Finding Purpose Beyond the Uniform: Tomeka Jones' Transformation | EP102

Shannan Kym: 00:00:00

Hello, everybody. My name is Shannon Mondor, and I want to thank you all for coming to my podcast, fulfillment in faith today. My absolutely beautiful host is Tomeka Jones, and I want to let everybody know that with Tomeka, she is very special to me because she was actually one of my clients, so I got the pleasure of working with her one on one, and the transformation that this woman has made within her life is absolutely unbelievable. And during that time that we were together, when I was coaching her, she always said that she wanted to speak more and step into her truth. And I kept on saying to her, Temoka, I want you to come on my podcast. And at that particular time, she wasn't ready. But this is why I'm so excited for her, because now she's ready, and she's stepping into that version of herself, which is taking her to a higher level and a higher vibration, and living a life that she has always wanted to dream. So I want to welcome all of you, and I'm going to introduce Tomeka. Welcome Tomeka. How are you? Thank

Tomeka Jones: 00:01:13

you, Shannon, thank you for having me. I'm great. Great. Thank you.

Shannan Kym: 00:01:18

So what we're going to do, Tomeka, is I want you to tell my audience members a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and then right from there, just get into your story.

Tomeka Jones: 00:01:27

Okay, Alright, sounds good. So I'm Tomeka Jones, and I am a transformational life coach. I was born in Tampa, Florida, but raised in outskirts of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a little small town called Long South Carolina. My mom was a single parent. I'm the youngest of two older. I have a brother and a sister, and it's myself. So it's three of us. We grew up poor family. Mom just trying to survive, make ends meet to raise her three kids. We live from, like I said, Tampa to South Carolina, back and forth, just trying to figure out life. I went to college, HBCU, Bethune Cookman College in Daytona after I graduated from a high school in South Carolina, I went to college in Daytona Beach, Florida. I stayed there two years to tuition kept going up, and I will try to call home for money. My mom said, No, make it work. Make it work. So I ended up leaving the college because it was just too much, too expensive, and I moved back to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I stayed with my sister, and I worked there full time at a clothing store during the day and at Krispy Kreme at night, and I was just at work one night at Krispy Kreme, and I was just like, this is not the life smell like donuts every day, isn't it's not my life. What I supposed to do in my life. So one day, I was walking, I think, to the Dollar General or something, and I saw a huge building, and it was a Armed Forces building, so I walked by. The first one I stopped at was the Marines. And I looked inside. I'm like, Oh no, I definitely can't get my hair shaved off. I'm not getting my hair shaved off. No. Refuse look like a boy. So I'm not going into Marines. Let me just pass by that office. So the next one was the Navy. I'm like, Oh, nope, definitely not. I can't swim. Nope. Let me do it. And passing by the Navy office, so I walked into the army office, and it was a about maybe five, six guys, soldiers, recruiters in the office, and immediately they just swore me. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, like a piece of meat. No. So they talked to me about the army and gave me brochures and everything, and I left out, like, definitely not. The last one was the Air Force. So I went inside and it was his recruiter. He was all laid back, feet, legs cocked up on the table, you know, and he was reading newspaper. It smelled so good. Oh, it was, I'm like, This is it, but

Shannan Kym: 00:04:08

it didn't smell like Krispy Kremes.

Tomeka Jones: 00:04:12

It did not, but it but, but, yeah, I just knew this was it. So I ended up joining the Air Force, and when I first came in, I tell the story about I spent a whole lifetime trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, right? So I went in the military as logistics. I did that for a while. Got bored with that, cross trained into human resources, which is personnel. Got bored with that, and then became a nurse. So did nursing for a little bit. And I said, Okay, what's next? So I ended up retiring. I did 23 years in the Air Force. Retired as a nurse back in 2022 and basically started, started this journey. Started this journey that I'm on.

Shannan Kym: 00:05:00

Tell us a little bit about your journey.

Tomeka Jones: 00:05:03

So after retiring, I was able to connect with the nonprofit organization, do an internship with the nonprofit organization, which is called Grace South fire, and that organization helped women veterans transition out of the military. And can I,

Shannan Kym: 00:05:21

can I, can I go a little bit for Can I ask you questions about that? Yes? Why? Because I personally don't understand anything about the military, anything like that. Why is it that they do have a program like that? It is, is it really super difficult for women to transition out of the military?

Tomeka Jones: 00:05:40

Is difficult. It is difficult. For me, it was difficult because you're so structured, and everything in the military is a purpose for everything, right? And you know what to do, how to execute, you know, it's just like clockwork, right? But when you get out into society is totally different. You have to figure it out. You can't just call someone and say, hey, you know, I need an appointment for whatever. And they say, Okay, no, you have to call. When I separated and had an appointment, had to connect that dot, connect that dot, connect that.in order to get an appointment and do all the things. But in the military, to me, it was just straightforward. But transitioning out is different. It's different because nothing's nothing is straightforward. I feel like the military, I felt like was everything was straightforward. You knew what to do, you knew how to execute. You knew where to go to find whatever you need. It was going to make it happen. It was it was going to happen, right?

Shannan Kym: 00:06:41

Okay, so say some Okay, so say someone like me that gets up on a daily basis or whatever, right? Like I've got the freedom to pick and choose whatever I want. Where that freedom are you saying was basically kind of taken away from you, because this is what you're supposed to do, day in, day out, boom, boom in

Tomeka Jones: 00:06:58

and day out. Yes, and the biggest thing for me, well, my transition, and I'll get into that, was my identity. I lost my identity, yeah,

Shannan Kym: 00:07:06

oh, I Yeah. I could see that. Okay, yeah, yeah. I was just trying to because I'd never heard that before. Tomeka, you saying that was the first time that I had ever heard that. So there are

Tomeka Jones: 00:07:18

groups out there that help us transition back into because some of us have PTSD, right, and we need that extra training, or the extra therapy or that, or that extra life coach you're not, because you've gone through so much, and you need that person who's gone through it to walk you through it, yeah,

Shannan Kym: 00:07:38

like I had heard with, you know, helping with PTSD and like, you know, the mental issues and that I didn't realize there was more, you know, a structured program for, you know, just leaving, yeah, transitioning, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, no, sorry that popped up. But I'm like, I gotta ask you now, because I don't want you to get more into your story and then backtrack 10 minutes, right? Okay, well, thank you for explaining that to me. Yeah.

Tomeka Jones: 00:08:05

So even with sexual assault, when we go through sexual assault, even men, too in the military, there's a program for them as well to help them get on back on track as well. So, but yeah, that I joined that organization. It was a non profit organization, and CEO at the time, Mia, she asked to meet with me. So we met halfway the main, the main, I guess office is in Houston, and I live in San Antonio. So we drove halfway to meet up at lunch. And one question she asked me, right? We talked, and we did all the things, and then she stopped, and she asked me, Who are you? And I'm like, Why does she ask God, you know, I'm thinking that, like, who am I, you know, and she's like, who are you? And I just started crying. I just started bawling, like, I couldn't I, I didn't have an identity. I didn't know who Tomeka was based on all the Okay, I'm a nurse, I'm an officer, I'm a veteran, I'm a single mom, I'm a all these accolades and all these titles. But who are you to the core? So that sparked at my self love, journey of healing and self discovery, and that's where I took your I was a client of yours, and I went through through the things and just started on this journey of mine. And

Shannan Kym: 00:09:28

what I love about you know, figuring out who you are and your your middle left audience members know that Tomeka is wearing a shirt that says I am and that it says, bold, beautiful, strong, worthy, confident, unique, smart, and that's one of the things that I really instill with my clients within my programs, about who they really are, who their identity is, because a lot of times our identity that we carry is not ours, and that's what was happening with Tomeka. That's what happened with me. I. I carried that identity for years, for 50 years, that I was dumb, I was stupid, I was ugly, I was never going to amount to anything. But that was the identity of my abuser. That was the same thing that was happening with Tomeka, and it was just a real eye opener, because once you figure out what your identity is at that point with me, which was a total lie, and I realized it, then I could start working on my new identity and the I ams and anything that comes after that is how you view yourself. And that's why I love Tomeka shirt, and that's why I really instill in these people I am strong, I am beautiful. And the beautiful thing about that Tomeka is and you know, just as well as I do when you say those I ams, there's feeling to it now, like I've, I've got, I've got chills, right? There is feeling to it. You actually feel that about yourself, but it does take work to get you there. You know, that's what people need to understand. You know, if, if you're having a hard time, because, yeah, you, you you gotta, you gotta go past those labels and the titles, past the I Am a Mom, you know, I am a teacher, or I am this. I am that. You really got to get to the core. And that's where people have a problem. What are the to the core? Yeah,

Tomeka Jones: 00:11:14

the or, and that's what I had to come to realize that, yeah, I'm more than what I went through in childhood. I'm more than that man, my mom's boyfriend, who was going to beat me with a belt buckle because he was mad at my mom for going out on a drug bins. My mom was on drugs during my younger childhood life. She was on drugs. First, it was alcohol, and resorted to drugs so she wasn't physically or she would or physically there, nor emotionally, yeah, so. And he was mad because my mom had left for, I think it was almost a week, and she just went on one of her drug binges, and he was upset at her, and he said something to me, and I probably said something back, and he took off his belt and had his belt buckle, and my sister was in the other room. Thank God she was there. She said, No, you're not going to beat my sister. So when my sister left, he ended up saying, you're going to be nothing, just like Emma, nothing. So that stuck with me, and that played in my mind over and over again, like I said, until I had to define who, who I who I was, who I am, right?

Shannan Kym: 00:12:31

And and that really takes years, because you like you really got to think about it. You don't like you were said. You were told that. So you kept on replaying that in your in your mind, your subconscious, and then it locked into your subconscious mind, right? But, and that was years to program you now to unprogram that. That's why you know you can't just shift your thoughts immediately. You can't that's why transformation, because you've got years that you have to unravel Yes. So if you think you know in two months, or you know, whatever, no, like, I'm still transforming Yes, and I will for the rest of my life, yeah, but that's what I love about this, because I love everything about it. So

Tomeka Jones: 00:13:20

my I am affirmation shirt. This is one of my favorite shirts. So I do apparel as well, but we'll talk about that. But this is my favorite. I had this on the air, on at the airport, I think I was in Atlanta, and a lady walked past me, and then she walked back, and she started crying. She said, I needed to see that this today. I needed to see it and I feel it. She said, I'm going through so much in my life. I really needed to see that. And I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. Now this isn't just for me, it's for others as well. Yeah, it really is.

Shannan Kym: 00:13:54

Yeah, yeah. So where, where did that? Where did that organize? Organization take you from there then,

Tomeka Jones: 00:14:02

okay, so from there, Grace after fire, I've done did that, and like I said, I went through my journey self love and just trying to find Tomeka. And I was in my closet one day picking out a t shirt. And I'm a t shirt queen. I love T shirts. And the word flawless hit me. And I'm like, flawless, okay, all right, whatever. And then the next day, the three, three words came right after that, resilience, confidence and self love. So I'm like, Oh, this is super dope. I can tell my story through my apparel. I don't ever have to speak again. Thank you, universe. So, so I started apparel company, right? Just telling a message, sharing my story through my apparel. Needless to say, a year and a half, two years later, the universe, God said, No, that's not where I want you. I want you to go higher. Yeah, apparel is good, but I want you to talk to. Uh, talk to the women that's gone through the similar situations and empower them and show them how you got through your times in the military, being the only female, the only black female in a room, and how you were treated, you know, growing up, or, or what you saw growing up, or, and how you overcame different things in life in general, you know, from being a single parent, going through a divorce, losing a child, all the things right, right? So that's kind of where it led me, and that's where I'm at today. So, right?

Shannan Kym: 00:15:35

And that's the one thing, because I talk to so many people all the time. And what I love about my work is I'm giving people that space to start to share and tell their stories. And that's why I had initially had my podcast. I did that series, you are not the only one, and then I just do it completely into fulfillment and faith, but, but it's, it's really unbelievable. Because whoever is listening to this story, and if you think that you are the only one that was brought up in a in an environment, you know, when you were a child that, you know, being abused and all of that, oh my gosh. You are one of 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people that have gone through that. So that's, that's why I do this podcast, because you are not the only one, right? It just gives people like you and Tomeka and whoever comes on here the chance to share their stories, because they want to let people know that they've been there. They know exactly what it's like. They want to help, you know, and that's, that's the most important message that we can do, because all will ever.