Becoming Together with Sherrita Denise

Recorded live at the She Is Rooted 2026 Fall Virtual Leadership Conference

The podcast is on break between seasons, but I wanted to share this one with you.

This is a replay of the talk I gave at the She Is Rooted Fall Virtual Leadership Conference. Most of us are leading and serving in some capacity, in our homes, our churches, our careers, our communities. But few of us have been taught that the hidden key to leadership isn't found in what we're carrying. It's found in whether we're also stewarding the woman carrying it.

In this episode, I share the season of my life when God gave me a vision I'd spent weeks preparing to present, and hours before that meeting, my own body stopped me cold, a headache severe enough to send me to the emergency room instead. What followed was a season of real reckoning: nearly 90 pounds of excess weight, chronic hypertension, and a truth I couldn't keep ignoring, my purpose was never separate from my capacity to carry it.

I talk through what Scripture actually says about stewarding our bodies, minds, and spirits, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Romans 12:1, and Ephesians 2:10, and why everything that changed for me started with one thing: self-awareness.

A few questions to sit with:

• What is one area of your wellbeing, your body, mind, or spirit, that you haven't prioritized lately?
• What is your body, your mind, or your spirit trying to tell you that you've been too busy leading to hear?
• What is one small, honest step you can take this week toward stewarding your whole self, not just the purpose you carry?

You weren't created to manage your life in pieces, running until something finally makes you stop. You were created to lead it whole.

Becoming: Whole is available now in paperback and digital at becoming2gether.com.

See you back here when the next season begins. In the meantime, stay connected on the Becoming Together

This is the final episode of Season 3, and while the season is ending, I'm excited, there's a lot coming that I have to look forward to.

For as long as I can remember, when one chapter of my life ended, I was already planning the next one. This time, I'm doing something different. In just a couple of weeks, I'll be celebrating 40 years of life, and for this transition, I'm choosing not to force the next chapter into existence just to have something to announce. Tomorrow, my debut book, Becoming: Whole, officially releases on Amazon, and I want to fully live inside of what this book has already asked of me before I rush into telling you what's next.

Thank you for walking this season with me: uncovering, releasing, renewing, discovering capacity, trying something new, and asking what a dream day actually looks like. Whatever you named, released, or started believing differently about yourself this season, my prayer is that it keeps taking root long after this episode ends.

I'm not disappearing. I'm just changing the rhythm of how I show up here. Stay connected on the Becoming Together Substack and on Instagram and Facebook, I'll pop in from time to time.

Becoming: Whole releases tomorrow on Amazon. When your copy arrives, tag me, I'd love to hear from you.

On October 1st and 2nd, I'll be speaking at the She Is Rooted 2026 Fall Virtual Leadership Conference on Stewarding the Vessel That Carries Your Purpose. Reserve your seat here.

If this season gave you language for a pattern you'd never spoken out loud, permission to release what was never yours, or the beginning of a truth you're still settling into, share it with a woman who might be carrying something similar.

You are not behind. You are not too far gone to become who God created you to be. Keep going. Keep becoming.

A while back, my therapist asked me to journal what a dream day would look like for me. I sat down to write it, and what I wrote seemed fine. But when I came back to it, something in me said, that's not it. I tried again, and this time I hit something I wasn't expecting. I genuinely didn't know what a dream day looked like for me anymore, because so much in me had shifted that the things I used to want weren't true for me anymore.

That sent me somewhere deeper than the exercise intended. If I couldn't name what I actually wanted, the real question wasn't about the day at all. It was, do I even know who I am right now?

This week, I'm inviting you to try the same exercise. Not who you used to be. Not who you think you should be by now. Just an honest attempt at what a good day actually feels like for you, right now, today.

Becoming: Whole releases September 15th and is available for pre-order now at becoming2gether.com.

Subscribe to the Becoming Together Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio, and to the Becoming Together Substack for the written companion to this episode.

A lighter episode this week, no deep excavation, no heavy questions to sit with. Just an invitation.

Somewhere in the middle of a season like this one, it's easy to stay entirely inward, all reflection, no motion. But becoming isn't only internal work, at some point it has to show up in your actual life.

This week's challenge: try something new. Nothing big or elaborate, just something you haven't done before, or haven't done in a long time. A new recipe, a new restaurant, a class you've been meaning to take, a nearby town you always drive past but never stop in, an event you'd never normally attend.

I talk about why exposing yourself to something unfamiliar interrupts autopilot and asks something of you that routine never does, real presence, the kind that's hard to access from inside a loop you've already memorized.

This week, pick something and just do it. Document it, take pictures, write it down, what you thought, how you felt, what you learned about yourself.

Then come find me on the Becoming Together Substack and tell me what you tried. I want to hear about it.

Becoming: Whole releases September 15th and is available for pre-order now at becoming2gether.com.

Subscribe to the Becoming Together Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio, and to the Becoming Together Substack for the written companion to this episode.

For a long time, I measured capacity by how much I could carry. The more I could hold without breaking, the more I believed I had. Stack it up, I'll figure it out, that's just what strong women do... right?

In this episode, I talk about the difference between a life that's full and a life that's overloaded, and why real capacity isn't about how much you can hold, but how much you can hold well. I share the real-time questions I've started asking myself the moment I catch myself slipping back into survival mode: what's actually driving this, what's the emotion underneath it, is there a real threat, and most importantly, what does God actually say about the situation.

This episode ties directly back to Renewing. Releasing survival mode made room for clarity. That clarity made room for capacity. And capacity is what lets you actually receive what God has for you, spiritually mature enough to steward the presence, the revelations, and the responsibility that come with it.

A few questions to carry with you this week:

• What's actually driving me when I feel myself slipping into an old pattern?
• What's the feeling underneath it?
• What would it look like to rest instead of strive, just for today?
• What does God actually say about my situation?

Remember, this isn't a race. You're not being graded on speed. You're being invited to trade what you've always believed about yourself for what God has already spoken over your life, and that exchange happens in His timing, not yours.

Becoming: Whole releases September 15th and is available for pre-order now at becoming2gether.com.

Subscribe to the Becoming Together Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio, and to the Becoming Together Substack for the written companion to this episode.

I've prided myself on two things my whole life: my will to achieve anything I set my mind to, and my ability to survive anything sent my way. This week, I go all the way back to fifteen years old, dancing to Destiny's Child's "Survivor" in my bedroom mirror, to trace how a declaration became an identity, and how that identity quietly cost me more than it ever gave me.

In this episode, I get honest about what surviving actually builds in a person, hypervigilance, avoidance, a body that never fully rests, and what happens when the need to grow finally outweighs the need to survive. Releasing an identity you've built your whole life on isn't instant. I talk through what that tension actually feels like, and why deciding something needs to go is not the same as letting it go.

This is week two of walking through my upcoming book, Becoming: Whole, section by section. Last week was Uncovering. This week, Releasing. Next week, we move into Renewing.

A few things to sit with this week, write them down, pray on them, and take one honest step:

• What is one area of your life where you're experiencing tension between who you are and who you need to become?
• What exactly must you release to be made whole?
• What will it cost you if you don't release it?
• What is one thing you can do today to take one step toward releasing the thing you were never meant to carry?

Becoming: Whole releases September 15th and is available for pre-order now at becoming2gether.com.

If you missed last week's episode on Uncovering, go back and listen before this one, each week builds on the last.

Subscribe to the Becoming Together Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio, and subscribe to the Becoming Together Substack for weekly written reflections.

This season, we're unwrapping what it means to be whole, walking through the framework from my debut book, Becoming: Whole, one section at a time.

Wholeness is what happens when your mind, body, and spirit stop competing and start working together. It's not a place you arrive at once, it's a way of living you practice day by day. This episode opens the season with the first step in that process: Uncovering.

Before anything can be released, renewed, or rebuilt, it has to be named. In this episode, I talk about avoidance as a strategy the mind builds early, often without your permission, and how what goes unaddressed doesn't disappear, it just relocates, into the body, into your relationships, into the decisions you make without realizing why.

I close with three questions to guide you into your own journaling time:

• What is one thing you've been carrying that you've never said out loud, not even to yourself?
• Where did that thing first take root?
• What is one honest sentence you can write today that finally puts words to what you've been avoiding?

If you have a copy of Becoming: Whole, this episode pairs with The Photograph activity and eight additional journaling prompts inside the book. Grab your copy at becoming2gether.com or on Amazon.

Next episode, we sit with Releasing what you've named.

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio so you don't miss it.

In this episode, Sherrita sits down with longtime family friend Jolanda Monique Brown, mental health professional, published author of fifteen-plus books, and founder of Jolanda Monique Enterprises and Jojo's Healing Hands Counseling Center. Sherrita and Jolanda go back nearly twenty-four years, and this conversation reveals a side of Jolanda that even those closest to her don't always get to see.

Jolanda opens up about her upbringing, the mentors who shaped her, and the health battles she's navigated for nearly a decade, including Crohn's disease, lupus, and a near-fatal infection that required emergency surgery just three weeks before she completed grad school. She shares how she's learned to shift her mindset, set boundaries, prioritize rest, and keep moving even on the days her body wants to quit.

This episode also covers her journey into mental health counseling, the mindset work she does with her clients, the legacy of her late Aunt Beecher, and the memoir she's currently writing, one that's forcing her to revisit forty-three years of a story she's never fully told.

Connect with Jolanda: Psychology Today, search Jolanda Monique Brown Social Media , Jolanda Monique Enterprises Books, search her name on Amazon

Connect with Becoming Together: Substack — becomingtogether.substack.com New episodes every Wednesday, subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

In this episode Sherrita sits down with Heather Mylan-Mains — speaker, author, and storyteller — for one of the warmest and most honest conversations this podcast has hosted. Heather's message is simple and powerful: we are shaped not by what happens to us but by how we choose to respond. And she does not say that from a distance. She has lived it.

Heather opens up about the seasons that shaped her, divorce, widowhood, single motherhood, a traumatic brain injury, and more, and shares how walking through those experiences taught her that she was always more in control of her life than she realized. What followed was a journey into forgiveness, gratitude, and the kind of peace that does not depend on circumstances changing.

Her upcoming book Unwrapping Forgiveness — The Gift of Mercy and Grace walks readers through a seven step framework from pain toward peace. This conversation is a beautiful preview of what is inside.

Connect with Heather Mylan-Mains:
YouTube — Heather Mylan-Mains
Facebook — Heather Mylan-Mains
Instagram — @mylanmains
Website — heathermylanmains.com
Book — Unwrapping Forgiveness: The Gift of Mercy and Grace — coming summer 2026

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Pre-order Becoming — A Guided Reflective Journal for the Woman With Purpose → becoming2gether.com
The Journey Towards Becoming — Five Week Companion Guide → included with every pre-order
Subscribe to the Becoming Together Substack → becomingtogether.substack.com

If this episode served you please share it and leave a rating or review — it helps more women find this space.

In this episode Sherrita sits down with Nicole Hicks, biblical life coach, author, speaker, and founder of Faith Over Fear Biblical Life Coaching, for a conversation that is honest, practical, and deeply grounded in faith.

Nicole opens up about the medical crisis that cracked everything open for her, a season that took her from celebrating her birthday in New York to being wheeled into a hospital the very next day, telling her husband to take care of their daughter. What followed was a year of chronic illness, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and a cancer scare. And through all of it, a revelation that would change everything. Faith is not a trend. It is not a vibe. It is a lifestyle.

In this conversation Nicole and Sherrita go deep on what it actually looks like to trust God when everything is shifting, when your timeline does not match His, when He is not moving the way you expected, and when the people closest to you cannot understand the changes happening inside of you.

Connect with Nicole Hicks: Faith Over Fear Biblical Life Coaching — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube The Heaven Team — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok All books available on Amazon

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

The Becoming Together Substack → becomingtogether.substack.com 

Pre-order Becoming: A Guided Reflective Journal for the Woman With Purpose → Pre-Order Becoming

Subscribe, rate, and review the Becoming Together Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

Every review helps more women find this space.