Philosophy for Life

Affirmation Music with Toni Jones

• Darron Brown

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What if music could change the way you talk to yourself? Join me, Deron Brown, as I chat with the trailblazing Tony Jones, who transitioned from life coaching to creating affirmation music, a genre she invented to help people practice self-love and wellness on the go. Tony takes us through her inspiring journey influenced by gospel, soulful R&B, and motivational figures like Reverend Ike and Abraham Hicks. Growing up in Metro Detroit, she experienced firsthand the social and economic challenges that shaped her community, all of which fueled her passion for mental health and self-empowerment.

Tony opens up about the revolutionary concept of "Wife Your Life," where she emphasizes turning inward to become your own source of love and support. We explore the dynamics of giving and receiving in relationships, the pitfalls of self-sacrifice, and the continuous journey of mastering self-love. Tony’s insights extend to all forms of relationships, including friendships and family ties, highlighting how redirecting energy back to oneself leads to profound personal growth and fulfillment.

Tune in as we delve into Tony's upcoming album "Affirmations for Liberation," which touches on themes of personal and collective freedom. Tony bravely shares her struggles with mental health, societal norms, and the pressures of productivity. We discuss the importance of self-regulation, mental well-being, and how her background in psychology and neuroscience informs her music. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the powerful intersection of music, mental health, and the transformative journey toward self-liberation.

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Darron Brown:

Hey guys, how you doing this is Deron Brown, your host of the podcast Philosophy for Life. I have a great guest with me. This is my very first affirmation artist. Her name is Tony Jones and we're going to talk about mental health and also talk about her music journey and how things have changed. I know you were a coach before, early on in your career, but now you're actually you're an artist, so tell me a little bit about that. How did that change?

Toni Jones:

Yeah, so I was a life coach for several years and I prayed to God and I said, God, give me an idea to help my clients practice wellness on the go. And, honestly, that prayer came about because I was doing all the life coach how to's, you know, creating courses, doing one on ones, creating e-books and I was working really, really hard to make some level of success as a life coach, preaching wellness, if you will. I was helping women heal from workaholism. But I was doing that during the era where it was all about getting to the bag you know what I'm saying Before wellness and mental health became really mainstream. It was not popular, if you will.

Toni Jones:

So that prayer came about me being exhausted with trying to have some level of success in something I knew I was good at, you know, and so, like I don't, I think it happened like within an hour or so and it was affirmation music and I was like, oh my God, that's a cool idea. And I went straight to my laptop and Googled it and it was not even a terminology, that was Google. So I was like, wait a minute, I get to do this, Like I'm the person that gets to coin this phrase and kind of like spearhead, a sound for how self-talk can sound modern over music and be a vibe. I definitely own that because it is. It's definitely brought me so much joy and I really just wanted to be a successful life coach and it transitioned me into being an affirmation musician. I was like what is that? And I discovered it by just being curious of what was possible to serve my clients.

Darron Brown:

Did affirmations play any role in your life before you became a musician?

Toni Jones:

Absolutely, absolutely. I was listening to Reverend Ike, listening to Abraham Hicks, les Brown, chanel Cooper Sykes. These are all individuals that Byron Katie, these are all people that advocated for self-empowerment and so and a couple of them were definitely advocates for, affirmations of them were definitely advocates for affirmations.

Darron Brown:

I want to know a little bit more about your inspirations. What are some artists that really inspired you growing up? Like what kind of music did you listen to?

Toni Jones:

I listened to gospel. I grew up in a very religious household. I grew up in church and not like churches, like something you do on Sundays. I'm talking about. Church was a lifestyle 24-7. Okay choir rehearsal, Bible study, conferences, vacation, Bible school. And so my influence were like people like Yolanda Adams, CeCe Winans, the Clark sisters the Clark sisters. My dad used to be a DJ in his younger, younger years so he always had records playing like Barry White, Anita Baker, Sade, you know, just old school jams. So that was like my musical influence growing up the whiners, you know.

Darron Brown:

Yeah, I know about all of them. That's the soul music. That's why that's why I asked you. I want to know if you had any kind of like influences from back in the day, because the music, the r&b music from back then was a lot more soulful, a lot more passionate. You know timeless music. So yes, you're from det.

Toni Jones:

Absolutely.

Darron Brown:

So how was it growing up in Detroit? Somebody like myself, that's from the West Coast I mean, ever come out, come up. Just some of the best American boxers period have come out of Detroit. So I know that there's a lot of talent in Detroit. Just the economics kind of played a part to why things fell apart. But how was it growing up in Detroit?

Toni Jones:

well, I grew up in metro Detroit and I've spent a lot of my time in the churches in Detroit, grew up and I went to schools and, like you guys probably won't know this area but Southfield, michigan, I was born in Grand Rapids. But how I was growing up, like I like I was really sheltered, growing up in the church, being a church girl. It was like I was groomed to be green, have a green perspective on life, see things. But I just didn't have the perception of judging it a certain type of way. You know, I just found out. I just found out. I just found out a couple of weeks ago BMF went to my church and I was like I was like wait a minute, those are the guys who wore all black and he's changed. I was like I had no idea, but they always sat in a certain area at the church but I never thought of them as a gang because they didn't represent themselves that way. You know, they represented themselves as a brotherhood so I just thought they were all related or something. So I was very green growing up.

Toni Jones:

So a lot of the violence I did not see even the poverty that I witnessed within my family. I didn't have the space to have conversations about it. It was. No one talked about these things. You know why some of my family members didn't have, why poverty existed, why we were hungry. Sometimes it was like a way of life. So it wasn't until I got older, where I became conscious, where it was just like wait a minute, that was not normal and that is not healthy.

Toni Jones:

So, as far as the stereotypes of Detroit, I think it's like any other urban neighborhood in America where it's like a certain social engineering aspects of the culture within those urban neighborhoods, where it becomes part of our identity because that's what we experience. So the violence, the poverty, the you know what I'm saying the lack of family and healthy social structures, that that's part of the American urban society unfortunately. But the stereotypes, you know it's still art, still beautiful things come out of that. You know Motown came at a time where it was chaos, hopelessness, despair. You know it was chaos, hopelessness, despair. You know we're the Motor City.

Darron Brown:

So, no matter what the stereotypes are we put on whatever city, good still comes out of it. I hear you Growing up as a church girl, like how did that impact your romantic relationships Now?

Toni Jones:

now we get to the nitty gritty of the conversation. It impacted me big time, darren, like, impacted me big time. This is a passionate topic that I like to talk about, especially in my membership group, because it impacted my entire life Growing up, being raised to be a wife. You know, my preparation for adulthood was believe in Jesus. So you don't go to hell, stay a virgin till you get married and get good grades. That's not the best toolbox for life, and so and I was married for eight years, you know. And so for me, I approach life in a marital way.

Toni Jones:

So a lot of my relationships romantically, I approached them with the marital skills that I was taught. I didn't, well, wasn't taught to vet men or to be able to assess men's character. Um, I, I spoke things from my character, from my integrity, from my soul, and I assumed, based on how I grew up, that that is how people who are engaging with me positively, they move the same way, and that is not how, that is not the, that is not how it works. You know, there are certain type of skill sets and discernment that you have to have to gauge people's character and consistency, who they are. You have to take your time to get to know people. I over evaluated chemistry, you know, instead of getting to know people. I over-evaluated chemistry, you know, instead of getting to know people. So you know, I wasn't really raised to understand what the dating romantic scene and really the culture of a man's mentality and how he has been programmed and raised to engage with women. I had no construct of understanding that, you know. I did go ahead.

Darron Brown:

I was going to say that, um, whether you grew up in the church or not, and whether that you're a man or female, you, all of us, are kind of um. To an extent, we've been um conditioned to believe that an ideal partner looks like this, or ideal relationship looks like this, and um yeah when, when, when we get into the real world, we realize that it's not cause.

Darron Brown:

I know what you're talking about when you say, like those feelings, those feelings of excitement, you know admiration, and because of those feelings, you kind of um, you aren't patient, you kind of rush into a relationship or you kind of open up too soon.

Darron Brown:

You don't really let that person earn your trust and you don't really truly vet that person. That's something that we've, that, unfortunately, society doesn't teach us. And if you don't have the parents with the information, they don't, they're not teaching that as well. Information they don't, they're not teaching that as well. But you have to. You have to learn how to vet people and you also need to know how to handle your mature maturely, handle those, like I want to say, romantic, um, exciting feelings you get when you first meet somebody, when you get that, that, that catapult, you know that, that thunderbolt, when you see somebody into yeah, absolutely so I get it.

Darron Brown:

Um, what I want to know? If you can break down your divorce into one word, can you give me a reason why you need to get, why you need to end that relationship? Did you end the relationship? Okay, in one word, why did you need to get out? If you can, Salvation. Okay, elaborate.

Toni Jones:

It got to a point where it was like either I saved my marriage or saved my soul, and there was no negotiating me. You know what I'm saying. There was no negotiating that decision. It was I have to save my soul. I had no kids, no property with this man. I was doing all the work and I was like, yeah, like it's, I changed and I didn't like who I was changing into, you know. And so it was like I don't know how I'm going to figure my life out, but I'm going to save myself by getting out of this marriage. So I saved myself, salvation, salvation.

Toni Jones:

I still look at it that way, like when I'm telling you when, when there's days where you know the self-critic is like you need to do more, you haven't done enough. All I have to do is think about getting that divorce. And I feel like I cured cancer because that decision, that one decision, changed the whole trajectory of my entire life and not and being a church girl, being a part of that culture. Not all the women make it out without kids, not all the women. You know what I'm saying. It's, it's I, I. I literally was a hero to myself with that decision, you know was he a church going man?

Toni Jones:

yeah okay.

Darron Brown:

So you checked all the boxes probably good looking, church going. You thought you guys had the same values, etc. Was he a good? Well, I don't want to say that I want were was the marriage, because I've had a few women on my show now who have had divorces and they all have different reasons. But what I'm wondering is was it a good marriage or a bad marriage?

Toni Jones:

It was unhealthy.

Darron Brown:

Okay, unhealthy, all right, because what I've noticed is that there are some women that have been on my show that have had good marriages and they divorced their husband. And they divorced their husbands because they felt like they were losing themselves within that marriage as well. They felt like they they wanted to expand, they wanted to grow, they wanted to be free, basically, and that that relationship kept them trapped, trapped yeah, the the brand of marriage and a wife really is a beautiful brand of either slavery or a replay of a man's mother.

Toni Jones:

They brand it to look a certain way for women to identify their womanhood by, and it's not fair to who we are as individuals and who we are outside of our gender. We are humans, you know, and so when you're bogged down by this identity of servitude to this grown individual and you don't get that mutually back, it can be very damaging. I've seen it all the time as a life coach, as a sister, as a friend. I've seen women go through a lot of emotional soul level suicide because of feeling trapped in their marriage.

Darron Brown:

So what I get from that is that there are women who are wives traditional wives that feel like they're being taken for granted or taken advantage of yeah, yeah simply, you know, okay, I'm gonna pivot because I can. We can keep going down this yeah, we could because I was.

Darron Brown:

I was telling a friend of mine, because I'm usually what you're basically telling me is you're a giver in a relationship, you like to give to the person that you're in love with, but you want the person you're with to give as well.

Darron Brown:

And I was telling a friend of mine. I had an experience where I was the giver and then I looked into it, because I'm so focused on things like this podcast, other things that I'm doing, focused on things like this podcast, other things that I'm doing and you know, when my partner tells me they need something, I'll give it to them. But then I paused and I looked. I was like man, I'm not getting anything out of this, it's just you know I'm hot, so love me, give me what I want. But I think I think you kind of nailed it a little bit when you said earlier that when you basically let somebody in, you really didn't vet the person, but because they had these check boxes, you'd had the experience and you were excited. You kind of let that person into your life. But giving is one of the main things that helps a relationship stay healthy giving from both partners.

Toni Jones:

And that's something that both men and women need Reciprocity Reciprocity, no doubt.

Darron Brown:

So I want to talk a little bit more about I think this was your life coach business. It was called Make your Wife your Life.

Toni Jones:

Wife your Life.

Darron Brown:

Wife your Life.

Toni Jones:

Yes, your Life.

Darron Brown:

Wife your Life, yes.

Toni Jones:

Why did you name it that? Because there's a scripture in Proverbs 31 that talks about this ideal woman and growing up in church, all the women and men know about Proverbs 31 because it's supposed to be like this blueprint of the perfect wife and really it just talks about who she was as a woman not necessarily all the descriptions of who she was as her role being married, even though it touches on that and so I took that like, growing up, all I wanted to do was be a wife. I wanted to be a wife and a mother my whole entire life, up until 2022, summer of 2022. I was. That desire was no longer a part of my identity.

Darron Brown:

And so.

Toni Jones:

So when I, I think I had just wrapped up a relationship I don't know what year it was, but I wrapped up a relationship which is a whole nother story I realized, like, what have I been doing for 10 years? And I'm like, oh, I've been trying to make relationships with men work. And I was like what if everything that I was doing for them, what if I turned that back to me? What if I became my own wife? And I was like what would happen then? And once I started doing that, my life started returning back that energy to me and I'm like man, everything that I was doing for a man got me nowhere besides these higher level conscious lessons.

Toni Jones:

Grateful, but came about. It came about in traumatic ways, whereas when I was giving what I was giving to them to myself, I saw fruit, I saw love come back to me, I saw abundance coming back to me and I was like, oh, I have to become my own wife. So I wanted to help women learn how to shift their focus, shift their mindset, shift their psychology and energy towards themselves and that relationship will. You will memorize that feeling of what it feels like to be in a relationship with yourself, so anything that does not feel that way, it will repel you because it does not feel like the energy of your own relationship with yourself.

Darron Brown:

Lovely, I know exactly what you're talking about. Basically you were self-sacrificing, but then, once you've, once you kind of moved away from that relationship, it allowed you to heal and focus on loving yourself, you know, being good to yourself. And then, once you did that, you resonated with that feeling. Once you, honestly, once you resonate at that vibration, you can kind of feel the vibe of other people around you.

Darron Brown:

So you already have a sense of OK, this isn't good for me and it's easier to walk away once you, once you have that relationship with yourself.

Toni Jones:

Well, I will say this I, that was my first experience. Well, I will say this I, that was my first experience, my first phase of, like, initiating into that type of self relationship, self love. I've had many bumps in the road because I'm going against a paradigm of so many decades of being conditioned to self sacrifice, so trust and believe. I wrestled with this new paradigm of how to approach my life so many times. It was not looking like self-love, self-sacrifice still wanted it, still wanted to live on through me, because that's all I knew, that was familiar, you know. And so I'm still a student to self-love. I'm still a student to devotion to what is true and healthy for me. You know, I haven't mastered anything yet. I'm still like learning different ways. I abandon myself for others. I'm still learning how I don't speak up to make others uncomfortable. I'm still learning how to master that. It's like it keeps being learned on a deeper level for me to embody and practice it in my daily life, you know.

Darron Brown:

No, 1,000 percent no, and I don't know if that journey will ever truly end.

Toni Jones:

Right.

Darron Brown:

Because I've been on something similar to that. You know there's like layers and layers and once you become, once you awaken, put like that, once you awaken, you can see things clearly. You not only are conscious of the people you give your body to, but you're also conscious of, like your friendships, your romantic relations I mean your, your, your family relationships. Even along that journey, you may try to bring people with you or try to get some kind of help them get some kind of understanding, because it's a lonely journey, you know, and then it's not something that people talk about. So it's not like you're going to easily find people who are also consciously walking down that path. But yeah, as long as you're following down that road, there's always going to be things that make you uncomfortable, challenge you and force you to consistently become a new you. Are you still helping women with this Wife, your life?

Toni Jones:

No no.

Darron Brown:

I'm not.

Toni Jones:

I'm not doing, I'm not doing. I don't have a life coaching business where I work with women one on one, but I do have an online membership group.

Darron Brown:

Okay, so why music? I understand that you were using music to help you build or get some kind of attention for your business, but why music? Does music have a deeper meaning for you?

Toni Jones:

Why music Is there like a? Does music have a deeper meaning for you? Well, when I first created the, when I created the first album, Affirmations for the Grown Ass Woman, it was spreading without me doing much because I was going through hell during the time that was released. I wasn't promoting it. My mental health was compromised. Once I started seeing passive income happening, once I started to really enjoy the process of creating music without overthinking it, I was like, wow, I want to do this.

Toni Jones:

Life coaching is something I'm good at, but life coaching is not something I love, you know. And so I was like but I love the process of creating music. I love receiving money with the least effort, doing the least things that I'm you know what I'm saying. And Affirmation Music was like it's something that I will do, whether I got paid for it or not. I love it that much. And I discovered that. And so when I was measuring, like, what do I really want to do in 2020? I was like I want to give this music thing a try, and so I think around 2020, I was like I want to give this music thing a try, and so I think around 2020, was it 2021? I think it was around 2021 where I shifted to changing my life coach being business into an online membership.

Darron Brown:

I want to talk about the names of some of the songs that you made. You have a. It's funny. I was going through your albums, you know. Like you said, the first one was, uh, affirmation for grown-ass woman. Second one is I see me, mantra three, me versus everybody, and the title for one. I want to know, like, what inspired some of the titles, specifically the first album. Let's go through that first. Fuck, boys are Tools for Enlightenment. No is Bay. So what was going on in your life at that time? And then, what inspired these titles?

Toni Jones:

So I dealt with my unique choices of men who you could label as fuckboys and I just couldn't understand why these men who I was connecting with, who were so excited about connecting with me, would play these games. And I just did not understand it. I'm like, I'm a person. Why would you treat me this way? And it was no matter how good of a person, genuine of a person I was, it was not enough for them to practice integrity with me and so I felt like just completely mistreated, misvalued, and I just felt like it played into some of my childhood wounds, my insecurities, and it just took my self-esteem down.

Toni Jones:

But then, after doing some healing work and going into some healing programs, I started to have a higher consciousness of those, those engagements and scenarios with these men, and I'm like yo, these men are being used for me to be enlightened about my patterns, my choices with men, that I'm not a victim to them. I'm making a choice to engage with them and hold space for the bullshit. And why am I doing that? That's my accountability, that's my responsibility to be enlightened to. Why am I holding space for men who are not being friends to me, who are not being lovers to me, they're not being kind and I'm being that way. Why do I like that? Why do I want that, want more of their time when I'm not being valued? So I had to figure out what those whys were and then I realized oh, these, these men are tools, they're tools, they, they. They're literally being used for a higher purpose for me being enlightened, to come back home to myself and learn the patterns that you know pretty much direct my choices with men.

Darron Brown:

Today, try not to be all in your business, but today do you vet men differently, today, when it comes to relationships?

Toni Jones:

Um, I don't vet men at all because I don't engage with men in that way. I'm so far, far past that timeline of being, you know, desiring men Because, like I said, summer 2022, my desire for men and family, nuclear family, completely changed. I experienced a heartbreak that changed me forever. I experienced a heartbreak that changed me forever and it helped me to see how much my desire for the nuclear family was really early conditioning and programming. And so I see men differently now. They're not just a romantic potential. I see them for their own human nature and based on their human nature. I see how you know colonialism, you know the Western world, white supremacy has programmed a man's identity as a masculine being, and so I'm not attracted to the way that men embody that program. So I'm not. I'm more. I'm like soul, soul, spirit, energy, kind of like. You know, it's like I'm more attracted to community. I'm more attracted to sisterhood. My romance is experience in friendships now, in friendships now.

Toni Jones:

So, as far as intimacy and looking at men as a potential experience of intimacy, I haven't landed where I'm at as far as my beliefs around that, because I don't know. I'm still wondering, because for so long my identity was like who's going to be my husband? Who's going to partner with me? Who can I build a life with, like? Who's going to be my husband? Who's going to partner with me? Who can I build a life with, create a life with? And when I let go of that version of me, I felt lost, and in all the right ways, because I found who I truly am. And so I feel like I'm still exploring, I'm still dealing with tender parts of my heart. I'm still healing in ways where I'm I'm doing my best to not be a bitch. You know what I'm saying and I hate men, so it's a really fine, delicate line that I'm playing right now. Um, so, when it comes to men, I don't look at men like, oh, like I'm, like I just I'm not attracted to them in that way I.

Darron Brown:

I understand you've been hurt, but then one thing, that one thing that relationships do do, is that they help you grow Like nothing challenges you more than a romantic relationship, for better or worse You've had.

Toni Jones:

I believe it's the highest spiritual practice, our relationships.

Darron Brown:

Yeah, yeah, yes, this is a challenge. It's challenging for all of us and for better or worse. If you have a bad relationship, you're going to learn from that relationship, and even if you have a healthy one, you can learn from that as well, because that's going to teach you how to be love, love and be loved in a relationship you know it's um regardless of what your experience looks like, you're going to learn something within that relationship, absolutely okay.

Darron Brown:

So so within the second, the second album, it says uh, I see me, mantra. You say I like the title that you have. There is uh, I'm so ugly beautiful. What made, what inspired that?

Toni Jones:

um gosh it. Just seeing the parts of me that are not so beautiful, like the parts of me that I'm just, I did not feel like I could change the parts of me that I have felt shame about, the parts of me that I wanted to keep in the dark. But I had to find a way to genuinely have gratitude and compassion and grace for those parts of me, have gratitude and compassion and grace for those parts of me and include them, too, into how I define beauty. You know, and once I was able to do that, gather those parts of me not just one time but over and over and over and over and over again, gathering those parts of me that I want to keep in the closet, the parts of me that I want to keep in the dark and love them and bring them into the illumination of love and light. I was able to see, yo, these parts could put me on game.

Toni Jones:

These parts really make, they cause a wisdom that is undeniable, a beauty that it cannot be defined. So it made me realize, like my beauty is so deep, is so deep, and so I was like but you have to go, you have to go into the darkness to allow that beauty to be that deep. So everything that I would think that was ugly, everything that I judged that was ugly about me, things that men probably thought were ugly or whatever the case may be, I saw them as beauty because of what they alchemized into when I chose to love those parts of me.

Darron Brown:

What parts of you were you hiding?

Toni Jones:

What parts of you were you hiding? How much of a pick Misha I was, how thirsty I was, how, how attached I get. You know how I manipulate to for connection and intimacy. You know how my childhood wounds were running my money habits? Yeah, like those type of things. You know the things that people don't want to be honest about. But it's like certain pain just over and just throughout the year, certain pain, just it wore me down to the white meat where I was like I don't have any more mask. I don't have the strength to put on mask anymore, you know, and so my heart is just so raw and open that I just gotta be real, you know. So those are the parts of me that I would would have wanted to kept hidden at that time.

Darron Brown:

I understand. I see to your third album now Me Versus Every Me. I like that title Every Me.

Toni Jones:

What do you mean, these versions of me? Life has a cynical nature. Nothing about it is linear. So you're going through the self-love process and that personal, intimate relationship with you is saying yes to a thousand deaths, a thousand rebirths. Everything in life is about that cycle. Everything in life is about that cycle. Anything that's growing, it dies. Anything that's growing, it rebirths. Flowers, nature, seeds, all those things that are alive, and so the same thing with us that we go through that cycle of that natural process of growth.

Toni Jones:

So for me, I've met different versions of me over and over again. My six-year-old self may come up in a certain relationship or something that may happen in 2018 may be triggered, and I have to again forgive that timeline, again have to reintegrate the newfound wisdoms that I have to bring grace to those parts of me that may be still tender, them all in the living room and say, no matter whether I can change you, perfect you or amplify you, I'm going to give you all grace. I'm going to give you all equal love. I'm going to, I'm going to bring you all into the oneness of wholeness and believe that you're all equally worthy of my devotion and attention and care. You're all equally worthy of my devotion and attention and care. So me versus ever me was about the white flag. It was like I'm done with hate and some of y'all loving, some of y'all you know, and so that cycle of rebirth and and dying to yourself is is. I don't even know how to put it into words. You have to go through a journey to understand.

Darron Brown:

I don't even know how to put it into words.

Toni Jones:

You have to go through a journey to understand that that was beautifully said Me versus me.

Darron Brown:

Because when I think about my childhood, you know I felt even though I wasn't perfect, I felt just like the last guy I had on my show. He calls it spiritual awakening. I felt so powerful when I was a kid and I'm still doing cool things but I know that a lot a part of me I have left down the road or I've suppressed the part of me, and I've been working on. I've been working on basically integrating that part of my character into who I am now. And when you say me versus me and you make the statement loving all different types of me, it was just making me think about my own journey. And in order for you to be full and be complete, you have to come eye to eye with the different versions of who you are and to accept and love the different versions of who you are. And to accept and love the different versions of who you are, because ultimately that's going to make you a dynamic and powerful person you got to yeah you have to within the church.

Darron Brown:

Do you think that the church in some way made you suppress parts of you that you didn't even know existed?

Toni Jones:

yes, absolutely, absolutely, how was it?

Darron Brown:

how was it for a young woman growing up in the church? Um, like, what is expected of her? What, uh, how much control does she have over? Um, because I'm in, I'm in utah, I'm in morm state, so the church literally controls the entire state. So you can see, like Mormons have a certain look, certain way of dressing, certain way of carrying themselves, they're not really. There's not a high level of freedom, way more freedom than it used to be. But I want to say for a woman growing up in Detroit, in the church, a young woman, like, what kind of things is she dealing with socially?

Toni Jones:

Yeah, you're, you're performing. You're performing, you're people pleasing, you're self-sacrificing. You get your validation from that. Validation is a part of you know, in psychology, validation from peers, from family, is a part of human happiness throughout your lifetime. So it's nothing that's not something that's not required in life, but when you receive a very valid part of your human happiness from performing, you know, putting on masks and self-sacrificing and people pleasing, and that is how you receive that that validation is. You know it feels violent when you stop doing it, because now you have to set boundaries and now you have to have faith that you can put yourself first and still receive love, but in healthier ways that include your wellbeing and your welfare, even if you've never experienced that.

Toni Jones:

And so for me, growing up in the church, I just witnessed so many women. Everybody just seemed miserable. I never met a happy church woman Like everybody seemed miserable. That's one of the things of why I transitioned out of the church, because I still felt the texture of my inner girl and I was like man. I want her to maintain a pure, happy heart. I don't know how the heck I'm going to do it, but it ain't doing what they're doing. They get married, having kids and going to church and going to work. No hate, no shade. But I was like that ain't for me. I cannot see a life for myself where I'm miserable and feel all that I am inside. I felt like I would just explode, you know. So I just feel like young girls, women of all ages feel suppressed by organized religion, but that suppression is not always felt because they're conditioned to identify themselves with that, those structures. You know you have to have some type of awakening to break free in thought to think something else, you know.

Darron Brown:

I do know. I want to know this when you broke away from the church, did you get any kind of pushback from people in the church? Are you still part of the church?

Toni Jones:

No, I'm not, I am the church.

Toni Jones:

I love the church to become the church. No, I didn't, surprisingly, but it was. It was a slow process. I mean, I've had some heated conversations with some relatives, like some intense conversations, but everybody knew me, like they know. I moved to my own beat, like that's always who I've been. So you can't tell me what to do once I have it in my mind that this is the path for me and that whatever ends up happening, it was my choice to go this path, you know. And so for me it was like if, if you want me to stay in church, show me why and no one could show me why, like I'm, like you're not happy, you're not in your purpose, you can't, it's all in your face. So when you start going to church and you start feeling community and supported and abundance and fulfilling, then holler at me. You know what I mean. So for me, I didn't. There was no argument or any type of intense pushback, just some here conversations here, maybe three to four conversations with family members over the years, but nothing, nothing intense for real.

Darron Brown:

Let's talk about your next album that's coming out this July. What is? Uh, do we have a title of that album? And then also, um, what is this album going to be resonating Like? What is it going to be about?

Toni Jones:

It's called Affirmations for Liberation you heard it here first and this album is all about my journey of liberation liberating myself over and over again. Liberating myself over and over again when it comes to intimacy, when it comes to mastering my energy, when it comes to defining my femininity, who I am as a woman, when it comes to being enslaved to those inner prisons that oppress us, to not that, that keep us hesitant to explore our potential. Because I feel like everybody has this tiny, tiny whisper I am more, there is more, but you don't really have any literacy to go about what that feeling, what that whisper is. And so this album has some songs in there that gives us permission to liberate ourselves, to explore whatever that is and abandon whatever structures of order that we try to sustain, to feel safe and feel like we're in control. And so affirmations of liberation is like it's like the soundtrack to to this journey into liberation.

Toni Jones:

It's not, um, a lot of us are anti-system. A lot of messages, like on social media, are anti-system, anti-government. We gotta be free, we gotta liberate it from who's aren't in control, and it's not about that. It's all about. The only way out is in. That's the true liberation, is going within yourselves and liberating yourself from the self-hate that you learned, the self-criticism that you've learned, the self-shaming, the self-bullying yourself into productivity All of these things that happen within this world right here. Start there to create the change in the world. And so this album is really personal for me, because I haven't put out an album since 2021. And so this process, even the process of de-centering men while trying not to disconnect from men and be a man-hater that's been a journey, so I'm liberating myself from that. You know that program of centering men around everything. So this album is very personal, but it is very universal as well, because people are appetizing for liberation. People are appetizing for a sense of peace in life on a personal level and a collective level.

Darron Brown:

One second Let me fix my camera.

Toni Jones:

Mm-hmm Sure. Thank you.

Darron Brown:

Okay, yeah, I don't know what that was all about. It showed me blinking. But liberation, you know you're talking about those inner. Can you hear me?

Darron Brown:

yeah, I can hear you okay, you're talking about the inner prisons and, um, what that made me think about was anxiety, because a lot of people, a lot of people know what they should say, they know what they should do and they feel a. They feel like an impulse to actually act on it, but then there's something anchoring them and preventing them from actually taking action, doing those different things. So you know your album, liberation, or the, the meaning behind your album with the word liberation. I think that really, at a real deep level, a lot of people are all suffering from a lack of self-identity and because they don't know themselves, they try to attach to any kind of social movement or any kind of cultural expectation.

Darron Brown:

For example, where I'm from, most people have dreads, gold teeth and I want to say hoodies. And I remember how people used to dress before that in my neighborhood People still had like the jerry curls and the fitted hats. You know what I'm saying. Then it was the waves, but what I saw is that people who really, who really are trying to find themselves, to be a part of something. They usually just attach to certain things, certain movements and certain labels. Ultimately, if you are going to go through this self-improvement journey, this path of awakening, you have to consistently liberate yourself, and um in increments what I want to know for you.

Darron Brown:

has it become easier for you? Because when you first started this journey, you broke away from being that traditional woman, traditional wife doing all that stuff you did make. Those changes didn't happen overnight. I want to say, for who you are today, like, is it easier for you to see an issue? Be aware of your feelings and actually I want to say act on? Yeah, is it easier for you to act on the way you feel now compared to how it was when you were first starting this journey?

Toni Jones:

Yes, yes, it's definitely matured. I'm able to regulate in real time and sometimes I'm not able to regulate in real time like my nervous system but I'm able to take space to process every triggers, every feelings I have, and if it's another party involved in that, I'm able to speak that. But I'm also requiring certain aspects from those individuals sometimes to create a safe space where we can talk about the things that brought up conflict, trigger disagreements and so on. So those skillsets were built over time and I'm still identifying the areas that they can improve and I'm just like, wow, this really is a journey. There is no destination to expanding in these self-mastery skill sets, you know. So I will definitely say that's one of my, one of my things that I'm very proud about how far I've gotten in. These skill sets Still have a way to go, but I'm definitely matured in that way.

Darron Brown:

I want to talk about mental health awareness, Like why is mental health so important for you?

Toni Jones:

Mental health is so important because I personally experienced mental health crisis. I dealt with suicidal ideation. I've taken attempts on my life and my adulthood and it was always because it was triggered by life events. But I always had this dormant feeling of like yo, this life is some bullshit, like everything that everybody think is normal. I don't see, I see insanity in all of it, like I never. There was just certain things. I was just disenchanted with capitalism, disenchanted with with certain systems of our society that I was just like yo. This is actually madness and we think this is order. So for me, I always had this dormant thought of like yo, if I check out, I'll be done, I ain't got to play this game, no more. So when life events will occur that would just send my nervous system to hell, I would just be like, yeah, I'm out, I'm good on all of this, and so I.

Toni Jones:

Mental health is so important for me because I'm such a a a wise seat Like. I'm a wisdom seeker and I'm all about um spiritual empowerment and a lot of times these concepts and that type of expansive awareness can cause a spiritual psychosis and where you're aware of too much, where you're not finding the bliss in the present moment. So mental health for me is about grounding myself back into my body, back into my play, back into my fun, back into the joy of of having access to water and fruit and travel and just being able to be mobile and not get a phone call that somebody died today, you know, like just ground. The therapist helps me do that. So I think mental health is so important because we're such an overly informed generation that we need to sometimes quiet the noise and bring ourselves back to how am I doing? How am I feeling? Where is my mental health at you?

Darron Brown:

know. You know, the thing that got me, when I realized that um, society, the the way the system is structured is is bullshit, is because we're never free. Once we get into, it's like eight hours of our day is taken from us for the rest of our lives. It's like man. When do I escape and when am I free so I can really start being a human? I can explore the different areas of my personality, I can travel, I can do things on impulse that I feel like I'm spiritually inclined to do, but the way our society is structured is that we're all, basically, we're all workers. We're all workers trying to keep this thing, whatever it is, above water. We never really truly get a break.

Toni Jones:

Right.

Darron Brown:

I want to know do you see yourself as a mental health advocate?

Toni Jones:

Yes.

Darron Brown:

How do you help people with mental health through your music?

Toni Jones:

I use certain words, I use my intentions, I use my knowledge around how music has a medicinal legacy when it comes to the health of one's psychology, and I incorporate that in the process of creating my music. So, at the push of play immediately take someone to a mood, a vibe where their psychology starts to rewire to that mood, because once the brain feels a feeling that it likes, it wants more of that, and so they keep pushing play, they keep listening to this music and they start to see the fruits of the actions and behaviors that come from that feeling that they get when they play that music, because they're changing the inner dialogue of what they say to themselves. You know, and so that is. You know, I'm a human behavior nerd. If you couldn't tell, I got my degree in psychology and I study neuroscience and all of those things and I don't know what you call it neurologists.

Darron Brown:

I know one of them was a professor at, or he did, diego. What did he do? He did research at Harvard and Princeton and now he's in France doing it. But basically you're talking about brain rewiring right, like rewiring your brain to think.

Toni Jones:

Neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity it's called neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity it's called neuroplasticity, yes okay brain rewiring is another simple term to describe, you know, neuroplasticity okay, okay, cool.

Darron Brown:

I wanted to ask you this earlier but I just it slipped my mind. On the internet right now we have this battle between men and women. I will say this personally before I ask this question For me personally, I haven't had many bad experiences with women. I would say that most of my early younger relationships ended because of me and it was because I was selfish. I was focused on.

Darron Brown:

First I thought I was the shit. I thought I'm a good looking dude, I'm an athlete playing college ball. You have a lot of attention as an athlete and it can kind of make you a little narcissistic as a. I guess, even just thinking about my childhood, I was always like a decent athlete, had a lot of attention. But I realized that, you know, just now, working on, I want to say, when I got close to my early, when I got closer to my thirties and I was doing this self-improvement journey for like since I was about 24, 25, I was able to look back and see, wow, there were some women that I could have had made my wife, that I could have been with, but I was so focused on football, my career and things I wanted to do that I wasn't really giving into that relationship. I was never, I'm not. I'm not a yeller, I'm not disrespectful, I'm not a cheater, but I can still make you feel alone by not placing your needs, you know, prior towards your needs.

Darron Brown:

So I did that when I was like younger and I mean, you live, you learn. But I can't honestly say that I've had bad relationships with women or I feel like I'm going to like hate women because they're men. On the internet I have friends that are like oh screw women, these women ain't shit, yada, yada, yada. And I didn't have that. I had good women. If there are women who are like that, most likely I just didn't even deal with them in the first place. But my thing, like I said, I was always focused on what I want to do, my goals, et cetera, and I didn't give my partner that same type of attention. Why? Two questions? Do you hate men? I think that at one point. Do you hate men? Do you have some kind of animosity?

Toni Jones:

No, I don't hate, men I hate their program.

Darron Brown:

Okay.

Toni Jones:

And I don't use the word hate often, I may say it maybe three times a year what is the program?

Darron Brown:

tell me, what about the programming? Do you not like about the american man?

Toni Jones:

the program is very um, the root of it is capitalism, the root of it is white supremacy, the root of it is colonialism. And so, which makes you constantly in the lower parts of your nature, it supports a man identifying his manhood, his masculinity, his whole identity based on his lower nature, which is pleasure and survival. And so, when you are approaching your life through the lens of pleasure and survival, which means sustainability, money, pleasure, sex, what feels good, you know what I'm saying, what gives you that. You know what I'm saying Like turn me on.

Toni Jones:

And so when you identify with that and don't go into the higher levels of yourself, you end up causing harm to people, you know. And so for me, self-awareness is a higher level of being. But if you're constantly in survival mode, you're constantly seeking and searching out pleasure, you're, you're operating from an animalistic level of way of approaching your life, because that's what animals do. They fucking eat and survive. You know what I'm saying. Like that's what they do. You know, they go hunt, they find, and so much of the program is a rock.

Darron Brown:

I was going to say we don't have a society that really teaches, because, really, what you're saying is is that you want an individual or men. They need to be more conscious, basically more self-aware. The more conscious you are, the more aware of your decision making. You're more aware of how you feel and how you make people feel.

Toni Jones:

Not just conscious, integral, Integral. I think integrity is better than I think it's higher than consciousness.

Darron Brown:

I think when you become a higher conscious being, you become a person that has a lot more integrity, because it is it's one thing to do wrong when you don't know and it's another to do wrong when you do know. It's poisonous If you know, if you're aware of all the evil that you're going to do and you act on that, it's it messes up Some people Well, here's, and here's the thing with that.

Toni Jones:

It messes up, well, some people Well, here's, and here's the thing with that. I thought that too, until I met conscious people who are aware of their ways, aware of their harm, but they believe in duality, they believe in balance, so they use spiritual consciousness to bypass you know what I'm saying the harm that they cause others I'm learning now I'm like yeah, yeah, so it's like.

Toni Jones:

I've experienced conscious individuals who are aware of their darkness, aware of their ways, but they still do it because they believe it's part of their balance, it's part of their duality. They don't, they don't use their awareness and consciousness of their darkness to integrate it and alchemize it. They use it as a way of being, to excuse and bypass them, to do whatever they want to do.

Darron Brown:

You see, what I'm saying yes, those are the.

Toni Jones:

I didn't know that existed until I experienced it. I didn't know that existed until I experienced it. Okay, that you can be still self-aware and harm others even in that self-awareness, even with that consciousness. That's why I say integrity, because integrity means that you have a constitution to abide by. Through empathy, through understanding, through otherness, you know where you consider yourself, what you consider your neighbor as well.

Darron Brown:

What do they call it like?

Toni Jones:

the golden rule or something. Yeah, you know, and so I I think people meeting people who are in integrity, like that means something to them. It's a different texture to the engagement.

Darron Brown:

You're talking about righteousness versus evil, Because there's one thing to say animalistic somebody that's in an animal nature. But I don't believe that you can have a higher conscious and still be in an animal nature. So once you get to that level of, like, higher conscious and you're still doing wrong, you know you're acting on it. That's evil. And when you're saying integral, people integral. I'm not even saying this word integral integral people, people with high integrity. Those people are people who are righteous righteous, you know and it's hard to um.

Darron Brown:

It's just people of different lights, you know, obviously, the person that has the integrity. They bright, they're brighter, the other one's more dim, but this is I think. Yeah, we're a little bit over the show, but I want to end it with this Do you have any? If you had to give your philosophy for life, what would it be?

Toni Jones:

To play, have fun. Don't forget your inner child and what brings your inner child joy. There's a lot in the world to take seriously. There's a lot of work that we have to do inner and outside, but that fun and that play will continue. It will continue to nourish the emotional habitat that you need to endure this life. So have fun, play, enjoy the people that you can laugh hard with, eat good food, dance to some music to go out, be in nature with. That's what that's my philosophy have fun, play and also just be gentle with yourself.

Darron Brown:

That was lovely. Thank you, I like that you, I like that. I like that. Tony jones, thank you for coming on to the show. Thank you, it was a pleasure speaking with you. I did not know about your music prior to our podcast, so I'm glad that you wanted to come on here and it gave me an opportunity to, um, get to know you a little bit better thank you anyway, thank you for being on. I'll catch you later. Have a good one.

Toni Jones:

Bye, alright, peace.

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Darron Brown

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