Welcome home. I'm Dr. Tama, a minister, licensed psychologist and sacred artist. 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 the same as personalized therapy.

I'm so excited you're on the journey. If you want to request specific topics or to submit a

poem for me to read on the podcast, email me at homecomingpodcastsatgmail.com. Also to build our

community, don't forget to like, subscribe and share. Let's begin. Welcome home co-journers. I'm

glad you're here for another episode. And I'm grateful we have a poem submission from a friend,

the poet, and the poet's name is Belin Nahouette, and the poem is entitled Breaking News.

Someone should have told you that betraying yourself is no defense against devastation by others.

You broke your own heart as if you'd be safer in pieces, as if you could snap out of it,

as if you would crack some cold. How could you have known that it's harder to forgive yourself

than to reconstruct a heart? Thank you so much, Belin and Belin's friend for sending in that poem

on their behalf. I am so grateful for this topic as we think about the ways we have betrayed ourselves

in the hope of pleasing another or in the hope of transforming another. And the reality is that

people will break our hearts when we do not see, recognize or acknowledge the ways in which

it is already cracking. And so when you are already being mistreated, already being devalued,

already being overlooked or taken for granted, many times we will erase ourselves, contort

ourselves, shift ourselves in ways in which we are fundamentally hoping to be loved, respected,

appreciated, treated well. And I want you to know that you are worthy of love, that you are

worthy of respect, that you are worthy of care, and that you should never have to abandon yourself,

erase yourself, neglect yourself for someone to treat you well. You are already enough,

you are already worthy. And so I invite you in this moment to take breath and take sacred pause.

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