Quality Coffee Podcast

Time, presence and respect are vital to healthy boundaries and positive experiences. Boundaries are challenging and can feel really uncomfortable to talk about as well as to establish in our lives. As we continue this hard talk that even has us stumbling here and there, we discuss the perspective of how a boundary can feel a lot like a gift to you from you. These tools are intended to protect your peace and provide you with a safe environment to be yourself. Boundaries, while oftentimes are silently put in place, can also be met with conflict when those who were benefitting from your lack of clear boundaries no longer have the access to you they’d grown very accustom to. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty together. 

Over a cup of quality coffee that Vanessa says smells like it would come out of her pores, we share our deeply personal reasons behind wanting better for the next generation, specifically in relation to Tonia’s daughters who, of course, are Vanessa’s nieces. Throughout our relationship we’ve discovered and processed the many ways we both want to positively impact the kids and how we can create more vulnerable and safe environments for them to thrive in because they weren’t always available to us growing up. What elder millennial can’t relate to that sentiment? 

Rather than looking back and judging the past we’re rocket boosting the next generation with tools we wished we’d had from the lessons it took to heal and break cycles along the way. We talk about Tonia’s 10 year estrangement from her mother and a glimpse at the experience that finally allowed her to make peace with such a terrifying, empowering decision. 

Are we perfect? F*ck no! It’s about perspective and love. It’s about connection and integrity. It’s about autonomy and honesty. And we’re jam packing episode two with all of it. Who is influencing your children and helping to mold their future? Who is in your village? What do those environments look like and how are you fostering vulnerability and safety? Let’s have the hard conversations together. 

When we boil it down, fundamentally all we want as women is to be seen and heard for who we are. In this introductory episode of Quality Coffee Podcast Tonia & Vanessa discuss their shared gifts of open communication and how our kryptonite as young women seemed to transform into these valuable skills that now help us navigate our lives and relationships. Hardships, including facing our fears (hello, world, we are now podcasters?! What!), leads to realizations about ourselves and how we function in the world. These conversations in episode one unravel some of those earliest childhood woes and how we have come to appreciate the hardships for the value they’ve shown us in our lives leading up to today. What is it they say about being thankful for your past because you wouldn’t be who you are today without it? 40-something elder millennial women, and to everyone who has reached the time in their life where we are no longer ok with “good enough”, this podcast is dedicated to you!