Welcome to Renovating the Soul Podcast. I'm your host, Alexandria Robinson, and I am so excited and so thankful that you are listening to the very first episode of Renovating the Soul Podcast. Y'all, this is months in the making for me. I have gone back and forth about do I try this thing, do I not? It's kind of been a not a scary process, but anything new that you're stepping into can be really daunting. And I'm gonna be honest with y'all up front, I am learning as I go, so please be patient with me. I would love your feedback as we go. So please um comment. Uh you can follow us on Instagram, renovating the soul, and you can leave comments, DM me. You can find me on Instagram at lovesandria with the Z Z A N D R I A. But please send your feedback, give me questions, let me know how you guys are liking it, what you want me to talk about. I am open. In this first episode, we're gonna talk more about what does it mean to be renovating the soul? What does that mean? It's not just a cute title or catchy, you know, title just to pull people in, but there is a meaning behind it, and the meaning behind it is the direction that we want to go in for this podcast. And before we can talk about renovating the soul, we really need to talk about do we have souls? You know, some people out there do believe that we do not have souls, and I am not one of those people. I do believe that we have a soul, and so you can see my physical body, right? You can touch me, you can pinch me, you can feel my hair, right? And you can identify these parts of me. But when it comes to my soul, you can't actually see my soul. You see Alexandria when you see me, but you don't necessarily see the depths of my soul. It's not something that you can touch, but the soul is so important because it holds our sensations, it holds our thoughts, it holds our beliefs, it holds our desires, it it holds those parts of us um that guide us in how we respond, right? And how we show up and how we live our life. It how what you believe is so important, and those beliefs, again, they're not tangible. I can you can't touch the belief that I have that you know I'm not a good singer or whatever. That's probably not a good example, but I'm not a good singer, so there you go, you learned something about me. But you can't touch that belief, right? That's uh something that's held within me, and so our soul is very important, right? This um it works in such an intricate way. So when we go to engage in various acts of introspection, when I'm really trying to figure out what's going on inside of me, and we say things like our heart, but you know that your heart is not what holds your emotions, your heart is an organ, it is an actual human organ that can come out of your body that pumps blood and keeps you alive. But we have this idea right of the heart that it holds our emotions and and it and and it gives us these responses to how people treat us romantically or otherwise, right? Well, those emotions are truly not in the the organ called the heart, but it's in our soul, and so when we're referring to like, oh, you have my heart, or you you know, which we're trying to say, right? You have my love, you have my affection, you have my emotions, those things again are holding our soul, held in our soul, excuse me. And so I'm I'm saying that because again, there are people out there who believe that we as humans do not have a soul, and I am not one of them, obviously, because the podcast has called Renovating the Soul. But I think it's important for us to have a good understanding of what the soul is and um some of the things that it encompasses. Now, again, no, I didn't say this already, but you don't have to just take my word for it. This is not something that Alexandria has made up. Um, there are studies on this, right? And so I can I'll put some links in the description box for you. But I think the first thing that I really wanted to start off talking about was you know, we do have a soul, right? And our soul holds our mind. Think about it, our thoughts, right? You can't touch my thoughts, you know. And again, we talk about the brain, but the brain has literal functions, and when you go to take out my brain, you are not touching my thoughts. I hope that makes sense. Like, you are not taking out my brain and touching my thoughts and my ideas and my imagination and my creativity. You're not touching that when you touch my brain. Why? Because those things are held in my soul. Um, and depending on what your different beliefs are, I believe that one day my soul will go on and live forever. And so, because of that being a central belief for me, I believe that it's not just important to take care of our our our bodies, right? Or um just to take care of you know my hair, my physical appearance, but it's important that I take care of my soul. Because if my soul is really this responsible for how I respond to people, for my emotions, for my thoughts, for my beliefs, if my soul is the part of me that and it's the depth of me, and I can't necessarily touch it, and I can't necessarily go in there and start operating and fix whatever's going on with me, right? Then I need to be paying more attention to what is happening on the inside of me than what is happening necessarily on the outside. And I think we talk about that all the time, right? You know, you hear your more than your looks and you know, all these kind of these things that we talk about, but I don't know that we break down enough what it looks like to be working on the intricate parts of us. And I as I said in my trailer, it's not easy, it's hard, it's exhausting, and I'm saying that from experience, and I'm not I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer about it, but it is a it is a process to constantly be looking inward at the areas of you that hurt, to constantly be looking inward and have to go back to childhood and remember certain things that have happened, right? Or constantly be um checking yourself, right? When thoughts pop up and and you're wondering why am I jealous of this person or why am I really struggling with letting this go? Um, I watch a lot of documentaries. I won't, I won't, I won't tell them myself yet and say what kind, but I watch a lot of documentaries, and the other day I was watching one, and the lady said, I I don't understand how people could be so evil. I wish she said, I wish that people would deal with what's going on inside of them instead of taking it out on other people. And so she was specifically talking about jealousy because unfortunately her sister was killed by someone who was jealous and just vindictive and nasty. And oftentimes we hear stories like that, it doesn't always lead to death, right? But when we are not checking what's going on inside of us, it can lead to detrimental things, even again, if it's not literal murder of another person, you know how you've heard you're I'm dying on the inside, or people who are in a constant cycle of depression or just in a constant cycle of anxiety, right? Where do those things stem from? It stems from what's going on inside of us, inside of our minds, inside of our beliefs, inside of our thought process. What is this cycle, this hold that is that life has on me? Why can't I seem to figure it out? And so that is why it's really important to first have a good, healthy understanding of what our souls are and what is all involved in our souls. But again, we pass on the misconceptions like the children, we have them draw the heart and we say we ask them what is in this heart, right? And and and we think that in that heart it holds our love and our affections towards other people. And so if I continue to go on ignoring the fact that my heart is not the place where those affections are held, but instead of my in my soul. And if I go on thinking that I could just wake up one day and automatically become the person that I want to be, when life starts to life, y'all know that that you know, y'all know when life starts life in, right? But when life starts to happen, you quickly drop, you quickly go downhill. Why? Because we have not really dealt with the fact that we don't wake up tomorrow and become the person that we want to be. You have to put in the work, you have to do the hard work, and that's what I've come to learn on my journey. It's not about things. I want to be clear. I'm not telling you to grab another journal, I'm not telling you to go out and start a blog, I'm not telling I'm not, I'm not really saying to go start to do certain things because you can do the things you can journal, you can go to therapy, you can go to a group, you can get some new friends, you can cut some people off, you can protect your peace, you can do all the things that you want to do, and you can still sit in your house and be the same old person. You can be the same old person. Why? Because you never really did the work to look inward at what is going on with you. You never really did to the work to get beyond the surface level and to look within and to ask yourself what is happening in my soul. Why why am I so tired all the time or so frustrated or happy? You know, you might be happy, you might be a happy girl. I don't want to make it seem like everything's all bad. I just know that it's it's harder to deal with the troubles of life than it is to deal when life is bliss. So that's why a lot of my examples are what they are, not to try to be negative or make this like a rain on rain on somebody's parade type of um first episode. I promise it won't always be like this. And I said we're gonna have fun and it is gonna be practical because I do believe in being practical, so I will share the things that I've done. I think my point is that it's not all about the things, and sometimes we get caught up on only doing the things, and we expect that the things are going to change us and they don't. And when they don't is when the frustration creeps in, and then what happens is you stop journaling, you stop going to church, um, you stop hanging out with certain people, you stop eating certain things, you stop drinking, you stop smoking, you stop doing the things, and then when nothing starts to change, there's a couple of feelings that creep in. You feel guilty because oh man, I haven't been journaling, or I slipped and I had a drink of alcohol, or man, I caved in and I text that person who I felt was toxic, but they're really fun to hang out with. Like whatever the the things are, when you stop doing it, you start to that that guilt starts to creep in, and then you go back to doing it thinking that it's gonna have some effect or it's gonna change, and then it doesn't. And then you're back in the same cycle. And I'm speaking from experience because I was a person who thought that the things really change you, and um in the next episode, I'll share more about my background and my story and you know where I came from. It's nothing really dramatic, but I I grew up primarily in church, and so we what were we taught? Read your Bible, go to church, don't have sex, um, you know, obey your parents, really obey all your elders. Well, we can get into that later, but obey your parents, right? Do all of these things. And I was the the I was good for the most part. I was I'm the only girl, so I got away with a lot. Sorry, mom and dad, but I did. Um, and so I was the the I was that person. I was that, you know, especially as a kid. Okay, I'm gonna read and I'm gonna do this, and then in high school, right? You become in those teenage years, and it's time for you to take your faith so seriously. And so I start doing all the things only to get to a place where life hits hard, and none of the things can sustain me. That's what I'm saying. Is that you get hit with life with something like a ton of bricks, and you're like, How the heck am I supposed to figure this one out? Like, how do I get out of this? Because none of the things seem to be helping me stay grounded in this moment, none of the things are helping with my patience or how to defuse a certain situation or how do I walk away. Like, none of the things are really doing much for me. And again, I'm not saying that the things, whatever it is, right, doesn't work. What I am saying is that we need to stop looking at just the symptoms of what's happening to us and we need to get to the root, and the root and the core of us is our soul. Who are you is not about um your ethnicity or your age or your job or your education. When I say who are you, I'm like, who are you in the inside? Who makes up that person? What is in your soul? What what does your soul look like if it could have a physical appearance, right? Like, who who are you in the depths of you? Cause you can scream and say, I am confident and courageous, and and now affirmations is a huge thing, right? Of saying things over and over and over again, and that's beautiful and that's wonderful. But again, I could say that I am one thing all day, but because I'm not doing any introspective work and really looking at who I am right now or who I've been, I'm gonna be on the same path because I'm not live really looking inward at the soul to say, you know what, you're saying that you're a good friend, but really deep down inside you struggle with opening up or whatever it is, right? Like, you know, jealousy is a big one that people often do not recognize and do not admit that they are jealous and what it is. And so I've over the years been doing really hard work. I started this early on, not I don't have a name for it. I don't I don't know what really possessed me to start doing it. Actually, I kind of do, and we'll talk about it um in a couple later episodes. I kind of do know what what made me start doing this. It's something that I uh that happened to me in college that I uh like a little system, like a little the thing I came up with or whatever. Um, but anyways, that's kind of where that started, and then from there I also started looking at how people treated me. I started looking at how what people said or did affected me and how I didn't want to be those people. But then what happened was I was becoming those people, and I had to stop and I had to admit the hard fact that the very people I was trying not to be like, I was becoming because it wasn't enough to just say I don't want to be that person or I don't want to be like those family members or I don't want to be like what hurt me. It's easy to say that, but if I'm actually not paying attention moment by moment to my actions, to what I say, to what I do, then you become what has happened to you because you start to repeat what you've seen and what's been done to you because you're not teaching yourself or you're not learning any other way to do it. I really hope this is making sense. You're not really expanding your mind, right? Or your soul or your thoughts, you're staying in the same old thing, the same old thing, expecting for change, and change does not come from just doing the same thing. So I know that was probably a lot, but that is what renovating the soul is about. That's one aspect of it. Really looking at our souls, right, and understanding how important our souls are to our lives, that we can't keep blaming the job and the people and the family members and the kids and mom life and dad life and boy life and girl life. We can't go on and keep blaming all the systems and ever and everybody else and playing the victim. You realize that once you start doing the the work of looking inward and really trying to renovate that soul, when once you start to actually do that work, it becomes hard to blame other people for your problems. It really does because you've already started looking at yourself and going, Okay, okay, this is how I talk to myself. I'd be like, Okay, girl, you're mad. Why are you mad? Okay, I am married, I've been married for six years, I'm married to my high school sweetheart, and again, and this, and we guys gotta listen to the next episode to hear a little more about me. But I often, he's the first person that I take a lot of my frustrations out on, and I don't always recognize it, or I always I don't always admit it first. He'll be the one to say, Hey, you're being kind of rude, like or hey, what's wrong with you? And then I'll then I and I have and I'll say nothing to him, right? I'll be like, nothing, but then I have to ask myself, okay, no, something is wrong. What is it? What is wrong? And then and then I start to identify I'm either mad about something that maybe he did that I just have unspoken within me, or I'm frustrated about something in my own life, and honestly, eight times out of ten, it's something going on with me that I'm taking out on him, and that's what keeps happening in our entire world. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about because people constantly project their feelings, their emotions, their frustrations onto you or someone else or their kids, their their pets, they're they're on social media. Look how many people project on social media in the comments, right? Why do people come back to people and say, Wow, you must be really unhappy with your life? Why is that a saying to people? Because you have to be, I don't want to say you have to be, but a lot of times people are so frustrated within that they don't, and when they're not identifying it, they have no other choice but to take it out. That misery, that loneliness has no choice but to start to seep out, and that's what I did not want to be. I did not want to be someone's misery. I did not and I do not want to be the thing that hurts people because I'm not recognizing what is happening within me. I didn't want to go uh walking around life, leaving a trail of pain and hurt and frustration on other people because I haven't done with Alexand dealt with Alexandria. Now, this is not saying that I am perfect, this is not an act of trying to be perfect because we are never gonna be perfect and we're not gonna get right, right? But it is to say I do believe that you can lead a healthier life. I can't stake I now you guys will learn about me too. I won't I can't promise you all anything, I can't promise you all anything, and I won't. That's just me. I I'm I I don't like to promise people things, right? Because you just never know what can happen in life. But I do believe from seeing the things that I have done and seeing the people that really practice this, that you can lead a healthier life. It may not and does not guarantee that you'll be happy all the time. I don't know your financial situation, I don't know you know what life has thrown at you. So I can't guarantee that it will make you happy, but it will make you healthy. And I know that when you when you are healthy, when you feel healthy on the inside, that does affect your emotions and how you see life and your perspective, uh a day-to-day, right? So I'm again, I I'm I'm so excited to be bringing what I hope to be fresh and what I hope to be um just a little more intentional than what is out there and what I hope to challenge you. I've always been a challenger. I've always been not the car, okay. I felt like that that was a moment where somebody laughed, like, oh she's the car. Um, but no, like I feel like I've always been that challenger where I've uh pushed people, right? And I've and I don't want to say sometimes I do project when I'm learning something new. I want people to learn it too because I'm seeing how much it has changed my life. And I'm not projecting on you all, but I am challenging the masses and anyone who's gonna listen because I do believe that we can have a healthier society of people when we start to do the hard work of understanding who we are. So we're gonna talk about some really good topics um in this first season. Like I said, the next episode will be learning more about me. Um, later on, we are gonna talk about you know being the victim. We're gonna talk about how to grieve relationships, right? That's a hard part of um who we who what shapes us, right? Like it's The hard part of what shapes us. So those are just a few things that we're going to talk about. But I'm really excited to be on this journey with you all. And one of the last pieces that I that I wanted to talk about, which is kind of obvious in itself, but I still I still love the play on the words. So I do want to end our time talking about the renovation piece of it. Um, because I do believe that there are tools out there, there are practical things that you can do, like I said, and I will be providing you resources so that you don't think I'm just making all of this stuff up. And I'll be sure to let you all know um, you know, what what resources I'm using, what books I've read, and again, ask me questions, any follow-up, I will respond back to you. I'll address it in you know another podcast if I need to, but I really want to make sure that it's um as practical and resourceful for you all as it can be. So I will be doing that. Um, but the last part that I want to talk about uh was like the the renovating part, the the the fun part of it all, right? And so I do watch a lot of HG TV shows, but I actually heard this in something my husband was saying where he said we should be renovating the soul, and I just I loved that. And he wrote this paper where he said it in there too, and I just loved that idea because I think right now there's a heavy emphasis on like tearing apart and trying to destroy, and I've tried to do that too. I've tried to just be like, I'ma just throw that idea away and I'ma just get rid of those people, and it doesn't work, it does not work, but what I realized is I can't change my childhood, I can't change my past, I can't change how people have hurt me. I I can't even change how I've hurt other people, okay? So let's not act like we're like again, I'm not uh I'm not a victim. I have hurt people, I've done things that I regret, right? But I can't change some of those things now. It doesn't mean that you can't apologize. Again, we'll talk about accountability later. I want to be clear, but certain things, right, that uh that have been handed to me that have been done, I cannot change. I cannot unfortunately repair them. I can't unforget them. There's no machine that's gonna make me unforget. Is unforget a word? Y'all are gonna learn. I make a word sometimes, but I cannot go back and erase right memories and things that have happened. There's no machine for that, to my knowledge. However, what I can do is take what has happened to me and build from there, and that's the whole idea, right? Of the renovation process. When you are renovating a house, you are or a space, right? Doesn't have to be a house, but when you are renovating something, you are repairing it and improving it, right? You are taking what has been broken or damaged or outdated and you're bringing it um uh uh back to to life again, bring you you're giving it newness again. And there was this definition where it says to making something new or bringing something back to life, and I just love that because if you can just picture that with me, that renovating your soul is not always it's not always taking things and throwing things away, and it's harder when you're talking about the soul than when you're talking about the house, because when you do have a house, you do have to sometimes, you know, demolish things, right? And get rid of some old things and then bring the new things in. But then there are other times where if you watch a lot of HG HG TV like I do, that's got that could be a tongue twister. But if you watch a lot of HG TV like I do, then sometimes they keep what's already in there, and again, they'll paint it, they'll bring it, they'll give it new handles, right? Or they'll take the carpet up and they'll leave the floors that were already there and just buffer them. And so when we're talking about renovating our soul, we're not talking about you know just demolishing and getting rid of everything because that's almost an impossible task when it comes to our memories, again, our experiences, our emotions. You can't just rip them up and throw them away like you can a piece of paper. But what we can do is we can look at the areas of our lives and we can work on improving by constantly learning and growing, right? By constantly, consistently, intentionally learning and growing. Your soul is not gonna be revived or renovated by just sitting and being in the same old space doing the same old thing, right? It takes work, and just like a renovation, it takes hard work, sweat, blood, tears. I'm not saying y'all gonna have to do all that, but you get what I'm saying. It's like, well, I hope you get what I'm saying, is that it is gonna take work, and a lot of times we do not want to do the work. We want to run away, we want to do what's easy, we want to blame other people, we want to do the hour therapy session and then leave therapy and never look at what's going on or just do the one task that's assigned to us from therapy, but not go any deeper. When do you take your life in your hands and say, you know what? I've had enough. I want to be this person, and I know that I cannot become that person by just sleeping and waking up that I have to take life by the handles, and I have the power to be able to start renovating my soul. It's just such a beautiful idea when you can look at life and say I don't have to just lay here and let things happen to me, but that I can be a responsible and active participant in my life and I can do the work to have a healthy soul. I hope y'all can hear my passion for this topic. I really think it's gonna be a wonderful journey if you just stick around, and I am so just so so excited again to be welcoming y'all to Renovating the Soul Podcast. And I just encourage you guys again if you have any questions for me, if you have any topics you want me to talk about, if you have any follow-up questions from this episode, please let me know. But y'all, we are doing the work, we are doing the work no matter how hard it is, and we are doing the work to really for a healthy soul. So, thank you all for tuning in to this first episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it, and I hope you will stay on this journey with me as we are renovating our souls. Until next time.