Grace shares her story of growing up with sexual abuse, family dysfunction, and a mother struggling with severe mental illness. She reflects on what it was like to navigate life without a sense of safety, carrying wounds that shaped how she viewed herself, other people, and even God. Along the way, she opens up about surviving an abusive marriage, wrestling with religious conditioning, and discovering that healing often begins when we stop pretending we're okay.
What does it take to survive when the people and systems that were supposed to protect you become part of the pain?
In this episode of Untamed Grace, Jeromy sits down with Grace Sandra for a powerful conversation about childhood trauma, abuse, racial identity, church hurt, healing, and the long journey of learning to trust yourself again.
Grace shares her story of growing up with sexual abuse, family dysfunction, and a mother struggling with severe mental illness. She reflects on what it was like to navigate life without a sense of safety, carrying wounds that shaped how she viewed herself, other people, and even God. Along the way, she opens up about surviving an abusive marriage, wrestling with religious conditioning, and discovering that healing often begins when we stop pretending we're okay.
Together, Jeromy and Grace explore:
This conversation is honest, raw, and deeply human. Rather than offering easy answers, Grace invites listeners into the reality of what healing looks like when life has taught you to stay guarded, hypervigilant, and disconnected from yourself.
If you've experienced trauma, struggled with self-trust, felt unseen by the church, or spent years simply trying to survive, this episode offers something many of us need: permission to tell the truth, compassion for the journey, and hope that healing is possible.
Because eventually the goal isn't just surviving.
It's becoming.
00:00:00 Grace. Welcome
00:00:35 Grace: I appreciate it.
00:00:36 Jeromy: And by the way, I love your podcast title. Um, God. Right now, no truer words could be spoken, Just out here trying to survive.
00:00:45 Grace: Exactly. I came up with that because, it was just in a place where I was going through a really hard time. My second marriage was super abusive and I kept hashtagging that every time I would post something, I would hashtag, I'm just out here trying to survive. And then one of my friends was like, that's what you should call your podcast. And I was like, oh, that's kind of fire.
00:01:03 Jeromy: It totally is. if you ever think about it, it'd be fun to shift things up and bring a guest on and still have your solo ones and then bring in some women who have, uh, who have a voice and a story.
00:01:17 Grace: I have thought about, I have a few people who've asked me, usually the people who asked me if they can be guests are men. And I'm like, come on, y'all.
00:01:26 Jeromy: Yeah, exactly.
00:01:28 Grace: Women because women don't volunteer themselves the way that men do.
00:01:32 Jeromy: Yeah. men are like, yeah, I'll talk about what it means to be like a man in America like, and in how sucky it is.
00:01:42 Grace: The men that have offered have been like a couple of single men. And they're like, let me get on there and tell black women what they need to hear.
00:01:48 Jeromy: Oh my God.
00:01:49 Grace: There is no way I would expose whatever toxicity you got going on to the women who listen to my podcast. There is no way, bro. I don't know what you're thinking. But anyway, it's funny that they've offered.
00:02:04 Jeromy: Uh, mansplaining to women through a podcast.
00:02:07 Grace: right. The audacity is crazy.
00:02:11 Jeromy: Yeah, exactly. I'll tell women what they need to know. Okay. How's that working out for you? but you've lived through, and I'll say live through like it goes away. But you've lived through trauma and survival, as part of your life and that's part of your story. what would you say? people consistently misunderstand about trauma.
00:02:31 Grace: I think what I'm going to say sounds so contradictory, but I'll just say it because it's not fully worked out in my head, but I am an external processor. But I think that people sometimes don't understand how horrible it is, or have a hard time understanding how horrible a certain type of trauma is if they've never lived through it. And then on the other side, again, people haven't lived there, don't understand the type of resilience it produces. so how redeeming it can be and redeeming in the sense of lessons learned, etc. because ideally none of us would have to go through horrific trauma. but I would say the biggest thing that has disappointed me over and over through the years and that I have had to get through my head is grace. These people are they're just they haven't lived it. Stop. Stop expecting them to understand or that I could explain or just keep explaining or keep explaining and that will make them get it. And I finally had to realize like, that's just not how things work, baby girl. Like sit down and take a deep breath like these people. It doesn't matter what you explain. I feel that way about me too, with, other people who've had traumas that I haven't had. I just don't think that I will ever truly get it. we can read the books, you know, we can read Angela's ashes and all these things and, or stories of people who've lived through certain type of trauma. And I just don't think that it's, it's for us to understand, but that doesn't mean we can't have the empathy that's required, you know what I mean?
00:03:50 Jeromy: yeah.
00:03:51 Grace: And that's where. People often fall short is they think, well, I've never lived that. I don't understand it. So there's just some sort of weird empathy gap. well, you can still have empathy and sympathy even though you haven't lived it or understand it. That's a human thing. That's just disappointing about humans. If I were an alien from somewhere else, I'd be like, oh, these humans. God damn it. Anyway, yes, in my random analogy, if I were an alien, I would be disappointed in humans for their lack of empathy.
00:04:19 Jeromy: I like how you pointed out that because sometimes we just think of trauma as just a lump thing, like you've experienced trauma, but you hinted at there's different types of trauma. And even if you've experienced some type of trauma, you may not understand another type of trauma that someone else has gone through.
00:04:37 Grace: Yeah. Have you have you heard of Gabriel Matei, the big doctor who's talking a lot about trauma? His books are kind of blowing up recently.
00:04:44 Jeromy: No, no I haven't. Tell me about him.
00:04:46 Grace: He lived through the Holocaust, and he, um. He studies trauma and more. he just had a book that came out recently. it's called the myth of normal trauma, illness and healing in a toxic culture. Very good book.
00:05:00 Speaker 3: He has another.
00:05:01 Grace: Book.
00:05:01 Speaker 3: About.
00:05:02 Grace: How trauma informs ADHD is really good. But anyway, one of the things that he says a lot is how, two people can experience the same kind of trauma. Like if you're in a household, let's just say where multiple traumatic things happen, like the husband lives, the wife or something and two kids see it, two kids from the same family with the same parents witness their father unalive their mom. He basically kind of explains how scientifically, even we can't even expect those two kids to have the same response to the exact same traumatic moment, let alone the people who go off to war and witness horrific things. If you want to learn more, I would highly suggest Gabriel Mattei but anyway, reading his stuff helped me to understand. To not judge myself. Because there have been times I've been like, man, other women have experienced this. Why am I having such a hard time recovering from blah, blah, blah?
00:05:55 Jeromy: can you share a little bit of your background of how you got from, where you started to where you're at now?
00:06:01 Grace: Okay. Yeah, One of the traumas of my childhood was being sexually assaulted by my dad for almost ten years. And I have realised to finish that thought that even someone else who's been through that, it's going to be really different. They're different people. I'm a different person how I respond. And so that has given me a lot of grace on myself. Like that's a pretty significant thing. Nobody just rolls over one day, oh, I'm over it, you know? Um, Gabriel Mateo calls trauma big T trauma and little T trauma. I would say that's probably one of the bigger T traumas for sure of my lifetime. I grew up with a mom that was, diagnosed with schizophrenia like, she had been diagnosed for sixteen years before I was born, but she was keeping it a secret We ended up having to have her committed and in the process of having her committed, we found the paperwork of her diagnosis. So, um, you know, so my mom is gone. May she rest in peace. But, growing up, she was just batshit crazy. Like, it was just crazy. Yeah.
00:07:00 Jeromy: And I can only imagine,
00:07:02 Grace: Yeah. the only thing that it felt like to me was, this is so weird to say because I knew that my mom loved me. But also at the same time, when someone has a very extreme mental illness, sometimes it feels like they hate you. So it's very confusing, uh, especially when you don't know. I wish I had known earlier I could have had more grace. But then I went through a whole period of hating her because I just thought, she's just an evil person, you know?
00:07:27 Jeromy: Yeah. Gosh. And then once I then as a kid like you, you as a kid, you really don't know what's going on. Like your mom's just from over here to over here and just crazy, and you don't have any words. Even if somebody said she's schizophrenic as a kid, you're like, I don't know what that means, but you know, what is that?
00:07:43 Grace: I wish I could have asked her why she hid it, but by the time we found out, It was too late for her to have, like, real thoughts, if that makes sense. She was not grounded in reality anymore at all because she also died with dementia. So I'm not sure when the dementia started. really intermixing, if that makes sense, with the schizophrenia. And it was very obvious. Dementia has fully taken over. Um, when she died with dementia, it was clear that it was dementia. But I will say that up until I was ten, she was sort of kind of normal. But again, until I was ten, I kind of didn't know any different. But She had she had excellent work and she had a massive head injury. And then after that, it was it was over. Um, that was like the beginning of the end for any sort of kind of normal relationship that me and her had. And that was a kind of a tender age too. I was, probably about I was ten or eleven.
00:08:37 Jeromy: I just was super tender.
00:08:39 Grace: Puberty and stuff. And my dad had just went to prison too. So it was a really not great time.
00:08:47 Jeromy: Yeah. Jeez. Yeah. You probably had to grow up pretty fast.
00:08:54 Grace: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when I, when I have identified that I was really on my own. I did have three older siblings. Two of them, they were already out of the house and the one who was left was horrible. Like just my brother was just a horrible, horrible, horrible human. and then he left and went to prison when I was fourteen, thirteen or fourteen. So it was actually kind of a relief when he went to prison, because I did not identify him as like a caretaker, a safe caretaker. He was not safe.
00:09:21 Jeromy: Yeah. So yeah.
00:09:23 Grace: it was a time where I identified like, you're on your own. You have to figure out life. no, no one is coming to save you. Um, and I think the one thing I did do that I don't know, I don't know where exactly that strength came from, but I did decide that I wasn't going to try to save my mom. Um, in some ways I think that was good for me because I, I have heard other stories of other kids who've gone through similar things where they start caretaking their, their parent, um, and some sort of weird way. I had a radical acceptance moment where I was just like, uh, there's nothing I can do. I don't think there's anything I can do for her. So, uh, and in hindsight, I think that saved me because I, I, I directed my energy towards figuring out how I could live. So yeah, it was, it was um. Yeah. I had a hard childhood.
00:10:17 Jeromy: And our childhoods, the only one that we know, you know, we don't know any difference when you're growing up in it. This is just this is the normal.
00:10:26 Grace: Yeah, I think I knew by then, like by seventh or eighth grade though that, that I was going through something that was not normal because, you know, by then I was old enough to see how other people lived. Um, and I had a lot of friends, um, even friends in my neighborhood. I knew that they weren't experiencing the kind of things I was experiencing. So my mom was also making sure, because this is kind of crazy, this is another crazy part of my story is that so, you know, my mom's Italian, my dad is black.
00:10:57 Jeromy: Okay.
00:10:58 Grace: before I was born, she was married to a white man. She had three white kids. Then white flight happened in Detroit where we were living. White flight fully took over the neighborhood. Within like five years, all the white people were gone and everybody who moved in was black.
00:11:12 Grace: And so my mom and her family were the only white family left because she was Detroit police officer at the time. So she wasn't allowed to move out of the city. I guess that was the rule for police officers. So the the whole city became black. And my siblings were experiencing a lot of like racial microaggressions in school because all of a sudden they were the only white kids. This happened like a very short amount of time. my mom determined, even after she had me with a black man, was determined to put me around white kids. So she took me everywhere where the white people were. She discouraged me from hanging out with black kids. And she.
00:11:50 Jeromy: Interesting man.
00:11:52 Speaker 3: Took me to a private.
00:11:53 Grace: Christian school that was majority white, even though I don't really think we could afford it. So yeah, so my mom was a little bit racist, uh, like low key. She was not she was not an ally. She was not an advocate. not at all.
00:12:06 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:12:07 Grace: So yeah, that.
00:12:08 Jeromy: Was.
00:12:09 Grace: Produced a, a significant source of trauma as well is just living with white people who are okay, saying stuff about black people in front of me you know, they did the thing that some white families do. Not all, but the whole I don't see color and you're just one of us. Yeah. There's nothing different, you know? And it's like, yeah, it's so different. I am experiencing the world differently than you and going to a white school. Those white kids let me know you are not one of us. they were just like, no, no, no no, no. Baby girl like you ain't white. You might be something. You might be a little white, but you ain't all the way white.
00:12:45 Jeromy: so, so it's almost like they're saying one thing, but really there's a whole nother thing that's going on.
00:12:51 Grace: Oh yeah, for sure, And they're just rehearsing what they learned. So, you know, looking back, I can see that. Then I was just like, wow, what little assholes these kids are.
00:13:00 Jeromy: And so I imagine there was a part of this weird identity thing happening I mean, as kids, we're already trying to figure out like our identity and who we are. And it's probably so much more complicated for you in that space.
00:13:14 Grace: Yeah, it was a little bit, I do think the grace of it all, I wasn't in an in-between stage for very long. I've heard a lot of other biracial kids talk about, I don't know where I fit in. I don't know if I'm this or I don't know if I'm that. But for me, it was pretty clear because I was living in a neighborhood with black people, the black people were always like, stop saying you're mixed. You ain't mix, you're black. Don't say biracial, don't say you're black. You're just black. And then I was at school and all the white kids were like, you're not white, you're not white. and then I had my brother. Remember when I said who I said was the tyrant? He was constantly calling me the N word. there was no battle for me. I missed that whole mix, kid battle of like, who am I? I'm torn between two worlds. I never had that. I was like, oh, I'm black And also my brother was, he had blonde hair and blue eyes. So the differences between us were stark. he hated black kids because they tormented him growing up when white flight happened and when he was the only white boy left on the street and his strategy was so dumb, he decided to become hateful instead of aligning. And maybe, you know, some white kids are kind of like, I'll try to fit in. You know, he just was like, he just decided to become Hitler instead. He was just like, he just became crazy and just became very oppositional. Um, and still acts that way to this day still is just as anti-black as ever.
00:14:47 Jeromy: So gosh.
00:14:49 Grace: It never it never left him. It never left him. for better or for worse. He helped inform my identity from a very young age. And I knew not only am I not white, but I don't want to be associated with these people like they're crazy and mean and cruel and, um, very insulated because the contrast of you're not white, you're not one of us. To all the black people being like, you are us don't even claim whiteness. You're, you're one of us. It was a very, I don't even know how to say it because it was so contrasting. It really brought it to the surface.
00:15:24 Jeromy: Yeah. And you're going to a Christian church at this time. And so your faith is kind of developing as well in kind of this weird space.
00:15:33 Grace: Yeah. you know, going to a Christian school, they don't really teach you about faith. It's interesting. It's just a very weird environment. Did you ever go to Christian school?
00:15:41 Jeromy: I went to a Christian school, uh, for a bit when I was younger. And then, uh, a Bible college.
00:15:48 Grace: Okay. Well, yeah, I found this when I went to seminary, to Christian schools. It's just kind of like this environment of like, oh, we put this on the name and we kind of talk about it a little bit, but we're just going to be insulated. But there really is no practicality about learning. So I really wasn't getting teaching in a weird way about faith from school. My mom was literally reading. Do you remember those little those little small books called Our Daily Bread?
00:16:13 Jeromy: Yes. Oh my gosh, yes, yes.
00:16:17 Grace: Reading those to me every night. And that's what made me think, oh, okay. Like this makes sense to me. I believe Jesus, he died for us. Okay, I'm going to accept him. That's cool. Um, yeah. But when I went to school, I did have a sense like, oh, this isn't really, what God is about. Like, I had a sense of, the evilness of what was happening So from a very young age, I was just like, yeah, this seems Like this is not what God is about. If God is real, this is it ain't this.
00:16:45 Jeromy: Yeah, it ain't. So the school, it sounds like the school itself existed to just basically create this insular white Christian bubble Where.
00:16:54 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:16:54 Jeromy: They could just have regular, regular old education. They might have a Bible class here and there, but it was basically just to create that bubble of, of white Christian ness.
00:17:04 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:17:05 Grace: And I was very privy to it from a very early age. I know I noticed it because I think because of growing up in two worlds, I was really the only person that I knew that was living like I was where I was with black people a lot, and then also with white people a lot, because all the kids in my neighborhood, they never saw white people ever.
00:17:22 Jeromy: MM.
00:17:22 Grace: They had no interaction. It was all just a myth. White people were mythical.
00:17:28 Jeromy: They're out there somewhere, but we've never seen them. Right.
00:17:31 Jeromy: Except for my mom.
00:17:32 Grace: And my brother, who was An absolute raging Idiot. He just went around the neighborhood screaming and hollering, being an idiot. They really didn't know white people. And then all the white kids, they didn't know black kids. So I really was the only one. I knew that, like, I had a handle on these two worlds. And so I just didn't believe what black people said about white people. And I definitely didn't believe what white people said about black people because they were, you know, the messages of black people are bad and everybody in Detroit is violent. Oh my God, Detroit is so violent. And I'm like, no, but y'all are violent. Yeah. So it did kind of it did make me think, I don't really believe what you have to say about God, because I definitely don't believe what you say about black people.
00:18:10 Jeromy: Interesting. you've probably learned to adapt really well in almost any situation, right? Living in those two different worlds. But I almost see like there's these two cultures that are just relating to the other culture in fear and ignorance, They don't really know each other and they're both afraid of each other, The white people are afraid. The black people, the black people are afraid, rightfully so, of of white people in the history. And and here we are.
00:18:36 Grace: Yeah. Everybody just not knowing what the hell they're talking about. But but I mean, honestly, the one thing I knew that black people were saying that was true was don't trust them. And that was a message that kind of got into my core pretty early on. and it, it, it kept being true over and over and over again. It kept being true. And I didn't really know this is going to sound so crazy, but like out of my mom, my siblings, white people, she introduced me to, the school, the church. I didn't know any white person who was an open, active ally at all. They were all low key racist, all of them. I didn't meet my first white person who was like, I am openly and actively an ally to black people until college. I did have some white girlfriends during that time, but I knew that their parents hated black people. They were very open about it. very open about it. Two of my best girlfriends, white girlfriends during that time during junior high and high school had parents who were openly racist, said stuff like, if you come home with a black boy, a boyfriend, I'm gonna get out my rifle and stuff like that. So, um, yes, I didn't really, I didn't experience like safe white people until college, honestly, until I joined InterVarsity. And that's where I realized like, oh, there are white people who actually have thought about this. They've figured out how, you know, anti-racism fits with their, faith Yeah. But before, just like I'm so annoyed with these people.
00:20:07 Jeromy: Yeah. And the myth is, is that, you know, black racism is only a southern thing, right?
00:20:12 Grace: Like, oh yeah, yeah, I heard that later on. I was like, that's weird. That's not.
00:20:16 Jeromy: True. That's crazy because I was in Detroit. And let me tell you, uh.
00:20:22 Grace: Yeah, Midwest racism is different than southern racism. For sure. And that's something I don't understand and I'll never claim to. I don't know what it's like to be raised black in the South, but I know in the Midwest they're subtle.
00:20:37 Jeromy: As we're seeing racism is still very, very true and heavy. what's happening is still about race and power and fear and control. And so with someone like you who's kind of lived in both of those worlds and have seen both sides and have seen the fear and ignorance on both sides, if God's grace was like, truly present in that space, like, what would that look like?
00:21:05 Grace: Um.
00:21:05 Grace: I really can't even conceptualize it. I think getting back to trauma, the way trauma has impacted me when it comes to race relations in America, I can't even conceptualize it. I don't know because I've tried, I think because I've tried, like when I was doing ministry, a big part of what I was doing was anti-racism education. I was working with white students. I was trying to help white students become anti-racism and people who, use power and privilege to affect the way that life is living out and to make sure they go on to their careers and do something different, you know, be different. Yeah. Um, and trying to help black students figure out like how to survive and what is their partner. You know, I was just doing all of that. And I think maybe because I did that work for so long. And I think the more you get into that kind of work, the more you realize like, oh my God, nothing's changing.
00:21:57 Jeromy: the version of Jesus in some minds right here in America, especially now, is not it's not at all the Jesus that I have fell in love with that I kind of deconstructed and that I still love. There is still a lot of beauty in the heart of people. And one of my deconstruction premises that I've landed on is, I think really at the core of our beings, we are still good, you know?
00:22:24 Grace: Um.
00:22:27 Grace: Yeah, I try.
00:22:29 Jeromy: Yeah, yeah.
00:22:31 Grace: I pause for a minute. I try.
00:22:33 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:22:33 Grace: I try to remember that. because I, there is some part of me that does believe that, but you know, what's really interesting is I had to deconstruct even to get to there because I grew up learning you're all evil, you're worms. You deserve nothing. None of you deserve anything. You're all terrible humans that are only redeemed by this one thing that happened, and you have no other redeeming quality about you. So yeah, now it actually does take some work for me to actually believe that. Yeah, my deconstruction journey had to deal with this idea of like, oh, I deserve good things. I am a good human. You know, like, I am not fundamentally flawed. This is I am made the way that I'm supposed to be made and that everyone deserves food and shelter, you know, just like these basic things that like, you know, American Christianity has instilled in us about people's worthiness, which is not surprising why we are now caging children and watch, okay. You know, watching what is happening in Gaza because yeah, we can tell ourselves they don't deserve good things or they don't deserve, you know, to live on their land and have food. And somehow it's okay because we're better than them. It's terrible.
00:23:47 Jeromy: Isn't it sad that we have to deconstruct a belief that was given to us, that you're a worm because it was so true. Like you're just taught.
00:23:56 Grace: As.
00:23:57 Jeromy: You're worth nothing. Like you can't even trust your intuition. You can't even trust your gut. You can't trust your feelings. And that's so much part of healing, right? Like that's so much part of healing from trauma could you speak more about that of just like learning to, to relearn to trust yourself again?
00:24:15 Grace: Yeah. Um, yeah, it's interesting. I actually did a podcast episode about this a little while ago about the idea of how it related to my sexuality, because I assume that anything that had to do with that had to do with the devil. And I found that before, I deconstructed my faith that I could not heal from the issues I had around sexuality due to my prior abuse, because I thought unless I denied my sexuality, then I was not healing, which was so opposite. I actually really needed to. Dive in and figure out what is this desire? What is it that I want? What is it that's going on? What is it that I need just as a human?
00:24:56 Jeromy: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
00:24:58 Grace: I found that the longer that I lived in denial of my intuition, what my body was telling me, what my soul felt the longer that I lived in that the, the worse I became. And it really wasn't until I was out of marriage, out of ministry, and started going to therapy to learn how to heal just in general, not how to be a better Christian, not how to make a marriage work that clearly wasn't, you know, not how to stay in ministry, but like how to heal. That's when I learned to get in touch with my intuition. And that's when I started healing. And that is, I think, one of the saddest things that I see nowadays from kids who are being kind of grown up in the world that we were is they become worse people.
00:25:40 Jeromy: you learn not to love yourself. if you're told your whole life quietly through just theology, no one explicitly tells you this per se, that that you're a worm, that you're evil, that your, your very essence is appalling to God, your father. Like, how much does that create of just like you don't love yourself.
00:26:02 Grace: Yeah.
00:26:03 Jeromy: So then how can you love others And yeah, this is what you get. Like you get prisons that are not about reform, but are, are simply about punishment, You get people who can treat other people in such evil ways because they're told you're a worm.
00:26:20 Grace: Yeah. And if you believe that about yourself, and then you believe it about everyone else too. And that's where human rights issues come in because you don't really care. You don't really care about anybody else. Um, it doesn't make sense to see the humanity in other people. That's, that's, I think what the great American experiment, how we failed, how the experiment has failed is because there is like literally no concern for anyone other than who is wealthy and white and in some ways male. But there is more awareness of that. But I still feel like, no, at the end of the day, that's what's still prioritized is still wealthy white and majority male. are real humans and everyone else doesn't really matter You know, and I feel like this administration is just doubled down on that.
00:27:01 Jeromy: Grace, you speak openly about naming abuse. And I love how honest you are about telling the truth. Um, why is truth telling often more healing than rushing towards Forgiveness.
00:27:17 Grace: I think because.
00:27:19 Grace: how the grief lives in your body and the grief in your body that lives, it's stored in your cells. It doesn't. You can lie, but it won't, and it will make you sick. we kind of all know that now people who live with like hate and rage and all that, like end up having early deaths from heart attack and heart disease and stroke and things that are actually, somewhat preventable when it's due to the sickness of literally not grieving. Um, so there is a doctor who worked with kids who had recently been bombed and he noticed. How do you remember when the genocide started in Gaza? We would see all these videos on Instagram. Do you notice? How do you remember how the kids were shaking?
00:27:58 Jeromy: Yeah, yeah.
00:28:00 Grace: A lot of people were saying that. Why are they all shaking? he basically did a lot of studying around it and realized that shaking was a way to release the trauma so that it didn't internalize quickly. And that shaking is also a way to get it out. So I did a few I don't know the name of it, but it's kind of like shaking yoga.
00:28:18 Jeromy: Okay, okay.
00:28:20 Grace: Hopefully I paid for like a couple sessions. They did them online and they lead you through exercises in your body where you actually get your body to the point where it starts shaking involuntarily. they put your body in different positions. And, um, it's like a way that the grief gets out. And I remember like sobbing just sobbing. And we weren't talking about anything.
00:28:40 Jeromy: Just from your, your body physically shaking
00:28:43 Grace: Right. And he was also leading us through, um, through exercises to reflect on the trauma that you're trying to kind of unearth, but it was not talk therapy and it was not directed towards me. It was like a video. So anybody could be anywhere in the world watching it. And he had he wouldn't know, you know what I'm saying? But yeah, I just remember the feeling of the release of it anyway, that just, that's just a microcosm of an example of like me slowly doing healing practices and realizing like God set up our body in a way that we could get through this stuff. Um, and once I realized that, I mean, I've always kind of been a talker, though low key. Anything was going to stop me from talking. I've always been a yapper. So so.
00:29:29 Grace: That.
00:29:30 Grace: I think it works in my favor because I'm, I'm. Yeah, I'm going to be the one who's going to call my friend and be like, girl, let me tell you what, you know.
00:29:37 Jeromy: You're processing it. And so you're saying you don't store stuff inside your body for too long, right? Yeah.
00:29:43 Grace: The yapping is a gift. and I've also always been a journaler too. I started journaling young, so I've always kind of been in the practice of getting it out. I took my faith seriously at nineteen, I started praying a lot. And that that was a big part of my practice too, is I was saying it out loud to God, even if I was alone in my car, I was praying. Yeah. Um, so I have never been one to keep it in, but there's some stuff like Gabriel says that is deeper than what you can talk out. And it it altered your brain. particularly if you had any trauma that happened to you before, you had language that will carry in your cells for years until you die, unless you do real, real specific work. Um, you know, that is why kids who aren't held in things like that have major attachment disorder and become murderers. because all of that happened before they had language and, it's stored in their body in ways they cannot even, access without real intentionality.
00:30:38 Jeromy: You know, but then they're, they're even looking at intergenerational trauma, right? the trauma that your great grandmother felt has been, if not dealt with physically is passed through the physical genes which. All this is mind blowing because I don't know, back when we were kids, it was like, no, you have three parts of you. You have a mind, body, soul, and they're separate. They're not connected to each other. And now we're really learning like, no, there is no separation between these things. your mind affects your body. Your body affects your mind. And to the point where trauma just travels through generational genes. that's mind blowing to me.
00:31:16 Grace: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I heard the, I heard the racist side of it, right? That black people just want to bring up every little thing as an excuse for da da da da da. And yeah, when I learned that, I was just like, man, that is that is crazy and sad. But it made sense to me because, we hear that about alcoholics that people can be born with kind of like the alcoholic gene or whatever, where they're exposed. So, I mean, it makes sense to me that trauma would be passed down through our DNA. it's sad though. It's sad, but it also feels like, okay, now we have more access to the information scientifically. there's doctors who've studied this who are helping us. Like now we have the knowledge. if you have the desire to end it, you know, to generationally end it. And, and I hope to do that.
00:31:58 Jeromy: Well, good. I love that the space you're working in and, as a black woman working in mental health advocacy, what kind of support do you think is most missing or maybe most misunderstood right now?
00:32:15 Grace: MM. That's a great question. Um, I think what's missing the most is community. But it's a more complicated answer, right? Because the way our country is set up is not set up for us to have community. Not it's not easy. Everybody has to work three jobs in order to survive. So how can you sit around with your girlfriends? Or how.
00:32:36 Jeromy: Can.
00:32:36 Grace: You share household labor, or Share the labor of taking care of children when the people who truly need community the most are suffering the hardest. So the isolation. Yeah. that's one thing I want to talk about more on my podcast and just in general is the importance of community, how much it keeps us alive and how undervalued it is. Um, doctors don't want to say that because they can't profit from it. They cannot profit from telling us to go on walks with their girlfriends and skip. There is no money in that.
00:33:07 Jeromy: Yeah. They're very yeah. If very little.
00:33:10 Grace: If your girlfriend and I'm talking about to other women, if women were to go on walks with hell, if men were to go on walks with each other and y'all were just to prance around and skip in the sunlight, y'all would.
00:33:21 Jeromy: Be filled with with dandelions. Yes.
00:33:25 Grace: You'd be less likely to pick up a gun and unalive someone If you had if men had real community. So yeah, it's just I feel like it's so undervalued, but it cannot be monetized. And so thus it will not be it will not be prioritized as a true mental health thing. but I do think that's something that I'm more and more aware of. And as we look back in history, how did, how did people survive dictators? What's happening to us now? The rise of fascism, they community liberation
00:33:53 Jeromy: You're not talking about like a, you know, go to church once a week, hang out with some people and then bounce. You're talking about like an interdependent community that really relies on each other and builds each other.
00:34:07 Grace: And they really did who, who? It wasn't his money. It wasn't her money. It was a community money. You know, it wasn't his food. It wasn't her food. It was the community food. It really is kind of the ex model, to be honest with you.
00:34:19 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:34:20 Grace: If and when we see the ex model lived out. Those communities are thriving and we can see that globally, too. Most of those communities, might I add, are matriarchies and they are led by women, which is another thing that is I would love to see happen here. I don't think it's going to happen in America in our lifetime, but it would be it would be lovely to see a women led societies. I think women would lead us back to some of these practices.
00:34:45 Jeromy: That would be.
00:34:46 Grace: Royally effed things up for us, but I don't know if we'll see that, I hope so.
00:34:53 Jeromy: No, I, I, I agree with you with community. there was a study, I think it was on a, on a podcast where they, it was a long term study that said, what's the secret to happiness And they said the people who had community, the people who had really, really good friends that they can trust and tell them almost anything. And they spent time together on a regular basis. One of the side effects of that study was they were healthier, like they lived longer, their bodies were healthier sadly, these dumb little phones, And the internet has really created isolation.
00:35:31 Grace: yeah. That's why I think women I mean, I know that's not the only reason, but it is in part why women live longer. Because we, we are able to create communities for ourselves easier than men create them for themselves.
00:35:43 Jeromy: Um, it's more acceptable in the culture for sure.
00:35:45 Grace: Yeah. And y'all do tend to isolate more and allow yourself isolated and then get depressed I just it's so important and it's something that I have invested in. I take a good amount of time, especially through the trauma that I've been through. as soon as it started getting horrible, I take an absurd amount of time to invest in my girlfriends. sometimes I look back and I'm like, dang, I really think my girlfriends have really gotten me through. So I will never, never stop yapping about the importance of having close friends, not just for women, obviously. For everybody.
00:36:20 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:36:21 Grace: Everybody needs men. Men have to put more energy and effort towards it to survive and be good humans.
00:36:29 Jeromy: So yeah. And, and intergender and interracial community too. Again, like we, we touched on how so much of what we experience in this space is really driven by fear and ignorance. so I'm gonna be honest, my acceptance for the LGBTQ plus community came through relationship, It came through being in relationship with people of that community. It came with family members becoming a part of that community. And I think it's really hard to hate people that you're friends with or that, you know. And I think the more that we can interconnect those communities, right? the more we can connect that, I think the better we'll we'll understand and be able to love each other.
00:37:21 Grace: Yeah, I agree. People are afraid of that. Afraid of what they don't know. So, uh, but if people can step out and displace themselves and go somewhere where they're not the, the majority, um, things could happen that things could happen.
00:37:40 Jeromy: so I want to give you kind of like the last, the last word here. So for someone who, who might be listening, they just feel exhausted right now in this moment, they might feel numb. what would you want them to hear?
00:37:55 Grace: Um. It's so real because we all feel that if you're if you hate what's happening in America, the exhaustion is so palpable. Yeah. I mean, I think what what I've been trying to do, what I want someone to hear is finding your own joy and peace and letting that be the anchor. And I think for those of us who've deconstructed maybe the audience that would hear, this is the audience who's here, and you have to suffer unless you unless you love the Lord, you're going to suffer. You gotta suffer through this, you know?
00:38:29 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:38:30 Grace: I have really struggled with that idea, with what's going on. Because every time I watch the news, every time I watch something like it leads to me feeling horrible, you know?
00:38:39 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:38:40 Grace: But I have realized it is okay to prioritize my peace. So whatever it is that you can do to prioritize your peace, even if that means not knowing what's going on for a day or two. It's really okay to take a weekend and not know what's going on. I did that, I think I did a three day stretch and it was so great. Like my mental health improved so significantly from just not knowing what shenanigans Trump was up to.
00:39:08 Jeromy: Yeah.
00:39:09 Grace: Yeah, three days. And I focused on community that whole I did a whole weekend.
00:39:13 Jeromy: That's cool.
00:39:14 Grace: Yeah, I hung out with my girlfriends. I did like a vision board party with some other women. I went on a date. and then I hung out with my kids. I watched a movie with my kids. I just focused on people. Um, might have even taken a bath in there, a bubble bath at some point. But the point is, is I do intentionally consider how I'm coming back to equilibrium because everything that's going on in the country is. So, uh, what's the word? I don't even know what the word is. It's it's just so troubling.
00:39:43 Jeromy: There's a lot of words.
00:39:45 Grace: Right? It's consistently troubling. And I know for me, I won't be able to survive mentally unless I am very intentional about resetting to equilibrium. So for me, that looks like, um, meditation. I do focused meditation sessions. I try to do at least once a day, like a twenty minute session at least. But I don't always every day, but I try.
00:40:08 Jeromy: Yeah. But what you're getting at is really prioritizing yourself. And, and if that means taking a break from without guilt.
00:40:18 Grace: That's the key.
00:40:19 Jeromy: Yeah. Without guilt. Yeah.
00:40:21 Grace: Without guilt. Because I, I think a lot of us who are raised as Christians, the priority, it almost feels narcissistic. It almost feels like you're, you're being narcissistic by focusing on yourself right now when the world is falling apart. And I have to literally tell myself, no, it's really okay. You really can get yourself to a feeling of joy and peace.
00:40:39 Jeromy: Yeah, Like, I have a sign in my hallway that says, um, be where your feet are.
00:40:48 Grace: Mhm.
00:40:49 Jeromy: And, there's some truth to that, but it's hard in this time right now to find that balance of wanting to be engaged, wanting to do what you can do, but also just focusing on what you can control and what you can do. And there's a lot of stuff that's just out of our control right now, and we can impact some of that. But at what point does your mental health start tanking if you get too overly engrossed? You know, it's a balance and I don't know. I don't know the answer.
00:41:19 Grace: Yeah. And figuring out, I think you should figure out what your capacity is and what your calling is. I think there are things that if I didn't do it, I would later be ashamed of myself. And that's what I've had to figure out. What is my capacity. And I'm someone who has two kids at home still, one's in high school, one elementary school. So my capacity is different than someone who doesn't have kids at home. but I'm not letting myself use that as an excuse. you should think in ten years. AM I going to be like, dang, I was scared. I was scared of doing anything else. So I used blank as an excuse. Blank as an excuse. Yeah. And that's I'm like, what, what can I do that is within my capacity that I will not later look back and be like, you are a coward. Um, when she was younger, when she was a baby, I just determined that I was not going to go to protests. Yeah. And I just I that's not my ministry right now.
00:42:10 Jeromy: Yeah. There's other ways.
00:42:12 Grace: now I'm more open to going to protest. I'm more open to even taking her, as she desires. but I don't think we should fall back on motherhood, is what I'm saying.
00:42:22 Jeromy: Grace, I, I honestly think like your voice is probably the most powerful thing that you have putting out there right now with your podcast. it is, very engaging. It is very honest, it is very raw. just keep doing as much as you can with that. There are people that are listening. And if it means that there's one person who gets changed mentally because of that, then it's worth it. I appreciate you coming on. because I think you, bring a different perspective, A different angle with your story. And that's what I love is everybody's story is so uniquely different.
00:42:57 Grace: Well thank you, I appreciate that.
00:42:59 Jeromy: Grace, Thank you for coming on and sharing your heart and your voice. Um, and, uh, God bless you. And I mean that.
00:43:06 Grace: Thank you. You too.