Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh,

Welcome home. I'm Dr. Tama, a minister, licensed psychologist, and sacred artists.

And this is Homecoming, a podcast to facilitate your journey home to yourself.

While I will provide weekly inspiration and mental health tips, this

podcast is not a substitute for therapy. I'm so excited you're on the journey. If you

want to request specific topics or share your progress, email me at homecoming

podcast at gmail.com. Also after you listen, be sure to like, subscribe, and share. Let's begin.

Thank you for being here for another episode of the Homecoming Podcast,

and today our focus is on,

stop waiting, shift to self-validation.

Stop waiting. Shift to self-validation. And when we started season two, I put out a call for you

all's poetry related to your homecoming and you can send your

poems to the homecoming podcast at gmail dot com and our homecoming poem on today comes from Melanie Hoffbauer.

Melanie Hoffbauer, thank you so much for your peace, which is called Walk You Off.

And I'm going to give an excerpt from her poem, Walk You Off.

So, you and I used to be, but really it was just you. All about you, could only

be about you. Now I got to walk you off. Left the prison that was you early because I needed to.

I got to walk you off. You know judge, you are not justice, and yet you gave a sentence to me.

I ask you why? What did I do? You know judge, why did a prison sentence keep me from my life?

You gave me a prison sentence, you put me in prison because, because, because it's you. It's all about you can only be you I got to walk you off I will

walk you off gotta walk you off like I'm on parole. The walls of your prison, not just for walls. They encircle, they strangle. They cut me off, then stomped me in the ground. Why? Because? Why? God help me, God be beside me.

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