In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast

How Reverend Aleechea Pitts Is Changing the Conversation Around Trauma and Forgiveness

July 27, 2021 Bettina M. Brown Season 2 Episode 86
In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast
How Reverend Aleechea Pitts Is Changing the Conversation Around Trauma and Forgiveness
Show Notes Transcript

Where is God?

This is part of the discussion Reverend Pitts one evening.   She described her experience with trauma growing up, and how her relationship with God led her to forgiveness and peace.

But, she is not a passive woman, she absolutely describes her feelings, experiences and observations with kindness and frankness.

"Will you be made whole?"

This is a decision, and she goes into detail on how every decision is important. I absolutely enjoyed our time together, and you will also!


Learn more about Rev. Pitts, her books and connect with her via social apps:






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[00:00:10] Bettina M Brown: Hello, Hello and welcome to In the Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina and I am so excited to have you here today. I love to talk about living a life that's really in alignment with our hopes, our dreams, and our purpose, so that we are inspirational and inspiring to those around us. And basically, walking away from that shame blame game that really does absolutely nothing, probably worse than nothing.

It is negative. It pulls us in the wrong direction for our life. I'd like to start off my sessions by saying that I am not a licensed counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist, but I am a healthcare professional and a certified life coach who just really loves to figure out what makes us tick and with. With that idea, I have had really just the pleasure of interviewing Reverend Alicia Pitts, who is a phenomenal woman with regards to what she's doing now, how she is using her authority and her belief in God to live in her purpose right now and transform the lives of many people and the lives of women, especially those who've had trauma throughout their childhood.

And she goes into a little bit more detail in the story and. I am so excited to have you listen to our interview today, so well, welcome Alicia. Thank you Reverend Alicia Pitts to, to in The Rising Podcast. Welcome to my show today. 

[00:01:40] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:42] Bettina M Brown: Well, I'm really excited that I have a reverend on my show.

You're the first one, and you know, also, not only Reverend, but also. Female reverend, you know? Yes. And I did do some of my own research into your books that you were on a role publishing and you know, you shared some of your story. And, and to me, you said you that survivor is an understatement. You said, I'm living a life with clarity, truth, courage, and resilience.

And I stopped at that word resilience because that means to be elastic, to return to shape after an insult. So, tell me a little bit like what events happened in your life to allow you to be so elastic? 

[00:02:30] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: Well, experienced a lot of childhood trauma being molested at the ages of seven, 11 and 14. Being held by gunpoint by one of my molesters at the age of 14.

Experiencing rejection as a young child. I knew my family loved me, but I was always during that time of my life looking for the outside acceptance. Mm-hmm. And so you know, going through those things after a while I. You have to have some type of elasticity. Right. It's kind of like that adage bend, but don't break.

Mm-hmm. You know, and it is because of my spirituality and my walk with the Lord that I'm so resilient, you know? And I, I always like to put this disclaimer out there that I haven't dotted every I and crossed every t. But one things for certain, two things are for sure. When I came to myself always pursued God, I always went back to him.

[00:03:34] Bettina M Brown: Yeah. And I just finished interviewing someone who had a lot of trauma, a lot of trauma in life, and actually my last two guests really went back to. God, you know, so I'm a, I'm a life coach. I'm actually a Christian life coach. It's my, it's my view. It is I'm always upfront with people with that.

Mm-hmm. I understand it's not for everyone, but especially when you're going through trauma, after trauma and drama after drama, sometimes the question can be, how, how is it that looking to something bigger than you is helpful? How, how would you answer that? No one 

[00:04:11] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: can take your experience away from you.

Yeah. You know, we, we have pe we have the atheist, right? That says there is no God. And I remember looking at God's not dead. And, and the boy popped the question to the professor, like, if you don't believe in God, why are you mad at him? How you going to believe in how you going to be mad at something that you don't believe in?

And so no one can take that experience away from you. I know that, know that God is real. I, I encountered him. At a very young age, my mother will tell you I was a different type of child. Like I remember singing songs unto God until I fell asleep when I was around like 14 years old, wanting to be in church and would cry if I couldn't go to church.

It was just something that he put in in me and not realizing when I was trying to fit in and trying to be accepted by people that he had. Set me apart for such a time as this. And it's ironic that even when I was in grade school, they were calling me Pastor Pitts then. And so here it is, you know, 

[00:05:19] Bettina M Brown: that was a foreshadowing for what was to come, right?

Yes. So, so now as a pastor, you, you have this walk with God, you move forward. And you're resilient. But how, when you talk about rejection, if, when people have bad things happen to them, sometimes they do feel that God is rejecting them, they're walking closer and he's turning around. How, how do you speak 

[00:05:43] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: to that?

I think with, with, with that, sometimes the way we feel or think about things are not necessarily the truth. God is always there many times. We separate ourselves from him, like you said, dealing with tragedy. Sometimes we blame God for different things that have happened to us. You know, here's, here's the end, that cliche again.

Why do bad things happen to good people? And God has nothing to do with that. As human beings, we can be innate, innately evil. If we don't have Christ in our life, right? The, the scripture says that the heart is desperately working. Who could know it? And so if, if, if we don't have God in our lives, it ain't no telling what we can, what we will and what we will not do.

And so God didn't do those things. To you, it was people, people. And who knows, they could have been abused when they were younger, right? Hurt people. Hurt people. And, and so we, God has nothing to do with that. It, it was those people that did that to you. So God is always there and so all we have to do is.

Just like me and you are conversing right now, we can have that same conversation. And I always tell people, you know prayer, prayer, praise and worship is a great stress reliever, right? When you go before God, you don't have to worry about judgment. I remember I was going through something and I was like, God, it seemed like they don't understand.

And he spoke to me just as clear as they, and he said, they're not supposed to know that I understand you. Right. There's just some things people are just not going to understand unless they have been through some type of, of similar situation. Yeah. 

[00:07:38] Bettina M Brown: And, and speaking to that, you know, the more people I talk to, The more I realize some of our childhoods, it's, it's almost like you deserve a gold medal to get through your childhood for, for a lot of us, because it is so brutal.

We talk about our inner child. When we go to therapy, we often talk about our childhood. Mm-hmm. What do you feel could be, you know, that you're, you've gone through the events that you've gone through. You now are reverend you're tea, you're, you're, you're praising his name, you're moving forward and also talking to people who.

You may or may not know are doing or going through the same thing you're going through now, how do you feel that those experience shape how you're able to speak from a human 

[00:08:21] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: standpoint? I'm able to relate. Yes. And many times that's what people are looking for. They're looking for someone that they can relate to.

Talking to God is good, but then also God made us social beings, right? So every now and again, I got to lay my eyes on somebody to be able to, to be able to share my heart with, with, with an individual. And we, we just, You know, we have to look within ourselves. And I know it's hard and I always tell people this, like, you know, we are stuck with the way we feel.

Mm-hmm. And so that's why we, that's why we have to make choices and, and decisions intentionally. So. Because your feelings can lead you down the road that you, that you don't want to go. Right? And here it is again, your feelings are, is, is not always necessarily the truth, you know, especially when you experience childhood trauma and stuff as a child, some of the things that have happened to you, your mind can't even wrap around what has really happened to you.

Until you get older, right? I didn't really start hashing out my demons and stuff till like I was in my mid twenties. I'm 47 now, you know? And so, you know, all of those, the, all of those different variables. And so it has to come to a point like Jesus told the man at the pool. Will you be may whole? Because some of us, we stay stuck and we'll, we'll continue to keep pointing the finger at people saying, well, this is, this is why I am the way that I am.

And, and, and, and really all of it is, is a, is an excuse because now once you become of age, once you know better now how your life is going is based on decisions and choices that you've made and you can't keep using. A bad parent and, and all these different things as an scapegoat as to why you can't function, you know?

And, and so you have to be able to, to be able to do that work. Want to do the work. Cuz this is what I tell, cause I counsel people and I say, look. Don't come to me if you're not ready to do the work. Cause I don't want you wasting my time and don't waste yours either because I can advise you all day long.

But it's up to you to, and this is what a lot of times what happens, people are going to, whoever will listen. But there, there's no application. You know, there's no application. And, and honestly, some don't want to be healed because they like the attention. It gives them an excuse to an excuse to act the way they act, you know?

But when you really want to be free of something, just like we do whatever we want to do, when we get ready to do it, we will do that work to bring about wholeness. Even myself, even most recently, I I was talking to a psychotherapist and, and God has a funny way with me. I didn't get the counseling that I needed when I was a child.

And so now I'm, I'm well past grown and God says, I'm allow you to have this. And when I was talking to the therapist, it was funny because she said she said, you've done an excellent job, you know, through your relationship with, with God of coming to a place of healing. And so, one day we were talking and she said, Who's the therapist?

Me or you, you know? But I think it was just something God said, look, I, I know you know, you should have had this when you were younger and now I'm giving you that opportunity to, to do that. And it's okay cause sometimes, especially in the black church, You know, people want to prayer and all that stuff is good, but then God gives these therapists and different ones, he gives them the gift to help you, right?

So, you can get to some of the root of the problem. I remember telling some of my members, I said, look, go, go lay up on some somebody somebody's couch, you know, so you can get to the root of it. And some people got offended, you know? But if you really want to behold you, you have to use the resources and the tools that's available.

Available to you. Like if, if I see something on fire and I have access to water, why not put the fire out? Right. You know? And so and, and a lot of times, you know, it's, it's the, the most simplest things that we miss that are actually very necessary. 

[00:12:42] Bettina M Brown: Yes. Yes. And I, I really, I what I heard that message from you, you said that there has to be action.

Yes. And, and in a conversation with someone, we talked about hope, but this person described hope as not just some fufu thing. It is action, it is forward momentum, but in that action, it is not always pretty. And, you know, we love to be with God when he says, you know, feels good, feels good. But there's also confrontation sometimes of your own situation.

And when you're, you know, you said you didn't have access to a lot of, you know, counseling when you were younger, but when you were telling the events of your story, I noticed you were telling it like a story. And I, I read this from It's called The Body Keeps the Score. I forget, it's a Dr. Folk and he talks about the body.

You know, you stay in that, you feel it as though it's happening right now. And you know when you have healed, when you can tell it like a story, like, like it has a beginning and middle and end instead of like, you're right back into it where your heart's going. If you didn't have access to, you know, counseling where a lot of people think of what did, what did you have access to?

[00:13:56] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: Or was it really just your relationship with God? Honestly, it was really my relationship with the Lord. Because you're, you're talking about seven, 11 and 14 dealing with, with suicide ideation and, and all these things. And just like you just said, I teach that like if you can't tell your story without being emotional then there's healing that still needs to take place.

You know, and honestly, I. I've written five books, but I had wrote two books and then in the span of 20 years I didn't write anything. And then the next book that I wrote, which was in 2018, was dealing with forgiveness. It was dealing with forgiveness and how I even wrote that book, it came out of a conversation and, and the chancellor, I was a adjunct professor of a leadership institute, and she said, you always talking about forgiveness.

Why not write about it? You know, and so for the first time, Far as publicly really going into depths of sharing my story. And it was, it was so liberating. But at the same time it was like, my mom was like, okay, so when did you know she had all of these questions? Because she was like, okay, I didn't know this.

You know, but it, it was a liberating thing because as I always say, who better to tell your story than you? You know, who's better to tell your story than you? And Again, I know it sounds religious, but I promise you it was all, it was all God. It was the Lord, the Lord that that did it. But again, I had to acknowledge I had a problem.

Yeah, right. I had the knowledge that I had a problem, and then I had to do that in a work. E the self-care is the best care, right? Self-care is the best care. And so, like I was telling you when I was in my mid twenties and you know, battling, being dealing with self-acceptance, no self-esteem, and I, I basically just came to a resolver with myself and I said, you know what?

Alicia, you know, you ain't no bad person. And so you know, whoever going to come in your life, they either going to love you for you, and if they don't, then they can keep on moving, you know? And I held on, that was a piece that I had to do. I had to make that resolve within my, within my, myself, and a lot of, a lot of people.

You know, and this is why I say the decisions you make in life can be life changing. Mm-hmm. And some of us, we, we are stuck in the mode of regret and all these different things because of decisions that, that we've made. And what happens is and, and, and then the other part of forgiveness is self-forgiveness.

So now we ha we may have done some idiotic things and maybe someone was not willing to give us forgiveness, which now has us in that mode of condemnation, has us in that mode of, of guilt and all these different, you know, and all these different things. So now what we have to do is we have to be mindful of what we're doing because.

We we're asking, God, will God forgive me? You know, and God, and I'm saying this facetiously, but God sometimes he's like, I don't even know what you talking about. I, I cast, I, I done forgot about it. You know? And, but we're stuck with the memory of it. And so that's why we had to be mindful of what we're doing, because we're going to be stuck with the, the memory of, of what we have done.

And a lot of times that plays a part. In our self-esteem because self-esteem is, is how you feel about yourself. Right? And only, only you know who you really are. You know, because we matter of fact I just preached at a women's conference and the theme was Take off the mask. It's time to reveal the real you.

And everybody at some point in time has had a mask on. You know, you know, you wasn't feeling it, but you put on that smiley face, oh, I'm blessed in highly favored of the Lord, you know, whatever. You know, and really down on the inside you was hurting, and you was not able to express what you really needed to express to, to relieve you of that, that pain, right?

[00:18:05] Bettina M Brown: And you, you made some really great points in there. I was taking my little notes here because you talked about self-care is really the best care, but I know as a woman you know, and then there's that verse, you know, love others the way you love yourself. That whole thing. Sometimes not, sometimes often I see it.

Mm-hmm. I am I would, I'd probably be the president of that club where self-care was the last thing I did. Yes. Can you share a little bit what you view on what self-care is? Is it just the bathtub and the candles or what that really is and, and why it's important? 

[00:18:41] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: It's not just about the, the, the, the, the candles and different things of that nature.

Mental, emotional, socially, all those things. You, you have to come to a, a place to hold. This is how I always like to say it many times. We try to be heroes to other people when we ourselves need to be saved, right? Mm-hmm. And I have to go scripture where Jesus told Peter, he said, when thou are converted, go strengthen your brother.

See, I can't strengthen you, until I get my myself straight. There's no, I'm, I'm not. If someone's drowning, Out there in Atlantic Ocean. I know. I can't swim that good, so I'm not even going, you know, I'm not even going to put myself out there. Matter of fact, thank you, holy Spirit, Dr. Riding on the plane, right?

They, they say put your mask on first. You know, and then you'll be able to assist someone else. God forbid this plane go down and you and somebody needs some oxygen, but you need to get the oxygen mask on you first, and then you'll be able to help somebody else to, to, to, for them to put that ma that oxygen mask on.

So it's it again. And then I think too sometimes that is a form of pride. And I know I was guilty of, you know, we want to help everybody, you know you know, and the truth of the matter is you're not going to be able to, to help everybody. And, and, and here it is again, we neglect ourselves, trying to help someone else.

I've been there, lights off. My lights would've been on if I wouldn't have helped somebody else out. You know? Yeah. You know, so we, we, we have to use wisdom and, and I believe in balance, you know, too much of anything ain't good for you there. There has to be some type of balance and I say it all the time, you know, God bless us with some extra money.

We out splurging or whatever have you, and then later on down the road, now your car need to be fixed. Well, you, he said, if we acknowledge him in everything that we do, the promise is he will direct our path. Cuz God knows, look, do I really need them? Pair of shoes, you know, just simple. It seems small, but sometimes as the scripture says, it's the little foxes.

That spoil the v it's them little things that we fail to do will get us in trouble in the, in the end. 

[00:21:09] Bettina M Brown: And that, with those little things, when you said, you know, you have to acknowledge the decisions that are life changing, little decisions can make life changing. Because little starts to add up, right?

It's, yes. It, it all comes together and those decisions are so important and decisions like you have said this word intentional. That we're kind of, you know, there's a difference between existing and living and when, when you're talking to someone, you're having conversations with them, how do you express to them how they can use the Lord or just in, so to go from that just existence to actual living.

[00:21:53] Reverend Aleechea Pitts: Well, part of that is walking out your God fulfilled purpose. I've said it and I've said it like a broken record. Even now, there are many people who are Christians that are unhappy. Mm-hmm. And the reason why they're unhappy because they're not fulfilling their purpose. They're not walking out that plan.

And, and that, that, that call of God, and I always say this, you know, every good idea is not a God idea. We have a plan. And God has a plan. Now, who better to who Better to follow when he knows the beginning, the beginning from the end. But somewhere in, in our for night mind, we want to help God out. And we, we, we got a better way.

Like with the situation with Sarah and Abraham, right? Oh, you know, Abraham, come sleep with Hagar. God didn't need, he didn't need no help. And here it is, she created her own problem. And, and, and, you know, look, this woman and this child got to go, got to go. They got to get out of here. You know, but this was something that she created instead of waiting, you know, just waiting on God.

And so you know, with that being said, you, you want fulfillment, you want enjoyment. You are going to have to find out what are you here for? Right. Why was you born? You know? And a lot of it starts with your talents and the gifts that you have. What is it that you love to do? You know? And a lot of times, even in my own situation, when I did help someone else out, when I was going through, it took.

It took me from getting that, me focusing on attention, about me going through helping encouraging someone else and God in turn in someone to encourage me. Thank you. So, it wasn't like it was all about me and me being selfish. Right. And a lot of times we, we, we, we worry about what we don't have. How about us focusing on what we do have and work with what we do have.

Little becomes much when God is in it, and I always say it like this, when we do what we can, God will do what we can't do. 

[00:24:07] Bettina M Brown: I like how you put that, that you know, being in that purpose and focusing on what we have because. I'm, I'm all about it too. Like, what don't I have? I didn't get my backyard patio done.

I didn't finish this yet. I look and, and you know, we have what, 60, 80,000 thoughts a day and I was reading some research that 60 to 75% of those are negative, just like out the box. So that's where that intention that you. Until next time, let’s build one another up!