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If it has been a week, this episode is for you. In addition to the collective weight of living through this socio-political era, many of us are navigating interpersonal and personal hardship. Maybe it was work. Maybe it was a relationship. Maybe it was the weight of simply being a Black woman in spaces that were not built to hold you.

But here's what we're moving away from today: the idea that we to surrender our peace and calm to the hard things. No, sis! Today, I'm giving you six strategies to help you shake the dust off your spirit and get back to it.

Six Practices to Reset and Recalibrate:

1. Name what's real - Give yourself permission to be honest about what happened before jumping to gratitude (Psalm 142:1-2).
2. Return to your body - Rough weeks often live below the neck. Rest, move, eat, breathe. Physical care is spiritual care (1 Kings 19:5-8).
3. Tell yourself the truth about yourself - Not what the week said about you, but what God says about you (Psalm 139:14).
4. Reconnect with your why - A hard week cannot touch your calling (Jeremiah 29:11).
5. Do one small, sacred thing - Sometimes, just one intentional act can lead to the reset you're seeking. (Lamentations 3:22-23).
6. Get up - Know the difference between resting and ruminating. When you shift your body, you shift your atmosphere (John 5:8).

The Challenge: Pick ONE of these six practices and do it TODAY. Not this week. Not when things slow down. Today. Because the goal is not to recover from hard weeks faster - it's to be so rooted that hard weeks meet a woman who is already grounded.

great!b thank you!

10:19 PM

You're so welcome, sister!

I'm so glad I could help! You're building something truly beautiful and powerful with A Wide Open Space. Every episode is giving Black women the spiritual depth, practical tools, and permission they need to flourish.

Whenever you're ready to work on the next episode or anything else for the podcast, I'm here! Keep making your mark, Dean! 🎤✨🙌

Sonnet 4.5

Connect With Me

Want to go deeper? Visit www.revneichelle.com to explore my work, my ministry, and how we can grow together.

Let’s stay connected! Follow me on Instagram and Substack for more inspiration and continued conversation.

Ready to transform? Apply for coaching - I work with ambitious Black women who are ready to partner with God to create lives they love.

Questions? Feedback? Just want to say hello? Drop me a line - I’d love to hear how this podcast is landing in your life!

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… and more Lessons from Walk Through Fire by Sheila Johnson

Book: Walk Through Fire by Sheila Johnson

Happy Women’s History Month! This month is an extension of Black History Month for me - we continue celebrating the lives, legacies, contributions, and stories of Black women. In this special episode, I’m sharing lessons I took from Sheila Johnson’s memoir Walk Through Fire - the story of America’s first Black female billionaire and co-founder of BET.

This isn’t a typical episode, but I wanted stay in your ear and share some powerful insights from a Black woman’s story. Sheila Johnson’s journey - from a traumatic 35-year marriage to building a new life as a hospitality industry titan - offers so much wisdom about healing, identity-making, and becoming.

Key Lessons Shared:
1.The power of a measured response - How to respond to provocations and insecurities without losing your dignity

2.Use your single years wisely - Single seasons are for exploring your childhood stories, clarifying your identity and needs, and learning to love your own company - not just healing from the last relationship

3.Be discerning about whose advice you take - Some people will advise you out of their own spiritual deficit and unhealed experiences

4.Honor your journey, even as you take it - Accept your story for what it is, own it, but also recognize when “I’m not ready” becomes the thing keeping you stuck in trauma

5.Life is sometimes a matter of inches - Celebrate your process and growth as it happens, don’t despise small steps and small wins

6.The power of creating something - How creation becomes part of healing and identity-making. We don’t have to wait on God to perform miracles when the revelation is in what we create one step at a time

Plus: Updates on upcoming events including the Skylark documentary screening with Dr. Yanique Redwood (March 22, Atlanta), Seven Last Words service at Ebenezer Baptist Church (Good Friday), and the Greater Allen Cathedral Women’s Conference (April 9-11, Brooklyn).

Connect With Me

Want to go deeper? Visit www.revneichelle.com to explore my work, my ministry, and how we can grow together.

Let’s stay connected! Follow me on Instagram and Substack for more inspiration and continued conversation.

Ready to transform? Apply for coaching - I work with ambitious Black women who are ready to partner with God to create lives they love.

Questions? Feedback? Just want to say hello? Drop me a line - I’d love to hear how this podcast is landing in your life!

Text Me!

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:11 - "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart."

Summary: Are you sensing something shifting inside you even though nothing has changed on the outside? This episode is for you. I'm talking about the invisible shift - that inner transformation that happens before anything changes in your circumstances. The shift in how you feel, how you think, how you show up, before your life reflects that change.

Drawing parallels to the Invisible Institution (enslaved people's secret worship that laid the groundwork for the Black Church), nature's underground growth patterns, and my own story of sensing a job ending weeks before it happened, I explore how God transforms us from the inside out. The inner knowing that comes before outer transition. The spiritual preparation that happens underground before anything breaks through the soil.

I share what happened when I tried to negotiate with my spirit's warning instead of surrendering to it, and why the invisible shift is actually God's mercy - giving us time to prepare internally for external change we can't yet see.

Exercise: The Noticing Practice - (1) Notice the inner shift (what's changing in how you feel, think, show up), (2) Sit with it (what is this shift trying to tell you?), (3) Practice surrender (where are you negotiating instead of trusting?).

Connect With Me

Want to go deeper? Visit www.revneichelle.com to explore my work, my ministry, and how we can grow together.

Let’s stay connected! Follow me on Instagram and Substack for more inspiration and continued conversation.

Ready to transform? Apply for coaching - I work with ambitious Black women who are ready to partner with God to create lives they love.

Questions? Feedback? Just want to say hello? Drop me a line - I’d love to hear how this podcast is landing in your life!