The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

You Good morning Las Vegas. Welcome to this morning to December 15. Thank you for waking up to join me here on kumv Public Radio. In the intro, I mentioned that on the show, we talk about joy, so I am delighted to welcome to the studio with me this morning, a woman who I believe embodies joy, has it resonating from her life and tries to cultivate it in other people. So good morning. Lynn, just

Speaker 1 1:13
saying, Good morning, and thank you for having me. Tanya, thank

Tanya Flanagan 1:16
you for spending some time with me during this holiday season. We're going to be talking about a number of things today, including an event that Mr. Sams has coming up at the end of the month, that anyone out there listening primarily women, but anyone out there listening is welcome to get a ticket for if you'd like, and to participate. She is a dynamic individual who has had quite the life story, written a couple of books, works in Clark County and our family services department, and just really helps families put their lives back together, and gives children and young ladies young women hope so today, her journey and how it has transformed her life. I'm excited to talk about the second annual event associated with this life journey, and welcome you back to the show as well. So thank

Speaker 1 2:06
you for being able to come and share and pour life into other people and say some jewels that makes people life better. Thank

Tanya Flanagan 2:14
you, especially during this holiday season. It's important that we are so focused on giving back so I think it's a great time that you are here. So I mentioned that you had a second annual event coming up. You were here last year about this time, maybe a little bit earlier in the year, to talk about the first time you were putting on your event. So I'm excited to welcome you back to talk about women purpose and processing part two, if you will. Or chapter two,

Speaker 1 2:42
yeah, it's just been a, I call it a blessing, because when I first decided to do it, I feel like it was something that God put on my heart, that I stepped boldly into. And it has really been everything that God showed me that it would be. Hands down. My first event was more than I thought it would be, and I blessed a lot of women and even their testimonies that I've put on my social media. I am Lynn, just Ames on Facebook. The testimonies touched me when I heard them, when I went and listened to them, and when they sent them to me, I was like, Oh my God, Lord. Like, thank you for, for just putting it on my heart, and then I was grateful to have the courage to put it out there.

Tanya Flanagan 3:25
So let's talk a little bit about your life journey. Because I think we need to put in context what women purpose and processing, what has birthed that, what that's all about. So you know, who are you I've mentioned a little bit about who you are, but who are you really? What's your story? So

Speaker 1 3:39
I am lying to saints. I would say I'm from hard places. I did grow up in the projects. I come from an area of a town where I grew up a lot of sex, drugs and violence. That's what I was exposed to as a child. Eventually, I ended up in foster care. My mom was a habitual drug addict, which landed me and my sisters into foster care, and I had my first baby at 14. We into foster care together, basically that I was abandoned when I had my old my first son, so aged out of foster care with three children, entered foster care with no credits in the ninth grade, but I went on to graduate on time with my senior class and later earned a bachelor's and a master's degree. Been with the County since 1996 and my story involves, you know, sexual abuse, domestic violence, basically rape and the list goes on. I'll just leave it right there. But in spite of that, I'll talk about beat the odds. That's exactly what me and my children have done. We have beat the odds every odd that was against us, that that was that's not our story. So I definitely talk about beating the odds and so women, purpose and processing comes from a place where people be like, Well, why you so sane, and why you still so helpful, and why you still have the courage to help? Right? That's people's they ask me that they'd be like, why? And I'm grateful for my life in spite of all the stuff that have happened to me. But. I'm a processor, so when I get with myself and I process life with for myself, it has helped me be saying, you know, crime is a coping skill, but I don't use drugs or alcohol. Don't abuse it. I've never abused my body. Things like that that I know sometimes comes with when people have had a hard life and some of the things that they turn to, I've been fortunate enough that that's not my story, and I'm grateful for that. That's

Tanya Flanagan 5:26
what I love about you. Every time I talk with you, it's an opportunity to just peel back another layer of the onion, and you're so transparent. Thank you. And I think that your willingness to be vulnerable and to be transparent share your story with people to encourage them is just noble. It is to be commended, because not many people will go through difficulties and hardships in life and then stand before other people. However you're before them, in a room, in a workshop, church conversation, in a women's group, on the on a radio program, like we're talking right now, and share, and part of those testimonies do so much to heal other people. Like to respond to that call to action. That form of service is huge, because after you do that, then you go out into your own world and your own life, and someone has heard this, so they're either going to you, either are or not concerned that. Are they going to look at me differently, or are they going to come up to me and say, Thank you so much for what you what you gave to me. You have no idea how you changed my life. And I would imagine, even if you do get a little bit of both, you get the majority of the latter. But how, how do both of those two spaces feel because there are other people out there with these journey testimonies that because of their own fear of protecting themselves, they're not ready yet to share. And there's so much healing that we can do for one another if we are willing to allow our stories, our testimonies, to be used. Wow, that's

Speaker 1 6:59
so crazy that you bring that up, because I'm really in the middle of a transition because so I wrote my first book in 2005 and I also learned, I learned that writing is one thing, but still being open and transparent is another. So we can do one on one all day. But I also realized, as much as I told, there's so much more, I didn't tell I was one of those people who don't like to didn't like to see people cry on social media, but when I had a moment of sharing, when I I used to have a lump in my breast, and then the lump wasn't there no more. But I remember praying and saying, like, that lump gonna be gone one day, right? And I end up crying on social media, but then not since then, and you have to be ready. And I say this, people have to understand that it's okay, and it's probably the people that surround you that's making you feel like it's not okay, because you can be your authentic self with people who say things to keep you shut down, to keep you afraid of coming out, because they've already did so much damage. And so for me, a lot of people think I'm younger than what I am, right? And I'm 54 years old. So 54 the 5454 year old me, looks at even a 30 year old me, and I can honestly say as much as I've accomplished and did. I thought what people thought about me didn't matter, but it did. I thought that people didn't really influence, influence how I moved and what I did, but it did. I thought I had reached a place in my life where I was successful, but then to other people in the inside, and I'm Private also, so people don't know everything about me. So let's be clear about that, but at the same time, if you don't, you can dream big, but it's only gonna be as big as your vision that you have for yourself. So for me, where I come from, my vision was big, and it was bigger than what was around me, but it's so much more, but you gotta believe that. So even with all I've done, all I've accomplished, I just started to realize at 54 all the little intricate things that pick at you, but you don't think they're picking that on the outside. And for a person who's worked all the time raising kids all the time, helping other people all the time, I'm just not getting to a place where I'm getting to meet. And so now people will see a different Len that they've been getting, and it's only because we process fear in my group last year, and even when you hear so when we when we do the women purpose and processing group, it's so funny, because you do hear all the time, people be like my women's event is different. You hear it all the time. But when I tell you the work that God put in me to do this women purpose and process event. It's not no like no other woman's event, and when I say it's truly interactive with everybody in the building. Everybody participates. Everybody felt loved and accepted and welcomed and warmed and vulnerable and transparent, but felt safe doing it. Everybody in the. Room. I had some people with some big titles in the room, but no one came in a room with a title. We came in there as women, that's all. And as women, we built a bond, we shared, we process. I had like seven topics. We only got through three because we got so real and got so deep. And for me, a person who when you say how you so sane is because I can get with myself, though still, and life was hard, and the tough, when it got tough, tough, tough and rough, rough, rough, and it felt like I can't take no more. I process my my own self through it. I talked to myself through it. I said the ugly, mean, hard things that I wouldn't want nobody to say to me, but not in a negative way, where it took me down, where it made me stronger, most of the time. So if I'm going through something, I'm processing like the good, the bad, the ugly, the real, you know, the truth, the negative. It has always put me in a place where I still got up every day. I got up the next day, no matter what. So to be able to process is huge, and therapy is one thing. I get it. People say, oh, people process with therapists. Nourse, different. You

Tanya Flanagan 11:07
mentioned that because my mind went to therapy. But before I go down the pathway where we talk about therapy, because I 100% understand what you're saying about we've talked about the, what I call a prayer closet, and some people referred to as a prayer closet, and we'll we're going to get into this, but I'm going to go backwards for two seconds, but I'm going to explain a prayer closet. And for me, that's where you are in a space where you're alone, and there are conversations that, if we're honest and we're trying to be healthy, we need to have, even with ourselves, where, to me, you're having it. You're no one else is there. You're like talking to yourself. You're really talking to God. You may be talking to your mother and your grandmother, who's going on before you, who you know you feel, is in heaven with God, right? With God, right? But that's that place where you're having the conversation, where the thing that is scariest for you to process, you speak it so that you can put it out, so that you can deal with it, stick a pin in that? And the reason why is because we go, we go into the work closet conversation that's associated with therapy. You mentioned something a moment ago about your 54 year old self and your 30 year old self, and I wanted to touch on that relative to the event you have coming up. Because I feel like what you're saying is there's something in the room when you have this event coming up at the end of the month, that's going to be on december 27 of Friday, when you have this event that's coming up the women purpose and processing, there's going to be something in that room for all ages. Because sometimes, and I say that because I, too, am in my 50s. So as life continues and you reach these different decades, or you're writing these chapters, we are not who we were at 2025, 3035, 4040, and 50, the chapter of 50 is a major, to me, has been and is a major turning point in life of self awareness. And I want to say, and I'll call it self accountability. So who you are in your 50s versus who I was in my 30s or my 20s is completely different. So what I have to give to someone, whether she's 1820, 30, beginning a career, even relationship advice, work advice, community service advice, like my perspective on this is very different than what it was previously. And I feel like that's a little bit of what you hinted at when you mentioned the ages. I think, do you absolutely,

Speaker 1 13:41
and you know what? I can look back over the years and really wholeheartedly know I still communicate and connect with women that were young girls when I first started mentoring them and talking to them and poured to them, and when they call and be like, Oh my god, I remember you told me to do this, and at first I was scared, but I listened to you, and look at where I'm at now. Or to have a young woman say, girl, when you was over there writing books, I want to be just like you when I grew up, but you don't know those things, right? But even at 50, knowing all the work that I've done, I felt like now it's like, I'm gonna go to a whole nother level. I could feel it.

Tanya Flanagan 14:18
And even our young girls. And I say that because I was touring a school two days ago, and as I walked through this school, as a magnet school, the little girls, little brown girls, were like, hi, and it made me realize their awareness level of seeing someone, because they knew we were an important group of people walking through their school, looking at what they do and what they're learning, right, Right? So now here comes this group of important people walking through my school while I'm looking at what I'm learning. But there's someone who looks like me,

Speaker 1 14:48
but see, here's the key to that when you're talking to young girls, and yes, so last year, it was an imitation only event. I only invited, probably no more than, I think, like around 35 for. Women. I ended up with 18 women in the room. I only wanted 15 because I knew the intimacy was important. I wanted to open up this year because I didn't want to limit who was able to gain the knowledge that's in that room. And it was a lot of older women. I did it on purpose because I needed to see I mean, I felt like, God gave it to me, so I had to see how he was going to move it. That's just how I feel like everything he's given me, I would write down everything that dropped in my spirit about the event. This event is planned out to 2027 I know the themes every year. I know what they going to look like every year. I know the building I'm supposed to look like for every year it's laid out. And it was only because I would write it down when I felt like it came on me, right? So even in, even with, I would like to say to young women who see that what happens is we've been taught certain things, in certain ways, to view life, about ourself, as opposed to and also other people. So for me, with all that I've accomplished in the done, it was still something it was, you could say, like a seed of fear that sat there. It was also fear set there, self doubt. Self there, lack of confidence, set there. So you could see, oh, Lynn, accomplished all these things, but those, the seeds were still sitting there because I was so busy getting everything else, I didn't even I didn't get to those seeds. So they were still able to get a little water because I didn't get them out quick enough. You said, I'm saying, but I think they still served a purpose, and I think that when I didn't understand what false humility was, because I walk in a space where I don't want ego to take over. I never wanted my ego to take over. I never wanted to be proudful, but I've always stayed in a space so but what that also does is it still keep you you can't step out when you hear things like you and your family always doing something, y'all writing books, and y'all trying to sell stuff, and Ain't you doing enough? You don't need a master's degree for your job, you think those things don't bother you, but then if you don't surround yourself with people that help push you past those things, so I say to myself, I'm a giver so and when you learn that you give so much, and it's rarely reciprocated, especially at the same level, but also it becomes an expectation of who you are to people, instead of people just appreciating who you are. You. I'm over here. Girl, I'm over here in my own little world. I do my own thing, you know, and I say to myself, but it also, there's such

Tanya Flanagan 17:29
a balance in how you're living. So on the one hand, I understand the insulation right for protective purposes, if you will. At the same time, there's this huge, extroverted life that you're living to support and give to other people that you're coming in contact with. So I understand how you are protecting your peace, protecting your blueprint for life, and where you're going, because there comes a point where you don't always know if everyone means you Well, right? And we still have to touch on therapy, and we may have to come back and touch on therapy, because I feel like we're going to have a two part conversation. I always love a good two part conversation when it can be had. So if you're listening this Sunday and you hear, you feel like, Lynn and I don't get through it today, and I think we're not. We may, you know, hang out again next week, and have to get through it, because when you have somebody that you can just peel back the layers of the onion, I want to have these powerful conversations with people who are talking about not in a space where what I'm saying is I'm just the expert, but a vulnerability and a willingness to share what has happened in your life that hopefully helps someone else who's listening, especially this time of year, when people are going through, but also depression and sadness because they're not with their loved ones or whatever the case.

Speaker 1 18:46
I mean, I just talked about that. I talked about this is the season where people I had somebody at work with, and she was like, Girl, I don't care. I ain't doing this, and I ain't doing that. And I said, Well, I care. And the holidays is a really hard time for a lot of people, because people's life look different. My life during the holidays looks different right now. So I was like, Well, I care and I'm bothered and I'm hurt. I'm not gonna pretend like I'm not I get up every day. I'm not bringing negative people, negative energy to people, because how I know right now my family dynamics are not the same how they used to be around the Christmas so I'm not going to sit up here and pretend like I'm cool. And she stopped, and she said, You right, I'm probably talking like that because I'm not cool. Exactly. This is the key, though, you don't have to be cool. And the important piece. I wanted to get back to young women, any women we have see, I have always been a strength to other women. I've always been a light to other women. I've always been able to pull other women up. But guess what was missing for me, someone to pull you up. So again, so my point to other you come into this women purpose and process like I've been connected to these women since the event, women that we know, I know women we ran in the same circles we've seen. At the same events. We're kind of connected now, since the event and it showed me that growing up, I never thought. I never understood like sometime you have to leave people behind. It didn't make sense to me. Well, I never understood that. You know, people take energy. You don't even realize it. I get it now, because now that I've removed myself for certain things, certain people, in certain situations, I could see clearly, like, do you remember

Tanya Flanagan 20:24
the moment, though, when you started to process, this isn't a good relationship space? Did you feel a sense of guilt? Like, were you responsible for them? Were you abandoning someone who needed you? You recognized?

Speaker 1 20:38
No, I'm gonna tell you why. Because usually those people have taken so much and taken so much, and when you realize you can't keep giving to that, it had me Okay, so this is the biggest piece people got to understand about process, and when you do it for yourself. So I've been able to process, but I process with myself, with accountability and think about what I'm saying. So if you're gonna sit down and do the work, because that's what I do, I do the working examples. If I'm if I left a relationship, and I'm the one who's usually like, I'm cool, I'm gonna cut this off, and then I leave a relationship, and three months later, I'm still can't sleep at night. That's a problem, but it ain't a problem for nobody but me. So I gotta get with myself and say, What is your problem like? What's going

Tanya Flanagan 21:21
on with you? Because you control your happiness. So that's the principle, right? And

Speaker 1 21:25
not only that, but the hard work, the processing came in me, saying what you really upset about? Or is this about them, or is it about you? So the first step was, it ain't about them, it's about you. This is something that's going on with you, because three months later, that do with them. You need to get with you. And then a man, I said, Well, what's your problem? I'm like, What are you mad about? And then it was rejection. How am I feeling rejected? But you want to do the

Tanya Flanagan 21:50
disconnect. You say that so you because you hadn't really processed because I had. I had to show unless you've been following me, you may remember one of my initial early conversations, I invited pastor Donald McCoy of abundant heart Community Church on and the conversation was about managing rejection. I don't remember if you because we even had a conversation, what, a year or two years ago now, about the very impact rejection regardless of the space in which you have left behind. You feel rejection was tied to that space and how it can hold you hostage. But

Speaker 1 22:30
let me say this. So when I started back interacting, when things would happen, I would stop and say, Is this about them, or is this about you? Are they doing something to you, or you feel in some type of way because of what's going on with you, because the lens is different, and that's why I say when you people don't like to process, because it do come with accountability. So if you're going to process and get real with yourself, let me get a quick example. People don't understand why. When people have an abortion, they feel in some type of way, but they never told anybody. Why am I feeling shame? But nobody knows I did this? Because you got to get with yourself. You facing yourself. And then for for a lot of us, who's spiritual now, you got to get with yourself, God knows. And then I've seen women go down some tough paths since I started talking about in abortion and the impacts of it, and what it does to women. The Accountability part in rejection is a lot of people have a hard time, because when I started dealing with mine, we know what came up. Oh, when I was little, how everybody favorite, my sister now and I was the middle child, didn't nobody want to take me nowhere and me and telling me, ain't nobody gonna want you. You got three kids, like all that stuff. It sits. That's them, seeds. I'm talking about that I'm so busy processing and helping everybody else navigate, I didn't work on myself, and now I have to. And

Tanya Flanagan 23:48
I think what's really important in what you just said is a lot of times we think that we're dealing with the immediate trauma, but you're not dealing with the immediate trauma. When you are self processing. You're rarely dealing with the immediate trauma. The immediate trauma is the trigger for the trauma you haven't processed that's in your past that you haven't dealt with. Right see you and I be on like these pages just go away. So that's so good that is just we're talking to you is like we're like a kindred spirit. And what's so interesting about talking with you is we can get busy with our lives and not talk for weeks or even months, because life just takes over. But every time I sit and talk with you, it's like a revelation conversation, and it is an immediate No, I get what you're saying, the energy and the vibes, but yeah,

Speaker 1 24:38
but so you take me back to you. You helping all these people around you and you, and they benefiting from you, and you don't even realize how it's not a mutual relationship. It's still one sided. But you refuse to see that accountability part. You refuse to process it from a real space. And you that goes back to any women who you hanging around. And what they're pointing to you, it's gonna kill you if you're not getting that back, or it's gonna delay you. This is me now, the version of me you getting right now, I wanna fast track you. So all the stuff that I missed in my 30s and my 40s, when I get to my 50, I don't want you to have to go through all that stuff if you're willing to listen, if you're willing to be transparent, if you're willing to take accountability, I can honestly say my choices got me where I am today, wholeheartedly, and am I totally where I want to be absolutely but Will I change who I am as a woman? Absolutely not, because everything about yesterday made me who I am today, and I'm gonna be even greater person tomorrow.

Tanya Flanagan 25:38
That's a great space of self appreciation and self awareness. It was hard, and it's not an easy journey. If you all think this conversation is good, imagine the conversation you will have if you participate in women purpose and processing coming up on december 27 led by My guest this morning. Lynn, just saying. Lynn, where can people get information on on this conversation, this event that's going to take place, because I want to make sure we give it to them when you're not rushing to give it

Speaker 1 26:08
to so if you go to Eventbrite, it's 2024, women purpose and processing. That's what it's under. But all the information is also on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. If you go to my page, I am Lynn, just Ames. And Lynn is spelled L, Y, N, N, E, j, A, S, A, M, E, S, Lynne, just Ames. It's on all my platforms. I have testimonials. If you want to go listen to the testimonials of the women who attended last year, I give a lot of insight into really into what you're going to get. It's really my sister's keeper in that environment. You do fully participate. If you don't feel like you're ready to be I'm not asking you to tell your business. That's not what this is not about. I'm gonna come tell my business. That's not this perspective. The perspective is, when I present you with the information and you want to take the time, a lot of the women say, Lynn, I went home and did the stuff that you didn't, that you had on it, that we didn't get to. But because you showed me, with a bunch of other women, how to process these topics, they went home and did it themselves and saw changes.

Tanya Flanagan 27:14
They did the work they should. You know, you have to be feel valuable enough to yourself at some time to do the work. I remember pastor giving me a book to read, something about a press, charming book, and it was this. It's basically an exercise where you write down the qualities you're looking for in a person. But there's this read, right? And the read takes about six months to walk through it, and not a well written read, but that's another point. But to that point, there are processes that we take to get to better places, and this is a an opportunity to participate in an event that will take you through processes, but you are going to have to come back to continue, because we never did unpack therapy piece, and we are winding down on this beautiful Sunday morning in December. It's cool, it's crisp. We're getting ready for the holidays outside

Speaker 2 28:00
the lights. It's the holidays, beautiful time. You

Tanya Flanagan 28:06
know, it's joyous. It's I love it because people pause on, I think, some of their frustrations, and it's a moment to just get all warm and fuzzy, make a delicious cup of hot chocolate, whether you're making it in the morning or at night, yes, and just let the tree blink at you if you have one, or let some lights blink at you from wherever you can see lights. And just, you know,

Speaker 1 28:28
it's funny, I hate being cold. I feel like I'm cold in my bones. But you know what, when I was getting out my truck to come in here, I kind of stopped because I thought I heard something. But in the moment of standing there, it was like a breeze. And as much as I hate to be cold, I felt a sense of peace, and I hate being cold. It's

Tanya Flanagan 28:45
just so crisp and it's clean and it's, I don't know something about this time of year that it's always true for those that we miss and we love, but then for those that we have around us. So we get to enjoy and make new memories. Tune in again next week. I probably will have Lynn to say. So if you enjoyed this conversation, wait till we continue it next Sunday. Thanks for having me. Tanya. In the meantime, enjoy your week. Happy holidays. Stay safe, even though it's cold outside, stay hydrated, and thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me. Tanya Flanagan, here on 91.5k U, N, V, jazz and more, until next time, I want to thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me, Tanya Flanagan, and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y, A F, l, a n, a G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu. Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai