September 12, 2025 • 38 mins
This episode takes you on a journey through the sharp contrast between joy and heartbreak. It started with me celebrating my anniversary on a blissful spa weekend, only to return home and be met with the heated online debates following Miss America; and then, just days later, national tragedies that shook us all.
Having been on the pageant stage myself, I know how much vulnerability it takes to stand there and invite judgment. Watching the backlash toward our new Miss America led me to think about comparison, not as something that tears us down, but as something we can use to grow. When we compare only to rank ourselves as "better" or "worse," we lose. But when we notice what inspires us, what challenges us, and what makes each person unique, comparison can actually refine us.
Pageantry has always been a reminder of just how subjective life can be. Judges bring their own experiences and perspectives to every score, which is why results can vary so much from one stage to the next. That’s also life: different people will always see you differently. What matters most is showing up as your authentic self - not twisting yourself into what you think someone else wants.
Then, as tragedy struck nationally, I wrestled with the way human suffering became politicized so quickly. In therapy, I was reminded of something powerful: politics and human dignity are not the same thing. We can disagree on policy, but the value of human life should never be up for debate.
In the face of so much heaviness, I share some practices that have kept me grounded: honoring my own trauma, validating my fears, practicing self-care, seeking out what is good, and fiercely protecting my peace. Sometimes it's as simple as putting down my phone, looking up at the sunlight through the trees, and reminding myself that right here, right now, I'm okay.
So, I'll leave you with this: how do you find peace when the world feels overwhelming? And what helps you protect your mental health while staying present and engaged?
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Socials: @sashandsoul | @fearlesslyauthenticcoach | @raeannajohnson
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, welcome back to Sash and Soul.
I'm so glad to have you herewith me this week.
It's been a weird one, right.
Like there's been a lot goingon this week and if you're
anything like me, you're feelingthe weight of it.
It's just been, oh, it's been alot.
So for me, we rewind.
(00:22):
Last weekend was a gloriousweekend.
I went to the spa with myhusband for two nights.
We were celebrating ourtwo-year wedding anniversary and
it was glorious.
We had pedicures, we hadmassages.
I had my first everprofessional facial.
That was lovely.
So I finally understand whatthe hype is all about.
(00:45):
But the whole experience wasjust beautiful.
It was like good food, gooddrinks, great company and just
like this daily bath ritual aspart of the spa experience and
hot tubs and saunas and swim upbars and, oh my gosh, it was
amazing.
It was so, so, so good.
It was everything I wanted itto be.
And because I'm just kind of ahigh strung person and I was
(01:08):
like holding onto a lot ofstress when we got there, I
think it took me until at leastSunday for me to finally be like
, oh, like I'm actually relaxednow, like I am officially zen
and relaxed.
It felt so good.
I didn't want to leave.
I like wanted to bask in thatcalm, relaxed space for a little
while longer before coming home.
(01:29):
But, alas, we came home becausewe had to watch the Packer game
, obviously.
But more importantly, missAmerica finals was on on Sunday
night and so of course, we hadto come home for that and I did
a full recap of Miss Americafinals on the Fearlessly
Authentic Coach TikTok.
(01:50):
So definitely check that out ifyou haven't seen it yet.
But it's a four-part seriesbecause I decided to do my
makeup while I was doing a bitof a recap and it ended up being
like 25 minutes long, so I hadto cut it into small chunks for
you and my intention was toactually talk more about just
the conversations I've had thisweek about Miss America and more
(02:10):
thoughts on it for you and justcoming from a coach's
perspective, as a former titleholder's perspective, on what
value I can pour into thisepisode for you to take into
competition season, whetherthat's for yourself or for your
mentees or clients or whomeveryou're listening on behalf of or
just out of general curiosity.
(02:31):
But as the week progressed, Ikind of anticipated some
negative energy, negativefeedback, negative commentary
after Miss America and of course, I have my critiques of the
show as well and I have feedbackthat I would have as a coach
for clients on performances.
But for me personally, puttingthat negative energy out there
(02:52):
complaining or gossiping orwhatever you want to call it
it's just, it's not my, it's notmy vibe, it's not my energy.
It used to be.
I used to be the girl that wassuper critical and really loved,
like the gossip, and I got likeI don't know a dopamine hit off
of it.
But as I've gotten older andreally had to work through some
(03:12):
of my own mental healthliftingand empowering and focusing on
growth and character development, self-development, having
compassion for people,understanding people's
differences, avoiding judgmentof other people and especially
(03:37):
avoiding judgment for myself,because that's something that
historically I struggle with andso I expected to see some of
that.
But the amount of negativitythat I was seeing and poor
Cassie Donegan, our new MissAmerica 2026, with the hate
towards her of you know the waythat she wore her makeup and
(04:00):
other things it was just italways breaks my heart because
if you have ever competed inpageants, you know how much time
and energy, blood, sweat andtears you pour into your
preparation, into your service,work, into your own
self-development, into theorganization that you believe in
and represent and represent,and to see someone that has done
(04:30):
all of that and now has thetask, this very overwhelming
task, of representing theorganization at a national level
and be the face of thatorganization, having never
really had any time in thespotlight before.
Like we're not talking aboutsomeone that grew up in the
spotlight, grew up with you knowphotographers around her house
because she's famous, like no,we're talking about an everyday
(04:52):
girl just like you and me.
Now all of a sudden beingthrust into the spotlight and
thrown into criticism which shehas handled so gracefully.
Like praise to Cassie for howshe has handled herself when it
comes to this hate and themessages that she has put out
there that have been actuallyreally inspiring for me, that
(05:14):
I'm like taking into my skin andsoaking up.
She's done a really beautifuljob.
But like as an onlooker andsomeone that knows what it means
to put that much time andenergy and heart into it, like
pulling someone down from that,no matter what your personal
opinions are, like that actuallyjust says a lot more about you
(05:35):
than it does about the personthat you are giving feedback
about or criticizing, and I knowthat we all have our own
personal opinions about who wethink should or shouldn't have
won.
But let me tell you somethingthat I tell my clients I don't
think it's ever fair to say thatsomeone deserved to win over
(05:58):
someone else.
I just think, as human beings,we are all beautiful and worthy
and we're all deserving ofwonderful, glorious things, of
achieving our dreams, of puttingourselves out there and meeting
our goals and having goodthings come to us, and so I
don't think that anyone is moredeserving than another person to
(06:20):
win a crown.
And so I think it's great tocheer on the people that you
think like were your top runner,that was your personal favorite
, but to say that they deservedit over the actual winner or
deserve to be in a placementthat they didn't have over
somebody else, like that, Ithink is is not healthy or
(06:40):
helpful type of not a healthy orhelpful perspective to have,
because we're all deserving andwe're all worthy and everyone's
pouring their heart into this.
When you get to that level,like you've done the work,
you're there and you just pourit all out there and at the end
of the day, it's a crapshoot,and we say this all the time
different day, different judges,different outcome.
I think it's fascinating thatwe're seeing, you know, miss New
(07:04):
York.
She was first runner up andtook over the crown when the one
that had won stepped down.
And then she gets to MissAmerica and I don't know what
was going on in her mindset, butI can only imagine she was like
I'm all in because I didn'tthink I was going to be here to
begin with, and here I am now,and so I'm just going all in and
I've got nothing to lose, andso I think that kind of energy
(07:26):
shone through in everything thatshe was doing.
So we can see from that exampledifferent day, different judges
, different outcome.
You bring a different energyinto each competition that you
bring.
You have a differentconversation with the judges.
Your performance might beslightly different because
you've made adjustments.
The list goes on of things thatchange from one competition to
the next.
But, most importantly, if youlook at the judges, the judging
(07:54):
criteria and the judging itself,when you put an Olympic style
score down of 1 to 10 or 0 to 10, that's subjective.
That is based on eachindividual judge's personal
opinion, and that personalopinion is coming from their
likes and their dislikes, theirpreferences, their morals and
values, their interests andhobbies, their professional
(08:18):
experience, their expertise,their intellect, their
understanding of what the MissAmerica organization is, or
maybe even their lack ofunderstanding any kind of
stereotypes that might berolling around in their head,
consciously or unconsciously,like all of these things are
going into them, placing a scoreon that piece of paper.
That's why I could have acompletely different score than
(08:41):
a judge sitting next to me whomight be my best friend and we
know each other so well, but wemay have completely different
scores for the same exact thingbecause we have different
preferences and differentperspectives.
It's subjective, so everysingle competition is going to
be a little bit different.
So my message throughout theentire week has been put your
best out there, work on thethings that you need to work on
(09:02):
to improve.
And if you're going to comparebecause we all do it, it's a
natural human thing that we doIf you're going to compare,
compare for the sake ofimprovement, of self-improvement
.
Don't compare to boost yourselfup and feel better because
you're comparing yourself tosomeone and seeing them as
lesser than, and don't comparefor the sake of putting yourself
down and feeling like you'llnever get there because you
(09:24):
don't have that talent or youdon't look like that, or you
don't have the financial supportto have a wardrobe like that.
Compare, for the sake ofself-improvement.
Compare to see if you like thator if you don't like that.
Compare to see like am I atthat level and do I need to put
more energy and focus into mytalent in order to get there?
Energy and focus into my talentin order to get there.
(09:48):
That's what comparison shouldbe used for, rather than to
affect your ego in some way.
And it's hard.
This is hard work.
I'm not going to lie to you.
Mindset work isn't easy.
It's also not perfect, becausewe're human and I will die on
that hill.
We are human and we haveimperfections and we are not
always going to have the bestmindset.
We're not going to always havethe best attitude.
We're not going to have theperfect preparation all the time
(10:11):
, because we get sick, we havehormone fluctuations, we go
through breakups, we sleeppoorly the night before, we have
family struggles, like.
There's a whole gamut of things, of reasons that would impact
our mindset and impact the waythat we approach a competition.
Our energy, our attitude whathave you?
(10:31):
So the best thing that you cando is personal and
self-development and looking atyourself strategically of what
areas do I need to improve in,what areas do I want to improve
in?
And truly just turn it backaround on yourself of like, how
do I like when I'm looking atthe top 11 at Miss America, what
(10:51):
do I like and what do I notlike, based off of what I need
to improve, what am I idolizingand how can I improve myself?
That was a couple.
A conversation I had with a lotof my clients this week was okay
, what did you see?
What did you take away fromMiss America?
I'm not asking like what's thetea from your perspective, like
(11:12):
what's the dirt from your mindon Miss America, like we're not
gossiping.
I'm truly asking, as you werewatching, what did you learn?
What did you take away?
What did you think was good?
What did you think could havebeen better?
That you can implement for yourown preparation?
And when you start to look at itfrom that perspective, the
(11:33):
experience of watching MissAmerica completely changes from
this thing where you know we getthis dopamine hit of you know
being so excited and then alsolike just completely bashing
someone's talent, like thatmakes us feel better or
something Like we're not gonnasit over here and be like what
do they call it?
Armchair judges or whatever.
(11:54):
We're not in it.
We didn't put the work in, likethe only thing that we can do
is sit back and consider what wecan do better.
So all of this was going onthroughout the week of seeing,
you know, the commentary, thenegative commentary on social
media, how our new Miss Americawas handling herself in the
(12:15):
midst of all of this turmoil,how people were talking about it
online.
I was also seeing like reallybeautiful messaging out there,
especially from former titleholders, about, like, truly,
what it takes to be on thatstage.
And if you can't put yourselfthere, if you've never been
there, then be careful aboutwhat you're saying.
If, for some reason, you cannotsay anything nice, then truly
(12:37):
don't say anything at all,because otherwise you're just
spewing vile.
You're just spewing negativevibrations and negative energy
into the world and it's going tohit someone.
And it's going to hit someoneand it's going to come back
around to that person in someway, shape or form and
ultimately it's not good for you.
It may feel good in the momentto be engaging in that gossip or
to be engaging in thatnegativity, because you get this
(12:59):
like dopamine, like hit ofself-entitlement or empowerment
or whatever it is that feelsgood for a moment, but it's not
going to last.
It's incredibly fleeting.
The thing that lasts is astrong sense of self, of knowing
exactly who you are.
And then all of this was goingon in pageant land and I'm doing
(13:21):
you know my TikToks andeverything.
And then tragedy strikes onWednesday when you know we had
the shooting at the school inColorado.
A 16-year-old boy who is ainfluencer in the political
(13:51):
realm and is very well known forgoing onto college campuses and
debating with students, and heis a conservative activist and
was assassinated.
And so this is happening.
And then, as awful as that is,like that in and of itself is
absolutely horrific.
No one, no one, should ever diethat way, and I can speak just
(14:16):
from my own personal experiencethat I have lost a loved one to
gun violence.
My brother ended his life in2005.
And so gun violence andgun-related accidents and
gun-related deaths that's areally personal topic for me.
So no one should everexperience any kind of violence
(14:39):
at the hands of another person.
I think it's wrong, no matterwho you are.
And so I just want to be very,very clear about that.
What was most bothersome for me,the thing that kept me up at
night on Wednesday night, wasthe comments I was seeing
throughout my whole Facebookfeed on both sides.
It was so disheartening.
(14:59):
It was scary, because therewere people that I know and that
I love saying things that werejust so out of character for
them and just made me reallyquestion my relationship with
them.
And I hate saying that becauseI don't want to be the person
(15:21):
that's like I'm just going toshut people out because of their
beliefs.
That's not really what it is.
It's that like when you seesomeone put out there in a
public space, on a public forum,something that's so negative or
so mean, you just like kind ofquestion their character and
(15:42):
their values.
And then, of course course youknow we see just the arguments
on both sides of I don't know,like it's just so hard because
this isn't political.
Someone dying is not political.
This is not a political thing.
This is a humanity thing.
This is devastation.
(16:03):
I I know loss all too well and,and I think about his wife and
his two kids, I think about theboy in Colorado and his family
and the families of thosestudents and the students
themselves and the teachers andeveryone that was involved.
I think about the students inUtah that were there.
I think about the media thathad to talk about it yet again,
(16:24):
this gun violence in such apublic space.
I think about the people thatdidn't even want to see the
video of the shooting and itpopped up on their TikTok
without even realizing what washappening and now they can't get
that image out of their mind.
Like we need to take a stepback and stop politicizing
(16:51):
things that are not political.
No-transcript care.
(17:34):
I don't care who you are, howevil you may be in your heart.
No one deserves that.
And so I was fortunate thismorning because I had a therapy
session this morning, thankgoodness, because I was really
struggling last night and myhusband told me to stop doom
scrolling and just the back andforth, and it wasn't even a
whole lot of arguing.
To be honest, it was like ifsomeone posted something from
(17:55):
this perspective, the whole feedin their commentary was just a
vacuum of that same perspective.
And then if someone saidsomething in a different post
that was completely different,their whole conversation, from
(18:17):
what I saw, at least early on,was a vacuum of that same-sided
perspective, and so we're doingthis to ourselves too.
You guys, we're living in avacuum.
We're putting ourselves inspaces where we're not hearing
other people's perspectives.
But this is what I heard thismorning from my therapist and I
thought it was so, so, sobeautiful, because I was talking
to her about not wanting to bethe person that cuts people off
(18:40):
because of politics and thenalso not wanting to be the
person that risks my peace andmy sense of self by maintaining
relationships with people thatmake me feel unsafe and
uncomfortable because of theirbeliefs a difference between
political beliefs and humandignity.
There's a difference betweenpolitical beliefs and humanity
(19:11):
issues.
There's a difference betweenpolitical beliefs and core
values, and I thought that wassuch an interesting way of
talking about it and discussingit, because it's true, there are
politics, there are things thatour political representatives
that we have elected into officestand on on their platforms of.
(19:35):
You know the way that theyuphold the Constitution or the
economy.
Those things are political.
But we have politicizedhumanity issues so much that now
it is so deeply entrenched inour politics, in our political
(19:57):
leadership, in our politicalrhetoric, and I think that's
problematic, because I don't seepeople fighting at family
functions because of politics,disagreeing with the other side,
(20:28):
because they are Christian andthey have these very, very solid
Christian beliefs that arebased in their religion, in
biblical teachings.
And then I see the other sideof the aisle that have maybe
they're also Christian beliefs,but they're conflicting
Christian beliefs, or maybe theyjust have morals from a
different space and a differentunderstanding of life experience
(20:49):
.
And we're butting heads over,you know, whether or not someone
is a good person and whether ornot they should be in office.
And we've got some on one sideof the aisle that are saying,
like it should only be about thepolitics.
Well, yeah, that'd be great ifhumanitarian issues weren't
interspersed and laced into ourpolitics at the same time.
(21:11):
It would be great if we couldseparate those two.
I don't think that we wouldhave nearly as much negativity
if we could separate thehumanitarian issues, the core
values, just being a good person, from politics.
If we could separate that, thatwould be great.
But unfortunately I don't thinkthat's possible and I think the
only thing that we can do isstart to listen to one another
(21:35):
on both sides.
It cannot be like my clientsaid today.
It cannot be this side overhere like, yeah, we should
definitely listen to one another.
Why don't you come over to ourside and then everything will be
great?
And then the other side sayingno, no, I think I think we can
do this, I think we can, we cantalk and we can listen, but why
don't you come to our side andeverything will be great?
No, we have to meet in themiddle and we're gonna have to
(21:57):
agree to disagree.
We have to Because one of thebeautiful things about being
human and living this life isthat we all have the freedom to
think our own thoughts.
We have the liberty to have ourown beliefs.
That's what makes this country,that's what makes America so
(22:19):
beautiful, at least from thefounding perspective.
The foundation of our countryhas been that everyone has a
right to their own opinion,everyone has a right to their
own way of living, as long as weare abiding by certain laws and
principles.
But when we start insertingpersonal, very personal values
(22:42):
based on religion or livedexperience or any other
perspective that you have, onceyou start inserting that and
demanding that other peoplebelieve the exact same thing and
abide by the laws that you deemto be the most appropriate,
that's when we have problems,and so honestly, I don't know
(23:03):
how this country is going toclimb out of this and bridge the
gap, but I do know that we asindividuals have some power here
reflection, our ownself-control, our own emotional
(23:28):
intelligence.
The work that we need to do onourselves is hard work, but it's
work that should be done inorder to make this world a
better place.
I will tell you, hands down, assoon as I stopped judging myself
so much, I was that much betterat not judging other people,
(23:48):
and now I live in this space oflike.
I work really hard not to judgemyself, and I work especially
hard of realizing when I mightbe judging somebody else and
practice giving them grace asmuch as I have to practice
giving myself grace.
That doesn't excuse behavior.
I set boundaries.
I'm not going to be mistreated,but I wholeheartedly believe in
(24:11):
just giving people the spaceand the grace that they need,
knowing that they are fullycapable, beautiful, worthy human
beings.
So right now, in the midst ofall of this violence, we are, as
my therapist said, essentiallystanding in front of a fire hose
(24:35):
of negative information, justpummeling us with negative
information, and with that weare missing anything good and
anything affirming.
So we have to actively chooseto seek out good things and I've
talked about this before withmy clients, especially when it
comes to doom, scrolling andsocial media, we get inundated.
(24:56):
It's like shiny objects, likewe're going to stare at the
train wreck rather than, youknow, look at the beautiful
sunset.
Because the train wreck is likeso wildly crazy to us that we
can't turn away.
But we have to actively chooseto turn off the faucet on that
negative information.
And the thing is is you havethe power to do that.
You can stop scrolling, you canunfollow any accounts that tend
(25:22):
to spew negativity or that rileyou up and you can choose
instead to look for videos ofbaby hippos, like.
You can choose to do that.
Instead, you can choose to putthe phone down and call a friend
.
She, my therapist, said MrRogers.
(25:47):
She said is her favorite andshe said that he had a line that
said look for the helpers.
She said is her favorite andshe said that he had a line that
said look for the helpers.
You know, as I'm recording this,this episode comes out on
Fridays, but it's a Thursdaylate afternoon and it is the
anniversary of 9-11.
And you know we think about thetragedy of that and the despair
(26:10):
and the hopelessness and theviolence.
And I remember, like I'll neverforget I think most of us that
we're old enough to rememberlike we'll never forget where we
were when we first started,watching the clips of the planes
hitting the World Trade Centersand like those images are
etched in our minds.
But if we look for the helpers,those images are etched in our
(26:32):
minds.
But if we look for the helpers,there were so many beautiful
pieces, displays of humanity, ofpeople hugging that were
perfect strangers on the streets, civilians, first responders
going directly into danger tohelp people.
There's so much beauty but wehave to look for it and that, I
(26:57):
think, is going to be the bestway that we will survive and the
way that we can start to climbout of this negative vacuum of
information and start to cometogether again that if we are
looking for similarities, ifwe're looking for the humanity
in one another, then we won't befocused on and reeling in our
(27:23):
differences, because ourdifferences just seem to be
dividing us even more and thenwe are kind of turning to those
that are most like us and thatis causing even more small
vacuums of groups of people andit's spewing more hate and it's
spewing more misinformation.
So I just I said it because ofpageants earlier this week and
(27:46):
it seems so small in the grandscheme of things now with
everything that's been happeningbut can we just spread the love
, can we just pour out kindnessto people?
I mean, I was walking in theneighborhood right after we
learned of Charlie Kirk's death.
We were walking with our dogsand we walked back past this
(28:08):
house that we walked past allthe time and they have big
political signs out and they arejust like screaming their party
affiliation and I was kind ofhaving a hard time with it
walking past this house at thispoint and they were outside with
a brand new puppy and it wasour first time that we actually
talked to these people andtalking to them about where they
(28:31):
lived before this and why theymoved here and about you know
how they've had this same puppybreed and this is their third
and why they love it so much andjust seeing their four little
kids run around and just thehumanity, like, just human
beings that if all we see ispolitical affiliation or the
(28:52):
color of someone's skin or heartheir accent or look at their
clothes or see what churchthey're leaving in the morning,
like if that's all we're seeing.
We are missing the human behindit all.
And that is the one thing.
If you strip everything elseaway, we all look the same on
the inside, truly, but we're allgoing to have different beliefs
(29:15):
.
Because if we didn't like,where would creativity come from
?
Where would how would we grow?
How would we develop anythingnew?
The only way to do that isthrough contrast, through
disagreements, through Whateverhappened to us, celebrating
differences, truly celebratingdifferences.
(29:36):
And I want you to ask yourselflike what does that mean to
truly celebrate differences?
And I'm talking all differences.
I'm not just talking aboutcultural differences, I'm not
talking about experientialdifferences.
I'm talking about differencesin our belief systems,
differences in our politicalviews.
Let's switch the perspectiveand switch the script here on.
(29:59):
What can we actually appreciateabout having a vastly different
perspective and opinion onsomething?
Because, at the end of the day,that's truly what makes this
world go round.
Because, at the end of the day,that's truly what makes this
world go round and it's whatmakes it interesting and
fascinating.
With that, I want to validate oh, my goodness, I hope that you
(30:25):
didn't like tune me out before Isaid this, if you're feeling
like I'm negating the fact thatthere is a real fear right now.
There is very real and validfear for people, for certain
groups of people, forindividuals, depending on where
you're from, how you identify,where you live, how you look,
what you believe.
(30:45):
There is very real, valid fear,given the environment of our
country right now, the status ofour country right now.
That's so valid and I just wantto send out like the biggest
warm hug of validation that Ipossibly can and I want you to
know that you're not alone, likeI am not.
(31:09):
I don't consider myself aspecial category of individuals,
like I'm not.
I don't identify in the LGBTQcommunity.
I am a cisgender white woman,but I'm also afraid.
So there's you're not alone inbeing afraid.
That I think fear is a veryuniversal experience.
(31:31):
Fear for different things, ofcourse.
(32:00):
That's not universal, but fearitself is pretty universal, and
so I want to wrap this up bysaying like when we're afraid,
we still have to go in search ofthe good for our own survival,
because there's nothing we cando immediately to solve this
incredibly overwhelming problemthat we're facing right now.
So we have to go searching forthe of us, we have to attend to
our trauma, what we'veexperienced this week.
Whether you witnessed theshooting or not, if you were
personally involved or knewsomeone personally involved, or
(32:21):
if you just are feeling a lotfrom it.
Attend to your trauma, becausethis was a traumatic event.
Validate your fears.
Your fears are absolutely valid, all of your feelings are valid
and it's okay to feel multiplefeelings at the same time.
So validate your fears.
Care for yourself.
Self-care and self-compassionare going to be essential in
(32:47):
order to move through this, andI had a moment when we were
walking the dogs earlier thisafternoon where I just kind of
looked up and I realized that Ihad been in my head for the
majority of and I looked up andI just saw sun shining through
the trees and I felt the breezeand I heard kids playing at the
park and I realized I'm okayRight now, right here in this
(33:08):
space, I'm safe and I am okay.
And that was really eye-openingfor me that I need to find those
spaces of feeling safe and good.
We need a reprieve from thefear.
The next would be to seek outthe good.
As I said like look for it,look for the helpers, look for
the people that are stillshowing up in their communities.
If you're in pageantry, it'sall around you.
(33:29):
You see the women that arepouring out their hearts into
their communities.
If you're in pageantry, it'sall around you.
You see the women that arepouring out their hearts into
their communities.
Look for that and lean into thehumanity of that.
And finally, this was from me.
I put this one down.
I said protect your peace.
You know like it's okay tograciously get up and leave a
conversation if it's affectingyou in some sort of way.
Recognize if you are havingsome negative emotional reaction
(33:53):
to something in your vicinityand choose to remove it or
remove yourself from that.
Protect your peace right.
Like I don't want to lose thesense of peace and relaxation
that I was feeling on Sundaybefore we left the spa.
I don't want to lose that.
It's taken me a long time toget there.
(34:13):
If you've been listening, youknow like I've had a year I mean
I know everyone has had a yearbut like I'm still holding on in
my central nervous system to awhole lot of stress and trauma.
And like I just any ounce ofpeace that I can have I want to
protect.
So with that can have.
(34:35):
I want to protect.
So with that, pouring my loveinto you, pouring my love into
this conversation.
I am sure that not everyone isgoing to agree with everything
that I said, but I don't have ascript in front of me.
I'm truly just speaking fromthe heart, and I try not to edit
these episodes as much as Ipossibly can, because I want it
to come from my heart and I wantit to be raw and real,
especially conversations likethis.
So, as with everything in thisworld, please take what works
(34:58):
for you and leave the rest.
Please choose to be kind andthat goes for me too Like, if
you want to have a conversationwith me about this privately,
like I am happy to.
Please reach out.
I would be happy to hear otherpeople's perspectives and their
experiences and and even, like,clarify if there was something I
said that was maybemisunderstood.
(35:19):
My intention behind this entireepisode was just to pour love
and to pour insight from theconversations that I've been
having and the things that I'vebeen feeling and the things that
I've been working through.
So that was my whole intention.
It was never to offend or hurtor harm anyone.
So be kind to me, give me theopportunity to learn if I
(35:40):
misspoke, give me theopportunity to clarify if there
was something that wasmisunderstood and, most
importantly, do that foryourself and for others too.
Let's all really practice beingpatient, being kind with
ourselves and with others andunderstand you know that we're
(36:03):
all going to come from differentplaces and and have different
opinions and perspectives, andsometimes those perspectives are
honestly just either naive oruninformed.
So we can have grace for peoplethat are in that space as well.
So with that, you guys oh mygosh I feel like drained of all
(36:24):
the things that I have beenfeeling and thinking in the last
24 hours.
So thanks for hanging in therewith me.
Please do take care of yourself.
Look for those spaces ofgoodness, look for those spaces
of feeling free and feelingalive and feeling safe, because
those are the spaces that aregoing to rejuvenate and uplift
you and allow you to keeppressing forward in your
(36:46):
personal missions in life andgoing after your goals and your
dreams.
So I will talk to you againnext week.
Take care of yourselves, bye.
Hello, welcome back to Sash and Soul.
I'm so glad to have you herewith me this week.
It's been a weird one, right.
Like there's been a lot goingon this week and if you're
anything like me, you're feelingthe weight of it.
It's just been, oh, it's been alot.
So for me, we rewind.
(00:22):
Last weekend was a gloriousweekend.
I went to the spa with myhusband for two nights.
We were celebrating ourtwo-year wedding anniversary and
it was glorious.
We had pedicures, we hadmassages.
I had my first everprofessional facial.
That was lovely.
So I finally understand whatthe hype is all about.
(00:45):
But the whole experience wasjust beautiful.
It was like good food, gooddrinks, great company and just
like this daily bath ritual aspart of the spa experience and
hot tubs and saunas and swim upbars and, oh my gosh, it was
amazing.
It was so, so, so good.
It was everything I wanted itto be.
And because I'm just kind of ahigh strung person and I was
(01:08):
like holding onto a lot ofstress when we got there, I
think it took me until at leastSunday for me to finally be like
, oh, like I'm actually relaxednow, like I am officially zen
and relaxed.
It felt so good.
I didn't want to leave.
I like wanted to bask in thatcalm, relaxed space for a little
while longer before coming home.
(01:29):
But, alas, we came home becausewe had to watch the Packer game
, obviously.
But more importantly, missAmerica finals was on on Sunday
night and so of course, we hadto come home for that and I did
a full recap of Miss Americafinals on the Fearlessly
Authentic Coach TikTok.
(01:50):
So definitely check that out ifyou haven't seen it yet.
But it's a four-part seriesbecause I decided to do my
makeup while I was doing a bitof a recap and it ended up being
like 25 minutes long, so I hadto cut it into small chunks for
you and my intention was toactually talk more about just
the conversations I've had thisweek about Miss America and more
(02:10):
thoughts on it for you and justcoming from a coach's
perspective, as a former titleholder's perspective, on what
value I can pour into thisepisode for you to take into
competition season, whetherthat's for yourself or for your
mentees or clients or whomeveryou're listening on behalf of or
just out of general curiosity.
(02:31):
But as the week progressed, Ikind of anticipated some
negative energy, negativefeedback, negative commentary
after Miss America and of course, I have my critiques of the
show as well and I have feedbackthat I would have as a coach
for clients on performances.
But for me personally, puttingthat negative energy out there
(02:52):
complaining or gossiping orwhatever you want to call it
it's just, it's not my, it's notmy vibe, it's not my energy.
It used to be.
I used to be the girl that wassuper critical and really loved,
like the gossip, and I got likeI don't know a dopamine hit off
of it.
But as I've gotten older andreally had to work through some
(03:12):
of my own mental healthliftingand empowering and focusing on
growth and character development, self-development, having
compassion for people,understanding people's
differences, avoiding judgmentof other people and especially
(03:37):
avoiding judgment for myself,because that's something that
historically I struggle with andso I expected to see some of
that.
But the amount of negativitythat I was seeing and poor
Cassie Donegan, our new MissAmerica 2026, with the hate
towards her of you know the waythat she wore her makeup and
(04:00):
other things it was just italways breaks my heart because
if you have ever competed inpageants, you know how much time
and energy, blood, sweat andtears you pour into your
preparation, into your service,work, into your own
self-development, into theorganization that you believe in
and represent and represent,and to see someone that has done
(04:30):
all of that and now has thetask, this very overwhelming
task, of representing theorganization at a national level
and be the face of thatorganization, having never
really had any time in thespotlight before.
Like we're not talking aboutsomeone that grew up in the
spotlight, grew up with you knowphotographers around her house
because she's famous, like no,we're talking about an everyday
(04:52):
girl just like you and me.
Now all of a sudden beingthrust into the spotlight and
thrown into criticism which shehas handled so gracefully.
Like praise to Cassie for howshe has handled herself when it
comes to this hate and themessages that she has put out
there that have been actuallyreally inspiring for me, that
(05:14):
I'm like taking into my skin andsoaking up.
She's done a really beautifuljob.
But like as an onlooker andsomeone that knows what it means
to put that much time andenergy and heart into it, like
pulling someone down from that,no matter what your personal
opinions are, like that actuallyjust says a lot more about you
(05:35):
than it does about the personthat you are giving feedback
about or criticizing, and I knowthat we all have our own
personal opinions about who wethink should or shouldn't have
won.
But let me tell you somethingthat I tell my clients I don't
think it's ever fair to say thatsomeone deserved to win over
(05:58):
someone else.
I just think, as human beings,we are all beautiful and worthy
and we're all deserving ofwonderful, glorious things, of
achieving our dreams, of puttingourselves out there and meeting
our goals and having goodthings come to us, and so I
don't think that anyone is moredeserving than another person to
(06:20):
win a crown.
And so I think it's great tocheer on the people that you
think like were your top runner,that was your personal favorite
, but to say that they deservedit over the actual winner or
deserve to be in a placementthat they didn't have over
somebody else, like that, Ithink is is not healthy or
(06:40):
helpful type of not a healthy orhelpful perspective to have,
because we're all deserving andwe're all worthy and everyone's
pouring their heart into this.
When you get to that level,like you've done the work,
you're there and you just pourit all out there and at the end
of the day, it's a crapshoot,and we say this all the time
different day, different judges,different outcome.
I think it's fascinating thatwe're seeing, you know, miss New
(07:04):
York.
She was first runner up andtook over the crown when the one
that had won stepped down.
And then she gets to MissAmerica and I don't know what
was going on in her mindset, butI can only imagine she was like
I'm all in because I didn'tthink I was going to be here to
begin with, and here I am now,and so I'm just going all in and
I've got nothing to lose, andso I think that kind of energy
(07:26):
shone through in everything thatshe was doing.
So we can see from that exampledifferent day, different judges
, different outcome.
You bring a different energyinto each competition that you
bring.
You have a differentconversation with the judges.
Your performance might beslightly different because
you've made adjustments.
The list goes on of things thatchange from one competition to
the next.
But, most importantly, if youlook at the judges, the judging
(07:54):
criteria and the judging itself,when you put an Olympic style
score down of 1 to 10 or 0 to 10, that's subjective.
That is based on eachindividual judge's personal
opinion, and that personalopinion is coming from their
likes and their dislikes, theirpreferences, their morals and
values, their interests andhobbies, their professional
(08:18):
experience, their expertise,their intellect, their
understanding of what the MissAmerica organization is, or
maybe even their lack ofunderstanding any kind of
stereotypes that might berolling around in their head,
consciously or unconsciously,like all of these things are
going into them, placing a scoreon that piece of paper.
That's why I could have acompletely different score than
(08:41):
a judge sitting next to me whomight be my best friend and we
know each other so well, but wemay have completely different
scores for the same exact thingbecause we have different
preferences and differentperspectives.
It's subjective, so everysingle competition is going to
be a little bit different.
So my message throughout theentire week has been put your
best out there, work on thethings that you need to work on
(09:02):
to improve.
And if you're going to comparebecause we all do it, it's a
natural human thing that we doIf you're going to compare,
compare for the sake ofimprovement, of self-improvement
.
Don't compare to boost yourselfup and feel better because
you're comparing yourself tosomeone and seeing them as
lesser than, and don't comparefor the sake of putting yourself
down and feeling like you'llnever get there because you
(09:24):
don't have that talent or youdon't look like that, or you
don't have the financial supportto have a wardrobe like that.
Compare, for the sake ofself-improvement.
Compare to see if you like thator if you don't like that.
Compare to see like am I atthat level and do I need to put
more energy and focus into mytalent in order to get there?
Energy and focus into my talentin order to get there.
(09:48):
That's what comparison shouldbe used for, rather than to
affect your ego in some way.
And it's hard.
This is hard work.
I'm not going to lie to you.
Mindset work isn't easy.
It's also not perfect, becausewe're human and I will die on
that hill.
We are human and we haveimperfections and we are not
always going to have the bestmindset.
We're not going to always havethe best attitude.
We're not going to have theperfect preparation all the time
(10:11):
, because we get sick, we havehormone fluctuations, we go
through breakups, we sleeppoorly the night before, we have
family struggles, like.
There's a whole gamut of things, of reasons that would impact
our mindset and impact the waythat we approach a competition.
Our energy, our attitude whathave you?
(10:31):
So the best thing that you cando is personal and
self-development and looking atyourself strategically of what
areas do I need to improve in,what areas do I want to improve
in?
And truly just turn it backaround on yourself of like, how
do I like when I'm looking atthe top 11 at Miss America, what
(10:51):
do I like and what do I notlike, based off of what I need
to improve, what am I idolizingand how can I improve myself?
That was a couple.
A conversation I had with a lotof my clients this week was okay
, what did you see?
What did you take away fromMiss America?
I'm not asking like what's thetea from your perspective, like
(11:12):
what's the dirt from your mindon Miss America, like we're not
gossiping.
I'm truly asking, as you werewatching, what did you learn?
What did you take away?
What did you think was good?
What did you think could havebeen better?
That you can implement for yourown preparation?
And when you start to look at itfrom that perspective, the
(11:33):
experience of watching MissAmerica completely changes from
this thing where you know we getthis dopamine hit of you know
being so excited and then alsolike just completely bashing
someone's talent, like thatmakes us feel better or
something Like we're not gonnasit over here and be like what
do they call it?
Armchair judges or whatever.
(11:54):
We're not in it.
We didn't put the work in, likethe only thing that we can do
is sit back and consider what wecan do better.
So all of this was going onthroughout the week of seeing,
you know, the commentary, thenegative commentary on social
media, how our new Miss Americawas handling herself in the
(12:15):
midst of all of this turmoil,how people were talking about it
online.
I was also seeing like reallybeautiful messaging out there,
especially from former titleholders, about, like, truly,
what it takes to be on thatstage.
And if you can't put yourselfthere, if you've never been
there, then be careful aboutwhat you're saying.
If, for some reason, you cannotsay anything nice, then truly
(12:37):
don't say anything at all,because otherwise you're just
spewing vile.
You're just spewing negativevibrations and negative energy
into the world and it's going tohit someone.
And it's going to hit someoneand it's going to come back
around to that person in someway, shape or form and
ultimately it's not good for you.
It may feel good in the momentto be engaging in that gossip or
to be engaging in thatnegativity, because you get this
(12:59):
like dopamine, like hit ofself-entitlement or empowerment
or whatever it is that feelsgood for a moment, but it's not
going to last.
It's incredibly fleeting.
The thing that lasts is astrong sense of self, of knowing
exactly who you are.
And then all of this was goingon in pageant land and I'm doing
(13:21):
you know my TikToks andeverything.
And then tragedy strikes onWednesday when you know we had
the shooting at the school inColorado.
A 16-year-old boy who is ainfluencer in the political
(13:51):
realm and is very well known forgoing onto college campuses and
debating with students, and heis a conservative activist and
was assassinated.
And so this is happening.
And then, as awful as that is,like that in and of itself is
absolutely horrific.
No one, no one, should ever diethat way, and I can speak just
(14:16):
from my own personal experiencethat I have lost a loved one to
gun violence.
My brother ended his life in2005.
And so gun violence andgun-related accidents and
gun-related deaths that's areally personal topic for me.
So no one should everexperience any kind of violence
(14:39):
at the hands of another person.
I think it's wrong, no matterwho you are.
And so I just want to be very,very clear about that.
What was most bothersome for me,the thing that kept me up at
night on Wednesday night, wasthe comments I was seeing
throughout my whole Facebookfeed on both sides.
It was so disheartening.
(14:59):
It was scary, because therewere people that I know and that
I love saying things that werejust so out of character for
them and just made me reallyquestion my relationship with
them.
And I hate saying that becauseI don't want to be the person
(15:21):
that's like I'm just going toshut people out because of their
beliefs.
That's not really what it is.
It's that like when you seesomeone put out there in a
public space, on a public forum,something that's so negative or
so mean, you just like kind ofquestion their character and
(15:42):
their values.
And then, of course course youknow we see just the arguments
on both sides of I don't know,like it's just so hard because
this isn't political.
Someone dying is not political.
This is not a political thing.
This is a humanity thing.
This is devastation.
(16:03):
I I know loss all too well and,and I think about his wife and
his two kids, I think about theboy in Colorado and his family
and the families of thosestudents and the students
themselves and the teachers andeveryone that was involved.
I think about the students inUtah that were there.
I think about the media thathad to talk about it yet again,
(16:24):
this gun violence in such apublic space.
I think about the people thatdidn't even want to see the
video of the shooting and itpopped up on their TikTok
without even realizing what washappening and now they can't get
that image out of their mind.
Like we need to take a stepback and stop politicizing
(16:51):
things that are not political.
No-transcript care.
(17:34):
I don't care who you are, howevil you may be in your heart.
No one deserves that.
And so I was fortunate thismorning because I had a therapy
session this morning, thankgoodness, because I was really
struggling last night and myhusband told me to stop doom
scrolling and just the back andforth, and it wasn't even a
whole lot of arguing.
To be honest, it was like ifsomeone posted something from
(17:55):
this perspective, the whole feedin their commentary was just a
vacuum of that same perspective.
And then if someone saidsomething in a different post
that was completely different,their whole conversation, from
(18:17):
what I saw, at least early on,was a vacuum of that same-sided
perspective, and so we're doingthis to ourselves too.
You guys, we're living in avacuum.
We're putting ourselves inspaces where we're not hearing
other people's perspectives.
But this is what I heard thismorning from my therapist and I
thought it was so, so, sobeautiful, because I was talking
to her about not wanting to bethe person that cuts people off
(18:40):
because of politics and thenalso not wanting to be the
person that risks my peace andmy sense of self by maintaining
relationships with people thatmake me feel unsafe and
uncomfortable because of theirbeliefs a difference between
political beliefs and humandignity.
There's a difference betweenpolitical beliefs and humanity
(19:11):
issues.
There's a difference betweenpolitical beliefs and core
values, and I thought that wassuch an interesting way of
talking about it and discussingit, because it's true, there are
politics, there are things thatour political representatives
that we have elected into officestand on on their platforms of.
(19:35):
You know the way that theyuphold the Constitution or the
economy.
Those things are political.
But we have politicizedhumanity issues so much that now
it is so deeply entrenched inour politics, in our political
(19:57):
leadership, in our politicalrhetoric, and I think that's
problematic, because I don't seepeople fighting at family
functions because of politics,disagreeing with the other side,
(20:28):
because they are Christian andthey have these very, very solid
Christian beliefs that arebased in their religion, in
biblical teachings.
And then I see the other sideof the aisle that have maybe
they're also Christian beliefs,but they're conflicting
Christian beliefs, or maybe theyjust have morals from a
different space and a differentunderstanding of life experience
(20:49):
.
And we're butting heads over,you know, whether or not someone
is a good person and whether ornot they should be in office.
And we've got some on one sideof the aisle that are saying,
like it should only be about thepolitics.
Well, yeah, that'd be great ifhumanitarian issues weren't
interspersed and laced into ourpolitics at the same time.
(21:11):
It would be great if we couldseparate those two.
I don't think that we wouldhave nearly as much negativity
if we could separate thehumanitarian issues, the core
values, just being a good person, from politics.
If we could separate that, thatwould be great.
But unfortunately I don't thinkthat's possible and I think the
only thing that we can do isstart to listen to one another
(21:35):
on both sides.
It cannot be like my clientsaid today.
It cannot be this side overhere like, yeah, we should
definitely listen to one another.
Why don't you come over to ourside and then everything will be
great?
And then the other side sayingno, no, I think I think we can
do this, I think we can, we cantalk and we can listen, but why
don't you come to our side andeverything will be great?
No, we have to meet in themiddle and we're gonna have to
(21:57):
agree to disagree.
We have to Because one of thebeautiful things about being
human and living this life isthat we all have the freedom to
think our own thoughts.
We have the liberty to have ourown beliefs.
That's what makes this country,that's what makes America so
(22:19):
beautiful, at least from thefounding perspective.
The foundation of our countryhas been that everyone has a
right to their own opinion,everyone has a right to their
own way of living, as long as weare abiding by certain laws and
principles.
But when we start insertingpersonal, very personal values
(22:42):
based on religion or livedexperience or any other
perspective that you have, onceyou start inserting that and
demanding that other peoplebelieve the exact same thing and
abide by the laws that you deemto be the most appropriate,
that's when we have problems,and so honestly, I don't know
(23:03):
how this country is going toclimb out of this and bridge the
gap, but I do know that we asindividuals have some power here
reflection, our ownself-control, our own emotional
(23:28):
intelligence.
The work that we need to do onourselves is hard work, but it's
work that should be done inorder to make this world a
better place.
I will tell you, hands down, assoon as I stopped judging myself
so much, I was that much betterat not judging other people,
(23:48):
and now I live in this space oflike.
I work really hard not to judgemyself, and I work especially
hard of realizing when I mightbe judging somebody else and
practice giving them grace asmuch as I have to practice
giving myself grace.
That doesn't excuse behavior.
I set boundaries.
I'm not going to be mistreated,but I wholeheartedly believe in
(24:11):
just giving people the spaceand the grace that they need,
knowing that they are fullycapable, beautiful, worthy human
beings.
So right now, in the midst ofall of this violence, we are, as
my therapist said, essentiallystanding in front of a fire hose
(24:35):
of negative information, justpummeling us with negative
information, and with that weare missing anything good and
anything affirming.
So we have to actively chooseto seek out good things and I've
talked about this before withmy clients, especially when it
comes to doom, scrolling andsocial media, we get inundated.
(24:56):
It's like shiny objects, likewe're going to stare at the
train wreck rather than, youknow, look at the beautiful
sunset.
Because the train wreck is likeso wildly crazy to us that we
can't turn away.
But we have to actively chooseto turn off the faucet on that
negative information.
And the thing is is you havethe power to do that.
You can stop scrolling, you canunfollow any accounts that tend
(25:22):
to spew negativity or that rileyou up and you can choose
instead to look for videos ofbaby hippos, like.
You can choose to do that.
Instead, you can choose to putthe phone down and call a friend
.
She, my therapist, said MrRogers.
(25:47):
She said is her favorite andshe said that he had a line that
said look for the helpers.
She said is her favorite andshe said that he had a line that
said look for the helpers.
You know, as I'm recording this,this episode comes out on
Fridays, but it's a Thursdaylate afternoon and it is the
anniversary of 9-11.
And you know we think about thetragedy of that and the despair
(26:10):
and the hopelessness and theviolence.
And I remember, like I'll neverforget I think most of us that
we're old enough to rememberlike we'll never forget where we
were when we first started,watching the clips of the planes
hitting the World Trade Centersand like those images are
etched in our minds.
But if we look for the helpers,those images are etched in our
(26:32):
minds.
But if we look for the helpers,there were so many beautiful
pieces, displays of humanity, ofpeople hugging that were
perfect strangers on the streets, civilians, first responders
going directly into danger tohelp people.
There's so much beauty but wehave to look for it and that, I
(26:57):
think, is going to be the bestway that we will survive and the
way that we can start to climbout of this negative vacuum of
information and start to cometogether again that if we are
looking for similarities, ifwe're looking for the humanity
in one another, then we won't befocused on and reeling in our
(27:23):
differences, because ourdifferences just seem to be
dividing us even more and thenwe are kind of turning to those
that are most like us and thatis causing even more small
vacuums of groups of people andit's spewing more hate and it's
spewing more misinformation.
So I just I said it because ofpageants earlier this week and
(27:46):
it seems so small in the grandscheme of things now with
everything that's been happeningbut can we just spread the love
, can we just pour out kindnessto people?
I mean, I was walking in theneighborhood right after we
learned of Charlie Kirk's death.
We were walking with our dogsand we walked back past this
(28:08):
house that we walked past allthe time and they have big
political signs out and they arejust like screaming their party
affiliation and I was kind ofhaving a hard time with it
walking past this house at thispoint and they were outside with
a brand new puppy and it wasour first time that we actually
talked to these people andtalking to them about where they
(28:31):
lived before this and why theymoved here and about you know
how they've had this same puppybreed and this is their third
and why they love it so much andjust seeing their four little
kids run around and just thehumanity, like, just human
beings that if all we see ispolitical affiliation or the
(28:52):
color of someone's skin or heartheir accent or look at their
clothes or see what churchthey're leaving in the morning,
like if that's all we're seeing.
We are missing the human behindit all.
And that is the one thing.
If you strip everything elseaway, we all look the same on
the inside, truly, but we're allgoing to have different beliefs
(29:15):
.
Because if we didn't like,where would creativity come from
?
Where would how would we grow?
How would we develop anythingnew?
The only way to do that isthrough contrast, through
disagreements, through Whateverhappened to us, celebrating
differences, truly celebratingdifferences.
(29:36):
And I want you to ask yourselflike what does that mean to
truly celebrate differences?
And I'm talking all differences.
I'm not just talking aboutcultural differences, I'm not
talking about experientialdifferences.
I'm talking about differencesin our belief systems,
differences in our politicalviews.
Let's switch the perspectiveand switch the script here on.
(29:59):
What can we actually appreciateabout having a vastly different
perspective and opinion onsomething?
Because, at the end of the day,that's truly what makes this
world go round.
Because, at the end of the day,that's truly what makes this
world go round and it's whatmakes it interesting and
fascinating.
With that, I want to validate oh, my goodness, I hope that you
(30:25):
didn't like tune me out before Isaid this, if you're feeling
like I'm negating the fact thatthere is a real fear right now.
There is very real and validfear for people, for certain
groups of people, forindividuals, depending on where
you're from, how you identify,where you live, how you look,
what you believe.
(30:45):
There is very real, valid fear,given the environment of our
country right now, the status ofour country right now.
That's so valid and I just wantto send out like the biggest
warm hug of validation that Ipossibly can and I want you to
know that you're not alone, likeI am not.
(31:09):
I don't consider myself aspecial category of individuals,
like I'm not.
I don't identify in the LGBTQcommunity.
I am a cisgender white woman,but I'm also afraid.
So there's you're not alone inbeing afraid.
That I think fear is a veryuniversal experience.
(31:31):
Fear for different things, ofcourse.
(32:00):
That's not universal, but fearitself is pretty universal, and
so I want to wrap this up bysaying like when we're afraid,
we still have to go in search ofthe good for our own survival,
because there's nothing we cando immediately to solve this
incredibly overwhelming problemthat we're facing right now.
So we have to go searching forthe of us, we have to attend to
our trauma, what we'veexperienced this week.
Whether you witnessed theshooting or not, if you were
personally involved or knewsomeone personally involved, or
(32:21):
if you just are feeling a lotfrom it.
Attend to your trauma, becausethis was a traumatic event.
Validate your fears.
Your fears are absolutely valid, all of your feelings are valid
and it's okay to feel multiplefeelings at the same time.
So validate your fears.
Care for yourself.
Self-care and self-compassionare going to be essential in
(32:47):
order to move through this, andI had a moment when we were
walking the dogs earlier thisafternoon where I just kind of
looked up and I realized that Ihad been in my head for the
majority of and I looked up andI just saw sun shining through
the trees and I felt the breezeand I heard kids playing at the
park and I realized I'm okayRight now, right here in this
(33:08):
space, I'm safe and I am okay.
And that was really eye-openingfor me that I need to find those
spaces of feeling safe and good.
We need a reprieve from thefear.
The next would be to seek outthe good.
As I said like look for it,look for the helpers, look for
the people that are stillshowing up in their communities.
If you're in pageantry, it'sall around you.
(33:29):
You see the women that arepouring out their hearts into
their communities.
If you're in pageantry, it'sall around you.
You see the women that arepouring out their hearts into
their communities.
Look for that and lean into thehumanity of that.
And finally, this was from me.
I put this one down.
I said protect your peace.
You know like it's okay tograciously get up and leave a
conversation if it's affectingyou in some sort of way.
Recognize if you are havingsome negative emotional reaction
(33:53):
to something in your vicinityand choose to remove it or
remove yourself from that.
Protect your peace right.
Like I don't want to lose thesense of peace and relaxation
that I was feeling on Sundaybefore we left the spa.
I don't want to lose that.
It's taken me a long time toget there.
(34:13):
If you've been listening, youknow like I've had a year I mean
I know everyone has had a yearbut like I'm still holding on in
my central nervous system to awhole lot of stress and trauma.
And like I just any ounce ofpeace that I can have I want to
protect.
So with that can have.
(34:35):
I want to protect.
So with that, pouring my loveinto you, pouring my love into
this conversation.
I am sure that not everyone isgoing to agree with everything
that I said, but I don't have ascript in front of me.
I'm truly just speaking fromthe heart, and I try not to edit
these episodes as much as Ipossibly can, because I want it
to come from my heart and I wantit to be raw and real,
especially conversations likethis.
So, as with everything in thisworld, please take what works
(34:58):
for you and leave the rest.
Please choose to be kind andthat goes for me too Like, if
you want to have a conversationwith me about this privately,
like I am happy to.
Please reach out.
I would be happy to hear otherpeople's perspectives and their
experiences and and even, like,clarify if there was something I
said that was maybemisunderstood.
(35:19):
My intention behind this entireepisode was just to pour love
and to pour insight from theconversations that I've been
having and the things that I'vebeen feeling and the things that
I've been working through.
So that was my whole intention.
It was never to offend or hurtor harm anyone.
So be kind to me, give me theopportunity to learn if I
(35:40):
misspoke, give me theopportunity to clarify if there
was something that wasmisunderstood and, most
importantly, do that foryourself and for others too.
Let's all really practice beingpatient, being kind with
ourselves and with others andunderstand you know that we're
(36:03):
all going to come from differentplaces and and have different
opinions and perspectives, andsometimes those perspectives are
honestly just either naive oruninformed.
So we can have grace for peoplethat are in that space as well.
So with that, you guys oh mygosh I feel like drained of all
(36:24):
the things that I have beenfeeling and thinking in the last
24 hours.
So thanks for hanging in therewith me.
Please do take care of yourself.
Look for those spaces ofgoodness, look for those spaces
of feeling free and feelingalive and feeling safe, because
those are the spaces that aregoing to rejuvenate and uplift
you and allow you to keeppressing forward in your
(36:46):
personal missions in life andgoing after your goals and your
dreams.
So I will talk to you againnext week.
Take care of yourselves, bye.
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