Jada Pinkett Smith is a woman who is learning to step out of the shadows.
It would be simplistic to only say that she has put her dark and painful past behind her. The actress, musician, self-care activist and mother is doing something much more complex and beautiful than that.
Pinkett Smith has given her life to unpacking hardship, embracing vulnerability, and learning what love truly is.
The creator of the revolutionary hit show, Red Table Talk, now uses her experiences to foster a space of openness and growth.
When Pinkett Smith sat down with Jay Shetty recently, their time was full of deep wisdom and transparency, something that Jada celebrates as a milestone of health and growth in her life.
Stepping Out of the Shadows
As they began talking, Jay Shetty complimented Pinkett Smith on her gift of meeting people where they are and listening well, giving value to their story and honor to their pain.
“You’re such a listener,” Shetty affirmed his friend. “You engage people in a way that makes them find stuff they didn’t even know was in them.”
Pinkett Smith believes listening is love in its truest sense. It has been a lesson that has taken her a lifetime to learn.
“One of the biggest realizations that I’ve made,” she told Jay Shetty, “Is that I’m actually learning how to love.”
Pinkett Smith’s childhood did not set her up for success. She was forced to grow up quickly and learned how to fend for herself out of necessity.
“I had a lot of adversity during my childhood,” Pinkett Smith told Jay Shetty. “My mother was a heroin addict and my father was an alcoholic and a criminal, as he would describe himself. So I did a lot of growing up. The ways of the world were kinda thrown at me on the streets of Baltimore.”
While some would see this as a life sentence, Pinkett Smith took these circumstances and vowed to use what she learned from them to rise above.
Part of the beauty of Pinkett Smith’s hit Facebook show, Red Table Talk, is the wisdom she brings to the table every episode. Taking what she has learned throughout life, she is honest with others about what it takes to be authentic.
She explained to Jay Shetty that one of the most important things she has learned in the last few years is what true self love looks like. She is convinced that she cannot fully love others without first learning to love herself.
