Moving Beyond Excuses That Hold You Back Part 3: Finding Your Voice And The Beauty In Your Flaws With Kimberly Jordan Croslin

As a woman, how do you find your voice in today’s society? Dr. Kim Grimes sits with Kimberly Jordan Croslin, a Strategic Communications Consultant. Kimberly talks about how you must accept that you are beautiful in your flaws. You need to love yourself and believe that it’s okay to look the way you are. It’s the only way to learn the lessons and become who you’re supposed to be. Next, get into a community that loves and cares for you. Let them speak life into your situation, that you are beautiful and your voice is amazing. If you need more inspiration to find your voice, tune in!

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Moving Beyond Excuses That Hold You Back Part 3: Finding Your Voice And The Beauty In Your Flaws With Kimberly Jordan Croslin

I am so grateful and honored that you decided to spend your time with me. Please know when I say that I don’t take your time and who you are lightly, I am grateful for you being here. We’re still in our series of Moving Beyond Excuses That Hold You Back. What I’ve always said and will continue to say is the easiest person for you to deceive is the person in the mirror. That’s you and me. In other words, we’re lying to ourselves. Let’s keep it real.

Here’s the thing. We’re probably good at catching other people when they’re lying, but we’re not good at all when it comes to catching ourselves in lies. We can’t figure it out. I believe the one reason that we have a tough time doing it or figuring out what we’re lying to ourselves is that we don’t call the lies that we’re telling ourselves lies. Instead, we make up or create excuses.

We disguise these excuses as reasons because what we want to be is to be reasonable. We dignify the lies that we say to ourselves by calling them reasons. We can come up with 1017 reasons why we don’t do what we should do or behave the way we should behave. We have numerous reasons why we won’t encourage and love ourselves. What are the reasons that you’re telling yourself about your work and values? We find dignified reasons to stay stuck instead of being open and honest with ourselves.

Reasons are masquerade excuses. Excuses are limiting belief. What are those excuses that are keeping you from having a face-to-face with yourself and the truth about yourself? It’s easy for us to find a reason and an excuse instead of telling ourselves the truth. That’s what this discussion is all about, how to recognize these excuses that are keeping you from moving forward in life. Those excuses and reasons that you come up with are keeping you from being who you were created to be.

What are those excuses that you’re telling yourself about the school, either starting or finishing school, and about your career? If you have the desire to become an entrepreneur, what are those excuses that you’re telling and keeping yourself from doing that? We can tell ourselves excuses over and over again in an attempt to save face and shift blame to someone else but what are we telling ourselves?

Let’s jump into this discussion about the masquerade excuses, which I call reasons that you are telling yourself. What are those limiting beliefs that you are using to keep you where you are? In our discussion for this episode, we’re going to talk about what they are and share how can the things that we can do will help us to move beyond that so that we’re no longer masquerading our excuses and calling them reasons. We’re beginning to be honest with ourselves.

We have a special guest of mine. She has been a dear friend for many years. We know each other’s families. We go back. It’s for so many years. We have been friends and colleagues. We laughed, cried and supported one another. I invited her to be on the show because, like with everyone that I bring on the show, I want them to share who they are so that they can be who God created them to be.

Let me tell you about my guest. We’ve been in each other’s lives. Her name is Kimberly Jordan Croslin. She is a voiceover artist, a Hampton University graduate, and a proud mother of two spirited sons, Matthew and Brandon. Matthew is in Norfolk State. Kimberly is passionate about empowering women to find their voice. Please help me to welcome my dear friend, Kimberly Jordan Croslin, to the show.

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Kimberly, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much for saying yes and for being here. I’m honored to have you on this show. You played a huge part. I haven’t told anyone yet, but I want to see if they figure it out. If they don’t, they could figure out by the end of the episode how significant the role is that you play in all of the shows. I’m not going to give it away yet. I would love you to share with us, before we jump into the conversation, your version of how we met. I say your version because I’ve shared so many things about us.

We met many years ago. I’m a writer, not a mathematician, so I do think it was 1989 or 1990. It’s been a long time. We have grown up together and I’m a few years behind you but those early and mid-‘20s and sometimes late ‘20s, we’re not there yet. We haven’t had enough life experience to help us be who we eventually become. I was dating my boyfriend, who later became my husband. We were students at Hampton University and he transferred to Christopher Newport, where you were the illustrious President of the Black Students Government.

It was Minority Student Association, MSA, where I became the president.

The two of you would compete who could talk, not on purpose but both of you wanted to.

We love to talk. It’s our gift, so we try to out-talk each other. He wouldn’t let me get an inch in edgewise and I wouldn’t either. It would be like, “You said enough. It’s my turn.” We laugh at that as well. That’s how we met. We were in college.

There had been many life experiences since then to finish each other through school, marriages, children, deaths of friends and family, plus world changes and all of that. We have remained close personal friends, more like family. When you’ve been friends with someone for over 30 years, they become family.

You hit the nail on the head because we grew up together. Sometimes when you hear that, people and I instantly go back like when I was in my teens or younger but you made a valid point. We weren’t raised together but we grew up together because, in our twenties, we’re growing and in that space of finding to know who we are because we weren’t clear then.

I love the statement that you made when you said that we grew up together and that’s true. I asked you to be on the show because of the topic that we’re talking about, Moving Beyond Excuses That Hold Us Back. You have a lot to share. I want to jump into the conversation and allow you to share. With that, let me ask you a question that I ask everyone because of the name of the show. What does it mean to you to be you unapologetically?

Let me understand that. You want to know what does it mean for Kimberly to be Kimberly unapologetically or are you saying what does it mean for a person to be themselves unapologetically?

I’m asking Kimberly what does it mean to Kimberly to be Kimberly unapologetically? We’re going to address the other people as we go through but I’m specifically talking about Kimberly.

What I have learned after many years is that being Kimberly unapologetically means that it’s okay for me to be me. I don’t have to please anyone. I have to find my moral compass, be comfortable with my moral standards and what’s normal to me and balance that with what’s acceptable with how I feel spiritually, in my spiritual relationship with God, with what’s happening culturally and how it affects my children. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s okay and wonderful to be who God created you to be. Not everybody likes that.

People will constantly tell you who you’re not and we’re going to talk about that but are you happy with who you are or are you still working on becoming the person that you want to be?

I like who I have become. It was a long road and a hard journey to get here. I am happy with who I have become. That’s because the person that I am is Kimberly, that is accepting that I’m flawed. I am moving away from perfectionism, which helped me in bondage. Perfectionism, religious doctrine, other people’s opinions, a lot of those things, plus others, kept me in bondage but I’m okay with knowing that I have flaws. It’s okay.

I can learn, get the lessons and go through whatever it is that I’m experiencing. You know some of those things are, whereas before, I had to repeat and it would show up differently. I accepted that I’m flawed and that’s still beautiful, so I get the lesson and then show up as who I’m supposed to be so the next person can get the lesson.

I’m a strong advocate about you being who you were created to be. When you’re in that space unapologetically, those who are around you will be blessed by your gifts and talents. It’s like breathing. You will do and serve people as easily as it takes you to breathe. What you shared speaks to what I believe. When we show up and we’re ourselves, the people that are around us will be blessed by that. We have much to give, share and serve others with our gifts and talents.

Here’s what I would love for you to share with our audience. Share if you can some of the limiting beliefs, the masquerade excuses that we call reasons that kept you stuck. If you can, what did that process look like for you? Was it something that someone said to you? Was it a part of your upbringing? Share that if you may.

Part of that showing up for people is being courageous. Courage is contagious. Once I caught courage, people saw it in me and they were unaccustomed to seeing that, they, in turn, felt courageous. Even if it was only to speak up and say, “This is what I’ve been going through. I don’t like when you talk to me this way or I’m treated that way.”

That’s a very important thing for me and a part of my process because, through the years, I didn’t have the courage for many reasons. We can talk about within the Black Community and how we deal with the color line, which is our complexions. I dealt with a lot of teasing and bullying around being dark. I always wanted to be an anchorperson for the news. I did not do that because of remarks from very impressionable people. It crushed my spirit. I didn’t feel that I would be accepted, so I changed my major from Mass Media Arts and went to Sociology, Political Science and History, which I love as well as writing. I wanted to report the news, talk to people, see what they were going through, spread information and help people get resolutions. I wanted to do those things.

What I did was hide in plain sight like on a radio station. I got on the radio. You could hear me but you couldn’t see me. Oddly enough, when people did see me, I still dealt with very disparaging and hurtful remarks surrounding my complexion. It is amazing the decisions that you make when your esteem has been attacked.

I didn’t have any self-worth. I made choices based on my value system, which was very broken. It didn’t matter how people tried to groom me like my parents, family members, friends and teachers. They couldn’t turn back the things that were said to me and that tape that was constantly playing in my head, so I settled.

I settled in my career, relationship and friendships and became a people pleaser. As I showed up as a people pleaser, people needed that. They could count on me to be affected by what they had to say. I’m not there now. I’m doing things that I never thought that I would do. Some good, some not so good but I’m experiencing life, making my decisions, learning and I’m okay with it.

You dropped so many powerful nuggets that our audience can relate to and relate with. It’s calling out where you were. You’re at the place where you recognize you were flawed. There was a time when you were trying to be a perfectionist. That’s because of the world, the society and the people that were around you. In a sense, you allowed them to form who you were. What you did was dim your light so that they would be happy. Whatever it is that they said that you couldn’t get or do, they would be correct. I am so glad that you shared that because our audience needs to know that one, they’re not alone.

I’m quite sure there are probably several of them in that position, so I’m so happy that you’re on this show sharing the way that you’re sharing and giving the nuggets. Can you share 1 or 2 of the things that were detrimental to you that kept you in that spot or from moving forward and you use that as the reason?

It’s to hear the way that you look.

You are beautiful chocolate anyway.

Thank you, and so are you, but it’s to hear people say to the contrary and call you terrible names.

Black, ugly, dumb, stupid, bald. That was me.

You said them all. I heard them all and more.

That’s why I want you to share because people are still hearing and saying them. I want them to relate to that.

We still struggle with the color line in our community. We have come a very long way in our imagery, like in videos and television. We are showing up dark and beautiful every day. Every light and color in between is beautiful. I don’t want to speak for everyone but I feel that we, the Black community, are learning to love ourselves and that it’s okay for us to look the way that we do. We are employable and in a relationship with each other. I didn’t even have a date for the prom. It sounds silly but it meant a lot then. I felt that I wasn’t desirable and lovable. I’m only being honest and it’s giving me a hot flash.

Sharing that is going to make a difference in someone else’s life. That’s why I called this show You Are YOU, Unapologetically because you owe no one an apology for being you and sharing who you are. The things that people say to you, we say to ourselves and we believe are the first three things that begin to cover up our greatness.

Not only that. There are other things that we haven’t even touched, like physical abuse, mental abuse, any of that. When we begin to listen to what someone else says to us, that contradicts who we are. Sometimes it’s our loved ones who will be the ones that say the damaging things to us and we have to say, “This came from you but in the same breath, you’re telling me you love me.” It’s all good but that’s how what we deal with.

How can you share with our audience who is in a situation where they feel that the world is constantly trying to mold them into something that the world wants them to be? What can you share with them to encourage and empower them to stick with telling the truth to themselves so that they can be themselves?

You can’t be what you don’t see. These three are my favorites, Oprah Winfrey, which I was born on her birthday, Viola Davis and Lupita. They changed my life when they came on the scene, also Cicely Tyson. I saw those women, especially Viola, because we’re more of the same age. Lupita’s a little bit behind us. It’s life-changing to see that woman who is dark and articulate doing her thing.

I started to think, “I am not this worthless, ugly, undesirable, unwanted, Black and dirty woman. I’m not any of those things.” It’s important for anyone, whether they’re Black, White or Asian, to see who it is that you’re trying to be. It gives your esteem a lift. You start to believe, “If she can do it, I can do it.” That’s how I felt. I felt they made it all this way. They’re doing what they’re doing. What can I do? They became role models for me. I probably never meet them but when I see those chicks, I cheer. I’m so excited for young, dark skin little girls coming up.

You know that it stems from slavery, diabolical, grotesque, brutal schemes and things that were done. I don’t even have adequate words to describe it. It has continued to play with us still while we’re having this discussion. I see those ladies and cheer because they’re going to be other Kimberlys and Kims that are watching them and going to be motivated and changed like I was. It’s crucial to surround yourself with images that are going to affirm you and confirm that you are okay the way you were created.

I say all the time, “Fall madly in love with who you are.” You own who you are because no one can take that away from you. It’s like the nose on your face and the ears on your head. No one can take that away from you. It’s yours and yours forever. You’re unique. One of the things that my guests said was, “Embrace your difference.” They didn’t say it exactly like that but it was like, “Recognize your difference because it’s what sets you apart. You’re different for a reason.”

God didn’t create us all the same. He created us all unique and we’re all different. It’s for a reason. To embrace that means a lot. It will help you to walk in what I call your greatness as well. Kimberly, can you share with our audience and tell them how you are learning how to love and accept yourself? How did that make your life better? How did it impact you where you’re a much better person, in return, helping you to serve the world and help others?

This is what I believe. Hurting people hurt people. When you’re hurting, it’s hard for you to serve and help someone. The best way that someone can relate to you or you can relate to others is to make them hurt. I did it. When I was hurting, I hurt those that were around me and made sure that I did. Once I got on the journey to healing myself began to learn and do all the self-work that I’ve done on me to help get me to where I am, it made my life better. That’s what I’m saying.

You have learned how to love and accept yourself. “I’m flawed. Make no mistake about it. It’s not imperfect about me.” That’s what you’re saying and likewise, myself. What I want you to share is how all of that made your life better and made you a better person? That’s what I would love for you to share with our audience.

It’s simple. It gave me my voice. People who’ve known me all of my life, high school and way back then, know that I’ve always done public speaking. You may have thought that I had my voice but it wasn’t until after going through many of life’s trials and tribulations. I’m not achieving what I thought I wanted to do in a career, had different experiences throughout my marriage and was voiceless but I found my voice. Now, it’s okay for me to be flawed and be in therapy. I’ve learned that. In the Black Community, we got to pray things away. There’s nothing wrong with praying. I’m a praying woman and prayer works.

Do you think that God didn’t put the talents in the doctors and other professionals that we need like lawyers, counselors, teachers and life coaches? Pray for direction and follow the directions that you’re given. It gave me a voice. I don’t allow people to talk to me any way anymore. I advocate for myself not from a place of anger, although I used to get the angry Black woman thing all the time too but it’s the truth.

I can advocate for myself and my children. I’m wanting to continue to grow. I find that I am passionate about empowering women to find their voice. Another thing that helped me find my voice was also surrounding myself with people that spoke life into my situation. People said, “Kimberly, you are beautiful, brilliant and your voice is amazing. Can you come and speak on this? Can you moderate that? Kimberly, you’re so compassionate so caring. Do you have some time to be with this person and nurture that person?”

People saw that in me and didn’t mind telling me because many times, you’re with family and friends that can’t come from where they are and tell you what they know about you. They know that you’re a great whatever you are but it pains them because they aren’t where they are, so they can’t tell you. You got to get into a community of people, family and friends that love and care about you and have your best interests at heart. Some of those things you’re not going to want to hear but you have to be willing to listen.

Kimberly, thank you. You’re such an inspiration to the world. I want to tell this to everyone because you spoke about your voice. Kimberly is the voiceover artist every time the show is coming on and going off. She is phenomenal. It’s a segue into you sharing who you are. If there’s anyone out there that is looking for a voiceover artist, you found her because she is the one.

When we were in college, she was on the radio. I loved her voice then and I do still. As I was putting this show together, one of the things that they said was, “You’re going to need a voiceover artist.” I was like, “I already have one.” They sent me a list of people to choose from. I was like, “No, that’s okay. I already have my voiceover artist.” Kimberly Jordan Croslin is my voiceover artist. She can be yours as well because she’s going to share with you how to get in contact with her. She’s also going to leave you with some final words that she wants you to walk away with.

If you want someone that’s going to speak over what it is that you’re doing, Kimberly Jordan Croslin is the person. I’m hyping her up because she’s my friend. Not only that, but listen to it yourself. This show is going to end. Go back, play the recording at the beginning and listen to her. Go ahead, Kimberly. Share with them how they can get in contact with you, how to reach out and connect with you. By all means, please give some final words to our audience to encourage them to be who they’re created to be.

Kim, thank you so much. I can be reached at Kimberly@KimberlyJordanProductionsLLC.com. That’s my production company. You can talk to me on Facebook. Look me up at Kimberly Jordan Croslin. That was the story I shared with you all and I’m sticking to it. Find that person that you want to be. Go see who it is that you want to be.

Representation is everything. Be good with the skin that you’re in. I am fine with the skin that I’m in. Leave relationships that no longer serve you. I have found myself explaining to people a lot. They have a lot of questions for me. One of those answers is it was the hard thing to do but it was the right thing to do. We’re on this journey and we’re going to be all right.

I am so honored and blessed to have you on the show and to share your story because the world needs to know your story. We all have a story to share. I want this show to be that show for every one of you under the sound of my voice that you can come and share your story. All you have to do is reach out and let us know. It’s that simple. Thank you, Kimberly Jordan Croslin. We are so grateful. I’m so grateful for you being here.

Thank you. This platform is awesome. We need you, little chocolate.

I appreciate you. Thanks so much. I love my love friend. She’s as silly as I am. That’s when you know you love each other, when you can be silly with one another. Thank you again, Kim, for being here with us, for your love and for sharing all that you do and all that you are. You are amazing and will always be amazing.

Here it is. We know that it’s easy to lose yourself in clashing ideas, conflicting beliefs, the COVID-19 pandemic and the flood of information that we get every day. With society’s rigid expectations and enlisted opinions of you and me, self-expression and self-appreciation, it feels challenging and daunting, to say the least. What it does is it pushes you and me to dumb down to hide who we are. We find ourselves going with the flow.

This show and discussion that we’re having, we’re here to put it into the disparity mindset and to help you to own your authentic self. That’s why I’m here and why I create a safe space so that we can have a conversation about you being you because you are you, unapologetically. What I know is this, no one is better at being you than you, so continue to be you and who you were created to be, until we see each other again. Thank you so much for reading. Take care.

Important Links

• Kimberly Jordan Croslin – LinkedIn
• Kimberly@KimberlyJordanProductionsLLC.com
• Facebook – Kimberly Jordan Croslin

About Kimberly Jordan Croslin

Kimberly Jordan Croslin is a voice-over artist, a Hampton University graduate and the proud mother of two spirited sons Matthew and Brandon, ages 19 and 17. Kimberly is passionate about empowering women to find their voice.