Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser
The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser episodes
- Totally off-topic: Herbal Medicine
Plant Allies for When You're Feeling a Little Off
This episode is a little off-topic—and straight out of my home apothecary.
I woke up feeling like I might be coming down with something, and almost automatically started reaching for the herbal allies I’ve learned to work with over the years: astragalus and reishi tea, elderberry tincture, an Epsom salt bath, homemade soup—and the fire cider I really wish I’d remembered to make six weeks ago.
I started studying herbalism after getting sick early in the COVID pandemic and realizing there was an elderberry bush growing right down the street from me…and I had absolutely no idea how to use it.
Something about that bothered me. Somewhere in my lineage, someone knew how to work with the plants around them to care for themselves and their family. That knowledge had been lost along the way, and I wanted to pick it back up.
So today, I’m sharing a little of what I’ve learned.
We talk about making herbal decoctions, elderberry tincture, fire cider, soothing baths, growing and harvesting your own plants—and the simple satisfaction of having a few more tools in your tool belt when you’re not feeling your best.
This isn’t medical advice, and herbs aren’t appropriate for everyone. Some can interact with medications or be contraindicated with certain health conditions, so do your homework and consult a qualified healthcare professional when appropriate.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Herbalism for the Soul / Selima Harleston-Lust — My herbalism teacher and the person I recommend looking up for instruction on making fire cider. Search “Herbalism for the Soul” and “fire cider” on YouTube.
Penn Herb Company — One of my favorite sources for dried herbs, including elderberries, astragalus and reishi.
Penn Herb CompanyAlchemy of Herbs by Rosalee de la Forêt — A wonderfully accessible place to start if you’re interested in learning how to make simple herbal preparations at home.
Alchemy of Herbs — Penguin Random HouseSometimes taking care of ourselves means remembering that we have more resources available to us than we realize—and some of them may be growing right outside our door.
Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright17 min - The Delicious Discomfort of the Stretch
Why the Life You Want May Require You to Move Before You’re Ready
For a long time, I carried an image of what it meant to trust: open your arms, have faith, and wait for what’s meant for you to arrive.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if there’s something missing from that picture.
Because I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I was so busy waiting, preparing or trying to get things right that I never fully participated in creating the life I was here to live.
In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, we’re talking about the stretch—that deliciously uncomfortable place where you’re not quite ready, not completely certain, and maybe a little afraid of falling on your face.
I share what a remarkably flexible yoga teacher taught me about actually missing the feeling of being stretched, why doing something at 80% can sometimes require more courage than perfecting it to 100%, and what the regrets of people at the end of their lives can teach us about how we choose to live ours right now.
Whether your stretch is making the ask, going after the bigger job, putting your work into the world before it feels perfect, reaching out to someone, or taking one small step toward a dream you’ve been waiting on, the question is the same:
What is your stretch?
And what would happen if you took one step toward it today?
Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright13 min - Bypassing Bite #5: Stay in the Room
What to Do Instead of Bypassing
So if we stop bypassing, what do we do instead?
We stay.
Not forever. Not because discomfort is inherently good. And not because we need to wallow in every difficult emotion that comes along.
We simply practice staying present long enough to notice what’s actually happening before we rush to avoid it, fix it, reframe it or make it disappear.
In this final installment of Bypassing Bites, we bring the series together with a simple practice for meeting uncomfortable moments differently: notice, name, stay and choose.
What am I feeling? What am I trying to avoid? Can I stay with this sensation for just a little longer? And if I weren’t trying to escape this feeling, what would I choose to do next?
Because emotional mastery isn’t getting so evolved that uncomfortable feelings stop showing up. It’s becoming increasingly capable of staying with yourself when they do.
Your final Bypassing Bite:
What becomes possible when discomfort is no longer an emergency?Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright4 min - Bypassing Bite #4: Peace at Any Price Isn’t Peace
The Hidden Cost of Needing Everyone to Be Okay
There’s a difference between being peaceful and needing there to be peace.
If you need everyone around you to be happy, comfortable and pleased with you, keeping the peace can become a full-time job.
You monitor people’s reactions. Soften what you really mean. Say yes when you mean no. Take responsibility for someone else’s disappointment. Rush in to fix tension before you’ve even decided whether it’s yours to fix.
And ironically, all that peacekeeping can leave you with very little peace inside yourself.
In this fourth installment of Bypassing Bites, we look at what happens when our desire for harmony becomes a way of avoiding discomfort—and why someone else’s disappointment, frustration or disagreement doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done something wrong.
Real peace has room for awkwardness. It has room for disagreement. It even has room for someone not being happy with you.
Your Bypassing Bite:
Can I allow someone else to be disappointed without immediately trying to make their disappointment go away?Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright3 min - Bypassing Bite #3: I Just Don’t Like Conflict
When Being Easy to Work With Gets Expensive
“I hate drama.”
“I’m pretty easygoing.”
“It’s not worth making a thing out of it.”
“I can just let it go.”Sometimes that’s discernment. And sometimes it’s avoidance dressed up as a virtue.
In this third installment of Bypassing Bites, we’re looking at conflict avoidance—and the ways being agreeable, flexible and “easy to work with” can keep us from saying what actually needs to be said.
Avoiding the conversation may keep things comfortable in the moment. But the conflict doesn’t necessarily disappear. It can show up instead as resentment, exhaustion, withdrawal, over-explaining or quietly checking out.
Not having the conversation doesn’t mean you’ve eliminated the conflict. Sometimes you’ve simply moved the conflict inside yourself.
In this bite-sized episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, we explore what it costs us to continually keep the peace—and what can change when we become more willing to tolerate the discomfort of honest conversation.
Your Bypassing Bite:
What conversation am I avoiding because I’m more comfortable being uncomfortable myself than risking making someone else uncomfortable?Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright6 min - Bypassing Bite #2: Avoidance Works. That’s the Problem.
Why the Thing That Gives You Relief Today Creates Trouble Tomorrow
Avoidance gets a bad rap. But here’s the problem: avoidance works.
Don’t send the email. Don’t make the ask. Don’t have the uncomfortable conversation. Say “it’s fine” and move on.
And almost immediately, you feel better.
That relief is exactly what makes avoidance such an effective self-preservation strategy—and why we keep returning to it. But the thing we avoided rarely disappears. Instead, we may be teaching ourselves that the discomfort itself is something we can’t handle.
In this bite-sized episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, we look at why avoiding discomfort can feel so good in the moment, how short-term relief can create bigger problems later, and what changes when we become more willing to stay with discomfort instead of immediately trying to escape it.
Because sometimes the very thing you’re doing to protect yourself from discomfort is also protecting you from the result you want.
Your Bypassing Bite:
Where am I choosing short-term relief at the expense of long-term freedom?Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright5 min - Bypassing Bite #1: "But I’m Trying to Stay Positive"
Spiritual Bypassing and the Feelings We’d Rather Not Feel
What if “staying positive” isn’t always as healthy as it sounds?
In this first installment of Bypassing Bites, a five-part mini-series from The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, we’re looking at spiritual bypassing—the ways we can use positivity, gratitude, forgiveness, spirituality and even personal-growth language to avoid feelings we’d rather not feel.
Sometimes “I’m choosing gratitude” really is gratitude. Sometimes “I’ve let it go” really does mean we’ve let it go.
And sometimes we’re trying to skip over the anger, hurt, disappointment or fear underneath it.
In this bite-sized episode, we explore the difference between genuinely moving through an emotion and trying to get to the other side of it before we’ve actually allowed ourselves to feel it.
Because emotional mastery isn’t about feeling good all the time. It’s about becoming more willing to be with what’s actually here.
Your Bypassing Bite:
What feeling am I trying my hardest not to feel?Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright5 min - How to Ask Without Feeling Like a Burden, With Susan Fox
Releasing the fear of imposing so you can fundraise with clarity and ease.
In this live coaching session, Erin sits down with Susan Fox, a practitioner and nonprofit founder who feels like she’s imposing whenever she asks for donations. Together, they unpack the money stories she inherited from family, the “I have to do it all myself” pattern, and the shame that shows up in her body every time she thinks about fundraising.
If you’ve ever felt like asking for support is a burden—or worried people will avoid you if you make the ask—this conversation will feel very familiar.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How early money messages (like “don’t ask for more”) quietly shape your fundraising style
- Why the belief “I’m imposing on people” is actually a protective strategy, not a character flaw
- How mixed energy (wanting to ask + fearing the ask) leaks into your emails, appeals, and donor conversations
- A simple reframe: from “I’m bothering them” to “I’m offering an opportunity to be part of something meaningful”
- A compassionate self-forgiveness process you can borrow to soften old blocks and create safety inside your own system
You’ll walk away with language, insight, and a next step you can use right away as you prepare your next appeal.
Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright50 min - One Foot In, One Foot Out
What Your Split Energy Is Communicating Before You Say a Word
You say you want the gift. The promotion. The client. The opportunity.
But is all of you moving toward it?
In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin explores “split energy”—what happens when one part of us wants something while another part is quietly backing away.
Using the story of a real estate agent who seemed enthusiastic about selling her house and then disappeared, Erin looks at the messages we're sending beyond our words. Because people aren't only listening to what we say. They're experiencing our follow-through, body language, presence, hesitation, urgency, and energy.
And in fundraising, that matters.
Split energy might look like avoiding the ask, softening it until it's barely an ask at all, overexplaining, failing to follow up—or desperately needing the donor to say yes.
But being “all in” doesn't mean eliminating fear, doubt, or uncertainty. It means becoming clear about your part: showing up, making the invitation, staying present, and allowing the other person to be free in their response.
In this episode:
- How to recognize split energy in yourself
- Why your actions may be communicating something different from your words
- How both hesitation and over-efforting can come from the same internal conflict
- Why being all in doesn't require certainty
- The power of high involvement, low attachment
- A simple inquiry for discovering where you may have one foot in and one foot out
A question to take with you:
What would change about your behavior if you'd already decided you were fully available for what you say you want?Because your job isn't to control someone else's yes.
Your job is to notice whether you've said yes to your part.
Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright22 min - Why do I Keep Doing That?!
The Hidden Patterns Making Fundraising Harder Than It Has to Be
September used to make me itch. As a professional fundraiser, I knew the all-important fourth quarter was approaching, and I never felt ready. Appeals, Giving Tuesday, events, planned giving messaging—my days were long on tasks and short on energy.
I kept working, but underneath all that activity was a familiar mix of overwhelm, pressure, and avoidance.
What I understand now that I didn't understand then is that the problem wasn't just my workload. Some of the patterns I brought to my workload were making an already demanding season even harder.
In this episode, we explore why we keep doing things we know aren't helping us—overthinking, taking rejection personally, saying yes when we mean no, avoiding uncomfortable conversations, and carrying things that aren't ours to carry. We'll look at how to recognize these patterns with curiosity and begin choosing a different response.
Because maybe you don't need another Q4 strategy right now. Maybe you need fewer old patterns coming with you into Q4.
Join me for a free workshop:
Why Do I Keep Doing That?! Discover the Hidden Patterns Shaping How You Fundraise, Work and LeadSeptember 24 | 3 p.m. Eastern
90 minutes | Virtual | FreeRegister here: https://lnkd.in/gknTTmEq
Send Erin a text
✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth
Listen to all episodes + subscribe:
https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.comNewsletter Sign-up: The Brave & Balanced Note
Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiserBook a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthroughLearn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.comConnect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright14 min
About The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser
From the publisher's feed
The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser is the podcast I wish had existed during my 15 years in fundraising. It’s a love offering to the people behind the mission—the professional fundraisers who…
give their hearts and energy every day to make the world better.
This show isn’t about strategy, metrics, or money. It’s about you—the human being doing the work. Each episode offers real tools and soulful conversations to help you regulate your nervous system, reconnect with your purpose, and renew your energy so you can lead with clarity, compassion, and courage.
If you’ve ever felt stretched thin, overworked, or caught in the constant pressure to perform, this podcast is your invitation to return home to yourself. Join me to learn how to cultivate balance, resilience, and authentic impact—from the inside out.
Full Episode Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/fkFZpmNYF3v