and all that shit. [00:25:00] Somewhere along the way he met, I think it was a Darth Plaus, was his master who taught him the ways of the dark side.After Tine got tired of his ass, he cut him down and his sleep one night and then move the hell on, and we see him do this. Accountant DKU was his apprentice and he used him till, till he found Anakin and then he had Anakin chop his head off, you know, and he just moved on to the next. That's how narcissists are.They just go on to the next, they go on to the next, they go on to the next. And speaking of going on to the next, y'all, when y'all break up with these narcissists, they will move on quickly to, to another person. It is not about you. Narcissistic people will always move on quickly for two reasons at least.One cause they never fully showed up to your relationship anyway. You know, two, they, they were never invested in it like you were. It would be coldhearted and in, in a state of denialism for me to not act like I wasn't impacted by, you [00:26:00] know, the five year relationship or it ending and just, you know, to already just, you know, just be moved on.But a narcissist will, you know, I've heard y'all tell me. You know, you broke up with somebody and then you see them out with somebody else or whatever, and it hurts you. That ain't got nothing to do with you. There's nothing more you could have done. It's a reflection of them and how fake that they can be.Cuz narcissists have masks and things like that. They know how to just pull a different mask out, tuck their feelings away and act like they weren't there and they may not have been there, who the hell knows, and then they just shuffle on down the road. That ain't nothing to do with you. That, that, that, that's just a testament to just how shallow they are and how unwilling to face, face themselves that they, that they are.So the sy like, like tine, how he really looked was how he looked when. Mace wind redirected the forest. Lightning [00:27:00] at him and burned him. He didn't really burn him. Okay. When you read the books and get into like the Cannon and Star Wars lore, the Maca Mace window with a Black Jedi, he was bald. He had a purple lightsaber.And y'all, have y'all ever seen me play a Jedi in a movie? Yes. And bitch, I won a motherfucking purple lightsaber. And I wanted to have motherfucking zebra handle with motherfucking diamond shit around the fucking handle. Yes. Give me the motherfucking purple lifesaver bitch. Yes. Okay. Ab fucking lly. And and so and so, it makes the wind is strong enough to redirect the force lightning.And the force lightning is electricity that comes out of the emperor's hands. You know, back at his ass. He didn't actually hurt him. What he did was burn off the mask that Emperor Tine had on because the CTH had the ability to use the force to create a [00:28:00] mask. So when, so when the tine was running around there being friendly with yo and OB one and attending like GaN Gin's funeral though he was laughing and ha happy that Darth Mall had cut him down.You know, he was just being a fake ass bitch at the whole damn time for all of those years. And it wasn't until Mace Wendy redirected that mask that it burned off and we could see the regular STH yellow eyes and everything like that. Yes, Papa lied and said that he was injured in the vicious attack by the Jedi, when really it was him.Well, I wonder who could tell a lie like that. Oh, I know a narcissist. So, you know, he just spun his own version of reality. And everybody believed him and so and so, so the galaxy went into, into darkness for, I think 20 years until Luke, you know, was strong enough to, to do something about it. So I look at every narcissist, like another motherfucking tine.They, they look like, [00:29:00] at least in the covert narcissist case, they look, they look like these fever, little unassuming people who really sitting there smiling and smiling in your face while they're plotting against you the whole time until you know, until all the shit comes out. And you imagine how Yoda and Obi one Kenobi felt dealing with this damn dude.I mean, thisor did the most, he would hire people to come try to assassinate him, quote unquote, so he could pretend to be weak and make, and, and have the Jedi come and rescue him from the assassin he sent just to play this whole game with him or to distract them. I wonder who could play a game with somebody in order to I don't know, just fucking be entertained and narcissist can, so as they say in that Sullivan King song, someone else, you know, the games that you play are just sickening.You know, that's my favorite line from that song. The games that you played, just sickening. As, as Jenin as the Gin Blossom said in their song, [00:30:00] found out about you. You know, the things you said and did to me seemed to come so easily. The love I thought I won. You gave for free. You know, I. You would think that if somebody really, really loved you or liked you would be a little bit harder for them to twist your mind and play games with you, but not for a narcissist.You think it'd be a little bit harder for somebody to go out and sleep with people they barely know, but not for a narcissistic sex addict. These things are par for the course with them. They can go out and do all those things and come home and have a bowl of cereal like they ain't done shit wrong and go on about their life.I love that I was singing in this dream, cuz whenever you hear, you know, Concord music and song, it's, it's healing. Whenever you hear music and your dream is healing, unless it the music is fucked up, then you got some issues on your hand. So I took this microphone, honey, I walked up on that stage. I barely glanced over, you know, at my ex and whatever he was there with.[00:31:00] And I gave him to zero fucks. And I went on about my performance and it was simple as that.Now, why was I in an optometrist office? This has to do with my opening vision and how I'm starting to see things more clearly. And I'm happy, you know, and I was standing in the, in the middle of two halls. You know, when you're in a relationship with a narcissist, they pull you in two different directions.You don't know whether you come in or going. Okay, are you up here or you back there? You don't know. But what I'm, what I'm proud of and thankful for is I was having none of this shit no more. You know, they called me then they didn't say any damn thing and I was like, who the fuck called my name? Nah, we're not having this.You all gonna either do some shit or I'm leav, you know, it is going be one way or the other, but I'm gonna go sit here and be in this purgatory or this limbo. Okay? A narcissist will have you neither here nor there because they are neither here nor there. They don't want to be here nor there. One thing with, you know, with my ex, the way the devil had [00:32:00] him, and, and I, I would imagine still has him, you know, he did not like, I would say, you need to either be black or white, hot or cold in or out.That was too much. He considered it to be a restriction when really he liked, he liked the gray area so that he can manipulate. But it was a Lord himself who said that you gotta need to be hot or cold, and if you're lukewarm, he's gonna spit you out. He said, A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.He said, let your yes be yes and your no be no anything more that comes of evil. And so I. This whole two hallway thing where somebody called me and they don't, nobody's answering. See that? That's a game playing. You call me, you know what you did, and now why the fuck you not saying nothing else? Nope. I'm happy that I started standing up for myself, you know, in this, you know, in this dream I.Now in this same office, you got this old lady reading the newspaper and her much, her much older husband sitting [00:33:00] there in need of her assistance. Now why the mother of the, the person who of Tina Turner from What's Love Got to do with it? So if y'all are not familiar with Tina Turner's story, Angela Bassett plays Tina Turner and the movie, what's Love got to do with it?Okay, if you break up with a, with somebody who's physically abusive, verbally abusive, narcissistically abusive, You know, I'll recommend three movies for you. A Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Yes. A Diary of a Mad Black Woman Waiting to Exhale. And what's the love got to do with it? Them are your three movies.I don't recommend you to Burn. They shit up. Well, you know what I. You do whatever you need to do. That's what I'm gonna say and pray about it because sometimes the bitches have it coming. But be smart about it. Don't go to jail. Be sure you somewhere where you can do that shit. Not, not get in trouble, but sometimes they shit do need to get torched.But be smart about it. Be sure that you're not get in a damn trouble. [00:34:00] But and definitely get rid of all this shit one way or another cuz they can't be leaving with no spoils. Oh hell no, hell no. So in it, but, but in what's Love got to do with it? So, anime Bullock is Tina Turner's real name in real life.Her stage name is Tina Turner. She's from the country. Her mother in this movie is a very manipulative woman, totally fucking narcissistic as is Ike Turner. You know, Tina Turner's husband. Ike Turner is beating the fuck outta Tina and everything like that. And her mama is like literally telling Ike Turner her, where the fuck to go find, you know, she find Tina, she sold her own daughter out when she tried to get away from Ike.I know far too many people who tried to leave Narcissist and then they go back. You know, I left Ethan once, you know, for three weeks, and then I went back. I didn't know he was a fucking narcissist and, and there was a name for the shit that I was observing. But once I realized that I piece the D, fuck out.But, but some people don't do that. You know, they have [00:35:00] kids, you have all these business interests, but honey, when you're with a narcissist, this is literally life or death. I have known of them to like shoot the, their significant other, the people are unstable and whether they're gonna shoot you at point blank range like happened with this one lady, or they're just gonna kill you slowly and siphon the life force out of you.Like what my ex did to me is still a death sentence. I mean, Damn. You know, I was thinking about, you know, Dexter the other day that you know that that hot ass serial killer from Jo Time, I think he showed more compassion and balance thinking than a narcissist because he just killed the people. You know, a narcissist will dangle you like a fucking rat in front of a cat and let them just slice you and cut you down and shit, and just not really quite let you die because they get off on the fucking torture again.The games that they play are just sickening.So Tina Turner's mom represents a manipulative force. [00:36:00] Somebody who don't wanna embrace the truth, somebody who seeks advantages for themselves, you know, you know, you'd have to watch the movie, the full sense of just how fucked up this woman was. And so for her to present in this dream is somebody who wants to come out.And you've seen this before, maybe you dealt with this type of Karen or whatever, where you would just be having a regular conversation and the bitch finds a way to make shit all complicated and then gonna turn around and act like you're the one who complicated it. Ethan did this all the time, you know, would project his confusion and shit, you know, onto me and everything like that.In hypnotherapy, we call these dreams. Like what? I had an early morning dream and what happens is you, besides, besides it being God speaking, you invent, you're venting out problems. So me seeing this is, is that pain and that consternation that he put into me, leaving me and going back to his ass and going back to the pits of hell from when it came.Because, [00:37:00] excuse me, because from the beginning I was not so, I don't argue with people. I don't have fights. I don't do that. He was the only person in my life I ever raised my voice with. And after I would argue with him, he would have this sixth sense of satisfaction that would come over his face cuz he got off on the shit and I would feel so unhuman, you know?And so unlike myself and just feel dirty and filthy because I came, I'm arguing, why the fuck am I arguing? I'm healthy. You know, I can walk across the room. I can go to the bathroom and pee by myself. I can take a shit. I can fucking go to school if I want to. I can learn. I can go out in the sun. I can feed myself.I don't have to eat through a goddamn tube. If I got a car, I got healthy cats. I got a house, you know, I can travel. I got a million things going on right in my life. Why in the fuck would I be having an argument with somebody over what you know? The only time you are gonna have an argument is when you lose perspective and you are not a thankful person because we have a lot [00:38:00] that God has done for us.And so for me to be in a point that I let my vibration get low enough to stoop to his level, all that did was hurt me. And I hated doing that, but I'm so thankful that I don't do that anymore. Now he's gone. There's nobody to argue with now that he's gonna have total fucking peace. That's suddenly when the sun makes you free, you are free indeed.And Jesus has set me free from darkness. I didn't realize I was the in. And so this has been vented out because you know, Tina Turner's mom wanted to tell this fever old lady that she was the one with the prong, but when really it was Tina's, Tina's mom who came out there with the issue and you know, Why a fever old lady?Because narcissists view the people who they prey on as a weaker than them. They view them as somebody they can take advantage of because you're not gonna see two narcissists in a relationship. It's not gonna work. Mm-hmm. Because they're always calculating and seeing, they, they, they look for empathetic, nice people.They feel like they can get [00:39:00] over on. If they can't do that, they're not gonna be hanging around long. Okay. But, but the Bible says that, In our weakness, God's strength is made perfect and that the Lord will take the weak things of the world and confound the supposed strong things of the world and talking to foolish people.The Lord said that professing themselves become to become wise. They became fools. You know, my message to narcissists out there while you, while you think you're laughing at us, people who are nice enough for you to steal from siphon energy off of, take advantage of and all of that. You know, while you sitting there laughing at us, God and the devil are both laughing at you.God is laughing at you because he sees that your payback is coming and the devil is laughing at you because he's made you foolish enough to be like him, which is what got him kicked out of heaven. And he knows that you're going to end up with him when you die too, because you're not gonna be able to take advantage of people in this life and mess over them and think that you're gonna part this plane of existence and have a [00:40:00] peaceful afterlife whether you believe in hell or not.You are not going to have a peaceful afterlife if you fuck over people in your current life. It don't go that way. It does not go that way.Let me sing. So when these people come trying to project their evil on you and their chaos, look at it spiritually. These people are filled with all kinds of demons and devils and negative energies and negative forces that they do not have in check. Those things have full controls of them, and they're gonna tell you, you know, my ex used to tell me that I was controlling.And I said, how That doesn't make sense. I'm usually like submissive and things like that, you know, in a relationship. So how, how would I be controlling that, that that would throw off the whole kink for me? That was just one of the dumbest things he ever said. And then, He said a lot of dumb shit because narcist, the things they say don't have to make sense.It just has to serve them in the [00:41:00] moment. Look at Trump on TV from, or fucking damn they're any Republican at this point. From one sentence to the next. You know, this is, this is this, this, this, this, this shit. Don't even balance out because, because they just saying whatever the fuck in the moment. That's exactly how fucking narcissist is.You know, Ethan would call me controlling. When we went to counseling, I'd be like, okay, tell me exactly when I was controlling and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just feeding into the energy. You don't, don't ever engage a narcissist cause that's what they want you to do. They saying that crazy shit that they know is bullshit just to get more energy outta you.He couldn't answer the question, you know, hollering all up and down the street in New Orleans, you know, calling me controlling out of nowhere and, and get in front of a counselor and can't even much render a reason. You know, for the hate, the raise, the resentment. You know, if that ain't bullshit, I don't know what is, you know, but this is how narcissistic people work because their brains are not developed in terms of rationale [00:42:00] and empathy.That part didn't grow. I don't, it's not there. It's not even dad, just don't exist in them. I'm trying to get empathy. In love out of a narcissistic person. It's like trying to ask a two year old to understand astrophysics. Okay? You, you come to, to a two year old or a one-year-old with some complex calculus equation or some shit, they're just gonna blink their eyes.It stare at you like they don't know what the fuck you're talking about. A narcissist is no different because they're basically like a two year old. It's trapped in an adult's body that never grew. That's why you'll see them pout and throw their hands up and down and stump across the room, you know, with a heavy foot stumping and things like that.And they follow you. You follow behind you. I can't tell you how many times Ethan stepped on my goddamn hills, you know, and I'm trying to get him to walk next to me. He was always walking behind me, you know? And of course then wanted to complain that he wasn't an equal in a relationship. Well, I don't know what else I can do.You know, I've done everything I can to, to show you that I considered you an equal, but if you don't [00:43:00] accept it, then there's not, not nothing do. You know, I'm saying Ethan, but this is, as I've talked to people as I've traveled this world since all this has happened, it's the same damn shit in different countries, in different places, y'all.It's the same fucking thing. It is all over the goddamn world. It is everywhere. It is everywhere. It's not just him. It's so fucking common, you know? And every time I talk to a girl and they're like, yeah, my man did this. I'm like, yeah, my ex did the same shit too. It's like they just don't grow up. It's like they, like itty bitty children still just running around, you know?You know, unfortunately they can fucking procreate and make more of their little asses. You know, I personally think they need to be locked up in mental hospitals, and I'm not for incarceration, but it doesn't make any sense to me while you have people locked up for having, I don't know, $50 worth of dope on them, and they just wanted to go home and get high.And you got narcissistic people out here who can do, [00:44:00] like my ex did and literally go give someone when covid and then maybe kill them. Who knows? You know? And that shit is not illegal, but, but home, he can't go buy $50 worth of crack or coke or whatever the fuck and go turn up, you know, with his girl or whatever.At home. The United States is a fucked up country. Narcissists should not be running free, in my opinion out here, devastating people like they do to just go move on and do it again. The only good thing about it is that the Lord will use wicked people like that to do like what he's done for me and sharpen and strengthen me because the Lord, the Bible describes wicked people as tools in the hands of God to sharpen the saints and to sharpen those of us who are like workers and who gives a fuck about the welfare of humanity.Now that much I would have them stay free for so that the Lord can continue to use them to help people who are actually of God, even though they are not. And most of them never will be cause they don't have the courage.[00:45:00]And then the last one, you know how, how I'm yet again called by someone? You know, and I'm standing in front of that reception podium, and then it's not like they're not doing anything with me. You know? That's still another a way of playing games, you know? And what I'm proud of and thankful for is that I wasn't having this shit no more.I'm like, you bitches called me up here. He said I wasn't here on time. All right, then let's do the damn thing. Mm-hmm. People in this world like to go and, and arrest control over people when they have no control over themselves. You've seen these insecure people be you in a doctor's office at the grocery store.You know that we, that one bitter bitch who ain't got no control in her life, who just sitting there toying with you and just playing games because finally somebody has to listen to her. You know, that's how narcissistic people are. So y'all. When y'all have these dreams and yes, this is my a beautiful dream journal.Ain't she cute [00:46:00] though? Mm-hmm. Honey. Yes. I saw this. I was like, this reminds me of the stars, darling. The stars. Yes. I must have it. So let's go ahead and rewrite some stars, like from The Greatest Showman. Yes. Let's, let's, let's, let's live a new life. Let's dream a new dream. Let's do a new doom. So all of you have been impacted by whatever kind of hurtful relationship, whether it's what's a narcissistic asshole or some physically abusive person, or whatever the hell the case may be.I, I pray you come out of it. I'm gonna be praying for you greatly. Reach out to me with your dreams and I'll see what I can do to help you with them. But, but, but don't stay in a relationship with a narcissist. They will not change. The only thing you can do is change your position if they ever are, or to have any sort of hope of redemption.They're not going to truly seek it. If they're in a relationship with anyone, they would have to. You know, completely detached themselves from all people, [00:47:00] however long it takes for them to, I mean, not like their friends and stuff like that, but they cannot be, and then maybe depend on how bad the case is.But they can't be in any kind of situation where they're gonna be tempted to take advantage of somebody, which is their natural nature. They've gotta get away from people and get in front of a counselor by themselves, because couples counseling is count, is contraindicated for a narcissist. I didn't fucking know this until like a couple of weeks ago.If you're in a relationship with a narcissist, do not go to couples counseling with him. I'm gonna repeat. If you are in a relationship with a narcissist, do not go to couples counseling. Do not go. The shit will not work. I tried it twice, you know, over a span of. It's about, we're about like a year and a half in our relationship when we tried the first couple's counselor, and the other one just ended last year when I realized he was lying to the damn I'm counselor.All the [00:48:00] narcis are gonna do is manipulate the session and, and, and turn the counselor against you. That's what they gonna try to do. Our counselor had to take a whole one hour session one time to prove to Ethan why she wasn't working against him. Girl, bye bye. You know, no matter what the woman said or did, all he heard was you and Devana are against me because he wanted to go in there and put on a show, which is exactly what he did.So all you're doing is wasting your time and your money, and you're giving that damn narcissist another audience to perform in front of. And remember, y'all are going to counseling for two damn different reasons. They are going to reinforce their agenda. You empathetic, nice person who needs to leave this narcissist are going for the same reason.I went to be transparent, to tell the truth, to be upfront and honest, to work towards building a better relationship and to grow [00:49:00] personally and to have it all out there so you couldn't forge for and. Doesn't give a fuck about none of that. They go in there for themselves and, and then they're also laboring under the damn delusion that just by going to sit in front of a counselor checks the box of, Hey, I went to a counselor.Cuz Ethan would say that all the time. Like, look at these accomplishments. I've gone to the counselor, I've done this, I've done this. And I was like, yeah bitch. But if you go to the counselor and you all don't know, lie. Well, then that doesn't do anything. So you have to be, so, you have to be careful with these people because anything that they do, they gonna try to just wave it around as a trophy of metal, but they're, there's still quality to what they've done.Basically, what Ethan was saying is, my gift to you is me sitting here in this office. Whether I sit here and contribute to the energy in the room, or actually tell the truth or not, because narcissists think a hell of a lot of themselves, and this is why they're so twisted. They hate themselves. At the same time.They think a [00:50:00] lot about themselves, yet they don't fully accept themselves, and then they wanna go and be with somebody. And then a lot of times they wanna be with somebody who they know is better than them, but then they want to get, they don't wanna give that person credit for being better than them.Now, who could have said something like this? Jesus, when he said a double minded man is unstable in all his ways, you can't be back and forth, in and out, left and right, up and down at the same time. It's not gonna work. You know, so that is my message to y'all, to my message to narcissistic people. You can be helped, but you're gonna have to humble yourself before almighty God.And because you, because you, because you, you, you, you need a serious exorcism. If you have been consumed with the sort of devils that make you a narcissist, you have a, you have a, hold on, you. But it's not like it can't be broken because there's nothing too hard for the Lord. But you gonna have to sacrifice the things that you like and you think you can't go it without and show, and show that true sacrifice in order to get God to move on your behalf.[00:51:00]Anyway, I'm about to go up in here and watch me some Star Wars. I'm gonna say a little prayer for y'all. May the fourth be with you. Happy revenge of the fifth tomorrow, and just remember that everything is gonna be all right. 

INTRODUCTION: Award-winning health expert Nicole Kerr is the co-author of Eating the Rainbow: Lifelong Nutritional Wellness—Without Lies, Hype, or Calculus. She has appeared on CNN, PBS, CBS, ABC, the Food Channel, and a host of other TV and radio shows to share her unique perspective on wellness, lifestyle, and nutrition.   For the past 30 years, Nicole has worked in all sectors of society, including ingovernment (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), non-profit(American Cancer Society), military (United States Air Force Medical Operations),academia (University of Hawaii), healthcare institutions/hospitals (AdventistHealth Castle and Queens Medical Center), corporate settings (Sea Ties, LLC),and private consultation. Nicole's warm, engaging presentations have earned hera place in front of international audiences ranging from corporate foodproducers to health and medical associations. Throughout her career, she hasfocused on supporting people from every walk of life to make realistic,meaningful, happy choices for lifelong health and well-being.When she was a 19-year-old cadet at the United States Air Force Academy, Nicolewould be forced to learn how to live and love differently following aterrifying and transformative Near-Death Experience. Her memory of the crashcame back 20 years later, and it has taken Nicole almost another two decades toalign her soul, spirit, mind, and body, proving healing is certainly anon-linear process.A disabled veteran, Nicole now maintains a private practice primarily using NeuroEmotional Technique (NET) targeting the often overlooked domains of emotional,energy, and spiritual well-being.   INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Spirits & Angels·      Second Chances·      Near Death Experiences (NDE's)·      Louisiana State University Nostalgia·      Religious Trauma·      Military Trauma·      Living With Fear·      PTSD·      Struggle Acquiring Veteran's Affairs Disability & Compensation·      Why Perspective Is Everything CONNECT WITH NICOLE: Website & Book: https://www.nicolekerr.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicole.a.kerrInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicole.angelique.kerr/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-kerr-8920438/ CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook:    https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO·      Sex Addicts Anonymous: HTTPS://WWW.SAA.ORG ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00]De'Vannon: You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.Have you had a near death experience? Have you felt that feeling where your life was either slipping away from you or you did actually slip away from this plane of existence and stepped into that white light? Saw your ancestors, spoke with angels. Well, if you have, you're not alone. My guest today, Nicole Kerr, has written a book called You Are Deathless, and in this book she details her experience being 19 years old, the cadet at the Air Force Academy in [00:01:00] Colorado, flying through the window of a convertible. Well, let's just say, I'll leaveall the gory details of what happened after that for you to listen to in this episode. She died, she came back to life, and now she's dedicated her life to helping other people live free of fear in this episode. We'll talk about everything from Angels to Louisiana State University to P T S D, to Veterans Affairs, drama, religious Trauma. You name it, we got it . So listen in, pay close attention and know that I love you.Hello everyone and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host Devon, and it is so lovely to see you as always. My guest today, her name is Nicole krs. She's an author and she has a bunch of acronyms. She's gonna explain to us what they mean in a minute, but their mph, h and r d n and b t d t [00:02:00] and n d e and all of these beautiful things.And she's an award-winning health expert. She's also a disabled Air force veteran like I am. Thank you for your service girl, and thank you. She has appeared on C N N P B S C B S A B C P Y T, all the different networks, the food channel, and a host of other TV and radio shows. And we're gonna talk about second and third chances today in health and wellness.How are you, Nicole? Nicole: I'm doing great. I am just delighted, excited, and grateful to be on your podcast today. So thank you very much, De'Vannon: Amsterdam Lutely, thank you for setting aside an hour of your life. Time is one of the resources that we cannot create more of as you well know. And so I don't take for granted what you choose to do with a whole hour.This, this is very, very special to me, so I appreciate the fuck out Nicole: of it. Aw, thank you. Likewise. De'Vannon: [00:03:00] Okay, so are y'all, Nicole like we, like we were just saying, was in the Air Force. There was a bad car accident. She died, she came back and this is kind of what set her story into motion. And so we'll be talking a lot about that.Many of us have had near death experiences, as have I. And so we'll chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about your education. You, you were saying that you went to L S U. I'm here in Baton Rouge. I go over to Lssu all the time. I, you see it, I party up there, tailgate up there and everything.So tell me about LSU for you. Nicole: I. L s u That was a stop for me where I got my dietetics certification and my brother also graduated from there. And we lived in Jackson, Mississippi for a long time and then moved down to Baton Rouge with my dad and brother's company called Yasu, the big Will mowing machines.So [00:04:00] that was the family business. And so I lived down there for several years while I was getting my Like I said, my nutrition and diet dietetics degree because I had developed an eating do eating disorder binge eating. It was called compulsive eating back in 1980 something when I first got it.But I did not get any mental health after my traumatic experience. My parents told the doctor when they said, Nicole needs to see a psychologist that Jesus and God was my psychologist. And needless to say, shortly after that I developed an eating disorder because I didn't know what to do with the pain and I didn't even know it was pain.So that lasted almost 40 years until I got married at 40. And then I've, I've worked hard. I've been in therapy. You name it, I've done it. And It just, you know, Jesus never came down and sat across from me and tried to help me, you [00:05:00] know, either talk therapy or any of these other modalities. And that's just not true.And it was really a disservice to me to not get the mental health. I had to pursue that on my own. And it was, it was challenging. De'Vannon: They used to say and damn, I'm so sorry that that happened to you. They're. You know, you already have like this near death trauma, now you've got religious trauma being pumped upon you too.They used to tell us in church to not be so heavenly minded that you're not so earthly good.It look. Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what you get, get when now my parents, I call 'em religious addicts, but I did my formative years in Jackson, Mississippi and then I'm a people recovering people pleaser and I was pleasing. My dad, he was in the military. He was one of the first classes to go through the Air Force Academy and at that time [00:06:00] they had opened it, just opened it up to women to come to go into the service academy.So I was the sixth class of women. He was so proud of me that I got in. I was shocked that I did cuz I absolutely had no interest in the military. All of my background in high school and junior high was. Modeling junior achievement team boards nothing related to flying planes or going into this space program.So clearly I did it just for him. And let me tell you, that was the wrong reason. Cuz as soon as they dropped me off and closed the door and I went through that, bring me men wrap. My life changed and all of a sudden fear was the emotion and terror that dominated me. And my emotional state for at least the next year and a half until my crash happened.Because I was in constant fear that I was gonna fail, that I wasn't keeping [00:07:00] up. I was keeping my squadron, I was holding them back because I would fall outta runs. They sent me to remedial training. You know, I just didn't have that killer instinct. And I understand the reason we have a military, you know, to protect and defend, but every soul that goes into the military, in my opinion, is going to be fractured at some level.Because when you experience the theater or war and people being killed, or you know, You suffering parts of your soul fracture in order to preserve yourself. And so that's why we have so many injuries mentally, I think, and so many suicides with veterans especially, is because of that soul piece that just can't reconcile what they have seen and what they have done.So I knew in basic training that this was not for me, but I didn't know how to [00:08:00] quit. I didn't know how to say no to my father. Feel like a failure. The shame, the judgment, the condemnation. Cuz it takes a hell of a lot of work to get into academy. You gotta get a congressional rep nomination. You gotta pass all these tests.You, you know. And and I did it. And then I got there and I, I, three weeks into bootcamp, they gave us one phone call, three minutes. And I heard my mother pick up and she said, hello, and I hyperventilated and cried for three minutes. Then the commander comes in there and says, that's the end of your phone call.Go sit over there and get yourself together ke. And I was just like, I needed my parents to tell me I had permission to quit if I was, if this was not the place for me, I needed. To get out and I couldn't do it. And my mother turned to my father later and told me, what have we done to her? And he's like, ah, she'll be fine.And I [00:09:00] wasn't fine. I went from there to remedial, which is one-on-one, which is even worse, you know, because you're separated from your, your squadron. So it was that was the first panic attack I had. I didn't realize it until later, but I clearly lived with that level of fear and panic and pending doom dread.And it starts to just operate your system after a while. And it was really, I, I don't know. I, I don't know how I made it the first year, and then I knew the second year it was only gonna get tougher. And then that's when the crash happened. And I was getting a ride back with a fellow cadet who was a senior, didn't know him, but my dad had three rules, don't smoke, don't drink, and don't date upper cadets.Now I'm in a school with 4,000 guys. I'm now a sophomore. I actually can date you can't as a freshman, but I have never been on a date in my life. My dad did not. He was very conservative. He did not think dating [00:10:00] would do any good for me or spending the night with others. That was one of his commandments.There's the 10 commandments and there's my dad's 10 commandments. And spending the night with others was number one on, you do not do this. And even in church you don't sit with your friends, you have to sit with mom and dad. You can't fall asleep even though my dad fell asleep, you can't fall asleep.You know, it was, there was just a lot of rules. And having a Southern Baptist upbringing on my father's side and a Lutheran bringing on my mother's side living in the Bible belt, which is, as you know, the foundation of that area. I just got a lot of. Church thrown at me. And it was contradictory because the Lutherans were saying, this is the way to God.And the Baptists were saying this way. And, you know, it was just, I'm sure God was [00:11:00]confused, you know, about what, what he supposedly said. But that's when my car crash happened. And I know at a sole level that that is what got me out of the academy saving face because you, you know I couldn't go back. I, my injuries were so severe.I was in the hospital for four months, seven weeks in I c u two code Blues. And then 19 years later, I remembered my near death accident. I was working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and went to Starbucks, got my coffee, and boom, the memory of how I was sitting in the Corvette convertible came back and And then the rest of the memory came back.So people said, well, why did it take 19 years? And I'm like, the only thing I can say to that is when your body feels safe enough, repressed memories as what they're known as will come up. [00:12:00]And that's what happened. And I got the complete story. And so I've been able now, 40 years later to finally publish my book.It's called You Are Deathless. And a near death experience taught me how to fully live and not fear death. It's taken me that long to first of all 20 years, had no memory, just the white lights. And then the next 20 was aligning myself and my search for body, soul, spirit, and mind to all come together.And it's been a journey, a healing journey, and it's not linear. A plus B does not equal C and the healing journey. That was a lot I just gave you.De'Vannon: Well, you know what, it sounded like you needed to get that out. I just, I'm happy to, to allow you to Nicole: do that. Plus southern girls, we can talk. De'Vannon: So, so take, [00:13:00] take me back though. Tell me what the, the MPH, H C R D and the B T D T stand Nicole: for. Okay. Master's in Public Health and, and I had an emphasis in nutrition and then R D N is registered dietician nutrition.So I've worked in hospitals. I was an oncology dietician, a wellness director B T D T I invented that or took it from somebody else, actually. Been there, done that. And that actually is my proudest letters of the alphabet after my name. Because experience trump's theory in any any day for me because it allows a person to have compassion sympathy and empathy.De'Vannon: Right. Ab a Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why I say I wish this, this country in a, i I, I do not feel like the United States is the greatest country on the world, you know, in the world or nothing like that due to, due to the lack of like, character, you know, and, and the [00:14:00] lack of love that prevails here.And I don't care how much money, how rich it's supposed to be like this, this is a deplorable country and I, I really wish that people had to go to the military and or had to wait tables or had to be a janitor or had to do something like that for like some amount of time. And there are countries that have those requirements because then more people, then everyone would have some version of been there, done that as opposed to standing over here and judging from a distance.Yes. So so, so the title of her book y'all is called You Are Deathless. And and it, and it. You know, talks about, like a lot of, you know, what she's talking about right now, her website. I just wanna tell everyone, you know, it's nicole kerr.com that we'll be going in the show notes that she has a great blog on there and all kinds of information and everything like that too.So take me back to this car accident. You said you're in a a [00:15:00] convertible Corvette. Yeah. Nicole: I don't know if you can see it. De'Vannon: Okay. Yeah, I can see it. Okay. Nicole: That's August 8th 19. That's afterwards. De'Vannon: Okay. So, so, so after they untangled you, so y you just showed a picture of the Corvette for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, and it's basically, it's like somebody like Godzilla took this car, picked it up, twisted it around, and then like tried to.Fold it together, so, yeah. Yeah. So it almost looks like, almost looks like a square, like a, like a block rather than a, a motor vehicle. And so they were able to, to open up that can, I guess they, they had to have gotten the jaws of life or something out for that. So we Nicole: actually flew out of it cuz it was a convertible and we didn't have seat.The, the car didn't even have seat belts back then. And so when he hit the side of a boulder, okay, I was getting a ride back with a senior cadet, didn't know him. We had [00:16:00] been in an Air force function. They had provided beer to underage cadets and they broke their own rules. The officers left before the cadets and I was one of the, I was the last to leave.And so I asked him for a ride back and he said, sure. He had his own agenda. He wanted to go to another bar. He wanted to watch the sunset at the Rocky Mountains i e make out. And I started getting really nervous cuz we had curfew 7 35. We had to be back at the academy. And I didn't wanna get in trouble this year because last year I was, I.Innocently doing favors for people and I would get in trouble. So I marched tours, I served demerits, I served confinements, I did it all. And I was like, I am not doing that this year. So I was really worried about the time element. And he tried to make a sexual pass at me. My memory later revealed and I said no.And he got really angry at me and jerked the steering wheel. The car fishtailed out, and this is at Black Forest [00:17:00] park in Monument, which is just outside the academy. He hit a huge boulder, moved the boulder, the car flipped. We were both thrown out. I was thrown into a ditch. Some bystanders were, were close by, they called 9 1 1.They came out to look at me and they couldn't get any signs of life. So they got a blanket and they covered me up. And then when the Tri Lake Fire Department, and you can kind of see. That was the front page of the newspaper. So they're working on me. And you can see the car landed on its top. Mm-hmm.Okay. So I was gone when I flew out from the windshield, that's when I called it Casper the ghost in the book. But I was just revealed in my meditation in August and the [00:18:00] book was published in August that it was my grandfather that came in the form of an angel and lifted me took me up and so I never hit the ground.I knew when I hit the ground I was gonna die. I knew it, but I went up instead in his arms, and we went to this space. It wasn't really a place, it was just a space. And that's when I, I was not in bodily form. I could see my body on the ground, I could see it in the ditch. It was just a corpse, a mangled corpse.And so this spirit, my grandfather, now I, I, we went to this space and I could hear other voices, other angels, other spirit guides. They weren't speaking English. I don't know what they were. I don't know how I heard them and understood them, but I did telepathy, whatever, but I could hear and communicate.And [00:19:00] so there were two angels next to me and they were saying, you meaning humans need to ask the angelic realm for help. That was the first message, is they're not gonna interfere in our lives unless we ask for help because of free will. We have choices. So that is one of the first messages is start connecting with your angelic realm.We all have at least one guardian angel that's assigned to us. Some of us have more, but start the relationship with your angels or any angels. And people say to me well that's kinda like when you ask the angels to help you for a parking space. I said, it works. It absolutely works because it's not about how big or small something is, it's about the relationship that you can count on them and you can trust them.And it may not look like what you want, but [00:20:00] they will send you signs. You just have to be open-minded. Then the second message that I wanna make sure people hear that I received was to tell people not to be afraid of death. And I was like, whoa, that's a big one. That's a real big one. And I, and so at that moment I knew I was gonna go back in that body and I didn't want to, I was like, no, I do, I, I wanna stay up here because up there death was, or, or that transformation of myself was absolute beauty light, the white light that I had seen.It wasn't the operating or theater room lights. It was, it was the light that almost every near death experience or ex, you know, has Raymond Moody who coined the term near death [00:21:00]experience, that is the single most. Common element that people report is seeing this bright white light, and it's clear, it's not blinding and it's just comforting.It's like you're cocooned in it and it's just so peaceful and beautiful. And the colors on the other side are just magical beyond the, what is it now? 125 cray color box? Is that what we're up to? So, you know, why would you wanna come back from that? There's no negativity at all. So it's, you know, in our.World. I think, you know, every book that's almost written around the subject of death is cloaked with this veil of doom and gloom and death has a cloud of depression and negativity around it. Throughout our culture and society and my own [00:22:00] experience, and I hope yours and others, hundreds of thousands of people because they have enough to have actually studied this and put a report together to list the 10 common lessons of NDEs.And they're, every single one of 'em is positive. And the first one is we do not die. Hence the title of my book. You are deathless. Yes, your physical, your physical body is gonna die decompose. But when you die, your energy body splits open and your soul leaves you and goes home. And we have many.Incarnations of our soul. This isn't our only rodeo. So that was the mission, and it's taken me, I found that out. Okay, think about this. 19 years, I had a gap in my memory. And then boom, it all comes together. And then I have to figure out, okay, what does [00:23:00] does that mean? Because when I died at 19, I was fearful of death.I had the concept of God from my southern. Baptist upbringing and Lutheran, where the teaching was, if you were a bad person that God was duality on one side, God loved you, he would protect you. He was you know, loving, kind. But if you broke the rules, if you were a bad person, if you were a sinner, you would go to a place called Hell where the wrath of God would come and you would burn eternally.Now, as a six-year-old growing up, that scares the wey outta you. So you live your entire life in fear of doing something bad. And I call that concept a vending machine concept of God, and it's not correct. It's a false belief that is not who or what God is. [00:24:00] Yes, take the first part of it, the positive. But that whole second part was invented by man to keep people in fear, which would keep you in control De'Vannon: on the on the aspects of angels.And I think it's, I think it's a beautiful experience that you had. I just wanted to like, like to, to remind people that, you know, when you're speaking you know, two angels and, you know, different things like that, you know, d don't forget to ask them, you know, like how they're doing, you know, cause they're not.And Nicole: thank them. Please thank them after they give you what you De'Vannon: need. They're not, they're not, they're not, they're not God. And you know, they get That's right. They can get run down too. You know, we, we see this illustrated in the book of Daniel in the Bible when Gabriel is coming to the deliver Daniel, his message when he was fasting for those [00:25:00] three weeks for the Nation of Israel.And, and Gabriel is telling Daniel that he was delayed because, you know an op an op, an opposition withstood him until the arch angel Michael came to help him. And so, so th so this, this illustration lets us know that angels have limitations if they have to eat Mannas, because eventually they get run down and they have to be regenerated.So for me, it's not all about accessing the spiritual realm to, to, to get shit from them. You know? So I think that, I think, I think it's important to, to speak. Whenever you're speaking about more than just acquisition than what you can get from them. And so just be like mindful of that people. Nicole: Yeah.And angels come in many forms. You know, they're earth angels and I talk about that. And my book, they're is a chapter called Calling All Angels because I know that the e m t [00:26:00] that brought me back to life was one of my angels. He was they had me covered up, okay. He gets there, he's the first one on the scene, 10 to 13 minutes later, so I'm clinically dead for that long.They had me, you know, under the, he takes the blanket off, he can't get any sign of life. So he does something called a sternal knuckle rub. Have you ever heard of that? It's where they, they go up your, your sternum and it's designed to elicit pain. It's a pain response that the medical team uses. And boy, if there's any sign of life in you that would respond to pain, it's that.So the only sign of life you got was my right eye flickered and my pupil dilated. Now, what do we say about eyes and our souls? De'Vannon: Eyes are the window to the soul. Nicole: Yes. At that moment, my soul came back in through my eye. [00:27:00] I was dead before they couldn't get anything. Okay? So my soul, it left when I was up in the air.Okay? My body split open two out. It went, it comes back when he's doing that and, and, and I often wonder, You know, why did you bring me back? You know? And cuz it's been painful and it's been a hard journey. But that is when the soul came back into my body and at that point he was able to get a blood pressure reading on me of 60 zero.Now that's pretty much dead anyway, but at least he could get that. And they got me these mask pants on. They'd just gotten 'em on the bus That forces all your blood up to your heart. I had had multiple injuries. I cut off my left foot, I severed my right wrist. My pelvis was broken on both sides. Had a rash from skidding on the, the payment of grow burn that went three levels deep, a [00:28:00]laceration between my anal and feature because I remembered sitting in the car.And my leg is on the dashboard and my other leg processes it. Do you remember sitting like that in a convertible? Put your leg on the dashboard De'Vannon: sounds so, so, so California, Nicole: don't ever do that. If you're in an accident, that's the absolute worst way to get injuries. So I cut up my, I had a, a hole between my anal and sphincter muscle and then a huge hole like this cut out of my left thigh.So I had damage to my nerves. Lost the feeling in that whole sexual area. So it was cuz I went butt up through the windshield and so that cut my foot and that injured that area. So, It was just about getting me stabilized that night, and the doctor on call was a maverick. She was the first woman [00:29:00]surgeon in Colorado Springs.She was the first woman to go to medical school at Jefferson College. Let me tell you. She said multiple times, this is not in my hands anymore, you know, whether Nicole makes it. And I just kept coming back to life. You know, I had a surgery code blue, they had to cut me up from here to here and. My parents were in the chapel praying and the surgical nurse went in there and said, we've lost Nicole.I'm so sorry. And so my dad's like, well, we need to figure out where to barrier. And mom's like, I don't believe it. And then two minutes later another surgical nurse runs in and said her heart just started again. And and there was another incident where I had another near death experience and I have an angel that named James that is, that protects me.And I know that sounds weird, but I call him my military angel, but he is here to make sure I [00:30:00] get this message out because. There is no need to fear death. And there's so many of us that have been conditioned or brought up with belief systems where we scare, we're scared of death. And here's the deal.It's gonna happen at every one of us, and it could happen at any age. And that's the other thing is we need to start learning to prepare ourselves not only physically with wills and all that other stuff, but E, but emotionally and spiritually. And understanding that your beliefs about God, whatever that concept of God is, shapes your relationship with death.Because if you believed, like I did when I died, I disobeyed my father, and that's what he told me later when he came to the hospital. I. You had two beers, you smoked one cigarette. And this is [00:31:00]the first time I've done this in my life. At 19, I'm finally gonna have fun. Okay. And you were with a cadet and you kissed him, he kissed you.So in his eyes, I broke his rules and I deserved to quote what I got. So I disappointed God as well. And I have spent you not believe how much therapy I've had to try to let go of that being blamed. And it fractured my relationship with my parents and with my siblings because I felt so guilty about that.And I've been trying to make it up all these years. And then in the epilogue, you're not gonna believe this, but there were four roommates, four women that went in in my class at the same time in my squadron and my roommate. She dropped out. She quit that December of my accident. Okay? [00:32:00] So I had not talked to her in 38 years.I found her on Facebook. We, four girls got together this past May. The book was already at the editors ready to be published. And we all never knew what happened to her. She just never came back. After spring, after Christmas break, she said, Nicole, I'm so sorry. She said I caused the crash. I said, what? No you didn't.The guy did. He was drunk and he is making a pass at me. And you know, he crashed. And by the way, he survived. He even got to graduate cuz his dad wore three stars. But that's a whole nother story cuz rank has its privilege as we know. And she said, you had asked me for a ride back to the academy before the event even started.And I said, yes, we'll go back together. And then when it was over, There was another cadet who was drunk and he wanted me to drive his car back for him. And I really liked him and I wanted to be alone with [00:33:00] him. So when you got ready to get in the car, I told you no I really don't want you in the car.There's one other guy left over there, why don't you go get a ride back with him? And I said, but that guy's been drinking. And she said, oh, it doesn't matter. They've all been drinking. She said, it'll be fine. Just go have some fun, you know, and I'll see you back at the academy. And she never did. So she lived with 38 years of guilt and it still haunts her and she quit because she couldn't bear the thought that if she would've just given me a ride back, both of our lives would've been totally different.So you never know. And I never knew that. My memory part never came back of that conversation. And I said to her, why didn't you ever tell me before? And she goes, well, I just thought you knew. And you are angry at me. So it's so important to communicate trauma and your version of [00:34:00]something and someone else's version of something, because sometimes we just think somebody knows something, but we don't check it out with 'em, and then we go around believing something and it, it just devastates our life.You know, there, De'Vannon: there's so much loss in this life because of things left unsaid, be it in romantic relationships, business relationships. I agree with Nicole. Y'all open your fucking mouth and tell people what the hell you think, know and feel. Rather than assuming they should know or assuming they will know, magically know.Just make it simple. And just say it, even if you think you're stating the obvious, you know, sometimes you need to say the quiet part out loud because you know so much just to be sure everyone's on the same page. Yeah. You know it's, it's not cool to think that, you know, like in my, in my previous relationship that I, [00:35:00] that I just had to end.That, that was one of the things that, that my ex would never, you know, give me, I said, don't, don't ever have one version of reality operating within your head. And you know that I don't know that. Cuz then we're on divergent paths and I'm thinking that we're on the same page and really we're not. And you know, and the only way that that could have ever happened is if he would've opened his mouth and told me what he was feeling and thinking, which he never was able to do that.And so be it friendships or whatever the case may be, just fucking say what's going on rather than letting those negative thoughts come in and, and control you. You could disband that with clarity in communication. Nicole: Yes, and please do it before they die.Don't do it on their deathbed, you know, say the things you need to say now. And I, you know, and, and, and then I went and told my father, you know, dad, you know, I knew the guy was drunk and I, I just, you know, and I had [00:36:00] arranged a, a, a ride back and I was trying to defend myself to my father with this. And he says he still made a bad decision and you should have walked back to the academy.And then, That's when I just went, I haven't talked to my dad since, and I won't, I'm done with him. So, you know, and I was trying to be done with him before, but when he, he's never forgiven me. He's never said he is sorry. He is a narcissist. He is in that military mode my way or the highway. That's how we were raised.I know what's best for you. And he didn't, he never got to understand who I am. And when I published this book, he has not read it. And he just said, you better get God writer. You're really gonna get it. So there's just more fear and I'm just like, you know, my experience with God is God is love. Period, end of sentence, and love is all that matters and is the source of all that exists.And when you think about [00:37:00] source that is God and is there anywhere that God does not exist?De'Vannon: He is no ever president. He is everywhere. And video1562552333: in Nicole: my per, he's not external either. He's not, he's not out there to be looked for. He's within all of us. We are all eternal sparks of God. De'Vannon: Mm-hmm. What I, what I you know, you know, Jesus describes the death. Like he, you know, in the Bible he told us to to, to basically mourn when somebody is born in a rejoice when they die.Because Yeah. When when you They're Nicole: going back home. Yeah. When you, and they're not gonna remember any of this negative stuff. You know? It's like when I got over to the, to the other side God was all around me. God was in me. God, I, you know, I was God. God was present and fullness and oneness. And [00:38:00] most of all, God was love, pure, non-judgmental love.And in that state it was not that I suddenly had been forgiven for my mistakes, is that they no longer existed. Nothing I had done on Earth was being weighed or measured. It was simply the way my story had played out in one realm.So that's another lesson coming from the NDEs is part of the 10 of 'em is we are not judged. And I think one of the worst things we do to ourselves present day is we judge our thoughts, we judge our emotions, we judge our each other. And if we can just get rid of the judgment. That would be De'Vannon: huge, right?God is the God of mercy in, in the, you know, and you know, he [00:39:00] said, judge, not, you know, it's really just that simple. But, you know, we learn all of that judgment from broken people who have positions of authority over our lives, you know, and things like that in society. But that, you know, from the beginning it was not so.You know even the, I think video1562552333: that, Nicole: I think, yeah, I think that's one of the biggest issues I have with religion is the hypocrisy that goes on, especially with things like Jesus's words. I mean, when people say, who would you like to have dinner with? I said, Jesus, I would like to ask him what he thinks of how people have interpreted what he has, quote said or not said based on the Bible.Bless you. And one of the things is the judgment judge, not less G B B judged, you know, and they're judging. You because you're, you're gay because you're whatever the condition is. There's just [00:40:00] still so much judgment and, and it's causing so much fractionation and just anger and hatred and, and it, and it's just like, wow.That is not at all what Jesus meant by that. You know, it's, it's quit judging others and don't judge yourself because that just lowers your esteem and lowers your own vibration. Mm-hmm. De'Vannon: Right. Now, I'm curious some of the other, the common themes of near death experiences besides the white light. You, you said they had, they had done research to find some commonalities.What are some of the other commonalities? Okay. Nicole: We are never alone. That's a big one because people believe like when the with the pandemic, a lot of people were dying alone, but we are never alone. The spiritual realm is always around us and when we die, Angels, deceased, loved ones. Even our deceased [00:41:00] pets, they meet us.And so we, that's why you see people, like, they'll start grabbing at things as they're dying. You know, they'll, they'll, and you're going, what are they grabbing at? But it's like they're having a window into the other realm, across the ba. So they keep switching from that, that perspective to back here on earth, that perspective.And then they finally transition. But we are never alone. We always have a spiritual angel guy, somebody with us. And I think that's more from the human part of us that wants to be there for someone, for us to feel better about ourselves, that we were there. But I know, and I talk about this in the book, a lot of people choose to die when nobody is around.My brother-in-law died from a l s at 51. House full of people. He waited till everyone was out of his room [00:42:00] at some point in the night and passed. He did not want anybody else around him, you know, and I know other people's same situations. They had, had people monitoring, and when someone goes and gets a cup of coffee, the person, you know makes their transition.So I think that is up to the person. And you don't, you know, your, in my opinion, your job is to hold the space for that person as they as they go through this. And I know the human form with death because we are human. There's still suffering, there's still grief, pain, loss, and we have to carefully and compassionately hold and heal that with people.But the cosmic context is benevolent and extraordinary of a what awaits us. And if [00:43:00] we know that true context, it's gonna enable us to live a happier life and prepare for our own graceful passing, you know, not to be resistant and to support others as they approach their own transition. I know that was a lot.De'Vannon: Well Nicole: for me, so that's another one. We're not, we're never alone. We are not judged. Everyone and everything is connected.Okay? We are all energy. When we leave this body that breath. Think about it. When you see somebody at a funeral, they're laid out. The cosmetologist has worked on 'em. They don't, in my opinion, I don't know about you. They just don't look like they did. [00:44:00] They can never get their hair right or their makeup. It just doesn't look like them.Right? And that's because the light, that beautiful light of the energy has been lifted out of them. And that's that breath. The breath. If you see it on a cold day, you see your breath, it vaporizes, its energy transforms. And so we are all connected and we need to start paying attention to the energy and start thinking about, your energy affects me, mine affects, you know, we're all in this, this together.And it doesn't matter the differences because when we. Transition. We go into that, that, that form of soul, which is energy. It's not a human body.[00:45:00]De'Vannon: I, I want you to talk about like your road to rehabilitation. So you let's take it back like physically now, did you have to do like a lot of physical therapy? Were there multiple surgeries? Like when were you able to like, come out of the hospital and go home? Like, and then after that, did you have continued.Rehabilitation. How did it work physically to get you back to, to good? I Nicole: was in i c u now they took me to the closest hospital, which was a community hospital, and they were not prepared for trauma at that hospital, so they had to bring in, I was too critical to move. So they had to bring in ano another nurse.I had to have two nurses on me at all times. I was so critical. They had to bring in nine different specialists. Okay. So they had to bring in an infectious d disease specialist from Denver, because I had three infections set in from all the fiberglass, the feces, the, the, all that stuff that [00:46:00] mixes up in you.I got gang green and sepsis in my right leg. I almost, I was on the verge of amputation of that, and I didn't know it until after it passed. So I was hooked up at one point to 10 different IVs. Okay. And. They had to do what they call a subclavian to put it in there because you run out of veins after a while.So the doctor described to my mother, she is very, very, very three very sick. Okay. And every day it was, I don't know if she's gonna be alive or if she's gonna die today. That's how serious it was. I had to have a colostomy. I don't know if many people know what that is, but that's where they, they cut your where your bowels are and they pull out part of your bowel and they resection that so that you can go to the bathroom.And so here I am at 19 and I wake up from a surgery with my [00:47:00] intestine in a bag, part of it, and going, I've never had sex with anybody. I, I, no one's gonna wanna have sex with me, you know, when they see that back, cuz I couldn't stand it. And so one was an emergency operation from all the infections and they I coded on the way to the operating room.So they couldn't give me the amount of anesthesia that they needed to put, put me out because they would've lost me again. So I went in, like on a muscle relaxer and of Tata anesthesia, and I could feel them, I could hear them talking, I could feel them pulling my stomach. But I couldn't move, I couldn't say anything.And it was awful. It was awful to, to, to feel all this and to hear all this and not be able to do anything. You know, you're just immobile. I had to have my foot sewn [00:48:00] back on, so I had to have. Two skin grafts done. They took it off my thigh and one was the inside of my right thigh that they had to, to plug up with this huge hole.And then the other skin graft went directly onto the tendon on my foot to keep it together. It had a 5% chance of taking, and it did. And the doctor, it's written up in the Denver Medical Journal because it was just unbelievable that it would graft without having to granulate and just. Here, right on the tendon.Now, today, I still have issues. I have to wear those lovely compression socking, but I got my foot. I'm so grateful. I still have my foot. But you know, I have bowel issues from it, from the colostomy. They did reverse the colostomy, but it was, you know, I, I just, and then migraines and the va finally, finally, after 38 years, gave me a hundred percent, I call it [00:49:00] compensation.I don't call it disability, I call it compensation rating. And it took me that many times. I was on my third appeal and the VA rep from North Carolina just moved here. And he said, Nicole, it says, clear in your notes a patient thought initially dead on arrival. That means you had a head injury. Okay. So I don't know how they have missed that all these years.And we filed it with just that phrase. And next thing I know, the money showed up at the bank and I was granted, you know, permanent disability. And I'm just like, I, I think it's just a persistence challenge with the VA and the right wording, because that was my last attempt. They only give you three, but I am finally in that and can get compensated in that, that realm.So I don't have to work because I worked for a long time and I have P T S D and that was only diagnosed two years [00:50:00] ago. So I'd been trying to push myself through things that were so stressful, making the p t s worse. And that has been a huge issue with me is trying to regulate my nervous system and get that on board to be more in a parasympathetic sympathetic state.De'Vannon: You know, hearing all of what you've been through and everything like that, you know, perspective is everything, you know, and the thing that I was, and I, when I got H I v I was freaking out about what might happen. You know, there are for worse things that can happen and I'm not downplaying, you know, the seriousness of H I V and the, you know, hepatitis B, which I also have a history of, you know, but, you know, I feel like accidents like yours are, you know, are worse.You know, cancers, hell Covid can kill you in two weeks, you know? Yeah. You know. I'm, I'm thankful that I'm at a point where I have a good attitude about the diseases that I've had to struggle with, [00:51:00] because now I see how bad it really could have been. You know, those diseases never actually did anything to me.It was just my perception and fear of, of death that that really caused me to do self-harm to myself. And so I'm saying all that to say, people watch your perspective because you might actually hurt, you hurt yourself when you didn't have to be hurt. And for other veterans out there trying to fight and battle and box with the VA for your disability, like the woman said, you gotta keep going.It took a, it took time, but I got my, you know, my, my full rating too, that the, the VA is a breeding ground for the most wicked people who have. Never been veterans. And they come and they sit in there and they try to block us from getting our benefits. And it's even worse when you have someone who was a veteran working at the VA doing the same sort of treachery.So you do have to fight and sometimes you need to get like the D A V or the American Legion or an advocate to represent you. And [00:52:00] what I had to do, I live in Louisiana, but the New Orleans VA is so damn corrupt. People here go to other states. I had to go over to the Houston va, now I talk to the Los Angeles, you know, va I, I mean d a v I went to, I went to the Houston Vav and the Los, and I talked to the Los Angeles, d a v.Any d a center can represent you cuz they're all one big organization. It doesn't matter what state you live in. And so if the VA in your town is fucking up and they're full of assholes, go over to another state, you know, and, and the DAV can help you that all out. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I remember I had sent in, I had gone to see, Three new doctors that all documented migraines had injury, because back then in the eighties, they didn't have T b i traumatic brain injury that was not, you know, a known condition that people, you know, doctors were putting down.And when the it came back rejected, not enough evidence. And I was like, did they even read that? [00:53:00] And when I called up there, they admitted that they hadn't read it. There are so many claims coming through. And so that's when I got the advocate here in North Carolina to help me. And he said, we're gonna do this and let's see what happens because you deserve it.And I just wanted the validation that they now have a connection between P T S D and migraines that is clearly established. And if you have P T S D and you have migraines, then you should be getting compensated for both.But anyway, so yeah, I totally agree with you on that. But I had to go through rehab. I had to learn to walk again. I started in a swimming pool. I went home in December. It was a big to-do. They met me at the airport. I had a kidney infection. I didn't want anybody to touch me cause I was so in pain. But, you know, it was a slow slog.And physically, and I will tell [00:54:00] you, it's it's challenging When it happens, you get so much attention and then as you get better, people just fall off. And it's very lonely, you know, because you're still having to pursue the rehab and your friends are in college, they're having a good time, their lives go on, and you just feel like you've been, you know, gypped that and especially when you don't have a memory of what happened, you know, and, and then you're just expected to get on with life.At least that was the expectation In my family, you look physically like you can do things again. So forget about your mind or your spirit. And I think there's something, there's spiritual abuse that goes on, and there's spiritual amnesia and spiritual amnesia is what we all get when we get all these filters put on us as we start growing up.And. [00:55:00] I love it. In my book, I talk about, I did neuro emotional technique for seven years with people including children. And I was with a little girl who was six years old who was coming from a evangelical background who was scared she was going to hell cuz she did something bad. Now she's adopted so that's even worse.So I asked her how she sees God and she eagerly told me God is a blue spirit with colors and balloons in all different colors, no head and can talk. And clearly this little girl is having a direct experience with God, with no filters. And to me, of all the definitions I've heard, I resonate with that the best.You know, there's nowhere where there's energy of God is not. And it just talks to you in a way that you talk to it, it's your own. Relationship, you have to connect to it. It's [00:56:00] a direct experience you have to come into. And I love all the colors because that's what I saw on the other side was the colors.You know, it was just amazing. And she saw 'em as balloons, you know, and it just I was just like amazed. And of course, her parents were like, when I told her there was no hell she looked at her mom, she goes, mom, is that true? There's no, there's no hell with fire in the devil down there. She goes, we'll talk about that later.And I never heard back from her, but, you know, I like to take that. Quote, because children are so innocent and they haven't been subjected to all these indoctrinations and theories and you know, everybody is going to have a different concept of God. But know that from my experience and hundreds of thousands of others, that God is love and we will see our loved ones when we return home.[00:57:00]And you know, I think loving ourselves and others is the most important thing we can do because when you truly love yourself, and I mean love. Unconditional love. All your mistakes, your messes, everything. When you understand that love does not have love is not only a verb and a noun and an emotion, but it's an energy.And when you're around people who have that love energy, you can just feel it, you know? I don't know if that's the way you felt when I was reading your the, the end of your book and your epilogue with the pastor that passed away that was real influential. Sorry, I forgot her name. Evangel Nelson.Yes. If she was like that for you, where she just lit up. You could see the light in her eyes, you could feel it, you know, she was, [00:58:00] and that to me is love. And that they accept you for just for your beingness. And that's what we all need to unwrap ourselves from all these layers and get to that part of us, the being that we were born to be, which is our soul, which is just love and light and beauty and grace, and all these beautiful things.De'Vannon: Let there be light, let there be light. Let there be so much light. Yeah. Nicole: And that's, we we're light workers. That's what you have a light above your head this whole time. And I'm just sitting there. It's like you have a little, little halo kind of, and we are, you know, we are, this is my vocation now. You know, I've had occupations, but my vocation is to help people to try to understand it's time to awaken, to stay, to get out of this unconscious, keep repeating generational things.Start understanding your relationship [00:59:00] with what you call, or whatever the concept of God is, and how does that work in your life, you know, instead of waiting for something terrible to happen and then you start thinking and delving into this. De'Vannon: That is so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so beautiful. And I thank you so much for sharing all that you have.So tell us any, like, last words that you have and And and then I'll go ahead and give everybody your website and everyth. Well, Nicole: first of all, I have to say I love your beard being purple because that purple is royalty and purple is spirituality. Okay? So it's a high vibration which you emanate so that, you know, hopefully our goal is to move our brave vibration upwards, you know?But you know, I guess my main message, you know, it was what Spirit said is not be afraid of death, because if you are, [01:00:00] you're not gonna truly live your life and. This world is so beautiful and I wrote this book because I wanna help other people with their fears about death and to support you through the loss of loved ones.And I hope my book will inspire you to live fully and freely with your heart and your hands wide open. You know? And that's, that was my intention. And it's on Amazon, it's on Barnes and Nobles. You can get it through independent books. It's only what I told somebody the other day, we have these little fairs that come through and one came through Newburn and they were selling those funnel cakes and they were $10.And I said, oh my God, my book is cheaper than the funnel cake. I was like, At 9 99, I was just like, all that work, 13 years to get this book outta me. And a funnel cake, which you eat in what? Five minutes? It was more than that. So it's coming out on Audible [01:01:00] probably in the next month. I just finished my last recording of that the rerecord yesterday.And people, that is not as easy as you think to read your own book. I don't know if you've done that yet with your book. Yeah, I have, but De'Vannon: it is hard. Oh yeah. It, it's because it's like you have to relive everything all over again. Yes. Every time you go through and you don't just read through, you may have to reread each chapter, each section many times to get it right.So you need therapy after you back and read your own book. Nicole: Yeah. And then you hear yourself telling your story, and that's like a, that's a wow. So it was really it was a good thing to go through, but it was a healing, it was another layer in the healing process. And I just want people to know that too, is that healing takes time.Get help if you're stuck. There's lots of resources out there. And to truly, truly come home to who you really are as a soul. [01:02:00]De'Vannon: Alanis Mariette said it like this, let's not equate death with stopping. Nicole: Oh gosh, no, it's, it's just, you're going on. It's like John Lennon said, you just get outta one car and go into the next.De'Vannon: Right, so, so her name is Nicole Kerr. The book is called You Are Deathless. I'll put a link to Amazon and the show notes. The website is nicole kerr.com. That will go in the show notes. She's on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and all of that will go in the showy notes. Is everything. Always does. Thank you so very much for sharing and shining your light upon us and with us today, Nicole and everyone.Just remember that everything is gonna be all right. Nicole: Thank you so much, Devon, and I really appreciate it. You've been a joy to talk to.De'Vannon: Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. It really [01:03:00] means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at Sex Drugs in jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at Davanon Sex Drugs and jesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.My name is Davanon, and it's been wonderful being your host today. And just remember that everything is gonna be all right. 

INTRODUCTION: Dr. Vernon T. Scott is from the state of Georgia. He is currently pursuing a Sex Coaching certification from Sex Coaching University and earning a second masters in Marriage and Family Therapy with a Systemic Sex Therapy specialization.Vernon has years of experience in life coaching and sexual health research and education. He is also an advocate for Trans rights and fighting against rape culture and its systemic impact within society. Vernon plans to use his platform to provide healthy conversations related to the nuances of sexual expression and amplify the voices of those often forgotten by society.He is the host of the Heauxliloquy Podcast and the owner of Slaytor's Playhouse, LLC. The podcast focuses on bringing people outside the compressed box of sexual expression. Vernon and his guests have conversations that range from kinks to personal sexual experiences to mental health. As for Slaytor's Playhouse, it is a publishing company that currently provides journals, artwork, and books.Social Media, Website, and MerchVernon's IG and Twitter: @UrFavHeauxstPodcast Twitter: @HeauxliloquyBook link: https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-How-Hoe/dp/173663190Xhttps://www.heauxliloquy.comhttps://slaytorsplayhouse.com  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Vernon's New Sexually Inspired Journal·      A Warning Against Overuse Of Technology·      A Warning Against Sex & Hookup Apps·      Gwyneth Paltrow Shade (The Loving Sort)·      How Do You Trust?·      Masturbation Is Not Secondary To Sex·      Moving On From Narcissists Is MANDATORY·      Men's Sexual Performance Issues·      Can't Turn A Hoe Into A Husband·      Are You A Sex Addict? HTTPS://WWW.SAA.ORG CONNECT WITH VERNON: Website 1: https://www.heauxliloquy.comWebsite 2: https://slaytorsplayhouse.comHow To Be A Hoe: https://amzn.to/3n86RIRPoetry Book: https://amzn.to/3AavxrxYouTube: https://bit.ly/3nicLXDInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/urfavheauxst/Twitter (Vernon): https://twitter.com/UrFavHeauxstTwitter (Podcast): https://twitter.com/HeauxliloquyTikTok: https://bit.ly/3xOIjcPLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vernontscott/ CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook:    https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO·      Sex Addicts Anonymous: HTTPS://WWW.SAA.ORG ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqgINTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Dr. Vernon t Scott, one of our resident guests on the sex drugs in Jesus podcast is back with us this week to talk about his brand newsexual exploration journal Y'all. This journalism, like any journal I've ever seen before, is filled with erotic drawings, which you can color in, and it's filled with prompts from Dr. Scott himself to help you think about your sexuality from a whole new way. Now in this episode, we're gonna take a deep dive [00:01:00] and really unpack some of these prompts and questions that Dr. Scott has placed within this sexual inspired journal. We're gonna issue a warning against sex and hookup apps.We're gonna talk about why masturbation is not secondary to sex. We're gonna hit on men's performance issuesand talk about why you can't turn a hoe into a husband. We also encourage you to ask yourself the question, are you a sex addict?You could be, and we're gonna talk about.A way that you can find out.Thank you so much for listening and enjoy the show.hello, are you delicious? Delicious, delicious little chickies out there. And welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host Savannah that I have with Mia, believe for the third time, fourth, fifth, who's counting because the bitch is bad.Dr. Vernon t Scott of the Hell Podcast, the host of the Essential Guide on [00:02:00] How to be, I mean, the author of The Essential Guide on How to Be a Ho, also the author of Prose from a Soul Seeking Justice. That's the poetry book. Doc Scott is back here today to talk to us though about the journal that is called a New Sexual You.Which which is the latest work. And so we're journaling today. Girl, how are you doing? I am Vernon: doing very well. I, it's, it's, you know, life is lifeing but at the same time I'm embracing it because you only get one life to live, so you might as well make it happy regardless of what kind of downturns you may come across.Like just find the positive things and that's one of the things I'm working on, acknowledging that, you know, things are not where I want it to be, but figuring out how I can make them a lot better. So I'm in my own little process and I'm just enjoying the ride at this [00:03:00] point De'Vannon: on to the Fox. Yet it's not think there was a soap opera for a called One Life to Live.We only have one life to live to watch my grandmother and things. The Lord was speaking to us. Then you only come, come this way once. Vernon: You know, I, I kind of wanna be a soap opera actor just for like, it's like if you get in there, you're stuck in there for some time until they have to kill you off. And I'm just like, I just wanted to do the one episode.Like, I thought it was gonna be a cameo bitch.That would be so nice. De'Vannon: That's some stable ass shit. I wouldn't mind being on the young in the, they like it's stable income. But I wouldn't mind being on the Young and the Restless and doing a scene with Nick, that boy who played Nick Joshua, that fine ass boy. I think it's time for his character to become a little questioning.Vernon: I'm so done. Go away. De'Vannon: It's time for me to show up and help guide this young [00:04:00] man onto his questioning journey. Vernon: Go away. De'Vannon: Speaking of, speaking of guiding people on their journey, so y'all the way. Vernon has this journal laid out. He has a lot of prompts now. I've seen journals before that have a lot of blank pages in him and not that much written.His prompts as he calls 'em. I think there's like 10 prompts in total. Or it's one prompt, but there's like four or five different questions per prompt, and they're, and they're written, so it's probably like 30 questions or something, you know, throughout the whole thing. And they're written to help to guide you along.So you, so you kind of feel like Vernon's right there with you helping to guide and you can always, you know, reach out to him anyway with questions. You know, he's a sexual experience coach. He's coming from his own history of sexual abuse and trauma, which he's overcome to help the world do the same. And so what would you like to tell us about this [00:05:00] book before I start interrogating you with my 20 questions?Oh my Vernon: God. Not 20. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I would say the, the great thing about it is that it allows you to question yourself, to dive a lot deeper. And one of the reasons why there are multiple questions in each prompt is because you, a lot of people, when you get that. That basic question, they don't know what's next.And sometimes having a little bit more thought provoking things that goes deeper and deeper into those questions that you're asking yourself, helps you develop your thought processes. It helps you critically think, it helps you find the answer a little bit. I can't say sooner because everybody's process is a little bit different, but it helps you go a little bit deeper into yourself.More than that basic, oh, how are you feeling? I'm feeling good. Okay. And what's after that? So the, the it's. [00:06:00] Phrased in a way that you get that what's after that at the forefront. In addition to that, it allows people who are exploring themselves to find their creative side too, because what is it like when it comes to sex in general?I personally believe that a lot of people's blockages, because they lack creativity, they lack the option of freedom. And that's one of the things that this journal allows people to do. You get to create these, yeah, they're already printed for you. Yeah, they already have their own structures, but you get to create your own na narrative with these images.You get to create your own characters with them. Like one of the things that is even mentioning in instructions, you get to gender bend however you feel is best for you. Like there is one image in there where it is a feminine body, but it, the journal in itself plays on the mask film.Throughout. But the feminine [00:07:00] body in this one comes within the masculine section of it. So it's like, oh, okay, so how can I dive deeper into that? So I would say it is just a way for you to explore yourself, be creative, and dive deeper into your own introspection and figure out how you can embrace your own sexuality a lot more.De'Vannon: You had me dive deeper. That's, that's, that, that's what I that's what I kept hearing. Maybe it's because I had this. This, this, this, this, this man over here, earlier this morning. Who, who, who dove really deep. Ooh, Vernon: we love a deep dive. Now hold up now. Let find one of those. It's been a dry, dry season, Lord.De'Vannon: But let me look, let me do like they do in church and extend my hand so that,but [00:08:00] like when the like when the cloud came out of the river, And they said, we, we hear the sound of an abundance of rain. And three year, it had been that three year dry spell. I think that was the process. Elijah or Samuel. It was one of the two. And he got in his chair and ran. And baby it hadn't rained in three years, but it rained Vernon: Chile Cha.I I'll accept a lot of rain at this moment. You can make it rain some cash. Why you at let, let not let me not let me start taking off my shirt. I'm joking. I'm joking. Not on the internet. On the internet. My, I'm sorry. De'Vannon: His website, the websites are ally.com and slaters playhouse.com. He's on Twitter.Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all that will go in the show now. But yeah, honey, I was, do I, I let him come over here and do a deep dive. He he came so fast the first time, you [00:09:00] know, they called me the, you know, the diamond Princess too, you know? Ooh, ooh.And then I think he was so, He was so into it. And then also so feeling some type of way you know, maybe embarrassed that he decided to fuck me again, you know? And so, and we're gonna be talking about sexual performance because that was one of your prompts. You know, I have some questions about the way tops view sexual performance, cuz I don't view it that way, but but yeah, I understand the dry spell.You know, everybody knows, you know, I had to break up with my, my covertly narcissistic ex January. You know, so we're moving forward. But I had to go. I mean, aint nothing gonna take the place of being with like one person who you can get dick from five nights a week if you want to. You know, this shit was wonderful.You know, I, I thought the sex, you know, in our relationship unfortunately was like one of the best things. There's so much [00:10:00] more to life than that. But that's really one of the best things he could give me cuz he was so emotionally unavailable, but mm-hmm. You know, you know, we we're having to move on. And that's, and that's all that there is to it.I'm saying all this is say Mayo Dry, spell be broken in Jesus' name. Vernon: Amen. And we receive it. Oh my damn. I didn't, we De'Vannon: receive, I mean if it gets that bad, I'm gonna hop on the flight and come over there and break it myself. Okay. We love it.Vernon: Oh God yes. De'Vannon: And so, okay, so let's start at the cover, the book cover. I have a thing about book covers and yours is especially colorful, y'all. It's purple. I think he might be able to hold it up for us per chance. Yep. Right. And so there you go. Bling bling purple. It matches my lilac colored [00:11:00]Easter, well Easter inspired spring inspired beard right now.I'm seeing it looks like Star. Star. And this book is out on Amazon and everything yet, or is it yet to be Vernon: released? It is out, I believe it is on Amazon. What I would recommend doing, because it is a lot cheaper just getting from the source, just go to my website to purchase it at Slater's Playhouse.It's so much easier for everybody. Other outside printing sources charged like 30 plus I think, and that's for the cheapest version of it. And the rest is like 45 and 50. And you don't have to pay that, pay the 25 at the website or the 20 at the website. So, and it's. For some people who may not have those funds, because I love accessibility.There's also a digital version too, so that you can print it out at home and that's only $5 De'Vannon: and I think it's like 160 something pages. 160, 100 mm-hmm. Page. [00:12:00] And so it's not a little thin anorexic journal. You know, this one here has but I hate that man when I buy a journal or something like that, that is prompted by someone and not just a marble journal, like what we used in grade school.Mm-hmm. I expect some prompting in there, like what you gave, not these little one-liners every, every few pages. No, I felt like this journal has a lot of soul and depth into it. So people who have never journaled before are not, you know, this is great, you know, for them, but. I see like angel wings in the back.What, what, explain this cover to me and why you went with it. Vernon: So I've, I've been feeling a lot of like universal energy, let's put it that way. And a part of that is also connecting to the things that make me feel free. And part of that is feathers and flying and being out. [00:13:00] Like whenever I think of freedom, I think of birds because they can go wherever they want at any time and all they have to do just spread their wings and go.So that's why on many of my covers you may see some types of feathers, be it the wings that's Like shrouded in the back, in the center of the cover or even at the bottom. Something that, that's like a little small cloud area or galaxy. But no, it's actually just a collection of wings and it's just, it's just something that always gave me a sense of freedom.And because this is a journal that focuses on sexuality and finding the new you, finding the new sexual you and finding that sexual freedom, I thought, why not? Let's put some wings on there so that you understand that you too can fly and soar in all of that. De'Vannon: Lord, give me two wings so I can fly away from all of this bullshit.Amen. I'll get 'em when I die and so will [00:14:00] you. Yes. So. So you've already talked about like the purpose of the journal and everything like that. I think I've stated why your journal is different than others, but is there anything you would like to say about why your journal ain't like the other journals?Vernon: I would say I have yet to see a journal that gives you the freedom to draw color and all this other stuff in write to really make something your own. Yes. When it comes to like, just like the basic notebook that you get to write in, you get to draw on the margins or you get to figure that out as you go along.But this automatically gives you that permission upfront lets, you know, Make this yours, decorate it however you want to decorate it. Attach your creativity to your own journey of yourself. Make this something that is extremely personal to you on multiple levels. And I don't see that in two many other journals.And on top of that, similar to what [00:15:00] you said earlier many of those journals only have like a one sentence question. They don't really probe you to go deeper. And I, I made that mistake with my first journal that I made within the series, and I just was like, okay, let's put some thought-provoking questions at the front and go with it.Yes, they're helpful questions, but one of the things I realized is that what is the, like I said earlier, what is that next step? It's great to just have that question, but what's going to be the thing to help guide people through through their processes? Guide them through their their like.Figuring out what their thoughts are, figuring out who they are as a person. Like one of the questions if I can ask it. And it's also one of my favorite ones is from prompt two. As soon as I pull that up is related to consent. So most people are, who are unfamiliar with [00:16:00] the what consent is.They may have just that basic yes or no, but this actually focuses on yourself rather than like anybody else's definition. So the question asked what does consent mean to me? How does it look and sound? How does consent feel? And when I am most comfortable with providing wait, when am I most comfortable with providing consent?So it's like, you really have to think about these things. It's not just yes or no questions. It's figuring out how. These things relate to sexuality, really do relate to yourself as well. De'Vannon: I feel like I need to say that journaling is not like a, a male female thing. This isn't something like girls do.It's not, you're not less of a dude if you want to take your pencil out pen or whatever and write, it's not a like that because [00:17:00] journaling taps into the soul, to the mind is private anyway, cuz nobody needs to know you have the thing, you know? And so, I don't know. I just felt like I wanted to speak to like any sort of like mischaracterizations or stereotypes that might, or stigmas that might be attached to this.Vernon: Hmm. No, that's, that's it's good that you said that cuz many people do think that it's just something that women do because like even when you think about the media that we watch, you have that dear diary moment, our girls in their diaries and stuff like that. But yeah, you'll have men who journal, but this is usually somebody that's like a prominent figure.So like the journals of George Washington or a judge or, you know, whatever it is, whenev what, whatever like c s I related show that you're watching in it's some high powered individual was murdered. You find their collection of journals. But it is not often sa stated [00:18:00] that, oh, the everyday man has that permission to write as well.So I think it is good to mention that anyone can journal and journaling is good regardless of who you are. De'Vannon: And it's a developing skill. So you sat down to write your first page in your first journal. Don't think you gonna be like, Angela Lansbury and Murder she wrote, you know, or Oprah Winfrey or some damn body like that.You know, you have to crawl before you walk and just about anything you do in life. So it's not about writing it perfectly, like you say in here. It is about just speaking your truth and being truthful. Now tell me why is, why is truth important in journaling? Vernon: I would say in order for you to truly engage, let me using the word in this, but in order for you to truly engage with yourself, you do have to tell the truth.It's easy for us to be fixated in the lies that we tell ourselves or the lies that we tell other people. And how do [00:19:00] you truly expect for yourself to grow if you cannot be honest with yourself about the things that are really bothering you? So that's why it is. Pivotal for people to maintain truthfulness in their conversation.Sometimes it's too early to approach that truth, and oftentimes we do recognize that we have glossed over something. But when you recognize that, give yourself that opportunity just to go back and address that a little bit later on, or even address it in a different way and see what comes De'Vannon: outbecause it's a living thing. So what, what you write, you can come back and revisit and you can track your growth. I wanna say, I know we live in a technological age, doc Scott, I need you bitches to put the damn phone down. Yes. And [00:20:00] and pick up a pencil. A number two. Okay. Or some in fucking number two.Take your hands. And write in the damn journal. I know you have notes in your cell phone, but it's a different way that the brain is wired to your handwriting across paper versus clicking on that technological device. Mm-hmm. When I was doing my hyp hyp hypnotherapist hypnotist certification, we would have to hand write in pencil, you know, and then we could go back and interpret that handwriting, you know, by the way the letters lay and things like that.And learn everything about a person, you know, before they even much open their mouth. You know, there is something to physically writing as old school and archaic as it may be, but when you really, really need deep help and deep work done, we had to kick [00:21:00] this technology to the side and get back to our roots.Hmm. Vernon: You know, I think a lot of that is because when you do hand write, everything becomes so much more personal. Cuz when you do the digital thing, you, it's the screen. It's always the screen. Whatever you type, whatever you put out there is so far distant. You're not really, yeah. You can get carpal tunnel for like, typing all the time.Okay. Whatever. That's, you know. That, but it, it doesn't really do anything within your body. Whenever you are typing these things, you're just doing a task on a regular basis. But whenever you actually sit down and write something, when you write your signature, whenever you put your body to motion to articulate the things that you're trying to say, and in the language that your body actually understands, that tends to stick a lot more than when you just type, because these letters on the keyboard, [00:22:00] They don't speak our language, they just speak what the keyboard says.They, they speak in the idea that you're putting out there in the digital space, but they're not speaking the same language that your body has learned throughout the ages because you're not typing at first. You're learning how to write your name. You're learning how to write a sentence by putting it on paper.Your body remembers that. And outside of that, typing on a skill on the keyboard just becomes a skill and not a part of your identity. Not a part of De'Vannon: yourself. Fuck. Yeah. Like your handwriting is unique to like your d n a and you use this something that's basic as handwriting. And I like a pencil because that lead is more natural than ink.In spiritual circles. If in spiritual circles, if you do certain types of spiritual work, You must use a pencil to do it. Mm-hmm. And you don't have to go go as far as to use parchment paper or like brown paper that is untainted and [00:23:00] untouched by man. In order to access what you're trying to access, you gotta go back to the roots bitch.Mm-hmm. But your hand, but you can use, you know, like writing with a number two pencil. So you recenter yourself to refocus to remember who you are and get in touch with that. Like, like Doc Scott said, you start off right and then by the time you all know in fucking fifth grade you got a god damn tablet you're running around with and you clicking away at everything, you know, turn into that crazy bitch from Megan who's obsessed with that fucking doll and didn't wanna give a damn thing up.The ho was strung out on the damn electronic, you know, because she know the fuck she was apart from the technology. Mm-hmm. So, And we gonna be talking about apps later cuz in the, in the email you sent, you wanted to talk about dating apps and all of that. And I got some shit to say cuz that's a huge part of what, of what cost me my relationship.Mm-hmm. But I don't know. I dunno if you wanna talk more about what journaling has personally done [00:24:00] for you. Had an interesting thing happen yesterday, I went with a new friend of mine this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful man, his name is Landon. He has a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful wife and and everything.And they're just an amazing couple. And I love the way he adores her, both when he's with her and when he is not. And but he and I went to go see Dungeons and Dragons and I'm gonna tell you all hearted moves in mysterious ways. I was sitting there watching this movie. I'm not big in the d and d, but Landon is gonna teach me how to play it.The ex played it, but he never invited me to the games, even though that would've been nice cuz I was the one who took him up there and pushed him to start playing him. But that's a whole other thing, you know? But the Lord has given me better. I have a new person who does invite me to it and everything like that.And so but the characters in there reminded me of issues from [00:25:00] my previous relationship. And when I got home and I hadn't journaled in a good while, I, I broke out my, my famous red journal and and I wrote, and it took me a few hours and I just talked about, you know, how God was speaking to me about what happened in my relationship.And I felt a great sense of validation and everything. And I'm gonna release, I'm gonna release a show and I'm gonna read this journal, you know, to people. And It's like from Harry Potter when they have that pen, Seve, when they do that spell where you can take the thought outta your head mm-hmm. And drop that bitch into that pen, Seve and they'll fucking worry about it no more.But go pick it up when you want to. Mm-hmm. That is for me. Too much shit going on in here. Put it down on paper there. My brain feels relieved and the load has been lightened. Do you have like a, a very specific example of a time where journaling broke said, broke you free? Vernon: How [00:26:00] journaling allowed, helped me come back from psychosis.And like this was during the height of the pandemic in might as well say 2021 ish. And I just started with a new therapist and working with him and he suggested that I use journaling as a way to ground myself a little bit more into reality and everything that's going on and process a lot of the things that's been bothering me or just even some past experiences.And it helped me. Literally, it did help me ground ground myself back into reality. It helped me figure out some of the things that were still bothering me that I thought I resolved, but I did not necessarily get over. It also helped me get in touch with my creative side again and get more in touch with my writing side too.I, there's been [00:27:00] moments I will be writing in my journal and I will say something that I feel is profound and I will underline it or put a star next to it and I'll put a message to myself like, you need to use this line in like a story somehow and keep going back into exploring myself and figuring out what's bothering me doing the shadow work and all of that.Within my journal of course, but like, it has helped me tremendously. And I will say I did use one of those lines in one of I can't say it was a short story cuz I never really went back to it, but a story that I was beginning to write and it, it felt so freeing to address that in that way too.It helped me dive back into story writing and developing a world and all of that. So yeah, [00:28:00]journaling. It's that, it's that girl, De'Vannon: he's that bitch. Look and there are many, many of you suffering from mental health issues and emotional problems. And if you haven't tried journaling, what the fuck do you have to lose?You know, you know, when you really, really get desperate and need help and you really ready for it, you'll try anything. But you know, this is a very, very beautiful journal. So the pictures in here are in black and white. Like Doc Scott was saying, you can color them. It starts off, or at least at the, towards the beginning of it, it's like a beautiful lotus flower that I'm looking at with like a heart in it and everything.And these pictures I'm gonna tell y'all, get progressively Kenia Kia matriculate through. I see a few, I, I think asses in here. Definitely some torsos and such, some ti TAs and whatnot. A six pack or something along that. Somebody's straddling somebody, oh, I ain't gonna say it is [00:29:00] porn. It's, it's very like, expressive and it's very body positive.Not everybody in here has a six pack. I've seen some, some, some hips. Hips and curves and everything like that. And I think that that is fucking wonderful. Yeah. And so how interactive it is. Vernon: Yes. And you know, one of the things that I do it's my self-critique is that I could not find any more like thicker masculine body types sock put in there.But that's one of the things I'm working on fixing for like the, the third iteration of the sexual exploration journal. So I can, like, the theme of it is body. So I have to make sure I have like a lot more body representation throughout that entire journal for the people who like to color and, you know, do that work.So be on the lookout people. De'Vannon: I'm just, nobody's judging you. And if they do, then fuck 'em. Oh look, and [00:30:00]I'm impressed that you put the artwork and everything together yourself. That's quite a skill. And you know what? We, we give you a pass on not having everybody type. Just like, just like we forgave Gwyneth Paltrow for doing Love, sex and Goop on Netflix and having just about everybody represented except for two dudes being in a relationship, even though she had women, men, straight couple didn't see any trends either.Gwyneth, you know, Vernon: get your De'Vannon: Pete, get your Iron Man on all you want. But we holding out for the next season where we sh where we're sure you'll get to those which you weren't able to get to in the first season. The shade, Vernon: the, and I love it becauseI was like, I, I will say I did love to see the bigger bodies up in that bitch. I did love to see it, but I was also like, You could do De'Vannon: a little bit more. [00:31:00] Where, where, where is the Batman To My Robin.So for those of you haven't seen Love, sex and Goop, I guess it's still on Netflix. Super cool. It's all about couples exploring their sexuality and being guided through it because Mo a lot of couples have so, so much piss poor communication and everything. You would think that it would be just easy to reach over to your partner because people have so many fucking unresolved issues.And so, so we, we always use a little help. One of your prompts asked the question, what prevents me from trusting others?Yes. And I guess just one of the questions within that prompt, there's like four or five questions about trust. It's just one, we can't tell it all. We gotta tell on it. And this stood out to me because, I'm the type [00:32:00] until now who would just trust people too far, too much, too fast. You know, y'all love hard.I believe in people and everything like that, and I have no ill intentions towards people. I forget that, that everybody thinks that way. Mm-hmm. When it comes down to sex, sexual relations, relationships, trust is a multi-level thing. For instance, people will guard their hearts and don't trust people with their true emotions or to show their real self, but they'll pull their dick out without thinking about it.Or go run behind closed doors with somebody without telling anyone where they're at. So, so you're willing to trust somebody with your anatomical safety, believing they won't give you a disease? Well, we can see how the h i v pandemic and hepatitis is gone with that. Mm-hmm. And, and you know, you know, we have not been very smart in that.Not judging. I, I have, you know, a history of H I V and hepatitis B myself, so I'm the first one to say I wasn't smart with that. I trust it too much. [00:33:00] And you know, we, so we trust that people aren't gonna cut us up into itty bitty pieces when we get behind closed doors. Although the stories still come in of people going missing on hookups to this day.This not disappear when Dahmer died or whatever the hell. People are still getting cut up on hookups, y'all. So so talk to me about trust, what it means to you and what would you like to say to people about it? My concern is that we put our physical safety at risk. It really, our mental health at risk by the things we're willing to do.Even though we guard certain portions, it's like it's unbalanced trust and it doesn't balance out. See for Vernon: me I'm, I'm similar to you, I like to give people trust until they prove themselves otherwise of being trust trustworthy. But when it comes to, when I provide trust to other people, I also think about my boundaries and like.Moving [00:34:00] within a space of trust without boundaries is asking for destruction. Whenever you do have those boundaries, do know what you're comfortable with, with what you want to allow, that allows you to make a, a lot more different decisions. Most definitely when it comes to how far you go with a another individual.And for me, I like to have clear understandings of, of things. So in order for me to. Come into a space where I am open to providing my body with somebody I need clarity on what are your intentions here? What are you most comfortable with? What what are you interested in doing? Are you willing to send a picture of yourself if if not, what are you willing or comfortable enough sharing?Let's talk about things before we even get to that space of having sex. And another thing is I do feel like cause of some of the messages that we are receiving throughout, you know, [00:35:00] our upbringing is that we have always been given the permission to be sexual and trust people with our bodies in a way.But we have not been given that permission to trust people with like knowing us intimately on another level outside of sex. Meaning having those honest conversations about what, you know, comfort levels or. Oh do you want to cuddle after we are done hooking up or just having those healthier conversations about how you want to engage with other people?We do not receive that permission at all. We have to learn to do that after we've been traumatized or come across so many fuck boys or fuck girls or fuck people that we are just like, oh, maybe I should operate a little bit differently. Or like, we are not even given permission to engage in [00:36:00] love outside of what society says love looks like.But we can freely give our bodies, because most definitely with those who are within the queer, queer community, because we are oversexualized for whatever you find out somebody's queer, oh, you must be having a lot of sex. What the hell made you think bad? Because as the societal thought process is that if you're queer, you're engaging in a lot of sex.And that's not always the truth. But we many of us do enact that narrative because that's what we were told through our lives. So it's easier for us to just be like, oh, I can give you my body because that's expected of me, already not expected of me to actually find a healthy and loving relationship with the person before we even engage in sex.But that's the it's the flip side for a lot of women though. They are told that they have to find the love of their life before they engage in sex. They are to wait [00:37:00] on it until they find the right person that they're most comfortable with losing their virginities to and all this other stuff.However, Men, queer people, just go out there and fuck and enjoy your fucking and explore as much as you want until you may find somebody that you fell in love with or fall in love with and all the other mess. De'Vannon: I feel like on some level at my request for your next journal rendition, is that you include a prompt that has to do with sexual limitations in terms of taking it too far.You know, at what point is your sexual sexuality getting out of hand? Because I've been attending, like, sex addicts, sex addicts, anonymous groups to be sure that since now that I'm single again, I don't turn back into a grinder hole or anything like that. Acting out or trying to fill a void or anything like that.Or [00:38:00] and then I'm, that I'm checking myself, you know, in And keep, and, and, and keeping my thoughts, you know, from spiraling all over the place. Well, I'm also attending the Sex Addicts Anonymous group because I realize, you know, I think that like from a child, probably I was, and nobody ever explained sex to me.And so I learned it from television, like you're saying. And then when I got I v I shut down and stopped having sex pretty much all together. And I learned from reading the Sex Addicts Anonymous literature that that is still a form of like sex, having a sex problem. So either if you take it too far and you just fuck your brains out all through town, or if you do like me and cave in and just, just feel like you just begin to demonize it because you judge yourself.In my case, I judge myself for letting myself get h I v. Either extreme is bad. Now it's okay. You know, I think if somebody needs to pause for some time to get a perspective. Mm-hmm. But [00:39:00]pausing is one thing. Knowing you're gonna reengage as opposed to hating yourself. Like I did both of those extremes.Doing it too much or too little required guidance. And so, and so, that's why I'm going through that. And so I, I wonder, so I, I would like a, a, a prompt about restraint over sexualization and dangers. How can my sex life put me in danger in ways that I'm not thinking about. Mm-hmm. You know renting a hotel room or motel room and turning the lights off and being blindfolded and letting anyone come in there and, fuck, you might be kinky.Some people are gonna call that sex positive. Hey, do what you want, but let's be real about the risks involved in that. Mm-hmm. See? And so, and these are the kind of things that I talk with my s a a sponsor about, you know, just being super mindful. Yes. Society tells people sex is okay, love is not. The patriarchy has told women [00:40:00] how to be, how to act, how to feel, what to do with they posties and everything like that.You know, fuck the damn patriarchy. Exactly. Also, also, not just sexual orientation and lifestyles, but ages. One of the, one of the struggles that I had, and y'all, y'all gonna probably hear me reference that X eczema for some time to come. I believe that I went through what I went through to to help you cuz you know I'm gonna talk about it.I'm not gonna be quiet because somebody has gotta be warned. Also, also, as my hypnotherapist pointed out, since my dad's a narcissist, that older dude who basically molested me when I was 15 was a narcissist. You know, she believed that he came into my life in order to not just heal me of what I went through with him, but the other men too.And so I'm happy about this all. And so we don't tell it. But one of his things was he thought that since he was in his twenties, this meant being a slut and being a hoe. [00:41:00] And I said, there are 20 year olds who do that, but there are people in their twenties who do not do that. So if you're going to be about that life, just say it's because you are about that life, not because your twenties mandates that you be out in the streets like that.So don't have no excuses to hide behind if you know that's what you trying to do. But my whole thing is he let society tell him to, I don't know, to watching tv or he would never put his damn phone down, was always on Instagram. You know, tell him what he's supposed to do in his twenties. And I would say, what do you want?Mm-hmm. When, where did you come up with these things in your mind? From no answers. So we need to be sure that we're not letting television, social media, the church family, nobody tell us how we're supposed to be. Journaling is a good way to delineate that and to, and to get out your actual thoughts so you can separate that shit from the voices in your head [00:42:00] that are not your own.Mm-hmm. Like, like Impro team told Ray in that damn Star Wars movie, he's like, I'm every voice you have ever heard. Okay. He was like, I've been in your head bitch this whole time and you didn't even know. We gotta kick a basket like that out. They even got too comfortable in our minds. Mm-hmm. It ain't even in rent.Mm-hmm. Vernon: Exactly. And I, I love that you mentioned that because people really do think that because of a certain age, this is how they supposed to be, regardless of how old the person is or how young they are, like. Whenever people decide to subscribe to a certain narrative, they have to recognize that that's the choice that they're choosing to make.Like I remember being in my twenties and people saying, oh, this is the age that you're supposed to be finding love, getting in a relationship and doing all these other things. And I would tell people, many of them who often got mad at me that I'm not ready for a relationship. I know I'm not rel ready and I'm not going to [00:43:00] put myself in a sit situation where I am going to what end this relationship because everything is a mess because neither one of us is ready.Or if you are, I'm not. So what are we going to be doing here other than just saying, hey to each other and cuddling up together? And what else? Like, I don't have the foundation that I required in order for me to feel comfortable in a relationship, therefore I will not be in one. So people really do think most definitely like some older people too, that.Yeah, I'm in my fifties. I'm not supposed to be sexual because my sex drive is gone. No, it is not gone. You can have as much sex as you want, be free and be happy with if you're young, you do not have to be going through bodies on a regular basis. You can be in a relationship. You can be alone with yourself.You can have mono sexuality, which is just masturbating all the time. Whatever you want for yourself, you can have that option to [00:44:00] be that. But if you just choose to go with the narrative because it makes you feel comfortable and you feel like you supposed to do that, then that's just not true. You're choosing to do that and you can make your own narrative or you can make your own story about your own life if you choose to do so.De'Vannon: Amen. You better preach. Hallelujah. And and also I like, like to let people know that when you live that way and you don't know why you think what you think or why you think what you. Why you feel what you feel or why you believe, what you believe you are a slave to, to other people, and you don't know that you are a slave to the mindset, to the patriarchy, and they are controlling you because you have no idea what motivates you in life or why you get up and go and do the things you do.I would ask acc, acc ask, ask my ex shit. I'd be like, why'd you do that? He'd be like, I don't know why I did that. Why'd you say that? I don't know why I said that. I'm like, okay. He would be like, I don't look forward to getting older. I won't be able to have fun. Once I turned [00:45:00] 30. I said, okay, why do you believe that?You know, I don't know. I'm like okay. Okay. That's you. That's not everybody. But, but I, I've tried to level with him. I was like, okay, where did you get that from? Let's talk this out. He got all mad. Didn't want to get all deep. I was at the, I was at the nightclub, this club called Splash the other night with my delicious new friends.Just a good, you know, safe group of people for me to hang out with. And twirling and splash is like a, hmm, you know, 18 to maybe like 24 year old general dance club right outside of Louisiana State University. But nobody in there is judging you as long as you, you can be old as whatever, as long as you go in there.I had whatever color beard on, I was rocking and you know, they was like, cool man. Fucking, you know? Right. And there was this dude, old white haired, he had on like a fetish kink, kind of like Scottish Celtic dress leather. Updo, look, go. I was here for it, but when I left I heard these mean ass queens [00:46:00] in the parking lot throwing shade, I think at him talking about like, you know, talking about this old man in the club.And I said, you know what? Them little young fuckers don't understand that the bad karma that they're sewing for themself and Teddy like that because they not gonna be young forever, assuming, assuming that they're even blessed enough to get to these, that guy must have been 60, you know, 70 years old, walking around there with a spring in his step.Young and big mouth and arrogant like that is only gonna make you old and crippled. You know, because you're not sewing good seed for yourself. I respected the fact that he was in there. With gray hair twirling around with 18 year olds with full fucking confidence bitch. No one who can stop him, who can check him.He paid his cover, he pays, okay, it's a free fucking country. I respected the fuck outta him and I complimented him. I did not like seeing the damn queens in the club being petty. Oh, that stems from insecurity any fucking way. Vernon: Nothing but [00:47:00] insecurity and that's their problem. And I, that's the one thing I try to help a lot of people understand, is that when you go out your way to try to make somebody else feel bad or just comment on their existence just for being there, is cause you're insecure that it is something within you wish that you were that person and you need to explore exactly why.Because what did he do to you all to make you want to be so negative other than existing in your space and enjoying his life? Are you jealous that. This is a grown ass person enjoying their life and their, the youth of their age. Make it, make it to that point, like the man is doing whatever the fuck he wants to do.Are you, do you not feel comfortable enough that you can do wherever the fuck you want? That's your problem.De'Vannon: Yeah, people [00:48:00] shouldn't be so shook just cause somebody walked through the fucking door. You know? They should have been like dancing and twerking and popping their own pussy severely and not, not people watching like that. I don't like the people watch. I like to be in the middle of the crowd. I cannot spend my life watching other motherfucking people.That's why I don't like reality tv defies, reels and things like that cuz people just sit there and watch other damn people all day and then they don't have an attention span worth the damn, you know, can't explain shit. But they can tell you what everybody fucking did on social media. It's so fucking stupid.Vernon: Now I will say I'm a people watcher. I'm, I'm not going to lie, but I also like to live my own life. But De'Vannon: there's balance for everything. I'm not judging you If you wanna watch, but fuck you gotta get up engaged at some point. I'm not sitting around and watching none of y'all ho y'all can watch. I agree that's Vernon: there is something I did want to talk about.It is, it is related to your ex as well as people like him. I consider them [00:49:00] as NPCs. For those who are not gamers, that's just a non playable character. The reason why cause. My, my little cousin, he was an NPC at one point, and I had to make sure he pressed stars so he can get his, you know, a person playing.So these are people when you do ask them whether it's on their mind, it's just something blank. If they do act, they, well, let's not say act. They react. And when they react, there's no thought process and that, and sometimes they're just, In the motions of doing things with no thought behind it. So like, whenever you find a person like that, do your, if they're young and it's if, if it's somebody that you're you love a lot, help them learn how to critical critically think.Once you get to that point and they start to do that, there's a completely different shift in their energy and how they interact and how they respond and what they do. They start to think a lot more. It becomes [00:50:00] so much easier for you. Like my little cousin used to be like a problem child. Now he's like the best child in the house because they no way I'm going to have my own family member be a NPC out here.We don't uhuh. No, no. So make, make, contact your friends, contact your family members. Don't let them be an npc. That's all I wanted to say on that. De'Vannon: Well, that goes my that's a good Nod to my Dungeons and Dragons reference earlier. Right. Which it was. Which it was a cute ass movie. But but, you know, the Lord speaks us in all kind of ways, through movies, through shows, television, everything's just all about whether or not your, your ears are open to listen.Mm-hmm. I, I'm gonna say, you can offer help to these NPCs because God knows, you know, I, I, you know, I loved my boyfriend and I tried to help him. You know, one, one of his mindless times like that was when we had first broke up. And I [00:51:00] wish I hadn't gotten back together with him, but I didn't know that narcissistic personality disorder was a fucking thing.I just thought it was like immaturity or some shit. But he was out there for three weeks. He would complain about not having enough friends. But there's a reason people don't like being around him, you know, cause of that heavy ass energy that he has. He refused to let it go. So we're sing. So we're both single for three weeks, although I never limited it from having him, from having friends.What he decided to do was go rack up six different fuck buddies and one supposedly platonic friend all met through hookup apps. I say, okay, you complain about not having friends, but you chose to go rack up fuck buddies again. Okay? Narcissistic people do this. They create the shit they hate and then they blame other people or just bitch about it, even though they literally created it and did it.And so but this was when Covid was popping off. We had tests but [00:52:00] no vaccines. None of him and nor his hoes got tested. And then he came he let me come around him with no mask on and it was not a pretty night. Once I discovered that he had been out fucking cuz he left. A wine bottle, a pork wine bottle in his kitchen.Cause we were trying to be friends or sorted out or you know, I think I was thinking I wanted to get back with him or whatever and I'm like, you're not classy enough to buy something like this cuz I taught you everything you know about taste and design. So you've been with some dude. Otherwise this bottle wouldn't be sitting here cuz you're a box wine bitch.And so nothing against box wine. I have it in here too, but I also have the bottles and the crystal glasses. You know, that was one of those mindless like how in the hell? And the only thing that could come out of his mouth was, I'm single, right? I can go do what I want. True, absolutely. But that doesn't mean that you need to pass up CVS and don't get your nose swabbed.But you can go lay in bed all night with people and then you come around other folks who didn't even benefit from the damn sex and you don't bother [00:53:00] to tell them. Mm-hmm. That was his mindless moment. We hash that out and talked about it. This is why I had to break up with him. Years later, he's back at it again.This time he's out having sex with people knowing he's covid positive and didn't give a fuck. So you can try to talk since into some people when they're doing mindless shit where they just don't seem to be able to comprehend their actions and the consequences and a fallout. But if they are hardheaded or what the Bible calls to reprobate mind you from such turn away and let their go.Cause you gonna worry yourself out. Try not reason with people who don't wanna be reasoned with. Yeah, Vernon: I agree with that. Like, this is why you gotta make sure you get them while like your family members while they're young, because once they adult, once they're past age 25, 26, 27, when that brain is finalized.Oh no. All you can do is just offer them help. Just like, you [00:54:00] know, have you ever thought about therapy? You know, it, it, I've been in it, it is great. It's wonderful. I don't know if there's anything I know, I, I, I, I know, oh boy, he ain't going, he ain't going for that and that's his problem. But for those out there who may have somebody who may be open to that, do your best to get them into some kind of therapy cuz it's, it's a lot of work dealing with the narcissist.It is a lot like they, the, the self-fulfilling prophecy that they want to set up for themselves with nothing but failure or nothing but their own demise that's on them and they love to do it. You don't need to, you don't need to put yourself into that at all. De'Vannon: Hail to the, no. You talked about masturbation as an option.Okay. One of the things that I would like to point out to people, another point that was very difficult for me to try to get across to he who must not be named, is that [00:55:00] masturbation is not like a secondary stepchild to physical encounters with people. You know, some people in this world think that masturbation is the consolation prize.You know, like I couldn't find someone to meet up with, so I guess I'll just have to, you know, wa it and go to bed. Like it's a thing to be sad about. You know, you, you touched on this briefly by saying someone could have like a solo relationship with themself. Mm-hmm. And do you care to dive deeper into why masturbation is not supposed to be compared to sucking dick penetrative sex group sex and why?It's simply just another option. And actually you can connect with yourself through masturbation. You can't do that when you're with somebody else cause it's supposed to be about that person. Masturbation is a powerful tool, depends on how you look at it. Mm-hmm. Vernon: So, Ooh, I love me. So masturbation now it's, masturbation is just another way for you to show yourself how much you love yourself, but do it in a sexual way.When it [00:56:00] comes to like self-care, let's, let's just, Put it broad and just say self-care. Self-care can include masturbation. When, when it comes to self-care, self-love, you are doing things that make you feel good, make you wanna love yourself, and all this other stuff. Masturbation is just another form of showing yourself some kind of love.It also gives you the opportunity to find the pleasure spots that other people cannot find or that they don't know about. It helps you figure out what your sexual I forget your not sexual cycle. It might be sexual cycle, but the flow of your your body when it comes to peak to fall, it helps you understand, oh, in this.Point of my body wants a little bit more nipple play, or my body wants me to rub on my legs some, or a different part of my body becomes a lot more sensitive. So let me explore that a little bit. While I'm engaging and jerking myself off, or playing with my clitoris or playing [00:57:00] with whatever body part that you want to play with, asshole, whatever you engage into, well, you get to know your body in a new a new way, a new sexual way that engaging with other people don't often provide for you.And it also helps. Give them the cues that they need to make sure that they're pleasing you Well a thing I like to tell a lot of people is that if you don't know what you like, how can you tell another person? Masturbation helps you find out exactly what you like Now. Yeah, sometimes when you engage with other people, they may do a little tickle, tickle somewhere.You just like, oh shit. I did not know. I liked that. Hold up. Can we revisit that one more time and Oh, yeah. Right there. I know. I said one more time. We're going to just make this last. This one moment is going to be for a day. Thank you so much, Lord. Thank you. When you get into those moments, yeah, they happen, but those, [00:58:00] those situations are a lot more rare if you if you don't already know your body.So masturbate, it's a, it's a spiritual connection based off of who the person is, how they practice their spirituality. So do it. It's, it's, it's De'Vannon: rewarding.It's all about perspective and perspective is everything. And but, but people, masturbation is not less than penetrative sex or meeting with somebody. It's, it's hell, it's sex. No, you don't have to worry about STDs. You don't have to worry about the games. People play on apps. You don't have to worry about getting cut up in the edbd pieces.You don't have to. I mean, it's all you. You can, like candles, put on some music, drip your honey over yourself. Mm-hmm. You make it a whole thing. Vernon: Now you about to make me go off somewhere and hold myself out. Jesus,[00:59:00]call me a bad bitch Vernon. Call me a motherfucking bad bitch. Choke me a little bit. Please stop.De'Vannon: Look while you playing. My throat's still a little bit sore from earlier today because that man was strong and so Vernon: I love to see it. De'Vannon: And y'all, y'all know your girl over here is submissive and loves to be dominated. And so, let me see here. I wanna touch briefly on sexual performance. I think every man I've ever gotten there from, and I don't know if this is God's way of pushing procreation along or what, you know, he feels some type of way. It's like he's, he, it's almost like. It's almost like you feel like he's going to a job when he's getting in bed and something like that.And if that's just the x y chromosome way, you know, fine. And not here to judge men for this. But I just wish that they would take, [01:00:00] I'm stepping into my full woman mode now. You know? I wish you men would take this, the stress off of yourself. It's cause it's kind of like a's some, an anxiety. Mm. You know, that comes over men and I'm all like, we're here, we're naked.So you've been accepted. So why the, I get that. You want to, I don't know why it's there. It, it, it can become corrupt though, because a lot of times these men are out here needing to have sex for validation of themselves. Mm-hmm. Even though he's trying to get you off, you know, if he, even if he gives a fuck enough to do that, a lot of times it's not out of care for you.You know, it's just, To make him feel good that he did a good job, you know, which I don't like that, you know? Mm-hmm. You know, it's about, it should be about both people being vulnerable and enjoying each other and giving each other, [01:01:00] whatever it is they have communicated is going to make them happy. Mm-hmm.Period. So what, what is this whole performance? I gotta do this, this stress y'all be bringing into my bed. Vernon: Hey. So I literally just did, like last month, I did a workshop that was based on per performance anxiety. And it, it does exist for a lot of men, and there are reasons behind it. Like when you look at the narratives that are pushed towards men, it is that you have to perform very well just so that you can keep your partner.If you're not bringing your A game, then, then this person's not gonna ask you back, which is also a, a hit to their ego. It is. You also have that if you do not perform well enough, you're less of a man, which also is a hit to the ego. So it's so many different narratives that are pushed for men in general that makes us want to perform or outperform other [01:02:00] dudes.So. We have to just really let that go and recognize that when it comes to sex, don't go into this with expectations that it's going to be top-notch. Go into that willing and ready to enjoy each other's bodies or multiple people's bodies because it's a, it is an experience that an experience that's worth.Being lived not worth being a film. It's not worth being something that you are performing like you are doing some type of porn. Porno. And porn is also another reason why there's a, a lot of performance anxiety because people think that this, these sounds that these people are making are real. That, oh, I'm supposed to have my partner screaming out my name and all these other things.But no, some people are silent. Some people do moan. Some people do sound like that, but that's just how they express themselves. And if you need that kind of validation from your partner, like that verbal, then you have to [01:03:00] communicate with your partner about that too. But you also have to explore why is it that I feel as though I need that validation?And a lot of times it's because that's the narrative that people decided to purchase because it was given to them. And you don't have to do that. Another thing is when it comes to performance anxiety, is that. When we meet new partners, our we engage in sex with somebody, there's that fear of being the the topic of discussion in the group chat.And, you know, when you're in the group chat, it's not a good thing. So that makes people want to perform a little bit better to prevent any kind of shame or in indirect shame from after that sexual experience. Like, if this is a person that you're not gonna ever meet up again with, why are you worried?Like, just enjoy yourself. So that's just some of the stuff, [01:04:00]De'Vannon: even if it's somebody that you love or you wanna get to know anybody who's gonna judge you and dismiss you based on your sexual performance. It's not a good person. Mm-hmm. Agreed. You, you are a human, you're a child of God, and God created sex.Not PornHub, not grinder, not none of those plates. I don't care how they seem to have a monopoly on it. But no, you are more than your dick. You are more than your pussy and your titties and everything. And these people who say are like, say size queens and shit. And they're like, unless you have a big black talk, don't come over here, or this or that.Okay. They have their preferences. It is not right for them to demonize it and make it seem like it's a negative thing. If your dick is under a certain amount of inches, just be like, I prefer 10 and above, but no, no tea and no shade against nine point 11 inches in flow. You know? You know, and so people just got all kinda like fucked up in twisted [01:05:00] minds, but at the end of the goddamn day, It is a human connection that's supposed to be a beautiful expression of something that God created is not supposed to be done in such a way that ever causes harm to anybody else in any way or to yourself and I that's, and I just don't think that that's what it is in society anymore.Mm-hmm. So, so men have performance anxiety and he cannot attune. I like, I don't know what the other people told you. I am not judging you, you know, for the dick size, but you cannot accept what I'm saying because you have this anxiety so deep within you that you're panicking with me, even though I am not the source of your panic.Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I've had dicks that have been two inches all the way up to 17. Okay. And people ask me, people ask me, what the hell do you do with a dick that big whatever You can. And so anything but wrong, wrong anything but wrong thing will let you out the room anyway. But he, he just take his dick and block the door.You can't get out, trust me. And so, [01:06:00] but the point is, the point is, I didn't turn down the two inch dick dude or the 17 inch dick dude, because I valued them as humans. Any, anything other than that, fuck 'em. You know? Let anybody make you feel bad because of your anatomy and shit like that. If you're too fat for them or too scared, whatever, fuck all that, because that's just insecure ass people

INTRODUCTION: EPISODE #100!!! AMOR ES ARTE | ARTE ES AMORLOVE IS ART | ART IS LOVEA memoir written by Andrew Velázquez Through the lens of lotería—the Latinx game of chance, I explore my experience of being gay, young, and a creative loco in East Los Angeles. I reimagine ten lotería cards to represent the people and events that shaped my first 40 years of life. Each chapter testifies to a lotería card image such as El Diablito (Little Devil), La Rosa (Rose), and La Muerte (Death). Using these cards of destiny, I find my true self to navigate the world. My memoir defies the conventional thinking that a sensitive, lonely barrio kid, traumatized by relationship abuse and family crises, eventually falls victim to gang violence, addiction, or suicide. I bring my stories and images together to show how I overcome self-destructive behavior and how I channel my energies toward a successful career in Hollywood's beauty industry. I tell an against-the-odds life story that connects self-acceptance to art and love. Andrew is also a makeup artist:This born and bred Angeleno always knew he was meant for a career in beauty. Andrew has created signature looks for some of Hollywood's brightest stars including Lady Gaga, Michelle Williams, RuPaul, Demi Levato, Neil Patrick Harris & Carmen Electra. As a makeup artist on ”Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Andrew regularly created the sisters red carpet ready looks and at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, he was the key makeup artist for Florence and the Machine, including applying avatar-like body makeup for her radiant dancers.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Lots of Fan Clacking!!!·      Mí Corazón – Andrew's Makeup Line·      Amor Es Arte, Arte Es Amor – Andrew's Memoir·      Being Raised In The LatinX Community·      MADONNA·      Los Angeles Nostalgia ·      Prevalent Insecurity In the LGBTQIA+ Community ·      Coming Out·      Angels In The Psych Ward·      Andrew On American Beauty Star (Top Three)CONNECT WITH ANDREW: Website - Book - Makeup: https://AndrewVelazquez.comYouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/AndrewVelazquezInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewvelazquez_Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewvelazquezcom CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: ANDREW VELÁZQUEZ [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Andrew Velázquez is here with me today to mark the 100th episode of The Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast, and that is a huge accomplishment. Y'all and I could not be more grateful. Thank you, God. Thank you everyone who listens to and supports this show now, Andrew has written the book, it's called.Love is art. Art is love or amor, esp.He also had the makeup line called me[00:01:00]and do the celebrity makeup artist and alsoan educator.Now in his memoir, Andrew defies the conventional thinking that a sensitive, lonely barrio kid who's been traumatized by relationship abuse and family crises must eventually fall victim of gang violence, addiction, or suicide. In his book, Andrew brings stories and images together to show how he was able to overcome self-destructive behavior.Establish a successful career and bring art and love together in a way that's never been done before.Now Andrew has created signature looks for some of Hollywood's brightest stars all including Lady Gaga, RuPaul Dimmi, Lovato, Neil, Patrick Harris, you name it. He's done. Please listen in as Andrew and I get real and vulnerable with you that are to help someone lonely, isolated, and hurting out there. We love you.Hello all of you beautiful people out there and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host Devon, and I have with me [00:02:00] today for our 100th episodes, a beautiful, talented, incredible, lovely. Queer creative with a beautiful wavy hair that you see right there. Andrew Velazquez. Darling, how are you?Hello. Andrew: Good. How are you coming? So I had that, and if you need that sound audio again, that, De'Vannon: God, Andrew: that thing is huge. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. I'm gotta, I gotta get you one. I'm gonna send you one. De'Vannon: Gosh, that thing is to be beautiful. So y'all, so before I get into Andrew here, the 100th episode is a really big fucking deal.And why it is is because most podcasts is, I understand they don't make it to this point. People get into just about anything in this world for all kinds of reasons. And podcasting is one of those things that looks glitzy. It looks glamorous. So everybody wants to go run off and start a podcast. And [00:03:00]then you see most of them, I got like 10 episodes, 15 episodes, you know, or they might do like, you know, maybe like 10 episodes a year.You know, I hit the ground running a year before last, and I didn't stop. I released a show every week, nonstop, every Thursday, you know, you know, unless some shit done went down. But generally speaking, it's every Thursday. And so it's a really big fucking deal to make it to episode 100. This means I'm serious, that I'm committed.This is meant to be and it is gonna be here to stay. Andrew: Oh, happy for you. Congratulations, congrat. Congratulations. So happy for you. It is definitely a milestone. Yeah. Well earned, well deserved all De'Vannon: that. Thank you. And so, when I was toiling over who the hell I could get to, to share this moment with me Andrew's, Andrew's people reached out to me, and his story is so enigmatic, it's so cataclysmic, it's so polarizing, and I felt like I had so much in common with him.He's from Los Angeles. Everybody who [00:04:00] knows me knows the City of Angels is all I talk about. I love la I was out there in the military and everything. I'm obsessed with that city. And when I'm rich enough, I will go back and you know, I'm queer and I love me some Latin men, that's all the dick I used to get when I was out there.I, I've sat on plenty of Latin dick Andrew: and that's right. We're dangerous too though. We're spicy and dangerous. De'Vannon: So am I. So we always, along y'all, he's an author. He has his own memoir out. He and our both 40 years old, he's a celebrity makeup artist. He's worked with Lady Gaga, Demi Vato fucking like everybody.He's an educator. He's a spirit light worker. He is a healer. Y'all. He's, he, he's like me. You know, like, you don't have to worry about what you're gonna talk to with somebody like this cause he is done so much, you know, it's just how we're gonna get through this hour and give you credit. So he is literally [00:05:00] the definition of everything, and that is why he is here today for episode one.Double O tell us about yourself, Andrew: baby. Wow. I mean, that just, I, I have chills. Your listeners can't see this, but yeah. I am so honored to be here for your hundred episode. Congratulations on all of your successes and what you're doing. The service you provide, the light, I feel it, the energy that you're exuding, it's beautiful.And I know that your followers and your audience appreciate that too, because you're healing. That's why good things are coming to you. I'm gonna call you divine cuz I see only a divine human being in front of me and that's exactly what you are getting the divinity of, of life. And yeah, that's, that's my philosophy too is, you know, I first generation Mexican-American parents are immigrants from Mexico.They met in their teens and I was their first born in East La Boyle [00:06:00] Heights. And yeah, being raised in such like a macho area was a little difficult for me for being just a such creative, feminine, flamboyant kid. And everything that I was trying to be a kept being told that it was wrong.Cause you know, where my parents got married, it was like the church. I was raised Catholic, so I got baptized there. I did my first communion, I did catechism. All, you know, knowing that I'm sinning and because I like boys and trying to hide, that was just, It was heavy. It was really heavy. And my mom just was the first to be like my mentor, my icon.She introduced me to Madonna in the eighties, who I'm obsessed with. I am the proud owner of four Madonna tattoos. She's right here. There's, there's other ones. Yeah, this is from erotica. And she just celebrated her 30th year anniversary for the sex book, which was released here in Miami. [00:07:00]And so she was really like my first, I don't know, my first like muse, you know, watching my mom do her hair and makeup in the eighties and just taking me to cosmetology school while she was going.She just was fierce. Just drag hair, makeup, done, jewelry, accessories, and she was my queen. So for her to support my my arts and my interests in wanting to like be creative meant a lot for me. But, You know, helping raise my brothers. Cause I, I have three younger brothers and my dad worked as a mechanic during the day.A tow truck driver at night was a lot of responsibility for the oldest sibling to, you know, be a provider also and be their mentor. So I just remember like, I don't know, watching 9 0 2 oh saved by the bell and seeing the drama there. And I'm like, why don't I have that drama in my life? Why do these teenagers have all these dramas and I'm this perfect cookie cutter kid helping raise my brothers Like, this is not.[00:08:00] Hmm. So I made the drama and that's chapter three in my book called elto, which means little devil, I call it My bad. And that's really where I started to rebel. And, you know, we all go through like self-discovery and just that cross of like youth child into adolescence. You're not an adult. Yeah, it was just like an awakening moment.I went 180, I just flipped. Went from this perfect kid to just rebel partying with drag queens. Met my first club kids, went to the Rays and the nineties in LA was just all rage. It was so fun. They used to call me Space Boy and I would you know, dress in all these crazy like avan garde colorful outfits.And I finally felt like free and liberated with other creative people and, and queer people. Finally, like my first drag queens, you know talking [00:09:00] like Stacy Hollywood, DJ Irene, like these are the people that I used to party with like in the early nineties. Like it was the hard house. That was just the rage, right?Yeah. So Arena Circus the Alexandria Hotel, like, oh, I remember going to a rave at Knottsberry Farm. The K Rave. Yeah. And it was just so lit that these kids were jumping. Because NASP Prairie Farm had never done that. So they were literally jumping the gates trying to get into, into the rave and just like party out all night.But they canceled it right away and they shut it down. So they never had a rave at ATSP Farm again. But yeah, it was, that was, that was very liberating and finally feeling like I was part of this community. But with, with that nightlife there, there's also a dark side, right? There's also like alcohol, drugs and all of that.And finally, like, experimenting with boys and having my first experiences and [00:10:00] just being exposed to addict addiction and then realizing, oh, my mother, my mother's also an alcoholic and has been suffering from chronic depression. And I was basically her like right hand man. So that was the hardest part to, for her to she kind of like rejected me when I finally came out and.I just went through like, like a huge depression cuz here was this like queen that I used to look up to and then she said, no, this is the route you're going. Like, I don't want anything to do with it. And I ran away and left. But, you know, I remember I'm gonna be extremely vulnerable because that's like, what's, that's what's I think the most important thing to be authentic and, and expose like the truth to, to grow and learn from.But yeah, after a couple suicide attempts that were failed, I was [00:11:00] taken to hospital at psych Ward 51 50 where I discovered therapy. And I just remember having this epiphany and this like my aha moment, right? My my reality check where this young Latino man that was in that only spoke Spanish, looked at me and was like, Andrew, you don't belong here.Like you have a light. What? And, and this was, he was only telling me this in Spanish, and he would write me poetry. And I finally felt like, heard, seen and like I existed in that matter. So I remembered that very distinct moment saying, I don't wanna live this life. Like, I don't wanna go down this dark path.I realized the addiction can, can be real. And it's in my, it's genetically in our family. So I chose to follow my passion and my craft and my career. And at the age of 16, I graduated and took my GD and I just started my [00:12:00] my journey in, in the arts and the fashion industry. So fashion school, cosmetology school, and then working in retail, corporate cosmetics truly saved my life and.Here I am now been in the industry for 22 years, gonna be 23 next month. I've been independent freelance artist for eight years now. I'm a memoir, author of owner of a cosmetic company also. And it's all based around the same thing, like my culture, my passion, my craft. It's called Love is art.Art is love because for me, the other one cannot exist with the other. And in Spanish it's called. So that's the story. It's, it's a lot. I mean, to get the detail, you gotta read the book. I can't give too much away, but that's like the synopsis, De'Vannon: right? And so, yo the book covers beautiful, like he said, like the different cards and everything are on the front.[00:13:00]You know, in Spanish they call it Yeah. Good job. Good job. Yes. I was down till, like, a couple of weeks ago and they were complimenting on my Spanish, and now that I'm back here, it's like I can't fucking put three goddamn syllables. When Andrew: when you're in it. Yeah, when you're in it, it just, it just kind of rolls out. You gotta be in, in the community and then, or vela, that's when it really comes out.Exactly. Would all that, yes. De'Vannon: So I wanna go back and touch on a few things that you said. It, it registered me Absolutely heard you said that, you know, you were raised in that macho community and, you know, the, the Latino community can be very machismo, very toxic, toxically, masculine. Mm-hmm. And, you know, and so, mm-hmm.I remember when I was a kid, I was like super femme and everything like that. And I wanted to play with Ken and Barbie dolls and twirl [00:14:00] around and I'd wear my, me too, right? I'd wear my mother's heels and take a belt and make a dress out of an oversized shirt. And and my dad would take me out into the yard and, you know, insult me and berate me for being feminine and try to make me learn how to box and stuff like that.And I'm all like if I, Andrew: yeah, you're, you were in the De'Vannon: military. I went in the military when I was 17, but this is when I was like, in elementary school. He was out there trying to make me a man, whatever the fuck that's supposed to be, you know? I'm like, no, I wanna see what's under Ken's pants. Damn it.I know you're, Andrew: you're. Surprise though. It was just like flat or a little De'Vannon: bulge. Yes, I am a, I was a baby, right, Lester, when I was in the third grade deal with it. Judge me if you wanna. Andrew: And so we all had that. We all had that. De'Vannon: So I wanna know you mentioned you went from being [00:15:00] good to bad because everything was so good.You, you were trying to find the complications. I felt this way too. When I was in the church. I felt like I was a little bit too good when I get kicked out of the church. Then that's when I got caught up with the drag queens and the alcohol and the drugs. I became a drug dealer. Like you had felt, I felt liberated.I felt like I was being myself. I don't know if I was numbing some of that pain from being kicked out of church. I think I was with the drugs and alcohol. Tell me, did you ever get bad into alcohol or drugs or anything like that? Or, Andrew: or were you able to Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, for sure. I definitely had some partners that, and some boyfriends that I probably were not the best choices.And in my book, this is chapter five , which is the spider. Just to give you a quick history on it, is Mexican bingo game of chance. And I was [00:16:00] mesmerized by all the artwork cause they resembled tarot, which I didn't even know at the time what tarot was as a child. Cause my mom introduced me to this game and my brothers.But later I realizing that with tarot and with Loya, each card has a symbol. So the reason I chose these tens specific cards is because they resonated with the timeline of my life. And so laa for me is the triggers and traumas of all the bad relationships. I'm not even gonna call 'em bad relationships.I'm gonna call them challenging relationships that have taught me because now I'm I'm at the point where I've done a lot of like self work and I mean, I'm still, I'm, I call myself. A student of University of Mother Nature and I'm always gonna be learning. And so all those moments have helped me realize, you know, that we're all just kind of like these lost little souls, like these lost little angels that are trying to like, figure out and navigate where the right path is.So these partners that I had that did have addiction problems [00:17:00] you know, at the time it was fun because like, yes, everyone's partying and you're just like, you wanting your wasted the quickest thing. I remember just waiting in line at Arena with like Mad Dog 2020 boondog, like the grossest stuff, but we would drink the fastest, cheapest shit to just like get the most shit wasted before we entered the club.Cause it was just like, we gotta get wasted before we get inside the club. Cuz we didn't, we were young, it was ages club, but we were not even old enough to drink and we were just, you know, getting wasted to. Loosen up dance and just like party all night. But through that, like fast forward into like my twenties, you know another Latino individual, this is a, I'm Mexican, so this is a different type of Latino.This, he was Columbian, Ecuadorian, and I just was a different world that I had an experience with, like the salsa me mbia, and then just [00:18:00] the, the lifestyle and the party of that culture. It just kinda like infatuated with me. But as as like fast and heavy and dangerous as it was, is as quick as I realized, like, whoa, this is, like, this can go dark.And he would drink all the time, you know, he would do drugs. He started going to like sex clubs and. I don't know what, where I was mentality wise. Like my self-esteem was just shot and I felt like this is the best that I can do, so I'm just gonna settle with it. I don't know, I really dunno where that came from.But I did, I got a D U I because this one time we partied and he wanted to continue to party and was threatening me if I didn't take him to get more liquor, that he was just gonna go to sex club and do like his own thing. So I felt like obligated [00:19:00] to, all right, I'm gonna take you. And he was driving and it was swerving and then I was like, no, let me take over.So a, after getting that D U I, I just, it was like my rock bottom. It was like my lowest of low because of the partner that I had chose the time. And I'm realizing later in reflection, like. I chose these partners for a reason. And I think I was trying to fix them. I think I was trying to groom them up cause I was introducing them to fashion and art and all that as well.And then all of a sudden they would change. And later I'm realizing like you were trying to fix yourself. Like you were actually, you are projecting what your insecurities were onto this individual and it just counteracted and affected you where you took the dark that was being, and, and you know, dark attracts each other, right?Like light attracts light. And so yeah, [00:20:00] I mean I, I obviously I'm not with that person anymore. Very happily married. We're 13 years together now and gonna be nine years married this May. And that's a lot for a gay man. And, you know, our, because it's, it's, but it's like I realized like I had to go through all those.Relationships and those triggers and traumas to, to like really fix me and love me for all of me. And that's when I, I was able to attract and the person that I kind of deserved and earned and, and actually saw me for me and didn't make me feel judged and didn't make, forced me to be something that I wasn't meant to be.You know? So I honestly, I'm even grateful for all those, those challenging moments for sure. De'Vannon: Right. And so I hear maturity, you know, in your words there because you understand how much good things come from the fire, from heat and intensity. You know, you've really [00:21:00]grown in life when you can grasp that and you don't look at problems and things that make you uncomfortable and things that hurt you as necessarily inherently negative, you know, cuz so much So when I, when I hear you talk about like the alcohol and the drugs and the sex, you know, vice.You know, it's one of the things that really take any anybody down in life. They are a gargantuan problem in the lgbtqia a plus community. Y'all, our people can't get picture is, can't get enough. Crystal meth, can't get enough, all that. Can't get enough Dick, can't get enough calm, can't get, can't get enough blow jobs, can't have enough origin for me.Andrew: For me it's work now though. But yes, there's always something De'Vannon: because you've grown to that point and you know, but before you had to go through being abused by all of these vices. And look, I'm not saying that there's nothing, anything inherently wrong with crystal meth and crack and cocaine and orgies and sex clubs.[00:22:00] But you know, bitch, when you at the sex club every night when you, and you leaving your boyfriend at home and not telling him you're going and when, or if you just at sex club every night, you single or you are high, Andrew: like it's gonna take a toll De'Vannon: eventually. It's gonna take a toll. But my point is, I need people, bitch, I need you to ask yourself what you really doing it for.Because after a point is not for the entertainment lonely or are you insecure? Are you seeking validation in these, right. Keep going back. So our community is hella insecure, no matter how pretty, we are always at the damn gym. Six packs, bubble butts everywhere. And don't nobody like the damn self. I don't see what the fucking point is.Andrew: What's the why? What is that all about? Like what? I'm still trying to figure that out. You know? What does RuPaul call it? Inner saboteur. Some people call it little bitch voice. Like, I think it's just learning how to navigate with that. Like it's [00:23:00] never gonna go away. It's always there. However you can. I, I think through writing this book and through the, the experience that I've, experiences that I have gone through have taught me that through trauma you can transform and triumph into power.You just have to believe it. You just have to know it. And, and really at the end of the day, it's being of service to others like, like you're doing with, with your audience and sh and, and sharing the knowledge and the, the growth. And that's, I think that's like the legacy we all need to leave behind as humans is through our, you know, journeys and our experiences that we can share that and, and share the growth and the tools that have helped shape us to where we are in a stable place, that, that truly brings happiness.Then that can also be infectious, just. And addicting as like alcohol and drugs and sex, you know what I mean? Like the positivity can also be just as addicting. And I [00:24:00] know that we share mutual podcast friends with a survivor to thrive and give 'em a little shout out. And they're on that same mission, you know what I mean?And I feel like it's not a coincidence that we've all been introduced to each other for, you know what I mean? During this time when it is the considered the, the most depressing time of the year, which is also my, happens to be my birthday December 27th. And now we're in January, which is melancholy and can be hard for our community or anybody going through mental health issues.So why not lift each other up and why not celebrate your struggles and, and transform them into something good, you know? Mm-hmm. Whatever that means for you. De'Vannon: The, yeah. Yeah. And I am gonna dig deeper into the mental health aspects of your book in just a moment. And y'all, like he said, you know, he's written his book to help the people's transparency that y'all heard me say a thousand times, [00:25:00] you know, is the greatest form of help because we learn and grow by listening to what other people have gone through.It is a trap when we think we're isolated and alone, when really the person sitting right next to us is either going through the same thing or has gone through the same thing. When I got H I v I thought I was the only one. I thought I was gonna die. I didn't know half the damn queens in Houston at the shit too.No one talked about that. We were too busy doing all the cocaine. Exactly. Doing all the cocaine at F Barn at South Beach, you know, and everywhere else. And at Jrs to do rather than to actually have real conversation. And so he, right, Andrea's wrote, written his book in order to help help some of you save your lives, to prevent you from committing suicide, to stop you from hurting other people, to stop you from hurting yourself.Cuz when you read that book, you're gonna know. Okay, this fucker went through the same shit. Maybe it's not just me. It is incredibly empowering to know that it's not just you or as they say over on Survivor, the thriver know that you are not alone. Andrew: [00:26:00] Absolutely. You said that beautifully. So I wanna know, and that, that's really No, go ahead.Sorry. De'Vannon: Yeah. I wanna know, you mentioned Catholicism from in the past. Mm-hmm. Where are you at in terms of spirituality today? Andrew: Like I said, yeah, I mean, I was born into that. It was it was all I knew, like it was, we lived on that block, you know, where my parents got married, where I was baptized, where I did my first commune and confirmation where I became a godfather.It was it was just when you're, when you're Mexican in east LA that's just what it is. Like, it just gets part, it's like peanut butter jelly comes with the territory. But And I I De'Vannon: about today specifically because people are born mm-hmm. Into all kinds of religions. I was born Pentecostal, you know, that's what you're okay for.Your family gives you, I don't feel like, like the learn behavior. Right. I feel like it's more valid once you become an [00:27:00] adult and you consider all the options. Mm-hmm. If you still wanna stay with that, then I think it becomes authentic. But until then you Yeah. What people told you to do. So what, what spiritually have you discovered for yourself?Andrew: I mean, obviously at that point, I, I, as a kid, I didn't agree with marriage only being between a man and a woman. And then, you know, just the, the history of the priests and the abuse and the, all that. I, I didn't agree with any of that. But even, even, even even Madonna too with Journey and her being Catholic and like a prayer and being the first advocate for l g BT Q, putting in her cd in her tape a condom and to protect se use protection for sex and literature on aids.Like, she was the first one to kind of give me a voice. And I, I felt seen, like [00:28:00] just the fact that I knew that I was gay. I felt like I was gonna get AIDS just because of that simple reason in the eighties and the nineties. But I mean, even that's kind of like part of my spirituality. So for me my husband and I go to non-denominational church.We are part of Unitarian. It's more of a communal thing. And it's more of just because they're accepting of everything. And the, the philosophy is to celebrate love, life human experiences. And it's, it's really lovely. I mean, it's. I ki I, I liked it because it brought me a little ba back to the nostalgia of the good things of going to church when I was Catholic.But I'm, I'm a spiritual person by Mother Nature and the universe. I believe in the law of attraction. I meditate every day. I practice gratitude. I journal, I visualize I consider my dogs my spirituality as well. I have dog, I have three dogs, you know, I have dog therapy [00:29:00] with them daily. I practice kind acts with others.I I'm an earth sign, so I love anything that has to do with the outdoors and just going on hikes and doing yoga. We're gonna do yoga tonight. You know, it's being healthy. We're both vegan, we're both animal lovers. My, my cosmetics is vegan and animal cru tea free as well. So I'm just, I'm a spiritual person as far as just energy, you know what I mean?Like this's just. What I love about being a human being is that I'm so connected with Mother Nature and we're all the same at the end of the day. Like there, it has nothing to do about your color of skin, your orientation, your gender, hus in your bedroom, what you eat, nothing like, we're all literally the same breathing things, elements, you know what I mean?It's looking at like, my veins is just like looking at the roots at a on a tree. [00:30:00] When you're like in a plane and you're looking down as the earth shrinks and you see all the little cracks in the rivers of, of earth, those are the veins of earth. It's all the same thing, you know? And so whatever spirituality is for the individual, if it makes them feel special and, and seen and that's, that's all that matters, whatever gives them that like happiness, that joy, that light.And for me it's, its mother nature. So that's my form of spirituality. De'Vannon: Okay. Look, I love to keep me a good garden in the back. I love eating off the, I love riding horses. You know, when I'm not riding Dick, you know, and everything like that. Exactly. Appreciate I can appreciate the fuck out of that. So, I wanna go back to this rejection of your mother because you know, she's a, you know, she sounds like the embodiment of a drag queen's in a straight woman's body.She supported you until you made it official. There's no goddamn way. She couldn't have already [00:31:00] known mothers. No, the bitch wasn't blind. I mean, I don't mean that insultingly. I mean that You're Andrew: good. You're good. De'Vannon: You know, I'm like, girl, you could see, you could read the tea. Andrew: I mean, I was going to the makeup.Yeah. So I was going through all De'Vannon: that. So, So you felt accepted and she already knew what it was. So it almost like for her, it might have been better if you never would've made it a official by saying the words. Hmm. So for those, for people out there, for queer people, especially Latinx people who have been rejected and there is a lot of rejection of L G B LGBTQ people because of how the Catholic church is, your culture is hella Catholic, you know?Mm-hmm. And so take me, take me back to when that rejection first happened and really give me some words to those feelings. Cause I want you to embody what somebody else is going through right there. I want you to vocalize that. Andrew: Yeah. [00:32:00] And 10th grade, and I, I think I had ditched school that day. I lived in a studio that was on the same property.My parents a lot of Mexicans do this where they build homes inside their homes and other. And it's just like a lot of houses. And so I, I, I was grateful for that cause I had a little bit of privacy, but my mom always had a key of course. And so I remember having my friends over the night before and we're listening to like Morris depe.And it was just kind like that vibe wearing all black, my doc Martins, you know, my black bomber jacket and drinking red wine and thinking we're cool and smoking marble red cigarettes. We were disgusting and clothes, but it was just, that was the thing that we did. And I just remember like waking up like hungover and it was time for school and I'm like, ah, I'm [00:33:00] not feeling it.I'm not gonna go. So I stayed home painted my fingernails and was just kind of like being lazy and just bumming around the house. And then my mom came in and like, just like, and Mexican moms. Can rage and just open the door and slammed and was like yelling, what are you doing in Spanish? Of course,you know, like all that kind of stuff. It was very . And and then she was like, picking up my jacket, picking up the bottles. She's like, what is this stuff? Why are your nails painted? Why are you dressing like this? What are you doing? Like, what are you gay? And that was the first time she had ever ever asked me that.And I finally like, I was so tired of yelling back and forth to like, I remember we were both yelling so much that we had to take a break to just take a, a breather. And then I finally yelled back and I said, yes, I'm [00:34:00] yay. You know, and a part of it felt good to just finally say it and vocalize it and to put it out into the universe, but also like seeing the sadness in her eyes did not feel good.And I just, I saw her like just kind of shrink and just, that made me shrink too. And then she just said, well, I don't support that. You're gonna have to leave you. If you're not gonna go to school, then you need to get outta here. And she left. And so I just remember feeling rejection alone, abandoned. Why am I here causing so much stress to all these people around me?And, you know, the per, the one person that I, that I thought was always gonna be my hero, that I, that supported me is now like, just telling me to get out and that I'm done with you. You're not good enough. Like when she said, De'Vannon: does she mean you no longer can [00:35:00] live here? Or when she's saying, I can't see your face today, what did she mean as a.Andrew: A teenager, I thought I took it as like, you, you don't, you're not gonna live here anymore. Like, if you're gonna live like that, you're not gonna live here. Like, those are the words that I heard. Yeah. That's how it sounds to me. So I, so I said, okay, and I, I did run away. Obviously I had to come back to get my stuff.And again, just going through the lows of the lows, seeing the alcohol, drinking that some more, discovering Tylenol pm, taking some of those. And the combination of it, I was just like, I was just, I was so sad. I was so alone that I didn't think I was able to get over this, like, low. So I just, I decided I wanted to take my own life.You know, I was gonna try and it [00:36:00] didn't work, you know, it didn't work. I woke up the next day. With my wrists, still bloody, but kind of like crusting and trying to heal just disorientated and dizzy from all the wine and the, the pills. And I'm like, all right, well, I guess I'm gonna go to work.I'm sorry to school. I didn't, it didn't work, you know, just put on my bomber jacket, go to school. I'm like, second period, get a call from the school counselor and says, you need to report to your school counselor's office. Get to the office. And they're like, your mom just called and apparently she went into your room and saw all this stuff and is really concerned about you.We need to see your wrist. And so I was hesitant, but obviously ended up showing, and they were like, all right, well you're a minor at this age in Roseville High School, we're not allowed to let you out of our site. We need to report to the center quad area, and we're gonna let you know what [00:37:00] is gonna happen to you then.So I get escorted with the security to the center of quad area. The bell rings and as the bell rings, the gates open up and an ambulance drives in as the ambulance is driving in the doors open and the security is escorting me into the ambulance. All the schoolmates come out running and seeing me getting into this ambulance and girl, I was mortified.I was, I was the most embarrassing moment and just kind of like, that's it. I'm over. I can never get back from this. There's no, there's not gonna be a way to fix this. You know what I mean? It was, it was very heavy, it was very embarrassing and exposing and was rushed off to White Memorial Hospital in Royal Heights, and they pumped my stomach and they stitched up my wrist and.[00:38:00]And yeah, I was admitted to a psych ward as a one 50 minor. It was who continued? Are you okay? Say what? I mean, it was, honestly, it hon, at that point I just surrendered. I, and I just kind of, I gave it to God at that point, you know, and was like, I'm just gonna be reborn. I'm gonna be a child. I'm gonna be infant.I'm gonna just let you guide me. This is where I'm supposed to be now to, to learn and to grow. I, I guess I'm gonna listen to these therapists. So I discovered therapy, which I fell in love with immediately cuz I'm finally being heard. I'm finally having tools and resources to, to help navigate my emotions, my feelings.And then I met that angel That young man that wrote me poems and [00:39:00] talked to me and said, you don't belong here. And told me I was special. And, and I finally like, believed it, you know? And that's, that's when I told you earlier that I made that conscious decision to not go down that route anymore.And I'm, I'm still in therapy to this day. I mean, it's not every week I mean like it used to be, but it definitely saved my life. And I feel that person was an angel. Cause fast forward to later, as I'm going through self-discovery and I'm writing my book and I'm journaling, I'm like, what happened to him?So I tried to research, but obviously through the privacy of hospitals, like they're not allowed to expose any information. But they were like, yeah, you were the only, they said you were the only one there in your room. So what the heck does that mean? You know, like they're saying that I was the only one in my room, but I distinctly remember this.Young man named Miguel telling me, you're, you're, you know, [00:40:00] you don't belong here. You, you need to follow the light. How long was Miguel? De'Vannon: That's crazy. How long was Miguel Andrew: in there with you? I mean, I, I was only in there for two weeks. He had already been there for a month. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I don't remember.We never exchanged numbers. Like So you think, I mean, we had pagers I think at the point, De'Vannon: right? So you think maybe it was, I remember the pager days. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Do you remember Uhhuh, I'm sorry you went through all of this and mental health is a big fucking deal in the queer community because a lot of our issues come from our parents because our parents have their own unresolved issues.The church has told them what to think about their own children. Not, not all mothers and parents are able. Be like, this is my child. I don't even a damn what the church has to say because, you know, our parents have their own issues. And so this is a huge reason why there's a lot of insecurity in our community.It comes from our own households. Now do you think this was son [00:41:00] who was in there with you, perhaps And y'all son, Miguel is just like son, son, Miguel, St. Michael, the Arche angel. Andrew: Yes, yes, yes. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I, it was definitely an angel and I, when my mom I, I was born two days after Christmas.I was supposed to be born like on Christmas, but it happened to be two days after. And she said cuz she was really into Like astrology. And she used to watch Walter Melo, I dunno if you know Walter Melo, who it was like the famous like tarot card reader in in the Latino community. It was like the thing that we watch religiously every Sunday, like after the, the, no, it was Walter.And he would tell you like, capric, Corno, tourist, blah, blah, blah. So she, cause of him, she used to tell me, you, when you were born, the sun, the Earth and the Moon and Mercury were line and you were born at 6:05 AM I, they gave [00:42:00] me you, you, they gave you, oh, sorry, let me rephrase this. They gave me you in a red stalking and as you're going in my arms, I just saw a big star on your head and a light on your right side.And I'm just staring at this little gift in this red, like stalking this and I'm holding it. And so she kept telling me that as I was. Growing up, like you have a star, you have a light on your, so I don't know, I, I can't help but go back to that, you know what I mean? Like go back to these little angels, these little whether it's whoever, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's a drag queen that past life, but she's saving me.That's what I like to I feel like we all have some kind of angel to protect, you know, some kind of either light energy, whatever you want to call it, you know, it could be our [00:43:00] past ancestors or ancestors. It could be maybe your past self and your reincarnate. I don't know. But something was there.It was very prevalent. It was, and it was the moment that I changed my mind. Otherwise, I could have gone down that addiction route. I could have gone down, you know, The gang route and like been in the closet and continued to live this straight life because of course I acted like I was straight forever.Because that's what you do when you're in that kinda environment. Otherwise you're gonna get clocked, you know, and jumped and bullied and I was all those things. But yeah, I, I can only say like now being with my husband, his name is Johnny Debut for 13 years. Accepting me for all of me. My femininity, my masculine side.He, yeah, he's just, he's my homie for life and he's the one that's just [00:44:00] I don't know my mean, like reminded me to love myself too. And I'm just very grateful for that. Cause it's been, we've had a journey on our, on our own as well and the good and the bad and but yeah, we're best friends. He is, he is just been The rock for, for everything.And I'm gonna be that right back to him too. For sure. Hey, hey Johnny, De'Vannon: Daniel, whatever you ask me, introduce Savannah and I'm saying Andrew: hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. De'Vannon: Hey Johnny, how will I get to have cocktails with you one day? Yes. So let's lighten this up as we get, we're down like our last couple of minutes here.So we've talked about some darkness, bring some light, and so yeah, we, we get light through darkness and angels are real. You know, I've spoken about how they've appeared to me before, all kinds of places on the side of the street and restaurants, you know, and there's [00:45:00] been times where it's like nobody else even sees this person in here.And I'm not the only one talking to them and everything like that. I turn around sometimes my husband sees them. Now look, y'all, they don't, I've never had them, except for in dreams appear to me in any sort of glorious way. When they appear to me on the street, they're just plain clothes people. And then we talk mm-hmm.Stuff like that. And I turn around and then they're gone. One of my favorite appearances is one time I was out in my yard, this is the last time I ever touched a rake in my life when I was in high school, raking these leaves. I hate yard work. I'm like, can we get a fucking, can we get a fucking maid? Do you see my nails?I'm queer. I shouldn't be doing this. Ugh. So, so I'm raking this fucking leaves and I hate wet ground and, ugh. This, this, this black guy walks down the street and he's just like, Hey, be careful for those poisonous snakes. Now we are in the hood, you know, just in the middle of the city. Oh, we're not out in the country.Why the fuck would there be a snake? He's like, were you careful of those snakes? The next [00:46:00] pool, there was a goddamn damn poisoned snake flopping all around in. They're trying, oh, hell no. I threw that right down. I'm like, I don't, not a snake. I don't give a damn with my dad. I want me to do, ain't no more chores being done in this yard.I looked up that that guy had told me this, like not a split second, and I looked up and he was gone. And I had something like that happen when I was a kid. You know, they'll show up, say whatever. I looked down and I'm like, he, they can't take nobody. Run that damn fast. You know? Or as or as the Hebrew scripture tells us, you know, we've entertained angels at unawares and be careful how you treat strangers.Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Absolutely talk about makeup. So y'all, like he said, he has own makeup line. Oh,Andrew: it was a good segue. It was a good segue. Had to do it right. And De'Vannon: every time he cls that fan has a title of his book, AOR Art Arta Moore. Or love is art. Art is Love. Yes. So [00:47:00] his first color palette is, is called Me Corone, which stands for my heart, you know, in Spanish. Mm-hmm. Go ahead and hold it up. So, Ooh yes.It ain't no bunny ram harm in making that. That's what I'm here for. That shit is vibrant. Thank you. You know, every now and then, you know I might beat this face up. You know, I'm gonna have to get your shit. Oh, I would love Andrew: to do your makeup. Yes. Let's make that happen. Oh, don't. I'm gonna De'Vannon: be in LA soon. God.I pray to God the next time I go to Los Angeles, cuz I'm in Louisiana where I live now. I pray to God the next time I go to Los Angeles it's, I'm there to stay. God. Need to go Andrew: home. Wait, I'm actually gonna, I'm actually wait, I, I'm going to Nashville in February. De'Vannon: That's a bit away from Louisiana still. I mean it might be kinda like Yeah, you're right down here by New Orleans and stuff.So whenever you come to Mar are you ready to do you a Mardi Gras carnival? Andrew: We do [00:48:00] love New Orleans. Yes, I do. I got De'Vannon: you hooked up bruh. So, okay y'all, so he bought this show called American Beauty Star and that, that color palette, he just showed up. You know, go ahead and tell everybody like, you know where they can find that.Your website is gonna be in the show notes. I'm gonna put your link tree so people can find you in case you wanna go ahead and vocalize it. You can tell them where they can find that in your book. Andrew: Thank you so much. Yeah, you. Search for the show on Amazon Prime, just type American beauty star, and you can binge watch me on season one.I'm right there working all the magic. That's where I started writing a book as form of therapy. While we were quarantined, I had no access to devices, so I would resort back to my hotel room and just start drawing and went back to my roots. What brings me passion is that's my, my craft. And then I wrote the book.This has been a four year project. The first year was to [00:49:00] write and edit the book. The second year was to design the cover of the book as well as the cover of each chapter. So I took 10 models and painted them from head to toe and turned them into these characters that you see on, on the cover of the book that represent Theia cards.And through the process of making the body makeup is when I realized there was like a lack of pigment. So I went into product development and that's where I chose to create my first palette, which is called . And you can see like one of the actual models wearing the colors and all the artwork inside is in, is in, is the artwork that's infused into the book.So it's all part of the same brand. And then through that, seeing my models get emotional and hot and you know, sweaty, I decided to also make a fan, which is also part of the same collection. And all the artwork from the book is infused onto the fan. And I lastly have a calendar. Which is good [00:50:00]for 2023.So this is the only way you can get the actual print of each card is by having your Amos Art calendar. So you can find everything on amos art.com or love is art artist love.com and that's where you can shop for the palette, the fan, the calendar, and the book as well. You can also go to Amazon and search for the book and just type Andrew Velazquez.And then my website is andrew velazquez.com for my salon portfolio and all the thanks, beauty tutorials, et cetera, De'Vannon: all the things. I love the options. You know, are you a Sagittarius as well? Andrew: US gays like options too. De'Vannon: You right. That's damn true. So, you know, I'm born on December 16th. I need everything.And so, Andrew: oh, nice. We're close. Capric the 27th Capricorn. Yeah. Capricorn. Oh, you can? Yeah, you can come. I have a [00:51:00] Saurus Rising double Capricorn with the Sagittarius Rising and all my besties are Sagittarius as well. You can come De'Vannon: to the Sagittarius Ki Keani. I'm gonna get you in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this is, so I looked up a couple of the videos and y'all, I love Andrew's his Instagram and his YouTube channel or Clutch.He has this beautiful avatar, avant garde look that he does on this girl, which is so like on tempo right now with the way of the water just coming out. You know, he has a Marvel inspiration stuff that he does. Th this, he does full body art, not just face, you know, this is head to toe fear shit, bitch.Here. Shout out to Mama Ru Paul right now. So on, on this American Beauty star. We're gonna talk about Lady Gaga, RuPaul, dim Lovato last. It's gonna out. So you're good before that. American Beauty star. So I look this up. So you got this panel of judges, these people on here doing this makeup, Andrew's in charge of the full scale production for this Oh.Show and everything. And then they will [00:52:00] be judged just like you've seen on Project Runway, you know, all the different things. So Andrew comes out, this stone cold bitch is sitting there with like white hair, you know, white outfit. And the, the person that left the review, I, I don't, I, I don't think that was Christie.I think that was the other girl. And and Andrew: so anyway, it was Huda from Huda Beauty, De'Vannon: right? And so I think somebody might have thought she was a little bit too hard, but, you know, I was just leaving everybody's opinions for that. But you know, Andrew's out there on stage and they're like, are like Andrew and then all the stuff, no, every judge's face just has no fucking emotions.You know how they fuck with the contestants and, and they leave them there in silence. For, for what? Felt like an eternity for me. And I wasn't even the one on stage. Yeah. Felt like Andrew. He's all like, oh shit. The look on the look on your face. We loved your look.[00:53:00]Andrew: That's exactly how it was. Oh my God, you did your research. Well, you gonna be so goddamn dramatic right De'Vannon: now. I'm, I'm sitting here in my house, gimme a cup of tea to deal with this stress. And you know, Andrew did well. He made it to the top three. That's a big deal to be there that long with all of that shit going on.And I love the way that you would talk with your co, I guess competition, friends, I don't know exact term on set. Mm-hmm. You know, in the back. But it's almost like you were there like guide, you know, you were giving them advice and everything like that and like keeping them together. It was very nurturing the words you would say to them on this show.Talk to me about your experience on this show before we talk about Gaga. Andrew: Oh, yes. No oh my God. That it feels, what was it like five years ago? Yeah, it was five years ago. I had just wrapped working with [00:54:00] Tyra Banks on America's Next Top model. So, and that was like the third cycle that I had worked with her doing hair and makeup.And, and what I did while I was on Top Model is I absorbed her like a sponge, cuz I knew that this show, American Beauty Star was coming right around the corner. And so the premise of American Beauty Star was to basically be Tyra Banks create a director. So not only did I have to do hair and makeup, but I had to conceptualize and create the runway for the fashion show design, the wardrobe accessorize, design the nail.I also had to choose the music for the, the platform. I had to tell Emily Rose, the International Vogue cover director to photograph and tell the model how to pose. So all these things that I knew were coming up, I knew like, this is, this is what I do like this. I'm, I feel very good about this. I feel very confident going into this.And I'm gonna come in, in, in a [00:55:00] humble approach. And so that was my intent, right? Going into this and always putting the energy exuding out for my mother's health is what I would kind of like meditate every day on my own. Because they said, you're gonna be quarantined for three weeks. Do you have no access to your devices?You have no access to your loved ones. You're, this is a frozen hard environment, which is basically you can't talk, you can't speak unless the cameras are on. And it's a production strategy to conserve your energy for camera type. But it's also. A psyching test to test your patients, your stress levels.And it's so funny because that's where I started developing this little twitch that happens on my arm. It's actually happening right now as we speak. I don't know if you can see it, like the little eye on the, it's switching a little bit, whatever, to that degree. Yeah. And so and I never had that before until [00:56:00] this show, but because we were only allowed to bring paper and my old school like iPod, you shuffle, I would listen to music like Madonna Ray of Light.Obviously, you know, other people that would like made me zen. I came up with Zen Drew, and this is where I started drawing for the book and creating the concept behind of what I wanted to do. I didn't know I had a concept during the time of the the show though. I just knew that I was like, Journaling.This is my form of therapy. And so I, I, I, I listened to the direction from the judges. A Adrian a Lima is the host who I loved, and she's stunningly gorgeous, even more in person, more so in person. Serjan is our mentor whose Beyonce's makeup artist. And, you know because I had been in production on a reality competition show [00:57:00] before, I knew a little bit more, I had a little more insight on kind of what goes behind the scenes.But now I'm the one in front of the camera place on hard ice. So I kind of knew that there were, there was three parts to the, the production In the morning you would come in, dress in the outfit that you were in the last night's outfit that day we had to recreate for continuity, whatever we did on the challenge last night again.Then we would find out, like you saw with the white snow queen, that we were gonna stay or leave. And yes, I was sweating. My back was drenched and my arm was twitching. But my goal was to always listen to the, the, the feedback and put that into the next challenge. Then the second part of the day was your, your kind of like, your interviews and what you see in between they, they call 'em the confessionals.And so that's where oftentimes they would set you up with the producer [00:58:00] and they would ask you questions and I could pick up when they were trying to alter my answer or get something else outta me. And I would say, no, that's, that's not something that I would say. I'm not gonna say that. Don't ask me to say that.And I, I remember asking for a different producer when I didn't, when I was in vibing that, you know, the, this, this isn't coming out through for my best interest. This is coming out for. Airtime or production, and I'm not here for it. Like I wanna be authentic, Andrew and what I came up with, what's called my Zend.So they listened to that and I went, I had another producer, and she really made me feel like safe, made me feel heard, and, and, and I feel it's because of her. She was another angel that I was able to, to be vulnerable and to, and to be just true. And then the last part of the day was the next challenge.And then you're introduced to a new a new ex whatever [00:59:00] project you're gonna come up with. And I, I felt everybody's anxieties, right? I felt everyone's trying to, like some people were trying to be shady. So the what you see is real, you know, some of it, yes, it's beefed up because they want to stir up some drama specifically on America's next time model.But for American Beauty Star I think they were, they would, they would find. People's strengths and weaknesses and then enhanced them by and, you know what's the tar the right word? By instigating stuff and by asking right questions and by like probing. I wasn't here for it. I think they picked up on that.I think that's also why I didn't win. But I think that's why I made it to the finales because they knew like, oh, this guy, he's well put together. He's corporate, he's professional, but I wasn't drama. You know what I mean? And because I sense everyone else's anxieties, I would try to give them positivity and, and give them zen as and just tell [01:00:00] 'em to, Hey, just trust your, in your intuition.Just go with what brings you joy and follow that regardless of what everybody's telling you. Like follow that. And I feel like that's kind of like what helped me stay at towards the end. Although I didn't win in the winning title, I won so many other ways and growth and exposure and experience, I was able to open up a salon after that.And I'm very grateful for it, you know what I mean? Would I do it again? Absolutely. I would bring it on all stars. I will come back on season four and go up against my students, go up against whoever. And I'll win that. I'll win that bitch. I'll take that bitch home. Hell season four all stars. De'Vannon: Take me with you.I can I can supply the underwear. I'm sure y'all need a pit crew for my down under apparel brand. Hey, I can do something. Andrew: Let's go. De'Vannon: Okay. So then, so as you thank you for that breakdown. I love you had this fabulous experience and I just speak more exposure over you and riches, both in this world and in the one to come and in the [01:01:00] unseen realm too.Yes, Andrew: yes, yes. Between De'Vannon: Lady Gaga, RuPaul and Demi Lovato, which one of these can you give us the most dramatic story from, from working? Andrew: I mean, I can, I can talk about all of them briefly. Who did I work with first? It was probably RuPaul. We, Mac Cosmetics was the sponsor brand for season one, and through that sponsorship, David not only provided the cosmetics, they provided artistry support, which was myself and I managed the pro store on North Robertson in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood.So we were like the flagship that all entertainment would approach for. Sponsorship product, artistry help, whatever it was. So I worked on season one and we were in charge of just doing the guest judges. So I did like Michelle Williams from, you know, Destiny's Child. And Ru [01:02:00] Ru is just great.She's just such a big flirt and just you can feel her energy when she comes into the, the room. And this is still season one, so it was very fresh. I was invited to come back for season four this time through an agency and still do the guest judges and the pick crew as well. So we had to oil them up and and then you can see me actually on season four in the background cause they would sometimes have us be in the audience.And this is the one with Sharon Needles. I think who else was. Fifi O'Hara and they're fighting like on the wwf, kinda like wrestling. So you can see me in the back, like yelling. So that's a little behind the scenes. And then Gaga was through Sharon Gold, who was Madonna's hairstylist during the Blonde Ambition tour.And Sharon we're shop with us at Mac frequently to get product, to get her discount. Cause we offer, they offered a pro membership [01:03:00] discount for anybody in the industry. And so she hit us up once and said, Hey, I'm coming in tomorrow. Can you make sure that we have. A little private area. Yeah, absolutely.Yeah. We're gonna need your face charts, your pigments, and some brushes. I have an artist a musician that I'd love to introduce you guys to. She's new. She's up and coming. Okay, great. This is like during MySpace, right? So she was, they kept calling her a MySpace artist. I'm like, all right, cool, whatever.MySpace come in. All good. So here I meet this little tiny brunettes you know, skinny young, like 20 year old. She was like, twinky, right? Her name is Stephanie. And she is like, how do you, what do you do with these space charts? Show me how to use these space charts. I'm doing this music video and I want you to work on the music video.I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah. So I was Sharon's assistant for the music video love game. But again, not knowing who this individual was, I didn't even know her artist's name until we got to the set. And now they're saying, oh, you're working with Lady Gaga? Who's Lady Gaga? What is that? What does that [01:04:00] mean?And literally, In like a matter of two weeks, she was on logo Next, next now award show and overnight she just became this huge sensation and her album just like skyrocketed. And that was it. Like that was the one time consulting with her in the store and then working in the music video. And I will forever take that to my grave cause she's Queen, you know, to all of our LGBTQ community as well.And then Demi was for another big queer moment during the la gay Pride. And I was in charge of the avant garde body makeups. And I was also able to do her like glam that morning for a really don't care music video. So it was a 13 hour day. She's such a hard worker. I remember she just came back from Paris.She, this is when she used to shave the [01:05:00] CI of her hair. She's like, You know, can you clean me up? I didn't bring clippers cause I wasn't aware that I was gonna do like grooming and I, I just was prepared for makeup artistry. So I had to, th this is another fun fact I'm gonna share with your audience. I had to taper and sh and shave, fade the side of her head with lash scissors and a mascara one and just like a cute little blend to make it look tight.And then the rest of the day was turning these dancers into like mannequin avant garde, like avatar makeup. So like blue, pink, gold and black. And it was hot during real life on afloat, during la gay pride in a little pickup truck behind her, touching her up every so often and touching them up. Just exhausting, but, you know, really, really great to work with.And she was very gracious. And this is when she was dating I forget his name. The my Latino, I should [01:06:00] know his name, HETE. But anyhow, it was a, it was a great experience. She was fun. Gaga was fun, RuPaul was fun, and I love them all as artists. I think what they represent as, you know, ex a self-expression and what they do for our community is just, is awesome.So I'm gonna forever take that to my grave. Hell yeah. And De'Vannon: look, I hopefully you get to work with them again. I speak it so. Mm-hmm. So I've

INTRODUCTION: This is an impromptu bonus episode to announce that I have made public Ethan's sext messages which I discovered in the early morning hours of Christmas Day 2022. You may find them at: https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/ethans-sext-messages-revealed/   INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Ethan's Sext Messages Revealed!!!·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannonTRANSCRIPT:ETHAN'S SEXTS REVEALED!!! De'Vannon: [00:00:00] Of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. This is the warning that the Lord gives to people who go about finding ways to please themselves at the expense of other people. My name is Devana and I'm the host of the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast, and I'm here with a brief bonus episode for you today, and I've been working on this book that I'm gonna be releasing, talking about the experience that I went through with my ex-boyfriend and him ended up being a covert narcissist and all that that put me through.And at first I was thinking about putting all of. The sex messages that he sent to the people he was running around behind my back with, which I discovered in the early morning of Christmas, just this past year in 2022, I wasn't gonna put all those text messages in the book, but then we were like, we'll just put [00:01:00] like a few of 'em.So what I decided to do instead was take at least the majority of these text messages and put. In the blog section of my website and do like a little writeup and everything like that, because I really, really want to be transparent as I always am. I don't have anything to hide. I've done what I've done.I've said what I've said. I've did what I did, and it wasn't always cute and it wasn't always right, but I've always, always told the truth. This is why David, you know, from the Old Testament in the Bible, and he appears in the New Testament too. It is called a God. It's called a man after God's own heart, even though he murdered Uriah in order to get back.Chiba, you know, God still considers David a man after his own heart, that he's also set to reign in the millennial kingdom. And so we have not seen the last of, of of, of, of David.[00:02:00]And why is that? Because David always told the truth. You know when I think it was Nathan, the Prof and went in there to read him for filth for what he had done to Uriah. He hadn't really told anybody, but there are no secrets. There are no secrets. Everything always comes out to the light, as the Lord says in his word of what's done in darkness Show come out to the light until David didn't even try to lie to Nathan, the private.He told him the. And the Lord said, you don't even have to repent. I've already forgiven you. Now the Lord levied heavy consequences on David. You know, and you can go and read about that story because it's, it's really, really quite insightful as everything in the Bible is to me.And so those, so you can go over to my website, sex Drugs and jesus.com and read through it. And so some might look at. That, you know, this blog post and be like, oh, you know, she's just being a petty queen or whatever. No. [00:03:00] I've found any, anything that I can do to shine light on people who have damaged people with their sex addictions, with their narcissism, it helps me heal.And I cannot tell you, since all this has started to come to light and come out, how many people, how many people. I have come across who have been victims of narcissistic people. It's really ridiculous, you know, just, just how prolific this is in society today,but just like here in Proverbs, this is Proverbs 20, chapter 20, verse 17. You know, I recommend people to read a proverb a day. There's 31 proverbs. And so you usually have about 30, 31 days in the month you can read the RB that corresponds with the day of the month. And that's a good guide to get you going.So you get some wisdom between your ears, you know? But it's talking about basically you having fun, [00:04:00] enjoying yourself today, but you're gonna regret it tomorrow. It makes no sense. If what you're doing today is gonna cause you pain tomorrow because you don't possess the sense, the wit or the willingness, the, the, the flat out capability to think about the consequences of what you're about to do.So y'all, let's not be shortsighted because God is not mocked. He is not mocked whatsoever, a man. So that also will you reap. Then I went down to verse 20 in Proverbs. And it says, who so curses his father, his mother, his lamp shall be put out into obscure darkness. Things about my ex, I started to find out towards the end of our relationship, just got like worse and worse and worse.I, I, I've only seen one other person in my life devolve, you know, into wickedness like my ex did, and just into pure evil. And that was the man back when I was in high school who was running around trying to give me and so many other people aids. He ended up [00:05:00] dying, you know, in his early twenties because he just would not shift his negative perspective.You know, it was, you know, I was already invested into Ethan when I, when I saw how he talked, talks to his mother, you know, calling her stupid, you know, very, very bad names and demeaning. And like I've said before, we even talk shit to the dogs too, you know. But in the Bible it says that if you honor your mother and father, it comes with a long life and it comes with promise.The Lord would bless you forgiving a damn about your appearance. And I know some of y'all got really shitty parents. It's completely different, but that still doesn't give you the right to, to, to, to be evil towards them. So you really, really need to watch that cuz the Lord is watching how we treat our parents.Get away from 'em if they're abusive and you have to, but be mindful how you treat them. It's like in the Bible when he tells us that the Arc Angels, St. Michael our. Was arguing [00:06:00] with Lucifer over the body of Moses that he would not say anything against the devil. Why? Because the devil is still God's creation.You know, you, you gotta be careful how you speak about people and things like that because your words create your universe. And so I just. You know, and, and the day that I heard him speak so poorly to his mother, I was just like shocked. And I was like, you know, oh my god, you know who, who really is this?But I was another one of those things I pushed outta my mind, I compromised on it and I should not have. It is true what they say as at least from my experience with this, try to find you a man who gets along with his mother and treats her well. You know, cuz I'm gonna tell you that this ex that I had didn't treat his mother well and that he didn't treat me well either.When I was, I have, me and my ex were back in his hometown visiting with his family and I took his [00:07:00] mother out to a whole spa day and we went up, he got her her dead and everything like that. And you know, we come back home. My ex and no other person in that house even bothered to mention anything about this woman's new look.She was looking fabulous, snatched for the gods, and. You know my ex and everyone in there just br just acted like she just looked the same as when she left. So rude, so damn disrespectful yet. So Ethan, and then I went down to verse 22 where it says, say not I will re confidence evil, but wait on the Lord and he shall save you.Now look y'all. I know when people hurt us, we want to go out there and get even. We wanna fuck them up, okay? If not end them. I think about Angela Bassett lying from American Horror Story season three when she was [00:08:00] playing Marie Lavo, the Voodoo Queen down in New Orleans, and she was talking to one of her enemies in there and she was saying, I could think of so many ways that I can dispose of you.Look, and we also don't wanna listen to Madea either. Look, I know y'all love your Tyler Perry, but, but don't, don't do, do not listen to Madea telling you that God take too long and your enemies need to get got right then talking about your, your Smith and Wesson is your peace of steel and peace be still and loja still Do not go out there and catch no case.You know, trying to get even with these xs and these people who done, done you wrong because they're, you're still giving them power over you and honey. I've been locked up. 1, 2, 3, shit. Yeah. Something like three, four at times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been locked up three times. Honey, orange is not the new black.It is not cute. See a sea of orange every damn day when you wake up. Do [00:09:00] not go and catch no case, no felonies, you know, no misdemeanors or what the hell ever trying to express yourself. You know? We'll just call it like that. Look, I wanted to, I thought about this shit. You know, slashing his tires, throwing bricks through the windows of his house, burning the house down.You know, thank God it's not a crime to imagine shed. No, I'm not gonna do it. You know, I'm not going to do it because you know, it says in the Bible that we have to wait. The Lord said, the Lord said vengeance belongs to him, referring to himself. He said, avenge as mine, says the Lord. And he says, you have to wait.And so, And so what can you do? You get on your knees, okay? And you pray. You know, don't, don't, don't, don't listen to Jasmine Sullivan tell you to go bust the windows out that motherfucker's car do they deserve it? Hell, today. Yeah, but they're gonna have to get what's [00:10:00] coming to them. When the time is right.And remember, people who go out there and hurt people, and I can attest to this too, from that guy when I was in high school running around trying to hurt people. You know, he was not a happy person. He was fine as hell, sex as fuck, you know, fucking his way through town. And he was probably the most miserable person I'd ever had ever met next to my own dad, who was also a hellish ass fuck boy.But you know, they. Lord Jesus, so and so. So look, they're not happy anyway. I don't care how they look, how they carry themselves. These are some miserable, bitter little roots running around here in this earth. That's happy, healthy, whole people go out and spread happiness. It's as simple as that. If you're doing things to hurt people, you are a broken, bitter bitch.If you're not doing things to hurt people, then you're not a broken, bitter bitch that doesn't get any more simple than that. And so,[00:11:00]I just got out of, of, of mental hospital and I'm gonna have to do a whole nother show on that. Cause look, the Lord let things line up, because I needed time. I needed time to, to sit still without my phone, without this beautiful MacBook. I'm recording this on right now without the mic, without dealing with all my business, with down under apparel, without writing anything.Well, I, I wrote when I was in there, but you know, I was in there. I, I, I was, I was in the hospital eight days. I just got out today. Okay. You know, today is April 15th as I'm recording and about to release this. When I was in there, I had to, I, I went down on my knees and, and prayed like Evangelist Nelson, you know, my mentor, you know, who, you know, who I speak about, who I've written about, you know how you, how she used to tell me, [00:12:00] tell tell me to pray.Like she, she used to say, when you really, really, really, really, really need God to move them little popcorn prayers ain't going to cut it. She, she would tell me, you got to get down there on your, on your knee, on your knees and pray, and you gotta stay there. You gotta marinade before the Lord. And in, and in and in the choir that was provided me away from all the, all, all the, all the people who need me and depend on me, whom I love, and I love to be there for them.I, I got quiet and I got down there and prayed, and I began to get breakthroughs in my early morning dreams, which I'll talk about later. I began to vent. Out the poison that Ethan had put inside of me before I knew that it was there, you know, the negative thinking, the negative energy, all of that by being in a relationship with him, had gotten into me and the Lord began to extract this from me.Kinda like a, like a black tar being pulled up out of me is the best [00:13:00] way that I can describe it. Okay.Prayer changes things. Yeah, but you gotta be, you gotta mean it and you gotta get intense with it. When you really, really, really, really want God to move and you must believe, and your faith cannot be wavering though, if you have shaky faith, get down there and pray with. Pray with what faith you have, then God will move for you because I've asked him too.Do so on your behalf. Then look, if you are in a wheelchair or something like that, God understands you. Pray where you can, how you. You know, just be sincere in the prayer, faith shall move God. And that is what the Bible says. So I wanted to tell people about a website that I was introduced to called COSA Recovery, that C os a-recovery.org.COSA is a 12 step recovery [00:14:00] program for those whose lives have been affected by compulsive sexual behavior. I was shocked as shit when I discovered this. People have given themselves over the sexual compulsion so damn bad and hurt so many fucking people that we now have a step and probably this thing has been existed, bro.I don't know how fucking long. I'm thankful to have it that we have fucking 12 step programs because we've been hurt by people who cannot go out and fuck without fucking over the people who actually love them. This is regard damn ridiculous. You know what the fuck is going on with our society?Exactly what the Lord said would do. He said in the last days, men would become lovers of themselves. People cannot get enough of consuming the shit that they want, even if it hurts other people. I also want to tell you about this, this book right here. This book right [00:15:00] here. Is a book by an individual by the name of Raquel Lerner, and it's called, the Object of My Affection is in my reflection, coping with a narcissist.My Hypnotherapist, which you, which you met in a previous episode. Elaine Perilous. He's been a hypnotherapist for I think over like 20 something years she said. This shit right here is the best damn book. Now these are my, my, my words and not hers is the best damn book she has ever read or come across about narcissism and helping people to overcome that shit so that we can move on and be beautiful, bright, bold and brave like our Lord intended us to.After I read this, I just got this in the mail of the day, but I told you just got out the hospital. After I read this, I'm gonna do a show on it. You know, this whole narcissism thing and D dealing with sex addiction and all of that is gonna be an ongoing thing because it's [00:16:00] an ongoing, it is gonna be an ongoing thing that I talk about poor an indetermined amount of time, because that's what's going on with me right now, and it is so prevalent, and the more I dig into it, the more shocked I am of what I'm finding.So getting back on these sex, yes, you will find them in the sex drugs and jesus.com in the blog section. And feel free to reach out to me, email me, or whatever the hell hit me up on social media, TikTok, whatever. We're on all the things. And tell me what you think. Let me know if you went through something like that.You know, let me know if this transparency is helping you. I've heard from, I've heard from some of you and I already know that it is And mind you, when you're reading, when you're reading through this, Ethan's text message is gonna be on the right. His fuck, boys. Well, shit, he's the fuck boy too. The, the other, the other individual man, look, I can't even imagine.Be mad at the person, you know, the people he cheated with because he probably didn't even tell them that I exist. You know, [00:17:00] the other person's shit is gonna be on the left. The main one. Keep in mind that this is 43 text messages that Ethan sent to this person in 30. Say that again. 43 text messages in 30 minutes.Not he wa he wasn't speaking. Ethan doesn't do talk text his, his little, his, his damn fingers will move across that damn iPhone like grease, lightning bitch. These are 43 type text messages in 30 minutes and I found this bullshit out I made Ethan's, oh Jesus. Mm. Nah, fuck it. I made Ethan's little bitch ass re replicate this because this was so like unbelievable to me.In the course of our almost five year relationship, I never got a sexual initiation from Ethan like this. I had to initiate all the sex because he was too busy [00:18:00] crying about having fears of being rejected and everything like that, which never got resolved because he never really was trying to let it go.It really pissed me the fuck off to look, look, look in his cell phone after the spirit led me to, and my woman's intuition kicked in on, on fucking Christmas morning to find that not only did he, does Ethan possess the capacity to go out and cheat while he has covid and possibly kill the person and come home and eat a bowl of cereal and play video games and fucking go to sleep and not, and not faze him, and then look at me every day for, for, for four months and not say a damn thing.But he had the balls to initiate this. He groomed these people, he reached out to them, talked to them over a matter of weeks, and then went over and did a deed all the while holding my hand through the process and not saying anything. I'm like, you, I'm like that. That bastard can do all of this, but [00:19:00] can't even ask me for a piece of.When you'd have been with me for five years, I even tried to level with him during the course of the relationship. I was like, do we need to go? Do you need to text me in order to get the ball rolling for something sexual since verbal, verbal is not gonna happen? You know, he was like, no, and I see all this.So yeah, I made that little bitch replicate this. It took him hours. You know, to, to send me, I, I, I told him, send me 43 text messages, at least 43 text messages in 30 minutes like you did to the person you cheated on me with. He could barely do it. Now look, this is 43 text messages in 30 minutes, not counting what the other fuck boy responded to him.So, so even when that this shit hard, heavy was ready to go, okay. Okay. He, he lit it up and went over there and handled business. [00:20:00] Okay. While he was over there. I'm still texting him. I'm thinking he's at home about to die of Covid. Cause I had just went and dropped him off. Covid medicine, my covid medicine that I didn't take for myself.I gave it to him. Then a few hours later he's up and, you know, making it happen. You know, I'm texting him and everything. Wondering why his phone, why, why the messages aren't going through his iMessages like they usually do, because he had his phone off. I didn't even know Ethan had possessed the capacity to turn his phone off for the whole five years of our relationship.I begged him to get off his fucking phone to pay me some damn attention and to talk to me. You know, I wasn't trying to con. I wasn't trying to control him or take anything from him. I was trying to get to know him. I can't do that if he's on his cell phone half the damn time. Well, the majority of the fucking time, you know, always wherever we're at, he was always on his phone, you know, I was so insulted and at the time, you know, heartbroken and, and just felt all kinds of ways to see [00:21:00] that.Wait a minute. I ask your ass to turn your phone, just not to turn it off, but to just silence it or put it down so that we can communicate. You won't do it, but you can turn your phone off to go cheat and give the the person you fucking, that I don't know about your undivided attention. This is why I wanted to physically hurt him.You know, I am not a violent person. I don't fight. I would not reduce. And demean myself to such basic bitch levels. Okay To come to blows with some ho in the street by God damnit, I wanted to lay all my coth in class aside and take my hands and rip that little motherfucker to shreds. I really fucking did, but the Lord said, wait, and that's what I'm going to do.There are other ways, you know, to get eat to, to. That, that, that God can [00:22:00] get even with people. You don't have to, to reduce yourself to their level. Staying angry at narcissists and, and people who hurt you still gives them power over you, baby. You have got to let them go. Forgive them for you, not for them.Commend them into the hands of the Lord.When I was homeless on the street,I learned how fast karma comes back around. I guess it has to come back fast out there because people can get dead kind of quick, you know, out there in the game and hustlers and when you on the street and stuff like that. Any little dirt I did to somebody came back to my ass quick. Okay. I spoke about some of the karma that came back to me and the other episode 99, which I just released earlier today, y'all.I'm sorry that it was. But you know, like I said, I was locked up in the mental, you know, in the mental house. So I'm getting to it while I can, but I do [00:23:00] apologize for that so and so you know, and, and you know, any, any, any, Any kind of dirt I did always came back to me. I've lived it. Y'all have too, but you have to wait. This happened. I was, you know, just, just, just, just this past week when I was in the mental hospital and look, y'all, God is in there speaking to me, this man who seemed to have some type of dementia, sometimes people who come off cross as crazy and, and stutter, sometimes God will step into that stutter.And he'll speak to you through them. So don't write off people who look like they're crazy or just whatever, you know, you know. He walked up to me and he was just like, God is gonna send, wait a minute, how did he say it? He said, good people are coming your way. You know, I was setting down coloring or whatever the fuck I was doing, and it was, it would appear.To, to, to to [00:24:00] other people to just be an arbitrary comment some old, crazy man is making. But I have spiritual understanding and I keep an ear open to what the spirit may speak to me in any kind of way. When he said that, I look, I looked up at him and I was like, you know what, God just spoke through you.And I accept that because I need good people. Because, you know, God knows, you know, everything that I've gone through, you know, in within this year wore me out and almost took me. You know, I was in that ambulance, you know, thinking my life was slipping away, and I'm gonna talk about this in a different episode, and I was praying.Evangelist Nelson came to me in a dream the night before I ended up having to call the ambulance to go to the hospital for, for what was going on. And I didn't know she had come to get me and carried me away from here. What, because some, you know, those old people do that, you know, when you get ready to die, your elders from, from what I've been told, from what I've seen and experienced, [00:25:00] you know, the elders, you know, they, they, they, your, your, your, your relatives come back to get you.So I didn't know what was going on and so, but as you can see, I'm still here. While I was locked up in the mental hospital, this one, this one fool decided to become my. You know, talking shit and doing all of this, and I just, you know, you can't get in fights and nothing like that in there. They'll keep you longer.So I just went in my room. This is how God uses our enemies to grow us. You see wicked people or the tools of the Lord. That's how the Bible describes them. The Lord uses wicked people to grow his saints and to grow his children. And that's what Ethan was, that's what this fool in this mental hospital was.I didn't argue with him. I went. I went in there and prayed and I just said, Lord, you get him. You get his ass. Okay? Get real with God. Talk to him if you gotta cuss. Cuss God's not [00:26:00] offended by your words. Just tell the truth. Humans get offended about every little thing. Fuck him. Can't do nothing with that bullshit and that fucking foolishness that people be perpetrating on.I'm gonna tell you like. I looked up and next thing I know, they was wheeling him out on a stretcher. I didn't touch this man. I didn't do anything to him. He was already, there was something going on in his health, I don't know. But the Lord took that, took that disturbance away from me because I didn't need that.Okay? And then his little crew that had gotten latched onto his negativity and was throwing shade my way, got disbanded, and now all of a sudden, they want to be friends with me again. Which I did not allow. You know, I forgave them and stuff like that, but my friendship is golden and I pour out my soul and my very existence for people you know, you know, on a daily basis.But especially those who are, who are close to me or within my reach, I will not be disrespected, you know, or are hurt [00:27:00] by you and you think you just gonna come back and everything gonna be all right. The ma'am, it's not gonna go that. Okay. It's, it is, it is absolutely not going to go that way. And so I'm saying all this to say, I'm saying all this to say, let God arise and let your enemies be scattered and let your head be lifted up above your enemies.When you have problems with enemies, get to the Book of Psalms. God used David's enemies to groom him to become, you know, a king of Israel. Do not let these people cause you to sink down. But any rate, take y'all's asses over to sex, drugs and jesus.com and check out this blog opposed, and get these receipts, real life receipts.Honey, you don't always get receipts like this tossed your way. Or you can go through and see the actual dirt baby. Go through and get your fucking life and then message me and let me know what you [00:28:00] think about. I love you all so much and I will talk to you on the next episode.

INTRODUCTION: In this episode I give you an unanticipated update about my healing from my breakup with a narcissist and how Dungeons & Dragons inspired me to write a journal entry in this same regard. I know weird right? #ILIVEFORTHIS INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      The Benefits Of Writing & Journaling·      Stop Following Behind The Narcissist ·      God Speaks Through Movies·      KARMA Is Real·      Why Argue? Just why though?????·      Reprobate Minds·      Spiritual Understanding·      There Are No Secrets·      Relationship Burden Must Be Borne By ALL·      Give Yourself Some Kudos CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com   DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: Solo Dolo: Heartbreak Update + $925.56 Of Unpaid Debt + Dungeons & DragonsDe'Vannon: [00:00:00] Hello, hello, hello everyone and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host Devan and Hubert, and I'm here with an update today about how I'm feeling dealing with this breakup. And we're gonna talk a little bit about journaling and ironically enough, Dungeons and Dragons as well. SoYeah, then I have my trustee and I guess a little bit crusty Red Journal here. As you can see, I've had this thing since 2013. So you know, I think she's holding up pretty fucking good if I do say so myself. So I, so me and me and me and this new friend of mine, his name is land. Beautiful man, beautiful soul, beautiful [00:01:00] heart.We went to go see Dungeons and Dragons the other day, and let me see, I wrote this on April the third, so I think we went to go see this on Monday. I hadn't journaled in like a while. While, and I, when I got home, I sat down and took a few hours to, to write about the way this movie this movie had inspired me Journaling is one of those things that's super healing in a, in a, in a very unique and strange way. There is a connection between the, the mind, the brain, and writing things physically down, not taking notes and whatever electronic device you have is not the same. It's like in hypnotherapy, I learned, you know, when we would have a client come in or, or something like that, we would have them write physically with, you know, like, like a pen, a [00:02:00] pencil, something like that, right Out what, whatever it would be in cursive.And we could tell so much about, you know, a client before they even said anything, just by getting a writing sample from them. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it had to be in 10. I don't know if they could use pencil. It was one or the other. Don't quote me on that, but but there's something about writing it just, I was almost like, you, you know, you're putting your, your soul down on paper.That's why, you know, you know, you can be tracked like by your handwriting. You know, handwriting specialist can tell is really your signature. If you really wrote this, you know, writing is like, kind of like a d n A as, as a technology. Age moves on and people write less and less and less physically with their hands, right?Less and less, you know, in schools you would've electronics, you know, over the place. Now who even needs a pen or a pencil anymore? You know, but we're, but we're losing a part of our, [00:03:00]our soul. Okay, by not getting back to the basics of just putting a a pen to paper, there's a lot to it. And journaling helps you to get your, your soul down on paper.It helps to alleviate weight off the brain. Cuz it's like, once you, for me, once I take it outta my head and put it on paper, it just helps, it just helps me to feel like maybe like this journal is helping to, to, to shoulder some of this burden for me. It's like my, it's like my little helper buddy. So,so I'll just start reading it and we'll just see how this thing goes. And, and overall, just, just so you kind of know a little bit of what's coming, it felt like, it felt like God was speaking to me through [00:04:00]this movie and particularly, This relationship that I just had to, to end and get away from so I wouldn't lose, you know, my mind completely.And I've been preaching this for years, you know, you know, God speaks to us in many different ways, you know, through movies, through shows, through television. And I really, really wish people would, would watch them, you know, for entertainment. Sure. But then also consider, you know, what are the real life implications here?What are the spiritual implications here? Are there any afterlife indications here? You know, that way, that way we're really gleaning from every experience that we have, all the theories to it, other than, whoa, that was tingling. It made my my flesh feel good for a moment. You know, what can we actually learn here and do something with on a more perpetual basis?And so I try to look beneath the surface in most things. Let me see here [00:05:00] today. Today I sent what I considered to be the final communications between me and the ex. In these messages, I berated him for failing to honor his word in terms of payments slash reparations. Okay, so let me explain to you what this is.I already had a running tally of, of money that, like I said, we'll just call him Ethan owed me this tally started that morning that we got back from New Orleans. You know, and his drunk ass, you know, took an Uber all the way from New Orleans back to Baton Rouge. That's like pretty much like at least an hour, because he was, you know, in that state of mind, come back to my house.He ends up hitting my car with his car, you know, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so, And so begins the tally, you know, him paying me back, you know, for [00:06:00] all these things. That's the same morning I found out about you know, him and his secret fuck boy he's running around with and getting smoking weed with because, you know, he pretty much left here from hitting my car to go over and hang out with his secret fuck, fuck friend.Okay. And and and so I started like a running, like iPhone shared note and then as, as time goes on and I started learning more about his lies and his hoing around and everything like that, you know, I i's added more to it. I was like, you know, $500 ho fee or whatever the case may be. You know, trying to like find a way to balance it out.Did I ever really expect him to fulfill his word and do it? [00:07:00] Nah, not really. But if he, if there was ever gonna be a chance or a shot that, that, that, that, boy, you know, that, that that foolish boy would've ever been able to stay in my life, it would've had to cost him dearly. You know? And one thing I know, you know, pretty much every human likes money, you know, and they will stake, you know, people will try a lot harder to, and be more consistent going to work and making money, you know, than they will with, you know, like being that consistent in that dedicated to their significant relationships, supposedly significant relationships.And so, like, people will be late, they go meet their friends or to, to be anywhere, but they won't be late to go. To a place of employment that's gonna pay them. And then you got some people who are late to work all the time. But you know, if you, if they're late for work all the time, then they're [00:08:00] also gonna be late for their friends and late to church and every damn where else to go.And they're just late across the board. But when I can evaluate you and see that you're just late for me and not when you go over here and over there, but then this is something that, this is a way that you're disrespecting me. Cuz it's not that you're just late all the time, it's just over here, you know?So, and some might look at the list of charges that I levied against him and hell let me, let me just pull the damn list up. You know, I done said everything else at this point in my life. And if it's not being stated, you know, It'll be written. So yeah, it was like, you know, $775 for the car, another 380, 4 [00:09:00] 90 for the rental car.You know, 1 7 23, 500 bucks for yet another lie. How long he was with the fuckboy? You know, first he lied and said he had just met them and they hung out one time. Then he said, oh, well really it's two. Oh, nevermind. Actually it was four times we started hanging out. You know, we've been hanging out basically since September and Really, oh, we, we used to sleep around in college.You know, my blood pressure was so damn high dealing with this nonsense. I don't have high blood pressure. My blood pressure be like one 15 over like, I don't know, 90 or some shit. This is not a plague. I got problems, but blood pressure ain't supposed to be one of 'em, so I had to go buy blood pressure machine.And that cause is on here.I wanted to read that. I said $500 for yet another lie, [00:10:00] how long you were with the fuckboy. Plus aggressively manipulating and attempting to reinforce your lies, which have been at least nine lies, and most of which have been told in the past two weeks from the 7th of January. Even as I, in good faith, tried to trust Ethan and move forward,even though he had told those lies and everything, I still tried to work with him. I tried to go over there and everything, and his fool just kept lying. I added $225 for appointments with the the counselor, the couple's counselor, which he went and lied. I was like, I've wasted my time, money, gas for you to come here and gaslight and lie, manipulate to not just me, but the therapist too.This like this. May as well have not as happened. Andso basically when it was all said and done, the last payment I got was on the 2nd of March [00:11:00]for $200, which left Ethan with a balance of 9 25 56. So basically it's like he decided he is not going to pay for being ahoe and for line. Okay.That's his choice. I just wanted, I just wanted to.To for y'all to get an idea of this. And so he knew what knew what all of this was written down. This wasn't a secret, and it's something that he also agreed to. If he didn't want to do this, then he should not have agreed to do it. If he changed his mind about it, then he should have reached out to me in law, levied his case and said, here is such and such, and this throughout the course of our relationship, he never could.He would sit there and agree to [00:12:00] something and then decide that he was averse to it, and then not come and tell me and then go off and do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. And when I began to track this consistently in him, I told him like, you're acting like you wanna be single. You can go and have that life.I made it so easy for him. I was like, if you want to go out there and sleep with people and not tell anyone where you're going, There are people out there who want that sort of open relationship, that don't care for transparency, who don't want to know. I ain't one of those people, you know, I wasn't like, don't go and do, but since what you're doing could affect my health, I need to know.And you haven't demonstrated that you conduct yourself responsibly in terms of the health angle, you know, when you're out there doing these things. And so then I told him all that and he was all like, no, I don't wanna be single. But you keep acting like you wanna be single something with narcissistic people.Their words don't mean how they sound their life and what they do. Don't add up to what they say. [00:13:00] You know? You know, if you want to go be a hogo, be a ho. You know, nobody's stopping you from doing that, but you're not gonna have me sitting in here, you know, with one set of facts and you have another set of facts.I think they get off on the secrecy of it all. But in the Bible it tells us that the Lord laughs at such people like this because he sees that their day is coming. You know, Like I stated, there was a, you know, I didn't know if we were still gonna be able to be friends or not. Throughout the month of January and a portion of February, I tried to hang out with the ex and and it just never felt right. There was still. So much anger for me, so much it is stress from him. We still can hang out one time without some sort of argument or whatever.Now that he's outta my life, there's nobody else that I argue with. [00:14:00] I refuse to have arguments and fights with people over what we have too many blessings and I mean, we can get up, stand on our own two feet. Most of us. We can talk, communicate, we can travel, we can explore sexually, we can make money, we can lose money, we can have hope that we can gain back and that's gonna be all right, or whatever the problem may be.You know, we, we have a lot of options. When I was in the military, I used to go and hang out. I used to go and hang out with kids in the hospitals who had cancer, teenagers in hospital who had cancer, who should be out exploring life and doing things. And instead, they literally can't leave their room.You know, because of something that's no fault of their own, you know, we, we have no reason to be sitting around arguing, you know, but where does arguing come from? People wanting to control people. People not able to [00:15:00] express themselves properly. People of all kind of hell and confusion, you know, up in them.You know, you ever just feel just drained and tired and worn out after an argument because that, that spirit is not of God. And we all know that, that, that the devil comes not but for it to steal and to kill and to destroy. And so if you've done anything and you just feel like, just ghosted and ravaged and drained by it, you might not want to do that anymore, or, you know, or work on, on skills to help you do it a lot less until you don't do it anymore.And so I had all kinds of like, anatomical reactions to this stress I had like this weird. It felt like a moving, trembling all over my body. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Asked the, asked the Department of Veterans Affairs for a new therapist to help me with this, which they still haven't done.And so child waiting, waiting on the VA to help you with mental health or really anything is, is dicey. Sometimes you gotta get out [00:16:00] and just go do it yourself. And so, so the last text that I got back from Ethan was, you know, if your new therapist, it can help you work through this, then that will be good.I'm sorry this has affected you. So after almost five years, this is the surface level sort of responses that I would get from him, you know, and I'm thankful that I'm no longer waiting for him to arrive for that relationship because he never did. You see how non-committal his response is? I'm sorry this has affected you.So, but not, there's no ownership in that. He's looking at the thing that happened to me as though it's apart from him. You know, he's looking at his cheating, his manipulation, his opening me up to diseases and things like that as something that is over there somewhere. You know, I'm sorry that that thing happened to you.Not that I did this to you. [00:17:00] You know, he could not say what he wanted or to have any sort of like, accountability, but he just thought of himself all the time. You know, I'm sorry, this has affected you. So, until the other day, you know, I responded. I didn't respond to that. I just, I hadn't heard from him in a month.I said that I, I can see that you have decided to cease payments since I have not received anything since three, two. I sent this on April the third. Nor heard from you in any way. This is yet another broken vow on your part from which you will not be released. You know, we can't go around making promises to people and then thinking we can just disappear.You know, like, like without explanation. Like, that's not gonna catch back up to us. You know, spiritually speaking, I'm not about to go fuck up his house, [00:18:00] car life or nothing like that. That will happen to him anyway. And so I said, since you have decided to take this route, there isn't anything left between us.I am not your friend. Whatever connections were between us are permanently broken. Things have to be stated. You know, you know, you break up with somebody that, that closure in some way. Like, are you gonna be friends? Are you not gonna be friends over completely? You know, like that I didn't know, you know, I knew enough.To know for sure, you know, the romance, you know, gone whatever. I was the one initiating any romance between us anyway. And you know, had he acted right and, and actually paid what he was supposed to pay, I would've been put in a position to keep kind of like a door open cuz he would've done right. You know, and actually fulfilled [00:19:00] a promise.So he could have come back to me and been like, okay, I did everything I'm supposed to do. What are the chances we could at least try to be, you know, I don't know how soon I would've been able to do that, but I also at the same time, couldn't have been like a hundred percent no, because I was still like, kind of like on the fence about that.But, you know, you since, you know, he disrespected me through the whole relationship, lied the whole time. And then at the end made one last promise, which nobody forced you to do. And so then he said, okay, I will. And so then he changed his mind. You know, he could have, you know, he could have just said, no, I don't feel like paying this. But you can't do that and still think that we're going to be okay. You know?[00:20:00]I didn't like having these things unstated. Now, when I broke up with him, it was in person, but this here, I wasn't going to pay him the honor. Of of being in my presence or spending any more time than necessary. All he all, and he didn't even deserve a text. I did this to free me. You know, I didn't do this for him, but I didn't want it any kind of like confusion about exactly where we standnow. He didn't respond to that text. I sent another one a couple hours later cuz I needed to clarify. I said, let me be clear, I'm not waiting or actually even expecting you to do what you promised, because promises are things you don't mind breaking and lies are things you don't mind speaking. In March, you probably got paid three times plus whatever other income, pause, say in March.Most people get like three checks [00:21:00] unless you're a salaried. If you're like hourly or every, you know, every other Friday, Thursday, whatever, then you get three check. So that's why I say in March you probably got paid three times plus whatever other income. The last time I knew besides the, the job that, that he had or has or whatever, he also had another job as a bartender, which I also helped him get working for the same company, which I had to stop working for because the money trail could not be traced, you know, at, at this last bar that I was working at.And it was like, you know, so I had to like, you know, walk away from there. And so so anyway, and so I said, you, you sent, I said you yet, you only sent one payment, then went silent as you gain, the more you did, less my cousin. And I will receive good for helping you get the [00:22:00] sources of income you currently have. You will reap every lie you ever told me, every broken vow, every broken promise, every bit of deception, all of your manipulations than all of your knowing and willing fakeness from the last four and a half years.And it will be bitter. And those are the last words that I said to him becausefinal words have to be spoken, but what a shame for something that was, that has so much potential to be, to have to end in such a way. Although at the same time when I tell him that all of this dirt that he's done is gonna come back to him, it's not gonna be through me directly. You know, I'm not going to.Go and do anything. I'm not gonna send anybody to go and do anything, you know, to him or anything like that. [00:23:00] Because I don't want that coming back to me. When I was in the military, you know, I had dated this girl for six months, you know, and I really wasn't straight, fully. I was still trying to like, sort myself out and figure myself out.And I was under the influence of the church. That was, I was in the Pentecostal church in the military and just super confused about my sexuality and what it was, and what myself and several, you know, guys have done. We go and get these women, we go get girlfriends, wives, have children, and set up this whole life that we think we're supposed to have.This is so damaging to those women. And no, I didn't marry her. I didn't have kids with her and it was six months, but still I fucked her over. You know, I hurt that girl. You know, and she was there under the spell of the church too, and they got these girls sold on this pipe dream that they gotta [00:24:00]get married.And if they don't, it's a problem and that they have kids. And if they don't, it's a problem. And it's like, I initiated the relationship with her, the conversation and everything, but when it was over, I did not tell her, Hey, it's officially over, it's done. And this is why. There was none of that. I just ghosted her and just disappeared like a coward.I didn't do right by her and I broke her heart and and was worse as I just like kind of left her guessing about it. You know, I got my, the relationship ended months, I think months before I got, got my orders to leave. Well hell to get out of the military right. Altogether. And so The confusion the church placed upon me and all of that is not is no excuse. [00:25:00] You know, at the end of the day, you know, God says whatever you sow, you reap. Even if you don't believe in God. Anybody who has like half a spiritual mind and contract the way they're on life is gone can understand that everything that you send out comes back to you, however you want to describe it.So when I tell my ex thatthe dirt that he done, done is not something, he's just gonna be able to poof, poof, be gone, he's not gonna be able to go have a happy life. This relationship with with Ethan was the first serious one of length that I tried to have since the sense that girl in the military and all the dirt that I did to her.Has come back to me through Ethan. So, so it, so it's not gonna be like a time of peace. And for [00:26:00] him, he's so rotten and tragic the way he's done. People, I'll say he's done people so rotten.Like e even e even even on his hookups and things like that. I mean, intentionally giving someone covid, you know, he's not gonna have peace in his fuck life. He's not gonna have peace if he ever tries to be serious with somebody. You know, at least not until, you know, cuz he is gonna have, he got a whole lot of dirt and karma that's gonna have to come back to him, you know?And so that is why I ended my communication with him Now, I didn't say, you know, don't ever talk to me again, or whatever the case may be. But my therapist have been telling me, at least for right now, that the, that the goal, like I can't sort out anything that has to do with him what, while trying to sort out myself.I think that that's pretty good advice and I think I'm going to [00:27:00] follow it. Let me get back to this journal entry. so it says, Landon and I went to go see Dungeons and Dragons. It was super great. It was a super great movie and Landon is super knowledgeable. He's land is like a dungeon master and everything. He's been at this a long time.Ironically enough, the only reason I was able to meet Landon and really talk to him and befriend him is because I'm no longer with Ethan. It's like ever since his relationship has ended, I can see the value and the benefits of it. I've gotten, you know, new friends, I've I've never lost touch with my friends.I'm not one of those people who believes I'm in a relationship now, so I'm gonna do less with my friends or not talk to them or whatever. So, I will say that my bond with my friends have been strengthened, you know, [00:28:00] because of everything that Ethan did, because it's like, it, it, it has, it has grown compassion towards me from people.And for people that I've already known in a way that, that I'd never seen from them before. Ethan plays Dungeon and Dragons, you know, it was I who took him to a, to this gaming store in town in order to push him to make friends and things like that. You know, and you know, he never invited me up there to play or anything like that because he is rude like that.But I'm saying all this to say when you lose one thing or you let one thing go, God is able to give you something better. So not only has Lane then already invited me to play, but you know, he's gonna [00:29:00] intentionally, you know, set up things for people who are not as experienced to be able to play and learn. I'm so happy that I was able to go and see this movie with Landon.And then we were able to have a, a, a deep conversation about what it means and what the game means and, just on like so many levels. It was peaceful energy between us and everything like that. And it was so nice to be able to go somewhere and do something without feeling like I had like a weight on my shoulder or somebody, you know, it was just so nice to enjoy this without tension.And so now was the time I warned you about spoilers. So spoiler, spoiler alert, there will be some teething spells. If you have not seen Dungeons and Dragons then you might wanna close your ears. So in this movie, one of the main villains who was a big old bold face liar, and as I was listening to the things he said, I saw my ex in him untruthful, [00:30:00] zero con, zero conscious, a truth breaker, all that, not able to be satisfied.One of his main lines was that, and this was towards the the end of the movie where, The villain. He, he takes this little girl and puts a knife to her, her throat and everything. And he had been lying to her for years about all kinds of stuff. And, and then, and what he said was, he said, he said he's willing to do terrible things in order to get what he wants, even if it means hurting the people closest to him in those who care about and love him the most.I felt like God was telling me that he sees my affliction and I felt vindicated later on. This same person tries to lie to get out of jail because his low down lying, weighs, finally caught up to him. Kind of like what's happening with Trump right now, [00:31:00] I really, really hope and pray that this thing that we see happening with Trump in the, in the, with his indictments starting to come in.Is, is an indication of God getting ready to, to shift his, his energies and attention towards making the narcissists in our lives pay for the things that they have done. You know, cuz they've, they've wel at ease before too long just hurting people and walking all over people and getting what they want and going home and laying down like they've done nothing wrong.You know, I asked the Lord to take peace away from everybody who has taken peace away from other people.And I'm like, but this, I, I said, and, and, and I thought, and I, I wonder if they followed my ex around to come up with this character because he is exactly like him. And Romans, [00:32:00] Romans in the Bible, Romans chapter one, speaks about people who have a reprobate mind. And people of a reprobate mind like to debate.I'm just, just took a, a few pieces from it. They like to debate, they like deceit. It says that people would reprobate minds or without understanding. It says they're covenant breakers, promise breakers, truth breakers. People who will say something and promise it and don't give a damn, or they just fucking don't do it.You know, implacable means that no matter what you do, they're, you're never gonna make them happy. There's always gonna be something wrong. A fly in the soup, on the, you know, whatever the hell the case may be murderers. And look, just because you haven't killed somebody physically doesn't mean that you haven't killed them.They're a, you know, you killing somebody's soul and spirit. They're breaking their [00:33:00] mind to all forms of death, you know? And the Bible says not only. Do theydo such things, but they have pleasure in them that do them.And so in other words,you know, liars, you know, tend to hang out with people who don't mind lying. They don'tlike, like it doesn't, how can I say this better? Like, it doesn't bother them. So like my, so like my ex and night, we were at the varsity at this club out by Louisiana State University and he comes tapping me on my shoulder telling me that this guy who he slept with before was there and wanted to have a three-way with us.Now it would be later [00:34:00] on that he would come to tell me that this was that same married guy. Who's running around cheating on his wife that, you know, and he wasn't gonna tell me that that night. Well, at that point we, we didn't have any kind of open relationship anyway, but, but when I read how people who have all of these, we'll just call them issues, have they, they do these things and they have pleasure in them that do them.Like, they don't mind this. I'm like, so you don't mind committing adultery? And you also don't mind the fact that this person is out here running around on, on his wife. Okay. When I first started having sex again after this rape hub, then like, I like, like I've, like I've been saying, it seems like the people out here, you know, you know, in, in, in this world have just gotten worse on these apps or, you know, especially on these apps.It's like they just got [00:35:00] darker as though they couldn't go any lower. I'm like one of the first people you know, married, you know, trying to, and I, and I told him, no, no. Go home to your wife. I'm like, does she know? No. She doesn't know why. I'm like, I'm like you, you are literally out here running around, you know, having raw sex with men and then going home to your wife and you're like, entertained by this.And just like the ex, oh, I'm working on it, you know, telling her I'm working on leaving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, any, any kind of man who we, we we're not gonna call these people, men, any of these males who who have the capacity to to make you these, these vo these blank promises. Bitch, they're not about to do it.Whatever it is they're saying that they're gonna get to, they're not. If somebody's [00:36:00] gonna do some shit, it would've been done already. It's not gonna happen. They want you to just wait while they slow tro shit. They're not going to do it.It's like, that's like my, it is like my ex, who clearly has a sex addiction. It was like, what? Probably, I don't know, the end of January before I was like, okay, I'm like done, done with this. He still, and we, we had started going to Sex Addicts Anonymous, I think on the 1st of January or the 31st of December, something like that.It was like the at, at the last time that I, I communicated with him back at the beginning of March. He still didn't have a sponsor because he wasn't trying to get one. Talking about know, these things can't be rushed and whatever the case may be. And I'm like, no, you're not taking it seriously.You don't, you, you know, [00:37:00] he still wasn't ready to fully believe he had a problem, which is another reason why I had to get the hell away from him. You know, saying things like, maybe I'll just do,maybe I'll just do six other steps instead of the 12, 12 other steps. I'm like, this fool is really sitting here trying to trying to I don't know, trying to diminish from the problem. You know? Basically what he's saying is, I might be bad, but not bad enough, can need all of this, and we'll just see how it goes completely. Therefore, than somebody who understands that the things that they have done have cost them so much in life that they need to stop whatever they've been doing okay, however long it takes, and get their asses redirected.Not compromise. Trying to trying to make it not as intense as what it is, but over time, [00:38:00]people who have done bad things can, this, this, it has this diminishing effect where they won't view it as bad as time goes on, or they're trying to make light of it in their head. And, and I wasn't about to sit around while he did that.Now you've gone, I was like, fool, you've gone and done all this, had your secret men and lived deliciously. Now when it comes time to do the right thing, two months into it, you still don't have a sponsor. Once I've set my mind to get one, within two weeks I had a sponsor. It was really in, in the Sex Addicts Anonymous program.I wanna be sure that my ass isn't getting off track either. It really wasn't that complicated. You know, I sent a few emails to a few people. I attended the six or eight meetings or whatever they said that you needed to when it was done. So it was,so let me get back on track.[00:39:00]But they, but they have pleasure and, and, and and people that do these bad things. But in the Bible it speaks about how the Lord is gonna gather all of these people together who don't mind casting spells or throw stumbling blocks in people's spaces who don't mind running around having double lives, who don't mind at all.And look, I'm not whining and complaining because so much good is coming of this. I get in, I don't know, a car, a Lyft car to go to a theater performance. The lady's telling me all about her narcissistic husband. You know, I'm here, I'm there. I already have opportunities to be a blessing to people and the minister to people in all kinds of ways.And I'm happy to help, you know, in whatever way that I can, had this not happened, I would not have the opportunity to talk, to be sitting here talking with you about it. And it's painful to [00:40:00] me to see how many people have been affected by people like Ethan, but my God, these people who I'm talking to, were married to these people.There's children, there's deeper financial in interest. There's they've done been with these people like over like over 10 years and things like that. And it could have been so much worse. You know, Ethan wasn't living with me. We had no financial interest tied together. The credit cards I had given him, I took those bitches back.And along with everything else too. And so. So physically in every way, I was able to just pretty much just stop and walk away. But there's people who can't just do that. They have a lot more to un to disentangle and everything, and my heart goes out to you.But baby, just keep praying and keep working with it, even if it's a [00:41:00] little by little. And eventually you going, you, you, you gonna be all right. You gonna be all right. You'll be able to work your way up outta that thing.Now let me keep reading. It says, I never expected to ex exit fulfill his vows because he is a coward. He would sit there and agree to things, giving his word, then change his mind and tell, and, and not tell me,said, so this is on par for someone of such low character. He never even responded to the two texts I sent at all,and he was never the type to handle confrontation or deep discussion at all.Yet he can go out and get naked in front of people he barely knows.It's like how I was able to hear the [00:42:00] spirit speak to me through a movie at the cinema. I tried to teach the ex about looking past the surface of things in life to find the the real life messages God has put there for us.I now know that narcissists have zero interest in looking beneath the surface. They prefer shallow interactions that require no genuineness, like sex with people they barely know. For instance,when my ex and I would watch or whatever, I don't know, animes or whatever, you know, I wanted to have conversations about like, you know what it meant deeply. And to him this was such like a burden. He didn't see the sense, you know, and all this deep talk. He would say that I was being extra or trying to analyze him, or whatever the case may be.At the end of the day, if you just want a shallow existence, then just go have a shallow existence. And what I've learned through this is there are some people in this world [00:43:00] as deep as I try to be, you know, I ponder this life, the afterlife, what is to come, what is beyond the stars, you know, and things like that, you know?But at the same time, you know, if I wanna masturbate and watch porn and just have me a moment, I'll just have a moment. I consider myself to be fairly balanced. But what I was hitting on with, with, with him, with my ex was this, this pension he has to try to not be discovered. And I didn't understand just how.PE people like what narcissism really was. Otherwise, I would've thrown this relationship ago a long time ago because I never, I never was gonna get anywhere. He would make it such a big deal, you know, that, that I dare to want to go like deeper into something. And he just made it,[00:44:00]you know, I would notice him have like incognito mode windows in his phone and everything like that, and I'm all like, who are you hiding from to hide what? Nobody's coming to look through your phone. You don't go out even much talk to people or anything like that. I'm like, what are you trying to hide?One day he was standing in my kitchen and I, and I walked by him and I could sense that he hadn't been reading his Bible. I'm, explain to you what I mean by that. If you. It changes you. Any kind of spiritual thing you do changes like your, your vibration, your, your in inner strength and things like that.So reading your Bible, spending time in the presence of God, like that enhances you and it raises you up even if you don't understand everything that you're reading. It's like [00:45:00] my evangelist, whenever I would be in the military or off somewhere, you know, I talked to her and she'd be like, if I had been reading my Bible, she could tell.If I hadn't, she could tell. She'd be like, Hmm, you know, sounds like a cup half full. She told me one time. And when I hadn't really been, you know, spending time with the Lord you know, it's, it's, it's something that you are not gonna be able to understand or comprehend unless you have spiritual understanding. But we know the light shines and the darkness and the darkness com comprehends not. You know, this is why I tell you to pray for spiritual understanding. You're not going to grow spiritually, you know, or be able to comprehend, you know, really like what is to come.Okay? If you don't have spiritual understanding, spiritual understanding is different than natural understanding. [00:46:00] Spiritual understanding is how you understand, like the more you give away, the more you get car A caral. Mine doesn't comprehend that a caral mine wants to, to keep everything, but I could, but I could tell that, that he hadn't been reading his Bible and I said, Hmm, you know, I can, I can sense that you haven't been reading.He got offend. And it felt, felt like his privacy hadn't been violated. You know, like, like how do you know? You know, he, he asked me, he was like, how do you know that I haven't been reading my Bible? I was like, I can feel it. I can tell. And what he never could accept was that God, what he exposes you or whatever, and is bringing something up is not trying to hurt you.You know, he's trying to help you, you know, so the thing to do is not to go try to run from God. What you can't do anyway has already been spoken about, you know, in the Bible, how people, [00:47:00]you know, when they see the, see the Son of God returning in the clouds or go try to run from the wrath of the lamb and you're not gonna be able to do that.You know, there is no running and there are no secrets. So not really, there really aren't. And so he wasn't. And I've explained that, you know, he was so trying to hide. Like he couldn't, he couldn't, he could not accept the benefit of what the spirit was trying to speak to him for being so mad that his secret was out.You know, I'm like,you know, I think about other dreams that I've had or, or dreams that I've had about people where Lord has shown me things that they've gone and done, and I call them to talk about it. And their knee jerk reaction is to, to, to, to quiet me, to tell me, don't tell [00:48:00] anyone, or, you know, it's just like, the thing is, you, you, you might can hide stuff from like a human for a while, but when the, when the spirit is sending me to you to talk about whatever your secrets are.Or I, or I can, or in the case of my ex, I can sense if he's been doing his spiritual work or not. You, you know, y'all get mad at, at, at, at the people, at the prophets, the visionaries, whatever kind of label you wanna put on us, the dreamers, you know, which is what I am, you know, people hate us for our vision and things like that, but you missed the whole point.You know? Nothing has been revealed to me that I just, just knew. You know, you have to understand if, if you're angry at me, you know, for knowing that you haven't been reading your Bible. And really what you're saying is that you're angry at God. You know, if you're angry at angry at me for whatever dream I'm bringing to you, then you're angry at God.I'm [00:49:00] just the messenger, you know. You know, I can't just know, like it has a thing has to be revealed to me or shown to me. So the question you should be asking is, who told the van in this thing, which he's now coming to us with, you know, you know, or how can he sense this? You know, whenever I'm talking to somebody who's like a tarot car reader or some sort of clairvoyant, my main question is always from where do you draw your power?Dead relatives, a devil God, who the fuck is talking to you? Because I know that this human setting in front of me is nothing more than a conduit. You know? So whatever they're coming to me with, and it's not them telling me it's whatever spirit they're dealing with and operating with, telling me.But these narcissists, you know, they just, they just have a veneer that they hide behind. You know, it's like a mask that they wear.[00:50:00]Towards the end of the relationship, I'm began to be able to see this mass. The morning that I went over to my ex's house to start taking more of my shit back he was sitting in there playing video games. I had sent him a super emotionally charged text that morning, which he had not responded to. I had waited like two hours.He's an early riser. He was up the floor, had been mopped. He's sitting in there playing video games. I come in there and I immediately dive into my read. I saw when his, he immediately shifted into victim mode, you know, he was like, oh my gosh, I just got up. I haven't had chance to do anything. No, you've been up for hours to stop with a to stop.And so, but he immediately shifted and, and went and put himself back behind that mask, you know, cause I, I started reading his facial expression at the moment. I walked through the door. And he had one facial [00:51:00] expression for talking to his friends on, on the gaming console. And then with me, he shifted into a different personality.I'm not sure how many different personalities he has, but it's at least a few. I would see him shift and change into a different personality when he would try to get something from his mom. I remember hearing his voice change whenever he's in the presence of say, like a man or, you know, a male or a dude or, or, or something like that.It's like he becomes something different whenever he's in front of a different person in order to achieve what he wants or what he thinks should be, or maybe what he thinks they want him to be or whatever. But the whole point is none of it was real. It was all pretend. How did Lady Gaga say it wasn't love?It was a perfect illusion, mistaken for love.[00:52:00]So I said they prefer shallow interactions that require no genuineness, like sex with people they barely know. They have no idea what this is really costing them. Professor, and the Bible says it like this, professing themselves to become wise. They became fools. These narcissistic people who, who's sitting up here playing these games and lying to people, it's like they sit back and laugh.But like I said, God laughs at them because he sees that their day is coming. There's one guy I hooked up with back when I was in the military. He had sex with me and thought it was, I guess, comical to then call his girlfriend, which I didn't know he had, you know, from my house. Okay. You know, like immature that is like, [00:53:00] why would you, I guess, I guess he considers himself to be the man or whatever the hell the case may be.No, that's a broken soul and a broken fool. I'm like, you know, the lies they tell are just, I mean, there's no good lie, but, but it, it is just like, it's, it's coming from such a deep place of brokenness when it's so much easier to tell the truth. Like, if you gonna run around and cheat on your girl, that's terrible enough.Why do you have to add insulted injury to literally be on the phone with her while you're in the presence of somebody who you're cheating on her with?Like, how, like how can this make a per a hu a human feel good. That's just, I just, but like my therapist has been telling me it's a waste of my energy to ever try to understand the way manipulative and [00:54:00] narcissistic people operate, because I don't think that way. Like I could never do these things, but there are totally people who can do these things and they thrive in doing these things.And so y'all, we have to stop worrying about trying to understand why. They can't even tell you why. Used ask my ex, my ex, why the hell are you doing this and that. He'd be like, I don't know why I did it. I'd be like, why'd you say this? He'd be like, I don't know why I said it. I'd be like, okay,okay.And the Bible says it like this. It says they, they deceived and were deceived. Like I said, the, you know, the Lord is gathering these people together. You know, encircling them, you know, until they won't be able to escape. But they have their portion in this life.[00:55:00]So let me switch gears now because there was another,there was another character in the movie that God was speaking to me through, which was,there was a good line spoken by one of the heroes as she lay down, she said she was okay without everything went, and that she was proud of what she had been able to achieve.So thi this is the direction I want my mind to transition into, focusing on the fact.That I could only have done what was in my power to do. [00:56:00] I wasn't perfect, but I was honest and genuinely and practically invested in Ethan. So I think it's okay for us to give ourselves credit for doing the right thing by people who we ultimately have to turn loose, be it an employee, a child, a business partner, a church, a preacher, a family member, or whatever.Because this experience has taught me that it takes all parties involved in a relationship to be truthful, genuine, and hardworking, to make it.So what I've learned is that this is like being in a relationship. It's not like, it's not like when, when I was in grade school and say the team project was three people in or five or whatever, and you had that [00:57:00] one bitch slacking off, and then the rest of us could just kind of like get it together and pull their weight because we were like, fuck it, you know, we can't let our grades fall.This is, let's do this stupid bitch's work. Or if you're playing like, you know, a a five v, five five player versus five player game on Xbox or whatever, and you got that one dumb bitch who keeps getting themselves killed, you know, dragging the team down, you can kind of compensate for that maybe. And ain't like that in real like, like in, like in real life, in in any, any of these relationships, everybody has to do their part of the ship won't work, period.I carried our relationship.You know, for, for, for five years, you know, and I see people do this, I would say, like they're children, you know, and business partners and all of that. You know, if you have a child, and I don't have children yet, I have two cats, honey. And I'm gonna tell you, I, [00:58:00] I don't see much of a difference. I really don't.I really don't. But but, you know, I've seen people really, really like be burdened and have to struggle. You know, wh when they're, when their kids are going through things and it's hard, hard, hard, hard. You're hard for a lot of parents to, to detach from a child that's hardheaded, won't listen. But you can only do your part.That's all you can do. And there's nothing wrong with being proud of that. If you have a business partner that lies to you, steals money out of the account, you know, when your preachers disappoint you because. You find out about their scandals and things like that. You know, you have an employee that won't show up on time and when they show up, they, they don't do the job.You know, you can only do so much training, say in the case of an employee, you can try and try and try, but if you have to turn them [00:59:00] loose, you have to, it, I think it should be done regrettably, slow, not with like rejoicing or anything like that in any of these examples that I've given. You know, if, you know, if it has to come to that, and I think it's good to step back and, and just give yourself a pat on the back, you know, for doing the best that you can for the part of it that was yours to do.Okay? So I want my, my mind to shift, you know, and stop thinking about the things that he did that angered me and started thinking about the things that I did that were honorable and right. Because ultimately that's the only thing that I was ever in control of anyway. I could have done everything right.And if Ethan just was insisted of upon being a grinder hoe, that he's just gonna go be a grinder hoe, you know, my goodness was never going to stop his weaknesses.Okay, [01:00:00] so, so when, when the thoughts come into my head, you know, about the, about the terrible stuff that he's done, I'm trying to reframe them with positive thinking. Let me brag about myself for a moment here, because God knows I have beaten myself down enough.And, and thank y'all for y'all's patience as I try to read through my choppy ass handwriting. What I'm saying is I'm glad that after what I went through, and again, I'm not whining about what I've been through or trying to play the victim. This shit happened. It is what it is. And so, but I, but I'm just happy that I'm not like running around with a chip on my shoulder feeling like life took this for me or that for me.I'm glad that I had enough ability to show love again and and, you know, and financially to come from literally having nothing to be able to [01:01:00] take care of, just not myself, but another human is like huge. You know, that's a really, really, really great thing that I'm thankful for. That, that, that I even had the capacity to do.These are some of the things that I did do, and I will be going into even more explicit imagery on this, you know, in the book that I'm working on. Okay.I helped. I helped Ethan improve his luck. When I met him, he was wearing the same old, dirty ass shoes for my ever many years in the same wrinkled ass clothes for my ever many years. And he would rotate through the same like four or five shirts, one or two shorts, shit would be wrinkled, faded, dirty, you know, hair was all like nap and shit.By the time I was done with him, he had a couple of new pairs of shoes to pick through. I had bought [01:02:00] him piles of clothes. I don't think I bought him any shoes, but piles of clothes. You know, I would just go like for every 21 or Gap or whatever, you know, Abercrombie catch cells and stuff like that. But I mean, a lot of clothes and I, I bought him so many clothes that he could have literally worn a different outfit probably every day for a few months.But like the creature of habit he is. He just wanted to just have a few things, you know? But,you know, and I did this because I wanted to see some exciting colors. You know, I get tired of seeing him in those same depressing ass colors, you know, and shit like that. But I didn't judge him for this either. I was like, but I also should not have tried to change him. I suppose my intentions were only good, you know,the hair, I introduced him to Mom Barber, you know, the per person I grew up with [01:03:00] owns a barber shop here. You know, the person who ended up eventually converting his hair, you know, into you know, into dreadlocks, you know, you know, at my urging all of that, you know, came through, through people that I know, trips to places that he'd never been.You. All of that. And then when we went, you know, we flew first class when we stayed, it was in the pimp suite baby. His house that he bought, it was his mom and I that got behind him and pushed him to believe that he could afford his own real estate. You know, it was us, you know, in his corner pushing him.The realtor that helped him get that house came through. My friends, his, his sources of, [01:04:00]sources of income that he has right now came through me and my people.And it wasn't just big stuff like this. I bought him pressure cooker knife said meat therm. So what are these things? Practical. I was always thinking of ways to make his life easier. You know, what need does. Like what was that? I think that was Mr. Big. Well, from that movie, robots find a need, fill a need.You know, I, it's like I was just seeking for ways and, you know, and, and Ethan's mother is the same way. You know, how can I help? How can I help? How can I help? You know what, I'm not even much gonna say that right now. I am gonna say if I hit one of one of one of Ethan's few f f Freie and slips of truth.You know, [01:05:00] he said that, you know, he just used to people giving him stuff, but I mean, over his almost 30 years on this earth. But that never converted in his head to being something that he should be like, appreciative for. It just like it just happens to him. So he couldn't, no matter what I gave him, he couldn't see it as, you know, an act of love.But these were practical. So everything from first class jet flights to places, to little things like a meat thermometer. Cause I'm going in there in the kitchen and he's burning the hell. A lot of chicken, making it, turning it into coal. I'm like, there's a process for that. There's technology for that.There's a way, there's a better way. I mentioned the credit cards. Yeah. I had given him, you know, a platinum MX and a Black American Airlines card. Those two things would've granted him access into the lounges. [01:06:00] This became like a super big deal cuz of the covid virus and everything. I figured the safer to be in lounges.So I got those cards and everything like that. You know, this is because I was anticipating the day would come that he would travel and go somewhere hopefully with somebody or go at least go home or somewhere without me. So, and I didn't want him, you know, setting out there, you know, with the, the hoards of people and stuff, it's a much nicer experience in lounges if you, if you have not lived the lounge life in an airport, darling, it makes looking forward to going to the airport a whole other different motivation.So if I didn't want him out there wanting him, you know, to have the best of life the counseling, the couples counseling, all of that was you know, that was another good thing that I did because I was trying to make the relationship work. And so all in all, you get the idea [01:07:00] so I can at least look back and feel proud about.How I triedand it makes me feel better and it makes me gain perspective. I don't feel like I could have controlled his choices. I feel insulted. I feel disrespected. I certainly did not feel envious. I don't feel jealous, you know?You know, not at all. It's like, I wonder, you know, how extensive, you know, Ethan's list would be if he, if he were to try to go. And, and, and see how he enhanced [01:08:00] my life and see how he improved it. You know, I accepted the fact that on some levels, that I would be able to do more than him, but it's pretty sad when there was a time that I asked him, cuz I felt so underappreciated in this relationship, I was like, what, what value do you bring?Or how do you treat me special? Or, you know, the only thing he could say was that I bought him for you and that I spend time with you.Okay. Well that's not really, I mean, it, it's, it's, it's pretty sad that like there's so much of his value is tied up into sex. That, that, that, that's like the first thing out of his mouth is sex. But that wasn't even true because I'm gonna tell you, when, when I broke up with him the first time, like I said, I wish I'd have just stayed [01:09:00] gone.Then we were apart for like three weeks. It only took him, what, five days to be getting naked with the next person and then that same person he bought him for. So, and then, so I'm like okay. Is, is that special that it only took you like five days to maybe two weeks to start doing it again After we had been together for years.So like what he meant was he just bottoms less, you know? So, but for somebody like that, you know, you know who, who could sleep with as many people as as as he is capable of, you know, it's not like it's just basically there really wasn't anything that he could say because his mind was not oriented.Towards enhancing the vannin. You know, I think that I really feel like this relationship was nothing more than an [01:10:00] extended almost five year distraction from his agony. Cuz like my hypnotherapist reminds me, narcissists are not happy people. What they are good at is presenting the facade filling their lives with activities to distract them.They're not happy and they're not happy because they don't want to be wrong. You can't ever be released from something that you don't have full culpability. So you can't be healed of something that you were never wrong about or fully wrong about because you never did anything wrong. And I'll talk more about that here in a little bit.So,I feel like this relationship was, was an, an extended Grindr [01:11:00] hookup. I feel like I should have left him just as a fuck buddy or friends with benefit is is he so like to use that word. Cause in that dream that I had years ago, where, where the Lord was telling me that, you know, basically he was not being what he seemed, I should have waited until the Lord came back and told me that he was being real before I moved forward with Ethan, I should have waited. Cause the Lord didn't tell me to leave, but he also didn't tell me to move forward either, you know? And so I should have just kept it as like a casual sexual thing, even though by this time I think he was [01:12:00] already living in my apartment, which happened way too fast.But I'll talk about all of that in more detail when I writeBut, you know, I had fear, you know, fear that, you know, if, if I don't make a move then you know, then someone else will come and scoop him up. But I've, you know, y'all fear should never be what motivates us. My mindset should have been, I'm gonna let this thing take its course, and if somebody else does well, then it was meant for them to move forward and not us, and be willing to just let that go instead of having anxiety about it and trying to hurry up.It's one thing to pursue somebody and want to get them before somebody else gets them, but you also have to get them only if the time is right. And so another lesson.Let's see now yeah. My ex actually spoke about [01:13:00] like having children and wanting children and I told him that, that he's not fit to have a child. That he's not mentally fit to raise children. It's not, you know, children aren't, not some like little cute pet or a pipe dream or whatever the hell you had to be able to teach a child mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and you have a child for the rest of your life and that matter, they're 18.It got to a point towards the end of end of my relationshipthat I, you know, I would look at Ethan and be like, no, I'm definitely not raising children with you. You know, you don't possess the, the morality, the character, depth of character. Anything that I would care to see imparted into a child, what would he have taught them? Hey, son, it's totally okay if you have sex with people and give them covid.It's totally okay if you lie to your partner and your [01:14:00] couple's counselors, it's totally okay if you manipulate people, like, what the hell? You can only teach what you. And if you're trying to teach your child something that's contrary to how you live, then the child is going to cut you off and not respect you because children can see the bullshit.And so,and also Ethan had extremely low goals in life. I didn't learn this about him until the relationship was almost over. Like, he only wants to make say, 40,000 a year. He only wants to have enough money to help him and maybe his friends, the friends from back in his home state because , I mean, while that's cute and all, but, you know, my whole thing is like, what about the rest of the world? You know, he was saying he's totally fine. It's like with his, you know, little town home he has or an, or an apartment. I'm. Because like I've, like I've told y'all, you have to grow you. possess true love and affection for the people that you grew up with. [01:15:00] Okay,the next, the, the next transformation I desire is for my anger to turn into pity.Pity, pity, pity. I mean,When I think about pity, I think about likesmiggle, a goum, you know, Lord of the Rings. Yeah. When you look at what, what the ring did to, to smiggle, you know, you feel sorry for him, but at the same time, you wanna throw that little bastard off of the side of whatever mountain you happen to be on because of the things he's willing to do to people.Okay. At the same time you like, you know, I fucking, you know, I fucking hate you, but the same time, damn.[01:16:00]So what does, so what does SMI and Goum represent? The way that if we get carried away with our desires, they will kill us slowly and turn us into something we can't recognize. So it's a ring for him, sex for, for youlying for another person or whatever the hell the case may be over gambling, I don't know. Whatever the fucking drain your life force gradually and slowly without you realizing it is what that ring of power represents. Hmm. You know,how does the Bible say it? I think you said it like, you know, people who, who live for pleasure like that are dead while they live. You know, and it's like Smiggle was only happy, you know, when he had that thing in his hands. [01:17:00] You know, the only, I think the only damn time.He was genuinely, genuinely happy, was at the end when he finally got what he wanted and it killed him. And soit is not true happiness if you're only happy in the middle of an activity or because of a possession. If you don't have true happiness when you're alone and all is quiet, you have some serious issues to work through. I mean, true happiness, I can't remember who in the hell said it, but somebody said something like, all of the world's problems stem from the inability of, of, of humans to sit still.You know, something [01:18:00] like that. And You know, where, where, where are you getting your happiness from? Where are you really happy? Have you ever really known happiness? You know, whoever you are, you know,you know this. These are the sort of things that I think of when I'm watching shows and things like that. You know, as I stated, my ex wasn't interested in all of this deep talk. We were watching the, the, the legend of Vox Makina, beautiful, beautiful anime, beautiful life lessons written i

INTRODUCTION: Adrienne Zetty Barrows in fully licensed funeral director, embalmer, crematory retort operator, and life, health and accident insurance producer. She has an academic background in Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology, and strong community development and educational outreach skills. Adrienne is committed to the values and standards of independent and family-owned funeral homes. INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Insight Into The Mortician Profession·      Themed Funerals!!! #MardiGras·      Let's Talk Embalming ·      Paranormal Activity In Funeral Homes·      Can't Escape Karen – She Shows Up At The Funeral Home Too·      COVID-19 Burnout·      Accept That You Can Die At ANY Age – You Are Not Guaranteed To Get Old ·      Dangers In Donating Your Body To Science·      The Importance Of Life Insurance CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com   DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: Adrienne Zetty Barrows[00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hello everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host of. And today I have with me a lovely woman by the name of Adrian Zeti Bar. Adrian is a fully licensed funeral director and embalmer, a crematory retort operator, and life health and accident insurance producer. So in the day's show,we're gonna be talking a lot about death, and we're gonna give you an [00:01:00] inside look into the life and profession of a mortician. We're gonna talk about covid 19 implications, paranormal activity in funeral homes, the importance of life insurance people please it. Life insurance, like seriously. Uh, the dangers in donating your body to science, cuz it's not always what it seems.And the fact that you need to accept that you can die at any age and that you're not guaranteed to get old. Please listen seriously and please share this with someone you love. Hello all you delicious souls out there and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host, Devon, and I'm here with my homegirl Adrian Zeti, who is a mortician.Yes. I'm talking with a woman who deals with the dead today, darling. And I cannot wait to get into it. How the fuck is you doing? Adrienne: I am so excited. I just finished my funeral directors and morticians have [00:02:00] difficult schedules most of the time, so I'm just finishing up my 10 day. So I am doing absolutely nothing today except for talking with you, which I'm very excited about.Ooh, De'Vannon: I'm excited to have made it on your schedule. So I want to read over a few statistics before we get into like the questions. And so, you know, it is very rare you come across a mortician unless somebody didn't died, you know, you, you know, as a friend or in passing. And so this is a very, very interesting career field that a lot of people just, it's just not talked about.So, absolutely. You know, it's not, it's not like you're gonna be at dinner and be like, oh, so, you know, I was dealing with this body the other day, or whatever the case may mean. So, So in my research, and this, this website that I pulled this information from is called Zia, Z i P P I a.com. It says there are over 22,000 funeral [00:03:00] directors currently in the United States.64.7% of them are men, and about 35% of them are women. I was pleased to, to research that women are paid the same as men. Kinda. Adrienne: No, it's true. It's true. But so you have to look at, typically if you have a male dominated field, when women start coming into that field, rather than women's base pay rising to meet their men's, more often than not it the average salary goes down, sadly enough.So but yeah. So with assertiveness and shrewd salary negotiations typically yet is, it, is. It is pretty equal. And I would like to point out, yes, it is majority male field at the moment, but all, almost any funeral school, any funeral program is gonna have a majority of women in it at this point nowadays.So all of the new funeral directors, so people coming into the field right now are by and large [00:04:00] majority women. For instance, in my graduating class, I think one, I think there was one guy, maybe two guys made it. I'm not sure there's one. I don't think he passed final. But but the, you know, 90% of the class was female.De'Vannon: Do you think that that has to do with a breakdown of the patriarchy? I think, Adrienne: I think it has to do with. Hmm, that's a good question. I think it has to do with women. The value that women add to funeral services is it's kind of unique. There's a certain kind of warmth, I think, and a tenderness that we bring to it.Not to say that we're not all tough broads, you know what I mean? Like we can still hold our own with, of fellas in terms of the physical demands and the emotional demands of it. But I think there's a certain there's a certain qua I think that women add to funeral service, and I think that's appreciated by families.And [00:05:00] so I think women, well, you know, when I first started I think a lot of families kind of would see a female funeral director and think it was like the B team coming out. So I know that's your eyebrow raises exactly how I would feel the couple of times that I've encountered that. But as soon as they, they experience the kind of service that we're, you know, that, that women offer, I think that that.Breaks down any kind of misgivings that people have because it is a traditionally male career. So, Hmm. De'Vannon: Well, well, yeah, I would say then that then it, it's probably along that patriarchal like breakdown. Cause what, what you're saying is they didn't think that you could do it just cuz you're a girl and Correct.But the proof's in the pudding and, you know, the world is changing now and it's not all about old white men running every fucking thing anymore. Exactly. Adrienne: Exactly. And if you notice, it's old white men, bless their hearts [00:06:00] that have kind of painted the industry in a corner to a certain extent. You know, it's, it's the old, I don't know if you've seen the movie The Big Lebowski, but there's a scene where one of the characters dies and they go to the Mortician Hall says, this is our most modestly, you know what I mean?There's a certain kind of attitude or approach to funeral directing and how, you know, how we monetize the services that we offer people, you know what I mean? So, a lot of the misconceptions that people have, not just about female funeral directors, but a lot of people have a very negative impression of the industry in general.So I won't say we're as bad as car salesmen used car salesman use car salesman. But a lot of people, you know, they come, you know, they're sitting across the desk from the funeral director for the first time. If they've not had that kind of experience, they just kind of know what they know from TV or from, you know, what happened with Aunt Gladys's service or you know, they hear something and so they come and they're sitting down across from me and they have, a lot of people are very guarded because they [00:07:00] have this idea that my job is to separate them from their money, you know, to try to get them to prove how much they love their mom by spending more on a casket, that kind of thing.So those fears from the general public are from generations of. You know, same old, same old kind of treatment. And so I think women coming into the industry, hopefully is kind of helping the industry itself to express value to consumers, you know, so that we, we can really show them that it's not just, you know, sell you our, you know, whatever kind of, whatever they're trying to sell you.It's not about that. It's about family care, personal care to their families. So hopefully it's redefining the value that we offer. Mm-hmm. De'Vannon: Nothing like some good value, honey. Now, one this, this website also is saying that funeral directors are most in demand in Tucson, Arizona. [00:08:00] And now if that, I don't doubt them, but I wonder why.And I used to live in Tucson when I was stationed in the Air Force. I wonder, have you heard of any kind of like, demand in a certain city or state more than another? Or, or do you have any idea why? In Tucson that you'd, video1042642136: I Adrienne: think it probably correlates to a higher retirement age population. So if Tucson, Arizona is a popular area for folks to retire to when they're tired of the cold, you know, Northeast Winters that they would go to Miami or Tucson, you know what I mean?That you'd have a higher demand for funeral services in general. That De'Vannon: makes sense. That's my best guess. That, that makes perfect sense. You're so smart. I love that. We called it, we called them snow bunnies when I was Station. Yes. Adrienne: There. I've been called a snow bunny before. De'Vannon: Oh, we're not talking about role playing honey.Or, or, or, or getting our Wolf of Wall Street on too. [00:09:00] If you haven't seen the movie, then you'll know what I mean with, with the snow button references there. Yeah, so there's like, whenever starts to turn cold in Arizona, there's this large migration of RVs and shit that just swarm down into Tucson or wherever, whenever starts get cold in general.Cause some people gets to fuck away from the, the ice and they come down somewhere like that. That's not, that's, that's not gonna be iced out. And I, I'm sitting here thinking like, I wonder if it's like a breaking bad reference. It's like people getting shot up or whatever. But what she said made more sense.Adrienne: Well, no, but that, that could be a part of it too. I mean, it could be sad to say, you know, with substance use issues sometime play, play into it. So if you have, you know, endemic issues in, in a, you know, larger metropolitan area, that might sadly, you know, bring up the death rate. So you mentioned De'Vannon: Like school, what kind of training?Is [00:10:00] required. And then tell then tell us, well, before we get into the training, tell us exactly what you do and tell, explain to us the difference between a funeral director, mortician and an undertaker of what your Okay. Title. Adrienne: So some of some of those titles are a distinction without a difference kind of things.So, and some of 'em are just kind of more old fashioned. So like the old guard would more often than not identify themselves as a mortician or an undertaker. Nowadays more people say funeral director, it's a little imprecise because and it does vary state by state. But, so that could mean that they are just front of the house, so to speak, that their only job is to sit and meet with families, to plan services, to make funeral arrangements and or to take out those services, you know, go out to church and stuff.But in that, it could also, so most of the time I would introduce myself as a funeral director. Now I am also an embalmer, so I do front of the house and back of the house. Some states [00:11:00] it's some states it's one license to do both duties. In other states, you can get a funeral directing only license or an embalmers only license.That's a little less frequent. And then, and also, you know, there are some states that are either completely unregulated, like Colorado or states like Florida that have introduced something that's kind of like, I, I don't wanna, no offense anybody, but like funeral director light. Like it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an easier to obtain license that allows them to do most of the jobs of the, the front of the house of funeral directors under the guidance of a full fledged, fully licensed funeral director.So, but it's, it's, those are the three basic duties, the making arrangements, carrying out services, and then, you know, embalming back of the house. Whatever kind of prep work and care for the actual, the, the physical care of the decedent [00:12:00] that we, we De'Vannon: take care of. So when you go to school for one, do you go to school for all of them and they just kind of train you on everything or, Adrienne: and then, yeah.Most of the time, I'd say like the most, the, the, the typical route is going to be bef there's before Covid and after Covid. So I would say after Covid I mean, online schooling was existed before Covid certainly, but it seems like that seems to be primarily, you know, how most people since Covid go to funeral school?So I, I went well before Covid and so I physically went to school. So I, I went to I physically showed up in class every day, and it's a two year program. So most of those programs are something like, they'll have like a base requirement. Like you, you'll have to have had. Let's say 60 hours of something, just something just going to college, you know, math, whatever.And then after you have a requisite number of hours you can apply to be in the program. And then typically it's a two year program. It's an associate's degree in most places. There are some [00:13:00]places and a couple of states that actually require bachelor's degree. But majority of time it's it's a two year associate's degree program.Some of the programs are a little more regimented. Some of them are more flexible. And by that I mean like there are some programs where you take class 1, 2, 3, 4, and then the next semester you take 5, 6, 7, 8, versus some other programs that are a little more self-selecting for the students, but that tend to take longer.So it might take four years to graduate, for instance. So but it's pretty, I, I always joked I should have tried out for Jeopardy after I finished funeral school because you study a little bit of everything. So, I mean, there's, there's, you know, history, religion, law, accounting, computers. English, chemistry, pathology all, all kinds of stuff.It really runs the gamut. So it's pretty challenging and difficult. And then once you, you know, typically you pass, you [00:14:00] graduate from your program and then you have permission to sit for the national exam, the national board exam, there's two parts. Funeral directing and embalming, or well, and arts and sciences.And then you are licensed by the state and then you do whatever you're doing. Now there's also mixed in there an apprenticeship. So you have your schooling and then you have your actual work experience. And the two are surprisingly different. So what you're learning in school is to pass the national board exam, and it's very frequently it's a different, at the very least, it's a different kind of information than when you're actually practicing funeral directing and involvement.Do you see what I mean? Like what, what your day-to-day skillset looks a little bit different in the reality of it versus the school part of it. I'm sure that that's, you know, that that happens in other professions too, I'm sure. De'Vannon: Right? The, but why did you choose this career path? Did you, did you feel like it was a calling?Do you feel like it [00:15:00] was like a spiritual thing? Like of all the things you could have been in all the nine realms? Why, why this, Adrienne: that is a great question and I I came into it relatively late, so I had you know, I've gotten my bachelor's 10 years before I decided to go to funeral school. And for a long time, I guess in my personal case, it was important to me that I find meeting in what I do, like, I, I wanted to make sure that I, you know, I come from a long line of some, some good people that you know, you know, Social workers and psych psychiatric nurses and a, their whole careers were spent caring for and dedicated to people.And so I kind of wanted to do something that felt like it had that kind of impact. But, you know, I got a degree in philosophy and religion, so I ran a college bookstore for 10 years like you do, you know? So I, I, I guess I had a couple of life experiences. I had a couple of friends that either died or had a, a close, you know, close family member die.And [00:16:00] through those interactions and those events, I think that kind of planted a seed. And when I decided against law school, it kind of occurred to me personally that I, you know, I would've been a good lawyer, wedding planner, the. Pastor, nurse Carpenter, like all of the different component skills that you kind of smoosh together to make a good funeral director.But once, once that occurred to me, and I was into my thirties, I was well into my thirties, it was like, duh. You know, and then I like ran the thought past a couple of people who know me, who know me best, and they were like, oh yeah, that absolutely makes sense. And then from there on out, it was, that was it.And I, I've been doing it full, full course ever since. And it's, and you're right, to me, it is a, it is a vocation, it is a calling. It's not something that you just do like, instead of, you know, getting your insurance license. Do you know what I mean? You don't just capriciously happen upon it. I don't think, I, I think the best funeral directors would be hard pressed to find happiness in any [00:17:00] other line of work, if that makes De'Vannon: sense.It makes perfect damn sense. But have you ever, have you ever thought about getting out of this career field since you've, oh, you Adrienne: always kind of have to have, I don't wanna say an exit strategy. But it is a, it is a quickly changing field, and so I'm a very opinionated, strident kind of person. And so far I have been able to afford my integrity throughout my career.But, you know, you have to be able to you know, you gotta keep working and you have to, you know, if, if there ever comes a time when you're not gonna be able to find an environment that you're comfortable working in, then you have to have an exit strategy. And it's also incredibly physically demanding.It's almost every embalmer I know has a bad back and a lot of 'em have cancer. So it just kind of comes with the territory. It's, it's, you know, it, it's constant exposure, not constant, but I mean, it's, it's plentiful exposure to some pretty nasty chemicals. And while there are [00:18:00] certain safeguards that we take, there's a certain amount of risk, you know that we, that we take De'Vannon: on.Well, that brings me to my next question I was gonna ask you about like pathogens and physical safety and things like that. I was thinking in terms of like coming in contact with blood or whatever that is, you know, whatever's in the body, but where the fuck are people getting cancer from? And it's, I mean, you say it's so casually as though, oh well another person.Not like you don't care, but like, it happens so damn much. What, but how, how, how can, how can cancer be that prevalent in your career field and people aren't getting sued or something? Do you have to sign like waivers or some shit or what? Adrienne: No, but it's, I guess it's just something that's understood specifically when we go through funeral school and we take chemistry classes and we know about, you know, we know about the dangers of formaldehyde.So there are chemicals that we use in this country that other countries don't allow cause of that, you know, [00:19:00] kind of from the protecting the practitioner kind of point of view, we don't really have those kind of. Protections. You know, I think and, and I mean, I, and honestly, I don't know many people in the industry that are like fighting for those protections necessarily either.So it's just kind of an accepted risk that we take, I guess. De'Vannon: Ne it works for y'all. Let it work. It works for me too. Adrienne: You gotta die somehow, you know what I mean? So the fact that that we have a little bit more exposure, you know, it's, I think it's that sometimes we're called the, the last first responders, but I think a lot of first responders have that.There's just a certain amount of risk that you have, you know, er nurses and you know, cops, firemen, you know, it's, it's service. We're doing service. I'm certainly, I don't wanna compare us to, to the, the real first responders, as it were, but it, it's a similar kind of, there is risk that is inherent to the job, [00:20:00] so we do what we can, but it's always gonna be there.De'Vannon: Everyone has their role to play firefighters or whatever, but having to do with somebody's last rights is a, is a high honor as old as time. It is, it's sacred. Adrienne: It's it's sacred. And that's kind of the joke I make is that you know, when most people talk about the world's oldest profession, hey, let's talk about something else.But in truth you know, funeral, you know, funeral, the, the job of caring for the dead has been around since time. Im memorium. So, so yeah, it is, it is. It's, it's, it's sacred. It really is. So it's, sometimes it's a, it's a lot of day-to-day stuff too. You know, it's a lot of bureaucracy and logistics and that kind of stuff.But when you really get down to the core of it, when we're interacting with families, when we're there, we're the first people that, you know, we're the first call. It, it is, it's a high honor. [00:21:00]De'Vannon: For the schooling, do you have to do continuing education courses every year? Adrienne: Yes. Most states. So there, like I said, Colorado for instance, there's not a license that's required to practice in Colorado.So I think in that case, there's not and certainly the rules are different in some states it's, you know, 24 hours in a year, 12 hours, and yada, yada, yada. But yes, there is absolutely continuing education and hopefully, you know, practitioners are excited about that in the sense that just the developments in science and, and the, the way that the chemicals that we use are evolving and there's always something more to learn.video1042642136: So. De'Vannon: Mm-hmm. How many funerals do you do a day, or what's the most you've done in a day? That's hard to Adrienne: answer because, so a funeral versus. Making funeral arrangements. So there are, I would say nowadays in most places, cremations, specifically direct cremations. So that's a, that's a cremation with no associated rights or [00:22:00] services.So it's, it's for the most part, a matter of paperwork so that a body may be cremated and then you return the herb to the family and that's it. So I think for the highest volume firm I was at, I think I was handling like 12 to 14 cases a week. Now, of those only maybe two or three would actually be, and would involve a church or like going somewhere or doing something or viewing the body or doing any of the associated rights.So and it's, it's different rates in different communities. So in Louisiana where I first got my license, there's a lot of Catholic. And Catholics have a lot of rights and rituals that are associated with, with death and with burials. So we had a lot of services there. So, but I've also worked in more kind of secular communities.I worked around, you know, in, in New Orleans when Covid hit, so there were a lot of services where there were no services. It was just, [00:23:00] it was just here for the deceased and thatDe'Vannon: was it. Right. And so she mentioned Louisiana. She used to live down here. She's up in Maine now. I am eating up on my damn lobster.Adrienne: That's a big ass crawfish up here, huh?De'Vannon: I like your style. I'm picking up what you're putting down baby. So so how many, what's the most amount of bodies you've embalmed in a day? I'm just trying to get a feel for like, in a Adrienne: day. Mm. Three, maybe four, but I'm not I'm, I'm a very good embalmer, but I don't consider the speed with which I embalm a body as a, as an indicator of how good I am at embalming.So there are some embalmers that are like, I can embalming 45 minutes or something like that. So, but to me that the timing of it doesn't reflect the quality of the embalming. So for the most part, you know, it takes, I'd say an hour [00:24:00] and a half, two hours. They could be a lot longer, they could be a lot more complicated.That it every, literally, everybody is unique. And so certain things you wanna, a one pointer would be the, the, the thing that the embalmer most efficiently is gonna go for. And that's where we only have one point of entry into the arterial system. But sometimes, you know, shit happens and you, you have to raise other sites.And so every time you have to raise a different site, that adds on time. video1042642136: So De'Vannon: do you remember the first body you ever mbed? Adrienne: I remember the first autopsy body that I encountered. No, I do actually, no, I do remember the, well, not the first body that I embalmed. I remember the first time that I saw an embalming.Okay. And it was at one school that had, essentially, they had the contract that they would care for all of the indigent populations. So if a [00:25:00] homeless person passed away, they would kind of cycle through the funeral school and then go be cremated. And so the very first embalming I saw was a little off-put to me because it was kind of like, you know, the teacher said Go and then you'd have like five students just like go at it and it.It felt very un sacred, I guess. And so I was like I don't, I don't know if I can do this, you guys. So, but then I went back and then I, the next embalming I saw was kind of a, a demonstration. So it was someone who was coming to, to show a specific skill. So it was one embalmer working on the body, and he was much more respectful.And I, and that, that kind of helped me feel settled a little bit, you know? So but yeah, so I do, I do remember that, and it is quite an adjustment as is, like I mentioned, the autopsy. The first time I saw, I walked in and saw an autopsy body, I would said to my classmate, if I pass out, I'm [00:26:00] not even embarrassed because this is horrifying.It's, it's really existentially distressing, you know, to see So, but power through it. And that's that's, I think the thing that helps people kind of get over that bump is, like I mentioned, kind of the craftsmanship of it. That we put people back together and so they, they, they leave look at a hell of a lot better than they did when they came in.So that's, that's the goal. And so that's part of, I think how, how we could deal with what we deal De'Vannon: with. So with an autopsy, are you like peeling the skin back and digging in there versus with embalming, you're like using more like tools to put stuff in? Adrienne: Yeah, so for an on autopsy body, personally, I try to be as minimally intrusive as possible.So yeah, so we would try, if I can, if I can raise one area and that is sufficient to accomplish what I need to accomplish with arterial embalming. Great. With autopsies, you don't [00:27:00] have a choice. It's already, it's already been decided for you that it's, it's gonna be a different process. So but yes, it's, it's very, they're, they're opened and then you do what you're doing with the arterial system and you treat everything and then close 'em back up.But. Yeah, it's a lot. De'Vannon: Talk to me about the paranormal activity. Cause so a person, you know, when they die, when their spirit depart, like is severed from the body, but when they're in your hands, they have not officially been laid to rest yet. And so they're kind of like in a, a waiting period, like their soul is at this time.So, yeah. Have you ever seen a spirit? Has anyone spoken to you? Adrienne: Yeah. So not every funeral director would they not, they don't all [00:28:00] believe in paranormal activity, so I've seen some shit though. So yeah, no, I've seen a, I've seen a couple of my favorite one, I was standing in the prep room. I know I was ironing a flag or something, I don't know.And I look over and there was a corkboard on the wall. And two pieces of paper, not on one, not on one tack, on two separate tacks, two pieces of paper out of nowhere, flew vertically and then fell down. And so it wasn't like a loose tack and then gingerly, you know, lifted down to the floor. No, this, well, I flew across the room and all I could do is say hello.I acknowledge that something is here and I hope that you're doing okay, and I'm just gonna do what I'm doing, and that's great. So but I, yeah, no I, I've, most of the places that I've worked, most of the people acknowledge at least a [00:29:00] little bit of funny business, you know at the first place, the place where I I, I did my apprenticeship, had a name, I forgot what they named.It was like Bessie or something, but like, it was so frequent that, that certain things would happen to. Clocks in the room and this and that and that they named her. So, or him, I don't know. I didn't ask the gender, but and I have actually, I've heard things before, which is a little off-putting. So, but you know, a lot of these funeral homes, they're very, very old buildings.So, and if they've been funeral homes for that long, then yeah, it's, it's not really De'Vannon: surprising. When you say you heard things, is it like a, a rattling noise, an auditory voice, Adrienne: or, I've heard auditory voices. I've heard my name when I was verifiably the only person on the floor or in the building to the extent that I [00:30:00] got up from what I was doing and kind of walked around like, hello, who's there?You know what I mean? So that's happened a couple of times. So, but not every place, surprisingly. So the place that I'm currently working out of I haven't really, I haven't really encountered anything. And even though I probably work with more of the, more, more of the kind of spooky oriented people in the field at my current location, it's not, no one's ever mentioned anything at this particular place.So that's, it's not, it's not just the funeral homes. I think it has, there's, there's more to it than that, at least. What am I to say? I De'Vannon: would say some, I would say such, you know, funeral homes and places that are like a congregation of the dead would prove to be some sort of a nexus point, you know? Yeah, no, Adrienne: and it's, different cultures have different ideas of it too.So in I just did a Cambodian Buddhist [00:31:00] funeral and that is a part of it. So there's a big part of it is the, the monks. Come and they do this beautiful chanting, and the idea is that they're chanting instructions at the spirit of the deceased to kind of talk them through what their next steps are.Like hang a left at the, at the star, you know what I mean? Or whatever it is. So, but they're, they're actually trying to help guide spirits that may may not know how to proceed forward. So, but, and, and I al I also have heard of funeral homes as kind of being a transition point. So I've heard a couple of, of good ghost stories wherein they invited whatever entity was bothering them at their own home.And they went and they were just like, come on buddy. And they went to a funeral home and kind of like an elevator to the sky kind of a thing. Like it's a, it's a place of transition, but also though it's the place of the place where the death actually happens, [00:32:00] and then the place where the bodies ultimately go.So, you know, graveyards and, and that kind of thing. De'Vannon: And I would imagine the, the newly dead or practicing becoming dead and, you know, and getting used to those new abilities and everything like that. And you're their perfect little Guinea pig. I call out your name too. If I'm, if I, if you're like working on my body, need no one else to talk to you, Adrian's here.Well, Adrienne: and that's, it's, you know, and there are some people that kind of lean into that. And so I've known people that go so far as to try to find out the deceased person's musical tastes. And so rather than playing what I wanna hear when I have them in the prep room, or if I'm driving them to the cemetery, that you'd play a little Johnny Cash or whatever it is that they were into, to, you know, let 'em, let 'em feel a little at home at least for their, their last little time.De'Vannon: Okay, now play me some Beyonce or [00:33:00] Madonna. Girl. Go ahead. On and tw while you are working on me. So do you, do you ever have any dreams that are related to your job or anything Adrienne: like that? Not like I used to when I was a waitress. I've had waitressing dreams where I'm, you know, pour coffee in the middle of the night or anything like that.So, no, actually, I guess thankfully, no, not too much. I'm pretty good at kind of shaking it off. Yeah, having and uh, separating. De'Vannon: Separating it com. Compartmentalizing Adrienne: com compart, I'm so great at it, you know what I mean? I had a difficult childhood, so it's one of my life skills. De'Vannon: I've worked in the service industry and I, I, and I still do I I would agree.Waiting tables is way more horrific probably than you. It is the dead body. At least the bitch can't talk back like the motherfucker Karens and shit. Adrienne: Oh, you'd be surprised. We get some, Karens, we get some, and rightfully so, you know what I mean? Like, and I don't, not to poke fun at families, but there are [00:34:00] families that behave.They, you know, I'd say misbehave not because of grief, but because of an inflated sense of entitlement. So I, we get those two, but yeah, not, not as traumatizing, I don't think is in the restaurant world, to my recollection. De'Vannon: What the fuck could Karen come into her funeral home? But like, what, what could she demand that Is she, is she asking for free shit?She reduced to shit what the Adrienne: person Sometimes, sometimes it is. I want to come. So, you know, cause if you Google a funeral home, they're gonna say 24 hours. And what that means is that if a death occurs at three o'clock in the morning, we will dutifully respond to you and bring your loved one into our care regardless of the hour.That does not mean that you can follow, you know, the van back to the funeral home to make arrangements at three o'clock in the morning. So there are people that, that try to, you know, just show up whenever, or demand to make [00:35:00] arrangements outside of our normal operating hours. Or they'll, d i we, I had recently had a family that was gobsmack that a Catholic priest wouldn't have a, a funeral mass on a Sunday.They don't do that. Okay. They don't do that for archbishops. They don't, that's not that, that's just not a normal practice. And just, you know, the, oh, my, my word. How could you not? You know what I mean? So, and, or scheduling services before ever talking to the funeral home and then being surprised that, you know, Oh, I scheduled this mask to happen two days from now.What do you mean you can't, what do you mean you have three other services that day or, you know, so that, that kind of stuff. And so partially more often than not, it's people not knowing they haven't made arrangements before. So they don't know. They think, you know, maybe they just have a wrong idea, but sometimes it is just straight up entitlement, so.De'Vannon: Hmm. So do you see like a psychiatrist or do you, are you kind of meditating? Do you do yoga? How do you, how do you keep yourself mentally and emotionally in check? [00:36:00]Adrienne: I am very purposeful about my time away from work, so there is a tendency I'm tempted to say, especially with the ladies. I've seen it, I think a, a little more frequently with my female colleagues than with my male of being, I don't know, I don't wanna say overinvested, but like, Unable to check out on days off, like micro not micromanaging or being involved in things instead of just trusting and passing it off to your colleagues on your off days.Cuz that's, you know, you can try as we might, we try to minimize any kind of duties, you know what I mean? If, if a if a brand new family comes in and needs services on my day 10, I'm most likely not gonna be the director that sits with him to make arrangements because I am almost assuredly going to be out, you know, a as those arrangements need to be made.So some funeral directors have trouble setting those boundaries between being at work and being available. [00:37:00] You know, so I'm pretty good about that. Setting boundaries. So on my off times, I'm off for the most part. So that's a big part of it. I am, I have a very supportive partner. Who, so I have some mutual accountability in my household, which helps.So if I have had a particularly nasty day and I wasn't able to kind of shake it off on my way home, you know, on my commute or something like that, that I have I, I have, you know, my husband that can kind of since that and give me an opportunity to talk about something if I need to, if I'm struggling with some, you know, some, and it's, I think as a surprise to you, it has less to do with any kind of the grossness of my job, more so than it does about the emo emotional turmoil that, that we deal with.You know, it's hard. I, I'm very empathetic and so it's difficult to [00:38:00] see people suffer and then have to just, you know I dunno, it, it's hard to see people suffer and not have a way to help them. And so in, in one sense of it, I think it's easier for me because instead of just seeing suffering and just being like, oh, I wish I knew what I could do, I actually do know what to do in some circumstances.And so it's not just passively seeing suffering happen. I see the same suffering that everyone else does, but I can actually step up and I can help out and I can hopefully bring a little bit of peace to some people, and that is rewarding in and of itself. So I think that kind of feeds pour into my cup, as it were.That's a, a metaphor we hear a lot is you can't pour from an empty cup. So I, I try to focus on ways to pour back into my cup and so thank you notes. I, if I, if I'm really down or if I'm really exhausted, I have my thank you notes for [00:39:00] my families and that means the world to me and that is just a reminder of why, you know, why I'm doing what I do.And that helps too. So and then also mood altering substances. So, and Bravo personally helps me a lot. So, De'Vannon: well, this is the sex, drugs and Jesus podcast. So put on the drugs right now, drugs, man. And everything's a fucking drug. Fucking coffee. The fucking drug. Yeah. So I, I heard you and you said you can't pour from an empty cup.I've heard it said before in another way where it says you can't give away what you don't have. Yeah. And so whatever is, you can't, if you nothing in the cup, you can't pour a shit out, but you also can't create things that are not there. So, like you said, you're empathetic, but you have em empathy to give.So that's very, very, very highly high, high vibrational of you. I heard you say that you had a [00:40:00] traumatic childhood. What, what happened? Well, Adrienne: not traumatic, but, you know, my parents were divorced. My dad wasn't around a whole lot. You know, we were, you know, mom writing hot check for groceries, stuff like that.So, And I've, I've also looked like a 34 year old woman since I was about eight. So I was like five 11 I think by the time I was in the fourth grade. So just, just a weird, awkward a childhood lacking of privilege, I'll put it that way. So not too mad. I know there's a lot of people who've had it worse, so De'Vannon: we've come to a point in this fucked up ass country where the things that you just said, Or just as common as rain.Yeah, absolutely. But that shit's fucked up. It's not supposed to be that way. Yeah. That, that's still quite dramatic. We're this, this, this country has got so used to trauma, but I guess that's true. You know, from shootings in schools and every, wherever, every fucking day or a couple times a day to [00:41:00] this, this is like, oh, well dude, this is what we do.We get divorced and we shoot people. How are you? Right, right. Yeah. Whatever. I'm getting me a fucking Mexico citizenship. Yeah. Adrienne: I, I, yeah. Well, take me with you. I don't know where we're going, but it sounds great. De'Vannon: So what about your to, to the gaze, obviously to the gaze. I really, really like the way the cartel runs their state.Yeah. Down there there's nothing but peace in the streets. And people just don't, there's you, don't you? There's no violence, there's no fentanyl in the damn narcotics that you don't have that foolishness in Mexico. Why the fuck can the cartel run a country better than politicians? Adrienne: That's a really good question.That's a really good De'Vannon: question. Because they don't lie. I mean, they don't have an agenda. If you fuck up, you like die or you just gonna be dealt with. And it's just, it is what it is. It is what it's exactly. [00:42:00]And so that's my love going out to all my helico people down there. Have you ever seen anybody in your profession who just could not deal?I'm talking about somebody who had made it through school and was already. In the profession, and then something happened and they were just like, I can't even, Adrienne: yeah. And I've seen people that were almost a good fit, but then in some very important ways discovered that they were not. So I think I think the pandemic was an incredibly difficult time for this pro profession.And I think that if you made it through that, then you probably are made of, of, of the tough stuff and, and you're gonna make it through throughout your career. But yeah, it's high pressure. It is incredibly it's incredibly difficult and a lot of times it's thankless and a lot of times it's back to back to back to back.And, and [00:43:00] that can be difficult if you don't kind of so you know, at a lot of firms, when you have a properly functioning team, you can kind of support one another. So for instance, if a funeral director has a death in the family, A lot of times it's a little hard to deal with other people's families when you're actively dealing with your own grief.You know? So in those kind of cases, a director might step back from the front of the house stuff and just do prep room kind of stuff. So, or I'm, I'm particularly skilled with more tragic kind of cases, or maybe not skilled, but I'm, I'm more willing to, you know, put me in there, coach for a lot, a lot of the more difficult cases that some, some folks shy away from.But I can't do those kind of cases back to back to back, so I might have to No, continue. I, I saw your quizzical eyebrows and so I'm, I'm waiting for your, for your De'Vannon: question. Um, What, can you give me an example of what a difficult case would [00:44:00] be versus a non difficult case? Adrienne: Well, you know, we're all gonna die and I think when you know, when grandma dies after three months of hospice care and everybody got to fly in and.See her and hold her hand. And you know, you have that time to at least intellectually prepare for a death or if it's a death, that's kind of an in order death. Those, I don't wanna say they're easy. I mean, you, the person who's burying their mom, it's gonna be difficult for them regardless. But those kind of deaths that are expected and kind of feel more natural versus you know a two year old who was shot or a 13 year old who hung himself or a murder, suicide or just the tragic kind of circumstances because the care that the families need or, or, or when there's a death in kids are there.So not, not physically present with the death, but I mean, like when someone, when a child loses a parent, something like [00:45:00] that, or a child loses a sibling, those kind of cases are. Just a lot more complex in what the families need from the funeral director. And so there's just more coming out of the cup as it were, you know than with some, some deaths that are natural.I don't know if natural is the right word, but I think you get my meaning. De'Vannon: Right. What's your what's your most gut wrenching memory? Like something that when you think about it, it justAdrienne: I had a couple of of, of tough cases. I had one, the last place I was working in Louisiana was during Covid. And one lady, God bless her, she lost six family members inside of six months. They weren't all covid but. Yeah, she, she basically lost everyone that she loved. And so like the, the, like the, the [00:46:00] fifth or sixth time when I answered the phone, hi Peter, this is Adrian.And I heard her voice. I literally was like, are you hitting me? I never wanted to talk to you again. And it made her just have a belly laugh. So I'm glad that you know, that I was the one to help her through that. But that was difficult. I mean, I had one where, ah, a kid killed himself. Poor dumb kid, you know?And I had to pooch his Boy Scout truth were the Paul bearers. And so trying to talk that Boy Scout, you know, these kids through what is certainly a foundational moment in their lives, you know, it's the first time they've lost anyone and it's a peer. And they're at this like hugely well attended funeral service and all eyes on, and they, and it's the first time they're having to step into that role.And so having to give them kind of the. Giving them the pep talk and, and you know, the eyebrow nods and the getting 'em through it. That part of that, that, that one [00:47:00] stuck with me. That was a, that was a difficult one. So there's a lot. I mean, it's really, I think part of the beauty of this job, as draining as it can be, is I get to see some of the most beautiful human moments that are, you know, I had one time I we were about to put the urn into the niche, into the, you know, the wall of the mausoleum and I don't know, I think he was like eight and it was his grandfather, but they were very, very close and it was a very tough loss for him and Right.You know, right at the end, this little kid, you know, I'm like, you know, ladies and gentlemen, this is concludes our services and blah, blah, blah. And this kid just gets up and he goes and he lays on the table and he hugs the irm. You know, and it was just this incredibly beautiful, poignant display, you know?[00:48:00] And as hard as that was to kind of navigate, I what an honor it is to just see that and, and to be able to help that kid process that, De'Vannon: thank God for the silver lining in these dark ass rain clouds. Now you've mentioned the pandemic a couple of times, and you know, when we were in the thick of it all over tv, you know, you saw like the the nurses, doctors, frontline workers, morticians or caregivers as well.So was there a lot of burnout? And is, is there anything you'd like the world, the world to know about your a how the covid effected y'all since it really didn't get a lot of media coverage? Well, Adrienne: it didn't, and I guess thanks for noticing that it didn't, so, because it, it did mean, not necessarily personally, but I've got some colleagues that were working in New York City at the height of the game.Oh lord gee. Yeah, I mean, and so when New York had, its like a heroes parade kind of [00:49:00] a thing, initially funeral directors were not included. And yeah, that was felt, that was felt by people, you know, because, you know just little old me in New Orleans, not New York, so we didn't have those kind of numbers.It was a hotspot city. It was bad. Wasn't that bad. But yeah, I mean, I know how many hours I was working a day and how many days, days on end that I quarantined myself from my family because I didn't want to bring home those germs. And so, you know, I was spending spending, you know, a week at a time.Away from them. So it's difficult not just because of the long hours and the hard work, but being separated from the emotional support of our families, you know, to keep them safe. That's incredibly difficult. And then to have everyone from, rightfully so, but everyone from, you know, the, the worker who shows up at Walgreens [00:50:00] and nurses and Uber drivers, rightfully so thanked and appreciated for showing up and for getting out there and for exposing themselves to risk so that they could serve their community in whatever the way that they do.But then not to have, not to have funeral directors included, kind of smarted a bit. So, but they did, I know at least with the, the first big one, the New York Heroes Parade or whatever, they did add funeral directors, but it was an afterthought, you know? But, but, and honestly, I think it's just kind of depressing.I think I, I don't think it was like an intentional slight like, ah, Stupid morticians. Nobody cares about this. It wasn't that, but it was, you know, how do we keep this hero's parade upbeat and like high five nurses, good job doctors, and great job, bringers of the Dead. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's, it's, it's to acknowledge a mortician is to acknowledge death.And I think, you know, at certain points it just, it gets a little sticky. [00:51:00] But yeah. De'Vannon: Well, I, I, I love morticians and from my ww f Fandom Wrestling Days, you know the Pa Paul? Oh yeah. The Undertaker, the under the Paul Burrows, one of my fa everyone's fucking favorite character. He's coming there with that be toning his theme music and shit.That bitch was boss, so Yeah. I, I fucks with y'all. I fucks with it. Adrienne: We're fun at parties. I'll tell you what. So that's, that was my joke is you know, I'm my, I have a degree in religion. I was very politically active back in, back in my day, and I'm a mortician, so, you know, I'm fun at dinner parties.Right. So I, I bring all the good hot topics. De'Vannon: What, what kind of reactions do you get from people when, when you tell them what you do? Dinner parties or wherever? Adrienne: I've gotten some, I've gotten, so I lived, I was in Miami when I first started funeral school. I lived in Miami. And I was the, one of the two little [00:52:00] moments of my life where I was kind of a stay-at-home mom.So my daughter was started school in Miami. It's her first time at this school. And so I was doing like, you know, p t a kind of crap and selling pencils and doing whatever. And I had this like p t a buddy lady I don't remember her name or anything, but anytime we had a little activity, she was my buddy and we'd, you know, hang out.And then in talking, when I said that I was gonna start funeral school, She never made eye contact with me again. So for some people there's a really serious kind of taboo about it and people like literally avert their eyes sometimes. So that's kind of interesting. But for the most part people are just, I, I think either shocked because you don't meet many morticians and or shocked because I'm a lady mortician.And so I think it's, that's surprising to them too. And so a lot of times they kind of assume that I'm just, just a funeral director, [00:53:00] not to minimize people that are solely funeral directors, but they assume that I'm just a funeral director and that of course, I'm not an embalmer. No. You know, so that's interesting seeing people's reaction in that way, but for the most part, people are just curious.And I have gotten some very interesting questions from people, you know. De'Vannon: Y'all running from the mortician or averting your eyes, like what Adrian is saying is not gonna help you to cheat death. Adrienne: It's true. It's like they think I'm jinxing them. Yeah. So De'Vannon: We better get a grip on ourselves and get, and get with the program.You know, like, like when King David from the, from the, from the Bible got ready to die, he said, you know, I go the way of all the earth. Mm-hmm. You know, if you wanna believe you're coming back as a butterfly or a stingray or whatever, okay, that's on you. But either way, you gotta die before you can be reincarnated if that's what you believe is going to happen.So you cannot run from death. And the, the thing [00:54:00] that intrigues me the most, or intrigues me or extends out to me the most about death is something that my my spiritual mother evangelist Nelson would tell me when she was a alive. And, you know, she was like, it is no old people don't die as much as young people.You know? And I thought about it, I was like, I've been to a lot of funerals in my life, but maybe five of those were old people. Most of them have been people like in between like 20 and 40. Wow. You know, so, so no, we, we, we, we, we won't be running from death and don't be, don't be stupid and think just because you're young that you're guaranteed to live to get old.So get a grip on it. Get your spiritual life in order, because eventually you will be laying down on a table in front of Adrian someone. Well, yeah, Adrienne: and it's, and it's, I, some, I, I don't know. I guess I have my personal belief [00:55:00]system. I e everything's gonna be okay. It's either nothing or. Everything's fine.You know what I mean? I, I believe in a benevolence underneath underlying the universe. And so I'm not afraid of whatever's in the next room, so to speak. You know what I mean? But there are people that are just, that are deeply, deeply fearful of it. And it's sad. It just, and, and so you're right. So the kind of reaction is not to kind of process and reflect on that, but rather to completely avoid it.And, but that's not how this works, you know? Avoiding it, pretending it doesn't exist. It doesn't help. De'Vannon: Yeah. You don't want everything about how you live in this life affects your afterlife. The, the dead people I know, they still speak to me like in dreams and stuff like that. That's why I don't believe in reincarnation, because they are still spirits.So they couldn't be a giraffe and still hear in spirit talking to me. And so [00:56:00] you don't wanna part this plane of existence like. Like in any kind of like spliced way. Like you don't wanna like be feeling like you're being ripped. You need to be, you need to be at a point where you're ready to let it go because you don't want Absolutely.You don't wanna wrecked afterlife one thing that taught me this when I was in middle sch in high school now as a teenager, and I woke up dying in the middle of the night. I had like a strange heart rhythm. You know, it happens in teens sometimes. Yeah. It just does. And I woke up and I couldn't breathe.Like, I couldn't catch my breath. I'm not asthmatic it, I've never have been. It wasn't that, it wasn't an episode, it was like, and as this was happening in this dream state or whatever, I was in, it's like I was looking down this tunnel at the reception hall at the church that I was attending, but it was like, it was the, the person that I saw was someone who was dead already, and I [00:57:00] didn't recognize the other people.So it was almost like it was a flipped. A version of a reality and it almost looked like the dead people were still doing the same stuff that they used to do when they were alive. And as my breath was escaping me, it's like I saw them and I remember just really, really, really wanting more time. Cause I was like, somewhere between 15 and 16, you know, I was like, you know, I really wanted more time and I just could not breathe.I couldn't force myself to breathe. The air was just leaving and none was coming back in. And I just like passed out or whatever. And then I woke up, you know, the Lord wasn't ready for me to die. But what I remembered is that I wasn't ready to go. And I hated that sense of not being prepared. Adrienne: Well, no, and that's back in the old days, people used to carry like little do dads and jewelry pieces that would say, memento mori, remember you must die.You know, it's, it's the fact that we know that this is a [00:58:00] terminable date. That this life is not forever makes us value what we have right now. And I think that when you have that kind of experience, that it really, it makes you confront and be purposeful about, about where you are now because you have that undeniable experience of knowing that it's not forever.You know?De'Vannon: And I know, I know we're slightly over time. Can, can you gimme another Oh, I don't care. I'll talk to Adrienne: you all night. I'm fine. I ain't doing shit De'Vannon: today. Thank you. I appreciate it. There's a, there's a couple of more points that I really, really, really, really, really a need to make. Let's talk about life insurance for a second here.Okay. But my aunt kicked the bucket a couple of years ago. This shit, okay? She was one of those ones who liked to go spend a per check at the riverboat casino. Every, every month. I'm not judging her for that. We had plenty of good times at Casino. She was also one of those ones who [00:59:00] believed that the rapture would happen and that, that she therefore did not need life insurance.Well, she died and she didn't have any life insurance, and then she didn't have any savings because it was all up at the casino. Because she was always gonna strike it rich. Okay? On average, at least down here in Louisiana, I don't know what it is, everywhere else, you're looking at about 10 ish grand.Okay. To, to put a bitch in the ground if they're not a veteran, a beast, you know? So if you die and you don't have no money, then that burden then falls to your loved ones to either, I guess, just discard you and leave you in the morgue. Down here you'll see people having car washes and bake sales and shit, trying to hustle money to pay for a funeral.And these are not necessarily like, I mean, my mean, my aunt was like an older person. I think she was in like her sixties, seventies. Okay. Right, right. Like a 15 year old kid who just happened to, you know. Yeah. It's not a surprise Adrienne: that you know, [01:00:00] that you might die someday days or relatively soon, you know?Yeah, no, it happens. It happens all the time. And different, different places. So what's the question? So what do you do? Like, De'Vannon: I'm, I'm stressing the fact that this sort of thing can tear families down in a Oh, absolutely. Because my, a sibling that I no longer talked to attacked me because in their opinion, all three of a siblings were supposed to come up with like $2,500 or something like that.I told my mom to burn her sister up and cremate her. You don't have no money, you don't have no options. But my, but my mom didn't wanna do that, and so I was like, okay. Then I will figure out what I'm gonna donate and then we'll just do the funeral. But I'm giving you the side eye cuz I don't agree, but I'm still gonna help you, my mother.But the sibling of mine decided that they were going to come up with the money. [01:01:00] This person's always been controlling and I think probably a little narcissistic too, if not much. And so they decided to insult me and call me like entitled and everything. Cuz I said, I'm not paying 2,500 or 2,800.Let me see what I could come up with. And then they went and drudged up, you know, over, you know, years ago when I was homeless in Houston, when I got h i right and, you know, hepatitis and all of that. And were saying like, you owe this to our parents and they helped you and everything like that. I was like, no, no, they're not doing that now.It's not the time for you to bring up my history and then use it as a weapon to demonize me because you cannot control me. But. Her not having life insurance is what made the breeding ground for this. Now, this sibling of mine should have been come to me if they had some beef about what I went through.Right, right. Adrienne: And not, not wait for this terrible loss in your family to then also bring that up. How ridiculous is that? But it happens all the time. And I [01:02:00] think it's because it's, it's easier to fight with your siblings than it is to grieve a loss a lot of times. So, but you're absolutely right. Not every state life insurance isn't part of pre-planning in every state, which I didn't really know.So in Louisiana, yeah, if you wanna pre-plan, most of the time you, you sit down, you figure out what services you want, how much they cost, and then you essentially buy a, a, a, a, an insurance policy to fund it. Not every state does that. So it would, Maine, they have mortuary trusts and you specifically cannot have you can't sell life insurance for the purposes of funerals.But the point, the point, the underlying point being, We're all going to die. And a lot of people kind of make some assumptions about what's gonna happen or what the contingencies are, and oh, don't worry about me, just donate me to science. That's not how that works. So in most places, you have to be on a donor registry 30 to 60 days before death, and you're still not [01:03:00] guaranteed for acceptance.If they're all filled up with, you know, 67 year old chubby white ladies that day, then your body's not gonna be donated and someone's gonna have to pay for your funeral. Now, some states you know, some places the coroner will step up or there there's indigent funding or something like that. Like the city will pay X amount of dollars for cremation and y amount of dollars for burial, that kind of stuff.So sometimes there are some kind of safeguards, but not all the time and not every municipality. So there were some parishes in Louisiana. If you had a living blood relation who had a penny to their name, you were not going to be paid for your, you know, indigent funeral stuff was not gonna come into play.The coroner was simply not gonna approve that. So it is wise to, on some level, have some kind of preparation, whether or not that's a life insurance policy, an [01:04:00] emergency savings fund, or something like that. I think to your point, too, expressing what it is that you want or would want or absolutely don't want.So at some point I never knew, but my mom, she was like, please don't cremate me. That idea horrifies me. Okay. Dooly noted. You know what I mean? So, funding not withstanding, I, I know what she wants to do. So there's not, because families, a lot of times there's, there's, there is contention about what to do and the fact that sometimes families are limited by what, what funds they have available, you know, so yeah, aside from pre-planning, just giving yourself and your family members the grace to, you know, maybe grandma would've wanted a, you know, a copper basket and a most beautiful spot in the cemetery, but if you've only, you're only able to muster a couple of thousand dollars, then that's not gonna happen.And so let's, let's give ourselves permission to just do [01:05:00] what needs to be done and, you know offer ourselves some grace and forgiveness and it not being what we wish we could do, you know? But yeah, family, family, family's fighting all, all the time. Not just about financial stuff, but it, it becomes, I, I literally had one time, two sisters, dad died, his two sisters left, and at some point, the arrangement conference, I don't know what made her mad, but she looked over at her sister and she said, I don't even know why you're here making these arrangements.Daddy never even loved you. So, okay, let's take a step back ladies. Let's maybe take a deep breath and acknowledge that we're going through some difficult things right now, and maybe not try to rectify the entire history of your difficult sibling relationship right now. You know what I mean? So yeah, yeah.We, we see that girl. De'Vannon: Y'all get life [01:06:00] insurance. I don'