An exclusive interview with author Jameliah Young by Kayla McCullough
Cover image courtesy of Jameliah Young
Jameliah Young: A great African American author, a spirit of love, and an insightful social media celeb… here in a proactive interview reflecting on the inspiration behind her number one new release on Amazon in Anger Management and Self-love, The Death of an Angry Black Woman.
With close to half a million followers on social media, Jameliah and her highly anticipated book is garnering all five-star reviews on Amazon. The number one release author is also a pastor of Unity Church Charlotte and host of the Car Chronicle’s Movement, all of which praise her for being a great tool for “helping women dig a little deeper.” Jameliah lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and is the daughter of the late Evangelist Violetta B. Young and Pastor James I. Young.
Before residing in Charlotte, North Carolina, the author was raised in Brooklyn, New York as the youngest of four kids in a household where domestic violence laid the foundation for her childhood home. This tender subject, which riddles so many childhood memories, was ultimately what spurred the vision for her book.
"I wrote this book for all the women out there who are dealing with anger that they have yet to find the source of,” said Young. "Many women in the black community come from backgrounds of abuse, mistreatment, violence––and they become fighters. Through my book I hope to be that voice in their head, the one we all hear but rarely acknowledge, encouraging them to move on, let go of anger, reject hateful labels, embrace their powerful femininity, and live the life God intended them to live.”
How to let go of anger and resentment:
As a woman who grew up in a house plagued by domestic abuse, Jameliah found it very difficult to come into adulthood on a level of normalcy. “When you’ve experienced the level of domestic abuse that we endured as children you grow up with mental traumas that become coping mechanisms to deal with life as you know it.”
As Jameliah gives insight into her childhood, we can’t help but empathize with her and the women who are held back by a troubled past. “Anger can get the best of many women, but when anger erupts into rage and leads to shouting, fighting, and name-calling, it’s time to look within and make a change,” the author and beloved pastor of “The Death of the Angry Black Woman” boldly acknowledges.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse or abuse in general, we want you to remember that healing is returning to how you were before you got hurt, not who you were. Healing your mind is not the same thing as healing your body. When you’re wounded, you often go through a progressive, linear repair. You get better, until one day, you are nearly back to where you were before. Healing your mind is completely different because you aren’t returning to what you were before, you are gutting yourself and becoming someone entirely new.
If that seems a little bit violent and harsh, it should. Healing is not a lovely ascension into comfort and wellness to be experienced once and forevermore. Healing yourself is the most uncomfortable, disruptive, important thing you will ever do. Jameliah advises, “You have to deal with it, you can’t mask it, you can’t just say it will just go away. It’s not going to go away until you recognize it and get help.
You must admit those things that hurt you. You have to put a label on what it was and identify that whatever it was, hurt you.” However, hurt you may be, the author wants you to acknowledge that you do not have a right to take your hurt out on anybody else, but you have a right to deal with the pain in a way that is healthy for you to live a sustainable lifestyle.
Undoubtedly, the art of healing will require you to take an honest inventory of your grudges and aggressions and the wells of longing and fear you’ve been ignoring all this time. It requires you to be completely honest about how you really feel, and then it requires you to actually feel it.
The trauma that the young pastor went through has led her to some of her greatest accomplishments. Jameliah is now an experienced keynote speaker, pastor, author, and social media celebrity who empowers and encourages women of all ages to move on and let go of anger. If you have fallen victim to abuse, the author advises seeking help in a trained professional.
“Do not seek help in friends, because familiarity breeds contentment. When you become familiar with people the lack of respect is present. You can’t heal that way. You cannot heal with a ‘yes, ma’am’. When you are healing, you do not need a cheerleader, you need a drill sergeant.
You need a person who will give you the hard truth because life will always give you a soft lie.” When the moment comes for you to heal, you will realize you’re more at ease than ever before, because you can trust yourself now. You know better, so you can now do better going forward. The same way scars heal our physical wounds, we are often changed, but stronger, where we break.
Find Jameliah Young’s book, The Death of an Angry Black Woman featured in She’s SINGLE Magazine: Overcoming Stigmas issue this Fall.