The Uplifters

“All the things I was afraid of are things I'm good at now.” - Jen Liddy

This Week on The Uplifters

Jen Liddy was really great at teaching but began to feel like she wasn’t making the impact she wanted to.  The students were distracted by their phones and the administrative work was tedious and exhausting.  But the voice in her head in the shower every morning, asking if she should just cancel class for the day, just couldn’t be ignored any longer.  She had a lot invested in her teaching job (her lesson plans, her retirement, her two master’s degrees) and part of her wondered if all of that was ever going to be of any use again.

Ten years later, she has put all that she invested in her former career, and her natural skills, to use teaching experts how to harness their brilliance and their language so that their audience can hear them.  These people want to be in the room with her and want to grow their audience online.  This new career is everything she ever could have wished for about teaching.

She finally learned to stop downplaying and devaluing what came easy to her and learned to think of it as her magic instead.

In this episode you’ll learn:

* How to be open to opportunity even though you may feel you are not qualified to take advantage of it.  You can always learn new skills.

* How to ask yourself if what you’re doing feels good to you

* How to stop putting yourself second, third, or fourth

Jen was nominated for The Uplifters by Julie B. Hughes from episode Episode 6

Learn more about the wonderful Jen here!

Messy Transcript

Aransas Savas:

Welcome to the Uplifters podcast. I'm your host, Aransas Savas, and you just heard the wonderful Julie Hughes from one of our earlier episodes introducing Jen Liddy. So Jen, 10 years ago, was cruising along as a teacher and somehow decided that she was gonna leave this world that was familiar and stable and predictable. And she was gonna go off and start her own business. And in her story, we'll hear what it was like to walk into totally foreign territory and try to build a new world and a new life for herself and all the ups and downs that come along with it. So, Jen, welcome. Thank you for being on the Uplifters.

Jen Liddy:

I'm so excited to be here, Aransas. It's fun to meet you too.

Aransas Savas:

So let's start with your teaching. What kind of teaching were you doing?

Jen Liddy:

I was a high school English teacher. I also taught at the college level. I taught writing, literature, and personal development, actually, at the college level, which was really fun because I taught at a community college where these were students who had very little background in how to be successful students. They had come from abusive backgrounds, for the most part, poverty. So being a student wasn't second nature to them. So the... college had this like brilliant idea to bring in this personal development thing. And we're talking like 2008, 2009 before it really had exploded in the mainstream. So I loved teaching high schoolers, but I also loved teaching kind of 13th and 14th graders because they were on the cusp of adulthood and they really wanted to be there for the most part. So I had taught. I mean, it feels like I taught for 317 years, but when it comes down to it, I started teaching in 1999, and I ultimately left in 2007, right before my son was born. I went back for a little bit in the mid 2000s. And so I probably have a total of 18 years under my belt as a teacher.

Aransas Savas:

Wow, that's a lot of experience.

Aransas Savas:

And one of the great things about being a teacher is there are always teaching jobs.

Jen Liddy:

Right, yeah. So, there are a lot of great things about being a teacher. My brain works that way. And I loved teaching. And I would say if it weren't for the grading, which eventually is a big part of what wore me out. Because I was an English teacher, so I'm grading essays, research papers, and I would knock myself in the head like, why did I assign another research paper? But if it wasn't for the grading, I probably wouldn't have left. But then this other thing happened. Along 2007, which was smartphones came out. And before that, my students would have their hands under their desk with their phones. Remember flip phones where you'd have to go like, H-I-J, like you'd be like, you know, doing the numbers to get the letters that you wanted. And they could do it under the desk. But now with smartphones, they were just like flat out distracted and always had their phones out. And I had my son in 2007. I only have one son, one child, and he's... now 16, and I just kind of used that as, like I couldn't go back, I just, I couldn't go back and do it anymore. Until he got, he turned, you know, until he was like three, four, five, and then I went back. But it was a different game when I went back, from leaving in 2007 and going back in like 2009, 2010, it had really, really changed. And that's part of the story that made me decide, like, I can't do this anymore. Because teaching, I would say is like breathing to me. It's very natural, it's fun, it's interesting, it's always different. I was good at it and I, you know, like I can really say that confidently, but it eventually burned me out and that's part of why I left.

Aransas Savas:

And is it fair to say that the burnout was caused? I mean, yes, there was the gratings of that sort of administrative work that did not light up your soul.

Jen Liddy:

Right.

Aransas Savas:

But then it was also just the lack of engagement from the students.

Jen Liddy:

That was a big thing. It was people who didn't really want to be in the room. And there was an exhaustion. I remember distinctly, and this was, I had gotten out of teaching high school full time, and I was only teaching at the college level part time at this point. And we had gotten to the end of a semester. It was December. We were about to have our final paper coming in next week, and I'm still teaching. thesis statements, which is the very first thing that you learn and the thing that you should get before you can write anything. And here we are four months in and I actually remember saying to them, I have tapped danced for you long enough and you don't care enough to take this and make it work for you. You don't care to make it, it's not important to you to have your ideas understood. And if you don't care about that. I can't make you care about that. And I remember the silence in the classroom. They looked at me like nobody had ever spoken to them like that before. Because to me, it wasn't about the grades. It was about, don't you want to be understood? Don't you want people to hear your ideas and hear your voice? And they just couldn't care about it because they were really only like 17, 18, 19, 20, right, for the most part.

Aransas Savas:

And they were distracted.

Jen Liddy:

they were distracted. Remember too, that the particular college I taught at, these were students who didn't really, being a student wasn't their top priority. They hadn't had a lot of experience being a great student. So they didn't probably understand the depth that an education could, how far it could bring them. There were a lot of things going on. And at the end of that semester, I was like, I can't stand up here doing my shtick and working so hard for people that just. don't really give a damn. That was December 2013 at that point.

Aransas Savas:

Wow. And a lot has changed in those 10 years, it sounds like. And you, like so many uplifters, are someone who, it sounds like, is highly motivated by impact.

Jen Liddy:

Yes.

Aransas Savas:

And that theme has come up already a few times in your storytelling. And I think that's true for so many of us who live service-oriented lives.

Jen Liddy:

Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas:

we want that to be on purpose and impactful. And so when it feels like it's just getting resisted or it's not the right environment for it, it's really hard to stay motivated and energized by

Jen Liddy:

Yes.

Aransas Savas:

that purpose-led work.

Jen Liddy:

Especially when it was a part-time gig that I had to drive a really long way to do. I had to put my son in daycare to do it. There were a lot of things that I was doing on a personal level to make it happen. I wasn't doing it for the money. I could have done a lot of other things for more money. I was doing it because I love teaching. I knew I could help people. And these were students who were just like, they're kind of at risk students. They really needed somebody who could meet them where they were. And I was good at all of those things. But yes, I felt eventually like I wasn't making an impact. And I remember so, so clearly being in the shower, you know, it would be like, okay, I'm lathering up my hair, I'm shampooing, I'm like, do I go in today? Do I just cancel class today? If I cancel class, what does it matter? Do they care? Does the administration care? And after enough conversations like that with yourself, you start to realize something's wrong here. If you're constantly worrying about or doing the mental gymnastics in your mind about, I don't really want to do this. How can I get out of this? That's the tap that, hey, something's here to pay attention to.

Aransas Savas:

Yes, I agree. That I bucket as low engagement, right? And

Jen Liddy:

Yeah.

Aransas Savas:

we all go through periods in our lives where for various reasons, we feel disengaged from our purpose work or impact.

Aransas Savas:

And I work with so many teachers as clients. And so many of them are looking at career changes.

Aransas Savas:

And I think it's largely because of some of the factors that you're talking about here, a feeling unsupported, feeling that there's more bureaucracy and administrative work.

Aransas Savas:

And after a while, if we're giving, and we're not receiving back a sense of satisfaction and impact and purpose and energy. We run out. We feel depleted and exhausted.

Jen Liddy:

Yeah.

Aransas Savas:

And then it's really exhausting to tap into it. And like you said, in your case, there's all this other friction, right? So there's always friction and fuel. And impact is fuel.

Jen Liddy:

Mm-hmm. I remember when I was deciding to leave my teaching job at the high school level, so that was like a full-time job. I had been there a long time. I had a good reputation. Everybody knew me. It was a small school. And I remember my teacher friends saying, your salary, how can you give up your retirement, how can you give up everything you've sunk in? Not to mention the two master's degrees I have, right? Not to mention the years of lesson plans I've created. So I think that it's really easy to ignore the tap on your shoulder because you've got so many sunk costs already and you know how to navigate the problems and then it's a really hard conversation with yourself to have to say, is this really so bad that I'm willing to give up all of those, you know, all of those things I've already done and accomplished and achieved for something I have no idea what's next? And I did it. I did not know what was next. Um, but that, that inner voice, that little intuition that was like tapping on my every, I mean, every time I would take a shower before class, I'd be thinking about, can I just cancel today? That's like a big red flag for me.

Aransas Savas:

Yeah. And I think that sunk cost fallacy is one that stops a lot of us

Aransas Savas:

from making progress. And so I love that you brought that up because we feel like, well, I'm already this far in. I guess I better keep going.

Jen Liddy:

Exactly. Do you know how much getting those two masters degrees cost me? Right? Of course.

Aransas Savas:

And I suspect as we hear about what you're doing now, those two masters are serving you in new ways.

Jen Liddy:

They are, and I was gonna talk about that, but I didn't think they ever would serve me again. So I have a master's degree in teaching, specifically English, K through, seven through 12, and then I have another degree in adult literacy. And I just never thought, where are these gonna ever come in again? I'm gonna fast forward, we can go back and dabble, but to fast forward to where I am now, I basically teach experts how to kind of, harness their brilliance and harness their language so that their audience can hear them. So these are people who actually want to be in the room with me who are getting paid as experts and they want to grow their audience online, but they speak in a way that they don't understand how to do marketing in a way that feels good for them. They're not using the language that their audience resonates with all of that stuff. I could not have known in 2013 that in 2023, I would be using everything that I learned. and all of my natural skills, but in an online forum where I never have to grade another shitty Macbeth essay ever again, and nobody's coming in to observe how I'm doing in my classroom management style. It's pretty much everything I ever could have wished for about teaching, but I had no idea it was going to take 10 years to get me here.

Aransas Savas:

Okay, so I love that fast forward, but tell me about the 10 years in between. How did you get to this place?

Aransas Savas:

I want to say how grateful I am that you acknowledge that it's messy? Because I will tell you, I left an 18 year corporate job where I had a really wonderful career. And I'd gotten to that place where I felt depleted and drained and really needed to be reinvigorated. And so I started off to do my own thing. I'm three years in, it's an amazing three years. I have made, I won't even say mistakes because none of them like killed me.

Aransas Savas:

I can't imagine what I will know in 10 years. And so I wanna learn everything I can from you about the last 10 years to maybe fast track some of my own

Jen Liddy:

to give some good salient points. The first thing that I did was, I had been on the cusp of connecting with a friend who had her own fitness studio. And she really needed some kind of back end support. She was the face, she was the brilliant, like, you know, the idea person. I stepped in and became the operations person and the communications person. And we, along with a third partner, wound up building a brick and mortar fitness studio. It was like 9,000 square feet. And we built it kind of out of nothing. And I had, I just really want everybody to hear, I had no business experience. I was, I'm putting this in air quotes, I was just a teacher and I really struggled with a lot of imposter syndrome. Like Who the hell are you to be doing this? You're just a teacher. You should be in the classroom. You should be working with ninth graders, right? So there was all of this like invisible stuff, but then there was the business stuff to learn. And so we just learned by bumping into brick walls and figuring things out. So that business was really exciting and fun for a long, long time and we built it. I probably was working between 60 and 70 hours a week. We were making enough cover all of our costs, we were not making enough to pay ourselves anything. So eventually I was working and making no money. That's not eventually, essentially I was working and making no money. Eventually I woke up again with that tapping like, hello, what are you doing? Because now fast forward about three years in and the, remember you talked before about the fuel? For Impact, the fuel had just been the excitement for so long of building this thing and creating a community and making a business. I remember walking up the stairs at one point and going, this is my space, we made this. We did this out of nothing, it's incredible. And at the same time, a lot of what was taking the brunt of it was my family. I have a very easygoing husband who is wonderful. I only have one child, so I did have a lot of privilege in that way. But I was just not around. I was always at the studio, always, you know, I would get there for the 530 in the morning class and I would come home around 7, 730 at night with still with work to do. And you can do that for a while, but I was, let's see, 43 at the time. And eventually I turned 46 and 47. I'm like, what am I doing? I can't sustain this. anymore and so I had to have a hard conversation with my partners that I need to go back to work and make some money for the future of my family. I can't keep doing this. And there were a lot of signs along the way. I will say again signs I ignored just like I ignored those you know the shower gods who were tapping on my shoulder. I learned a lot about marketing that I and again we're talking like 20. 13 to 2016 is when I was really doing this. I had to learn about marketing, and that was a different time for marketing than it is now. I had to learn about how to communicate, how to manage people, how to put systems together. All of those things eventually turned into what I became really, really good at. All the things I was afraid of are things I'm good at now. and can teach other people how to do. I think this is why part of my platform as a content and copy consultant is that it is so important for people to learn how to do things in their business in a way that works for them and that feels good to them. Because a lot of what I learned during that time, 2013 to 2016, 17, especially online business strategies, like there's a lot of yuckiness out there and there's a lot of things that that throw people right out of their integrity. And that was questioned a lot for me. Is this an integrity? Can I do this? Can I do this and feel good about it? And it's such a big part of who I am now when I guide other people is it has to feel good for you or else, A, you can't sustain it and your audience can smell it a mile away. But you can't keep it up if it's just not serving you anymore.

Aransas Savas:

I also think that we invent resistance when we are out of integrity in our work.

Jen Liddy:

What do you mean by that?

Aransas Savas:

we start to lean out just

Jen Liddy:

Hmm.

Aransas Savas:

subtly. We may look like, we may believe that we are all in, but if it's out of integrity, we just sort of subtly lean back and curl away from it. Maybe we talk about it less.

Jen Liddy:

Yep.

Aransas Savas:

we are in integrity and we are fully in, and it may be scary, but It's so, I agree with you, just absolutely essential to truly, honestly, authentically believe in what we're doing if we want to fully engage in it, if we want to put the best of ourselves. And I don't mean fully engage like 70 hours a week.

Jen Liddy:

No.

Aransas Savas:

I just mean honestly lean in

Jen Liddy:

Yeah.

Aransas Savas:

with our gifts.

Jen Liddy:

Well, that leads me to another thing, because you said, what are the things to learn? When I keep putting air quotes around, I'm just a teacher, that impacts me.

Jen Liddy:

at the table. That impacts what I think I deserve. I really thought that I wasn't bringing very much to the table. I really thought that I didn't quite deserve to get paid. It's okay if I'm not getting paid. It's fine. Like my husband makes enough money that our family can live. I just put myself second, third, or fourth all along the way. And that was because I didn't have a belief that I was really bringing any of my talents. I couldn't see it at the time, but I could not meld how all of my gifts as a teacher and an educator worked in a business. And now I see all of it. It's so clear to me how it all just meshes together. I couldn't give myself that gift at that time.

Aransas Savas:

the breadcrumbs of, oh, I'm pretty good at this. And oh, that was impactful. That was easy for me.

Aransas Savas:

feeling for me. It's like the things that people are like, wow, you can do that. And you're like, yeah, that's easy. To me, those are those little magic nuggets, those moments.

Jen Liddy:

Yes.

Aransas Savas:

where you start to find out what your gifts really are.

Jen Liddy:

What I have found, and I'm curious about your experience too, is women, when something is easy for them, they tend to downplay it. That's no big deal. It's not that important because it's easy. But actually because it's easy, that is your magical, that's your magic basically.

Aransas Savas:

Do that all the time.

Jen Liddy:

Do more of that. That's the thing that other people can't do.

Aransas Savas:

Correct, especially if you enjoy it.

Jen Liddy:

Yes, yes. And it took me, so all of the things that we're talking about, I can speak about them clearly now, but at the time, I don't even know that I knew I had such self doubt or that I didn't belong at the table or that I couldn't see my skills. I just had my nose to the grindstone and was taking care of s**t, like just taking care of business, getting it done. And now I have the privilege of being able to say like, oh, all of these skills worked beautifully. And I can see now that I had so much. But whether I didn't have a coach or somebody to guide me or I didn't know, I just hope that the people listening can think about the things that come easily to them and stop downplaying it and stop saying, I shouldn't be rewarded for that because it's easy and start saying, that's the thing that makes me magical because it's not easy for everybody.

Aransas Savas:

Yes, yes, yes. I mean, like I said, I spent 20 years in a large organization working on global projects with all of these Ivy League MBAs.

Jen Liddy:

I think we spend a lot of our lives, I'm a Gen Xer, so I spent my whole life trying to fit into what everybody else looked like and was doing and weighed and all of the, I mean, the way that I see Gen Zers growing up now, those young women seem to be really stepping out and are willing to not look like other people and are willing and excited to do things differently. The way I grew up, it just wasn't like that. You were supposed to look like everybody else. So to say, oh, something that's easy for me, I just don't think it would be easy for a Gen Xer to find a lot of value in that.

Aransas Savas:

Yeah, I think you're right. It's really hard to shift that conditioning. And that's why I think stories like yours are so important because it's an opportunity to say, huh, let me sit with that for a second.

Aransas Savas:

What have I done that's different in the rooms that I'm in?

Aransas Savas:

How might that be of value?

Jen Liddy:

I had this one experience that showed me this. I was 35 when I'm about to tell you the thing that happened that finally taught me that, 35. I was sitting in a group with my colleagues in the high school. There were 18 of us total. They were all really freaking smart people of all ages. And, but they were all kind of those thinkers like the swirly brilliant visionary thinkers, big thinkers. I am not that. I am a tactical, linear, get it done, put things together, synthesizer type of person. That's how my brain is more that way. But I pair up really nicely with those thinkers. But I didn't know that at the time. So we're sitting in another faculty planning session where 18 of us are throwing ideas up. And I am inwardly dying because I'm like, this is gonna be another hour and a half of idea generation that's gonna go nowhere and nobody's ever gonna take care of it. So I was like, screw this. I stood up in the middle of the meeting and I was only there for a few months at this point. So I was new and I was terrified. I stood up, I had my Sharpies in different colors and I started taking their ideas that they had thrown up on the board and sorting them and ranking them and putting them in ladders so that they could see how. this idea would lead to this idea, and then this idea would lead to this action, and this action would lead to this outcome. And I was terrified because it's that thing of like, I'm not smart like they're smart, but I'm smart like this. But because I did it like it was breathing, I didn't think it meant I was smart. So they stop talking, they're watching me do this and all the color coding, and they're watching it, and they're like, where have you been our whole life? And in that moment, I was 30 freaking five years old before I realized like, oh, I belong in the room. I'm just a different kind of smart than all of you. I have put so much value on your brilliant ideas and your ideation and your swirl and your vision because I don't have that, right? Like that's what I thought was valuable because I don't have it.

Aransas Savas:

And you have to have both to get anything done.

Jen Liddy:

Yes, of course. So what I'm not saying is I'm the brilliant one, I'm the right one. I'm saying together

Aransas Savas:

get a boatload done. But it is, I think about this all the time, so it's so funny that you bring it up. It is a balancing, I feel like. And we can get very overbalanced in one or the other and then feel imbalanced.

Aransas Savas:

And so it is, I think, a conscious choice to surround ourselves with people who aren't just like us, who don't

Jen Liddy:

Seek those people out. Which is why it's interesting when I think about my clients, my clients are those idea waterfall people. Ideas, I will say, almost plague them. They just can't get out of the way of the deluge, right? And so MyBrilliance is sorting through that, making it into a linear plan that fits your specific needs. And let's make it a reality. But it's so interesting. All of these little. things that happened along the way bring me here to 2023, where I'm really like, you know, I lean into this is what this is what I am. I don't pretend to be an idea person. You don't need me to be an idea person. You need me to be the action person.

Aransas Savas:

Right. And if you need an idea person, let me refer you to someone.

Jen Liddy:

I have a million of them I can refer you to. Right? Right. So, I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm going

Aransas Savas:

So when you started your business, what sort of vision did you hold for yourself in the next chapter?

Jen Liddy:

Well, because in the fitness business, I had been at the front desk so much, I had gotten to know almost everybody in our fitness community. And a lot of the women who were mostly our clients, I'm sorry, most of our clients were women. So they're chatty and I would hear them at the front desk or while they're putting their shoes on or whatever. And I realized a lot of them were entrepreneurial, but they weren't quite taking action on their businesses because they were all stuck up in their head. first foray after I left was to work with those people and offer to support them in kind of taking action. And I called myself at that point an accountability coach and they really wanted accountability. And so I would just basically help them create systems or get clarity. And it was that morphed into kind of general business coaching over the years. So I went through this like 2017, 2018 at the end of 2019. I said to my business coach, I really, my favorite part of doing business coaching is the marketing and content piece because of course it's my word nerd, just shows right up and I can pull your words out of your head and make them sound awesome and then I can help you put content out into the world. So at the end of 2019, we're moving into a content explosion, but I don't really quite know that it's happening yet. And I remember saying, can I just? be a content person. Now of course just content people are everywhere, content copy people are everywhere. But at that point I was really scared just to limit myself. And so she was like, yes of course you can. Of course then four months later, this is December 2019, March 2020, the world explodes and everybody needs to learn how to do online content. And so that was the year that I had my biggest, my biggest at that point. revenue year and I really was just focusing on content and copy and messaging and I've honed it even deeper over the past three years. I'm still learning lessons about not overworking, not overdoing, but I did apply some of the lessons that we talked about earlier about like doing it in a way that feels good to you. For example, 2020 was the year that TikTok blew up. And everybody was lip syncing and dancing and pointing. And I was not having any of it. I was like, I am not a performer. That's not my personality. If you want to do that, that's fine. But I'm also not going to co-opt somebody else's lyrics and lip sync and edit to their words. I was not having it. And I just kind of stood my ground for three years about it. And this year, finally, we get a reprieve. That's not the kind of content that people really want anymore. The other thing was like I talked about I talked to entrepreneurs in general right and now I'm really at the point where I'm talking to women experts women service providers women coaches in the Wellness and health industries, so I'm really just getting narrower and narrower Because it's ironic for this doesn't work for everybody And I'm not going to pretend that it does but the more that you can be specific and a specialist in your field the more people are going to direct others to you. So I have resisted that for a long time, but my favorite clients are the ones who help other people heal and transform. They just don't know how to talk in an online marketing kind of way, in a way that feels good to them. So those are some of the lessons I learned in my previous jobs that I've just really leaned into, especially in your 50s. I'm like, I just don't... I actually can't wait for my sixties and seventies because I, if I don't give a s**t as much as I don't give a s**t in the, in my fifties, like I'm excited for the freedom that comes in my sixties and seventies, but I'm just trying to really lean into like doing what, what I enjoy doing. And that's all I want to do.

Aransas Savas:

and I got to have a lot of impact with people I was working with. However, it's difficult. It's so much easier when we get specific about who it is we're talking to because as you said, it's easier for the people who need you and your gifts to find you and your gifts because it's recognizable.

Jen Liddy:

The other thing about that, and I know this isn't an entrepreneurial podcast, but I think about all the people that I work with. Copy and content, that's my thing. I don't use the word messaging, but essentially that's what it is. If I only worked with nonprofits, I would have the system that worked specifically for nonprofits. I would know their jargon. I would know their style. I can get so

Jen Liddy:

Exactly. And I can do it much more quickly. versus like, okay, you're a product provider, you're an online course creator, you're a nonprofit, you're a holistic health coach. I can help all of you, but it will take me a little bit longer. It's almost like that idea of toggling between, things to do, when you're just focused on one thing, you can get more done. I have found for me, the way my brain works, if I'm really honed in on one person, one type of person in one type of industry, I can work a lot faster. And for me, we talked before about impact that fuels you. That fuels me because I'm making a better impact, but also I'm working a lot less hard. And

Jen Liddy:

that's kind of where I am at this point. I would never work 70 hours a week. I would hope I would never have to do that again. That would be a huge boundary for me. And at that point, I didn't have those boundaries that I have had. I guess I would say I have to have them now because it's so easy for me to overwork and overdo.

Aransas Savas:

of impact. So we've talked about you as a business woman, we've talked about you as a woman, as a person who is doing this work. How do you take care of yourself?

Jen Liddy:

I have a therapist who is a tapping therapist and

Aransas Savas:

EFT.

Jen Liddy:

EFT. But when I found her, I was kind of all talked out. I couldn't do any more talk therapy. But I knew that everything I wanted was on the other side of some really deep-seated garbage, and I knew it was all subconscious. So a lot of my self-care or how I take care of myself is... Because self-care always sounds like I'm getting manicures, and that's not my self-care. Is subconscious kind of rewiring work that comes from just stuff I know that my body is holding onto from childhood or from my teens and 20s and 30s or 40s? And so my therapist is a tapping therapist. I work with a woman who does subconscious rewiring. She creates hypnosis that are specifically designed for my specific needs. And I do a lot of spiritual healing work. So like energy medicine stuff, I am not versed in it at all, but I really lean into it and just go with it. And it is a lot of the subconscious stuff that I know is, because I did talk therapy since I was 20 and my parents got divorced. And so there's every week I get on the call with my therapist, she's in Connecticut and I'm in New York. And I'm like, How is there still stuff to talk about? I'm 50 freakin three years old. How is there another layer? She's like there's always another layer Jen

Aransas Savas:

Just like everything else we've talked about, isn't that funny, right?

Aransas Savas:

That there's always another lesson. There's always another layer.

Jen Liddy:

And you know what else, this is funny, when I'm thinking about what I really do, I rest a lot, that I never was good at resting, I was never good at napping. Again, I'm curious if other Gen Xers listening relate to this, but there's always this idea of doing, there's doing, doing. And I did, did. And I found when I got into my 50s, especially because that's when COVID hit, I had long haul COVID, and I just had to kind of acquiesce to the rest that my body needed. And I have learned that a lot of the rest that I need is just like, it's kind of for healing. So I don't over schedule myself anymore. I don't say yes to things I don't want to say like hell yes to. I don't talk myself into things and I generally won't go to something if I feel obligated for it. So those are other ways that I take care of myself. And again, that's been a lot of relearning. Like what does it really mean and what does that look like? But a lot of just rest.

Aransas Savas:

What does rest look like?

Jen Liddy:

It looks, it can look boring. And if you're a person who loves like activity and action and input and fun, what I'm about to tell you sounds like I'm the most boring person on the earth, which I really might be, but like laying in the hammock or taking a nap, I'm a big like Saturday afternoon napper. It means not going to, not like moving heaven and earth to go to like a networking event when I really just wanna lay on the bed and watch, you know, season five of Sex and the City or something like that, again for the 18th time. Um, it, it means it mostly for me, it means not overdoing laying around sometimes.

Aransas Savas:

Mm-hmm. And I think that helps to be specific about it. And when we share these things, I think we just create a fuller picture for people about what the possibilities and the options are. So I think it's useful stuff to talk about. Ha

Jen Liddy:

Well, I'm so glad you said that because I'm sitting here thinking like, Oh my God, I'm feeling kind of embarrassed about how much I'm talking about being lazy and resting. I'm going to have to bring this up with my therapist because

Aransas Savas:

ha

Jen Liddy:

there's clearly some more junk here that I need to let go of about feeling

Aransas Savas:

I'm going to go look into that a little further because

Jen Liddy:

Yeah.

Aransas Savas:

I have this hunch that maybe I'm doing all right.

Jen Liddy:

Right, it's working for me. And nobody in my house is complaining, so it's just this little inner mean girl that I have to talk about with my therapist next week. Ha ha ha.

Aransas Savas:

Okay, so you just brought up one of my favorite things to talk about here.

Jen Liddy:

Okay.

Aransas Savas:

What you're alluding to there is, you said, nobody in my family's complaining. So that is a measure of success for you.

Jen Liddy:

Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas:

You know things are going well when your family's not like, Jen, you're never here. You're always working. And I think we all have measures of success and we rarely name and measure them.

Jen Liddy:

Mmm.

Aransas Savas:

And so one of the things I often do with clients is we over the course sometimes of a few weeks really get clear on like, how do you know things are going well? And then we measure them and we say like, oh, well, that was an eight this week,

Jen Liddy:

Right,

Aransas Savas:

that was a

Jen Liddy:

right.

Aransas Savas:

six. So what can we learn from this? So I'm curious. What you would say are your measures of success?

Jen Liddy:

It's really funny that I said nobody in my house is complaining because nobody in my house ever complains. I don't have a husband who's needy or complaining. I don't have a kid who's needy or complaining. Even when I was working 70 hours a week, nobody ever said to me, you're never home. They just kind of took care of it and we have a system and it worked. The only person saying these horrible things to me is me.

Aransas Savas:

Yeah.

Jen Liddy:

And so when I say nobody's complaining, well, really nobody is complaining, but the only one who would be the inner mean girl inside my head going, you know, you're not doing enough. You're living a boring life. Other people are out there like, you know, doing something more fun. That's the, that's the measure of success. When I can just say this is exactly what I want to be doing and I don't feel bad that I'm missing out on anything else. That's when I know I have succeeded.

Aransas Savas:

And if you were to turn that into a metric, would you call it inner peace

Jen Liddy:

Hmm

Aransas Savas:

or positive self-talk? What would you call it?

Jen Liddy:

It has something to do with just acceptance. Like just fully accepting and liking my choices without comparing them to somebody else's choices. Or, you know, where this shows up sometimes is like, you know, sometimes on Facebook or social media, you'll see one of your friends has gone on a huge vacation with like their extended family and they all seem to love each other and they're having so much fun and they're just doing all these awesome things. And you're thinking, I'm thinking, when I go on a vacation with my extended family, I find people annoying, and I think it's annoying that I have to do X, Y, and Z, and that they're doing this, and I don't enjoy it all. And it's like, oh, that comparison. If I could just get good with the comparison of like, whether what they said on social media is true or not, this is what my truth is, and I'm okay with that. I have not achieved that level of nirvana yet, but that's the inner work I do to... achieve success, which for me is peace and quiet and ease. Those are the things I'm always going for. Ease, ease, ease. Those are

Aransas Savas:

Yes,

Jen Liddy:

my things.

Aransas Savas:

yes. So there you go. I mean, I think you just named yours. And you could tell, right, on a scale of one to 10, week over week, like, how was my sense of peace this week? How was my sense of ease this week?

Jen Liddy:

Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas:

What about physically? What are your physical measures of success?

Jen Liddy:

When I don't feel... I haven't been hung over in a long time, but you remember like that hung over feeling when you feel tired and your eyeballs ache and like your whole body just wants to like crawl back under the covers? When I don't feel like that, when I feel like energized, not like you know a ball of... I don't need to be a ball of fire energized. I want to get through my day. I want to go for the walk. I want to do yoga. I want to... get on a call and have an energizing conversation. Like I want to not be waiting for the end of the day when I can go to bed. That's success to me. Because what I'm striving for again is ease and my other thing is energy. Those are the two things I haven't had

Aransas Savas:

There you go.

Jen Liddy:

in a really long time and those are the things I've been working on for the past three years, ease and energy.

Aransas Savas:

I love that so much. This is such a beautiful example of this. And I think for everybody listening, I can't tell you how invaluable it is to do this with yourself, to ask these same questions and say, So what would my measures of success be? And maybe there's two or three. I never go beyond three because then I

Jen Liddy:

Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas:

think it gets overwhelming. And I think they have to be something that we can really own. And you just did such an awesome job of that. You were like, well, it's not this. It's not this. It is this.

Jen Liddy:

Mm.

Aransas Savas:

And then the more you kind of talked through it, and that's why you like either doing it with someone else or writing it down can be helpful, the more you talk through it, the more you started to synthesize your superpower there. and distill it into a single identifiable nugget

Jen Liddy:

Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas:

that you can check back in on.

Jen Liddy:

Right?

Aransas Savas:

And when we go back to everything we talked about in your career, you can see over time how you were working toward ease and energy.

Jen Liddy:

Totally. But for so much of my life, I didn't even know that was possible. I didn't even know that was allowed. I didn't even know that was okay, right? It was all about giving myself permission to, like say I wanted ease, because when I was growing up, if you wanted something easy, what was the matter with you? Are you kidding me? Your grandmother

Aransas Savas:

Slacker.

Jen Liddy:

worked so hard. Yes, if you can lean, you can clean. Like, you didn't need, who the hell are you to want ease? And I remember my grandmother saying, who do you think we are? We're not rich people. So it's fighting against all of those things that are so embedded in us. And I don't wanna say fighting against them, it's really like unworking them and letting them go, which is the work I have found

Aransas Savas:

Yeah.

Jen Liddy:

works best for me.

Aransas Savas:

Again, it creates resistance, I think, to

Jen Liddy:

Yeah.

Aransas Savas:

push against it, to fight it. That inherently, even if you picture the act of pressing, right? It's an act of tension. And what you were working toward is greater acceptance and

Jen Liddy:

Mmm.

Aransas Savas:

ease, which is the opposite of tension and

Jen Liddy:

and trying

Aransas Savas:

pressing.

Jen Liddy:

to be who everybody else is. Yeah,

Aransas Savas:

Yeah.

Jen Liddy:

yeah, yeah.

Aransas Savas:

And I keep talking about the inner mean girl. And like now that's all I can picture is this like little blonde and hot pink suit sitting on

Jen Liddy:

She's

Aransas Savas:

your shoulder.

Jen Liddy:

wearing Jordache jeans.

Aransas Savas:

And she grows up to be Elle Woods.

Jen Liddy:

Yes, the Jordan S jeans I never had as a child. Ha ha ha.

Aransas Savas:

Jen, this has been so much fun.

Jen Liddy:

It has for me too. I hope somebody got something out of that very long, windy conversation we had. Okay, good.

Aransas Savas:

I did. So we

Jen Liddy:

And

Aransas Savas:

know

Jen Liddy:

it was really fun for

Aransas Savas:

there's

Jen Liddy:

me to unpack

Aransas Savas:

at least

Jen Liddy:

it.

Aransas Savas:

one, two, there were at least two people

Jen Liddy:

Woohoo,

Aransas Savas:

who got something out of it.

Jen Liddy:

we had a great time.

Aransas Savas:

Yay. For those of you listening, you'll hear more about Jen and about the Uplifters over at theuplifterspodcast.com. So head over there after you listen to this and Let us know what your personal success metrics are. Let us know what brings you a greater sense of ease and peace and utter delight. Where you're finding that space of greatness in the rooms that you're in, those places where you can be the balance that is needed in that space, where you are able to refine and amplify your impact. to acknowledging that it's impactful and that it's needed and matters. Thank you for listening, Jen. Thank you for being here.

Jen Liddy:

Thank

Aransas Savas:

I

Jen Liddy:

you for having me.

Aransas Savas:

am so glad to know you now

Jen Liddy:

Me

Aransas Savas:

and can't

Jen Liddy:

too.

Aransas Savas:

wait to continue the conversation.

Jen Liddy:

Thanks for the coaching too, Arances, you were great. Who knew that's what's gonna happen

Aransas Savas:

Who knew? All

Jen Liddy:

today?

Aransas Savas:

right. That was super.

After a lifetime of devastating sexual abuse, Maureen Spataro broke. That breakdown led her to a massive breakthrough that helped her discover both peace and purpose.

Despite generations of abuse, Maureen found the courage and strength to break the cycle and face her dark family secret. Now, she’s dedicated her life to helping other women face traumas and surthrive.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How to heal by recognizing and voicing your needs

• How insecurity and fear can manifest as anger

• How to ask for forgiveness and give it to yourself

• You are stronger than you think you are

Maureen was nominated for The Uplifters by Chrisie Canny from episode 9.  

Suggested reading:

• Press Pause by Maureen Spataro 

Subscribe to our show at www.theuplifterspodcast.com for lots of free resources, newsletters, and more, for and by Uplifters.

After a lifetime of devastating sexual abuse, Maureen Spataro broke. That breakdown led her to a massive breakthrough that helped her discover both peace and purpose.

Despite generations of abuse, Maureen found the courage and strength to break the cycle and face her dark family secret. Now, she’s dedicated her life to helping other women face traumas and surthrive.

In this episode you’ll learn:

* How to heal by recognizing and voicing your needs

* How insecurity and fear can manifest as anger

* How to ask for forgiveness and give it to yourself

* You are stronger than you think you are

Maureen was nominated for The Uplifters by Chrisie Canny from episode 9.  

Suggested reading:

* Press Pause by Maureen Spataro 

“I work really hard at not hiding my scars. I'm not gonna pretend I've got things all together. I've lived my life. I have my scars and they are part of whom I am. Jesus had scars.” Pastor Beth Carroll

Less than 15% of lead pastors in America are women. Rev. Beth Carroll, Senior Pastor at Oakland City Church, is one of them. 

Pastor Beth has lived through mental illness, a divorce, and an unexpected pregnancy at 22, for which she was kicked out of the church, excluded, and shamed when she most needed community and support.

Her personal experiences, the stories of those she cares for, and her belief that Jesus’ life is a story of radical inclusion, set her on a mission to create safe and brave spaces for those experiencing unwelcome or trauma in the church, especially those in the LGBTQIA+ community and others marginalized because of their mental health. 

Instead of hiding her story, she’s used it to create trust. She teaches us that life's disappointments and traumas don't have to have the last word. The events that we thought signified our end or defeat can be the entry point into our life's calling. Every break-up, job loss, or insult forms and strengthens us, if we choose to process the pain.

“On the day I was kicked out of the church, I learned the power a pastor has to speak life or death into people. Now my favorite part of the job is to meet somebody, look them dead in the eye, and say, ‘You are good. God broke the mold with you. You are beautiful.’ To be able to use my mantle with the word reverend on it, and to be able to speak life into people.”

We may not all wear this mantel, but we all have the power to choose love, keep an eye out for the people in the back row, and offer a lifeline to those who are barely hanging on.

According to the Surgeon General, we are living in a loneliness epidemic. When we hide our scars, we hide from deep connections. Sure, there will be people who don’t get us. But, when we show our scars, we allow the people who were always looking for us, to really see us. And don’t we all want that more than anything?

Beth’s story is packed with powerful lessons. Here are a few that will always be with me:

• How to cultivate the courage to stay strong when facing resistance (spoiler alert: It comes from within)

• How to nurture spaces that inspire courage in others

• How to “Preach from your scars, not your wounds”

Listen to the end for another bonus meditation, exploring these essential questions: What do I need for my body? What do I need for my heart? What do I need for my mind? What do I need for my spirit?

💓Huge thanks to Lisa Crozier from episode 13 for creating this incredible link in our ever-stronger Uplifter chain.

💓Find Beth on Facebook and Instagram: @elizabethgracecarroll. Her posts are witty, warm, thought-provoking, and hilarious!

💓Click for more from Nadia Bolz Weber, the source of the powerful quote, “Preach from your scars, not your wounds.”

Let’s keep rising higher, together,

Aransas

Listen to our latest episode in the player here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

“I work really hard at not hiding my scars. I'm not gonna pretend I've got things all together. I've lived my life. I have my scars and they are part of whom I am. Jesus had scars.” Pastor Beth Carroll

This Week on The Uplifters

Less than 15% of lead pastors in America are women. Rev. Beth Carroll, Senior Pastor at Oakland City Church, is one of them. 

Pastor Beth has lived through mental illness, a divorce, and an unexpected pregnancy at 22, for which she was kicked out of the church, excluded, and shamed when she most needed community and support.

Her personal experiences, the stories of those she cares for, and her belief that Jesus’ life is a story of radical inclusion, set her on a mission to create safe and brave spaces for those experiencing unwelcome or trauma in the church, especially those in the LGBTQIA+ community and others marginalized because of their mental health. 

Instead of hiding her story, she’s used it to create trust. She teaches us that life's disappointments and traumas don't have to have the last word. The events that we thought signified our end or defeat can be the entry point into our life's calling. Every break-up, job loss, or insult forms and strengthens us, if we choose to process the pain.

“On the day I was kicked out of the church, I learned the power a pastor has to speak life or death into people. Now my favorite part of the job is to meet somebody, look them dead in the eye, and say, ‘You are good. God broke the mold with you. You are beautiful.’ To be able to use my mantle with the word reverend on it, and to be able to speak life into people.”

We may not all wear this mantle, but we all have the power to choose love, keep an eye out for the people in the back row, and offer a lifeline to those who are barely hanging on.

According to the Surgeon General, we are living in a loneliness epidemic. When we hide our scars, we hide from deep connections. Sure, there will be people who don’t get us. But, when we show our scars, we allow the people who were always looking for us, to really see us. And don’t we all want that more than anything?

Beth’s story is packed with powerful lessons. Here are a few that will always be with me:

* How to cultivate the courage to stay strong when facing resistance (spoiler alert: It comes from within)

* How to nurture spaces that inspire courage in others

* How to “Preach from your scars, not your wounds”

Listen to the end for another bonus meditation, exploring these essential questions: What do I need for my body? What do I need for my heart? What do I need for my mind? What do I need for my spirit?

💓Huge thanks to Lisa Crozier from episode 13 for creating this incredible link in our ever-stronger Uplifter chain.

💓Find Beth on Facebook and Instagram: @elizabethgracecarroll. Her posts are witty, warm, thought-provoking, and hilarious!

💓Click for more from Nadia Bolz Weber, the source of the powerful quote, “Preach from your scars, not your wounds.”

Let’s keep rising higher, together,

Aransas

Messy Transcript

Welcome to the Uplifters podcast. I'm Aransas Savas. If you recognized that voice you just heard, recommending today's guest, it's because that was Lisa Crozier from episode 13 of the Uplifters podcast. And for those of you who've been with us for a while, you know that our show is in Uplifter chain. Here's what I know so far about Beth, so we're all at the same point in this. Beth is a Reverend who serves as Senior Pastor at Oakland City Church. She specializes in creating safe and brave spaces for those experiencing unwelcome or trauma in the church, especially those in the LGBTQIA community, and others marginalized because of their mental health.

Beth, thank you for taking time from your really important work to join us today on the Uplifters podcast. I'm so excited to meet you.

Beth Carroll (03:50.395)

I'm absolutely excited to be here.

Aransas Savas (03:40.285)

Thank you. I want to hear first when you knew you wanted to be a Reverend.

Beth Carroll (03:50.395)

Okay, so no one's more surprised that I took this path than me. This is a second career for me. So I grew up, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be an actor. That was my life's dream. And life circumstances ended up taking a completely different turn. I did study it in college, but ended up having a family instead. And so my life went into a different direction. I do, or excuse me, I did what a lot of

arts majors do is I went into sales. I was at a sales career for many years. Loved it, loved relationships, loved people. And becoming a pastor happened kind of in the second half of my life. My faith has always been really important to me. I grew up in the church. My

Parents were missionaries when I was a little kid. Both my grandfathers were pastors. It's the family business, but not for women. So it wasn't that I was discouraged. I didn't even, it just wasn't modeled for me to do something like that ever. But it got to be when my midlife crisis was kind of a deconstruction of my faith.

I was going through a divorce. It was under really challenging circumstances. My first husband really struggled with addiction and that had an incredible impact on our family. And in the process of

leaving and rebuilding my life. I really started taking the Bible seriously, my religion seriously and away from myself that I don't think I had to do before. The stakes were a lot higher for me in terms of my life. And I needed a lot of comfort. I needed community. And when I started reading the Bible for really for myself,

I saw a story, I saw a narrative themes where the life of Jesus was one of radical inclusion, was one of justice. And what I began to realize that the job of the church is one that should be about that work of justice and inclusion.

And at the time, in my context, I was seeing not only a church that was not about that work, it was the very obstacle to that work. And that infuriated me. God had just been too important to me. My relationship to God had been too caring, too incredible for an institution to get in the way of allowing other people to discover that too. So I knew I had to do one of two things.

I had to either quit the church or I had to dig deeper and do something about it. So I decided to do something about it. So at 35, I quit my job. Actually, I was let go of my job. That's a whole other story. But circumstances started to unfold themselves in such a way that it became very obvious that the next step was for me to go to school and to reinvent.

my life and my calling.

Aransas Savas (07:37.494)

Okay. No small feet there.

Beth Carroll (07:42.698)

Any one of those little threads could be a whole new story.

Aransas Savas (07:50.35)

Well, what did it mean to reinvent your calling? So I'm a singer, and for many years, I studied privately with different instructors. And when I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I was studying voice with a man named Nicholas.

Nicholas was a retired opera singer. He had moved to our small little community, which was this tiny little town in Holland, Michigan at the time. I don't live there anymore. And it was a very nice place, but it was a very traditional conservative place. And Nicholas was married to his wonderful spouse, David. And in the course of studying with Nicholas, not only was he a

Beth Carroll (09:03.955)

And on a weekly basis, Nicholas would share with me what it was like for him as a gay man living in our nice little town. And the stories that he told me about being denied housing because he was gay and the things that people would say and do to him in the name of religion, specifically in the name of Christianity were horrible. And because that was about the same time I was going through my divorce,

visiting other churches because it was time for a reset for me to go someplace else. And I would visit a church and then the next lesson, I would go in and Nicholas would ask me, Oh, where did you visit this week? And I would tell him, and then I would chatter on about, um, uh, you know, the sermon and the music and whatever. And then he would wait a beat. And then he would say to me, would I be welcome there? And I would have to like, Oh, no.

Nicholas would not be welcome there. And this pattern went on for several weeks. And that is really what started to make me grieve and be angry for what I was seeing before me, because that, once again, was not what I was reading in the Bible, it's not what I felt like was our call on.

people who identify as Christians to do. And I have a little bit of a bulldog streak in me. It's what my dad used to call me when I was little, where if something is not fair, I get angry. I'm not a very angry person in general. I realize I've mentioned anger several times already. And, but injustice and things that are not fair have been one of the biggest...

Aransas Savas (10:34.278)

And I have a book called Bulldogs, that my dad used to be talking to me when I was little, where if something is not fair, I get angry. I'm not a very angry person, in general. I've always mentioned anger, but injustice, and things that are not fair, have been one of the biggest things that have made me angry.

Beth Carroll (10:57.879)

Um, things that have made me angry ever since I was a little girl. Um, so seeing something that wasn't fair in this instance, I just couldn't live with that. It just was unacceptable.

Aransas Savas (11:09.214)

And so what did that fire up in you to do?

Beth Carroll (11:13.767)

This was the moment it was the moment that I started doing some soul searching. I mean, as a single parent, you know, I was the sole breadwinner for my for my kids. And I, you know, in my prayer life, oh my god, I don't I don't know how on earth this is going to happen. I cannot afford to quit my job and to go to seminary full time and support two kids. This is just ridiculous. I can't do that.

Meanwhile, I was in a job that I hated. It was a dead end job, but we were in the middle of a recession at the time. I couldn't quit. And so I'm holding intention, this need to provide for my kids and this need to do something that filled me and felt like was fulfilling my purpose. And I'll never forget, so I was in the process of investigating financial aid and...

wondering if I should just quit my job. And so talking to the admissions people at the seminary and talking to my pastor at the time. And I just actually had come to the conclusion that I can't do this. This is too much. My kids have been through too much. You know, I will revisit this when they're in high school. So at the time, my son was about 15 and my daughter was like 12. So I'm like, there's just no way I can do this now.

So I kid you not, not 24 hours after I'd made that decision. I get, I go to, it was a Sunday when I made that decision. I went into work on a Monday. HR called me into their office and I was let go. And it was like, are you kidding me right now? Like the job, the dead end job that I didn't think I could escape, that I hated.

Like the decision was taken out of my hands and I just knew like this is my time. So I am going to go to seminary. I, and I'm going to, we're going to make this work. I found a bartending job. I'd never bartended before, but it was like something that I could do like nights while I was in school during the day, you know, allowed me to still go to like my kids' basketball games. And so we made it work.

Aransas Savas (13:35.81)

That's amazing. I had a very similar situation in that I had been in a wonderful job with a wonderful company that I loved. And I knew I needed to graduate and leave the nest. And so I had set with all of my friends this very specific intention that I would leave my job on March 1st. And I didn't. So on March 3rd, I got laid off. Yes.

Beth Carroll (13:48.059)

Hmm.

Beth Carroll (14:01.809)

No way!

Aransas Savas (14:05.07)

I was like, all right, OK. Here you are, loud and clear, universe. Let's go. Yeah. And so you take this big leap and you lean into the possibilities. It was such an interesting shift in your storytelling there because you started off with, well, here's all the reasons this is an insane idea and all the reasons I clearly cannot do this right now.

Beth Carroll (14:10.58)

Totally.

Beth Carroll (14:18.435)

Mm-hmm.

Beth Carroll (14:23.676)

Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas (14:35.022)

to, oh, well, clearly there are ways to address every single one of those challenges, and now is the time, so we're gonna do it.

Beth Carroll (14:35.088)

Right?

Beth Carroll (14:44.135)

Mm-hmm, definitely.

Aransas Savas (14:46.294)

And did you walk into Divinity School saying, hey, I believe the Bible is telling us a narrative of inclusion and justice, and I am here to spread that story.

Beth Carroll (15:02.663)

Absolutely. And the reality is the seminary that I went to, I would describe as being pretty moderate. In fact, a number of the professors that I have were very progressive thinkers. I had this one professor in particular who just invited me. He could see that like, oh, she's one of those. She's one of those, you know, kind of big mouth.

big idea, big hearted kind of people. And, and I'm so grateful. Like he, he was a theology professor, who taught a lot of progressive theologies, like liberation theology, queer theology, and just things like womanist theology, feminist theology, all the things, and I just ate it up. And had he not invited me to one of his classes, because

Typically speaking, there hasn't been a lot of women who go to seminary, first of all. Second of all, when they do go, they tend to like gravitate towards the pastoral care, kind of the counseling kind of track. They're not as attracted to the theology track. And so, and before that invitation, that had been me. I had been like, oh, I just love people and I wanna do things to listen and guide people.

Um, it wasn't represent, you know, there wasn't representation like in theology. So he invited me and I fell in love with, um, ethics and theology. And I just dug in and that ended up being my track. So very quickly I found my people. Um, and, and so it wasn't like this, I have to hold on to what I believe. And you know, these people are going to try to shake it out of me. It was like, um,

you know, I walked in with a spark and they threw in drops of gasoline. And so all of those passions ignited while I was at seminary. So, yeah, I was really blessed to be connected with the right people in the right circumstances.

Aransas Savas (17:16.046)

And what has the response been in the outside world now to this big mouth, big-eyed, big-hearted woman spreading a story of inclusion and justice?

Beth Carroll (17:29.123)

You know, good for the most part. So the first part of my pastoral career was in the Midwest. So in this tiny little town in Holland, Michigan, and I was a part of a church there that I would say was a fantastic match for all of those values. This is a church that had been open and affirming for probably close to 20 years. They were known in town as being kind of like the edgy, kind of more

progressive place. And, and so I never had to justify who I was what I believed like I was all of this. Yes, we love what you're talking about. And, and so that was this there was this wonderful nest, I think to kind of strengthen my leadership wings. Meanwhile, because of the amount of and I don't and I don't mean any disrespect for people who have more conservative leaning.

views. But there was also a number of church environments in this town where it was traumatizing and abusive towards specifically LGBTQIA people. And so you could throw a rock in any direction and find somebody who is LGBTQIA and deeply harmed by the church. And so to be able to meet people.

And I think my favorite part of the job was to meet somebody, look them dead in the eye, and say, you are good. God broke the mold with you. You are beautiful. You know, to be able to use my, you know, mantle with the word, you know, with the word reverend on it, and to be able to speak life into people.

I am a straight identifying woman, but I know what it's like. I've had some of my own past church traumas in my past. I've been kicked out of church. When I was 22 years old, I had an unexpected pregnancy. And the church that I was going to at the time.

I was terrified, I was alone. My boyfriend and I at the time went to the pastor because I so desperately needed support and care. And meanwhile, the pastor had heard why I was coming in, unbeknownst to me. I poured out my heart to this man, he listened. And when I got done, he leaned down and he picked up a stack of books and magazines on why premarital sex is wrong.

dropped it on the desk and shoved it at me. And then, you know, I was really involved in the church. I was singing the church, everything, and he's like, yeah, you need to take a break from all of those things, because we need to care for you. You know, it just was ridiculous. It was an utter lie. And so that has been deeply formational for me. Like I learned in that moment that the power

pastor has to either speak life or to speak death. And in that moment, he chose to speak death to me. And it took me years to process that and get over that. So though I don't know what it's like to be pushed out of the church, because somebody is gay or trans, I do know what it's like to be pushed out.

and the power that we have, especially those of us who have any sort of leadership capacity, to speak life into people. And I do that every chance I get to speak life.

Aransas Savas (21:31.278)

To me too, it sounds like the difference between acceptance and judgment. And the story I hear you telling is one of acceptance, a God loves everyone story, as opposed to God loves people who look and sound and live like me story.

Beth Carroll (21:51.099)

Absolutely. I mean, who wants to join, who wants to join a place that is not based in love? You know, why would we even do that to ourselves?

So I cannot undo the trauma of other people, but I at least can be, you know, like a rope that allows people to hang on, you know? So, yeah. So it's a big story. Like the people who have spoken death over us, the people who have spoken curses, they do not get the last word. They do not.

I will not allow that to happen for myself, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make sure that is the case for others too.

Aransas Savas (22:43.146)

What has that looked like in your work?

Beth Carroll (22:49.271)

That has looked like...

Beth Carroll (22:53.935)

You know what I said earlier in terms of meeting with people one on one and choosing to speak love when I know that people like me have not done that. It means that on any given Sunday at church, I'm in a different church now. I have a special affection and I for the back row peeps.

So the people who come in 15 minutes late and they kind of sneak in the back, I love those people. I know what it takes, how brave it is to come into a church for the first time, especially if you've either never gone to church or if church is a source of pain. It takes a lot to set foot in there. And I do not take that for granted for a minute.

Um, so I, um, sometimes I can be overly friendly to people, like to the point, like I got to watch it because sometimes people's eyes will get really big. Like when I see them after the service, I'm like, I'm so glad you're here. And they're like, thank you. You know, I'm like, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to stock you. I swear. Um, but, uh, but I just get, I just, it's a gift, you know, people who choose to show up and.

be a part of our lives, whether that's personally or whether that's in a church, whether that's in a nonprofit, anytime when somebody has a choice, like that's a gift. It really is that somebody chooses who doesn't know you yet to extend a little bit of trust. And I hope I never lose sight of that.

Aransas Savas (24:43.454)

And you said that in the beginning, you were in a bubble, a safe place where it was easy to be courageous. I assume from that answer that there was another chapter or other moments where perhaps it wasn't quite so easy to be as courageous or as inviting to be courageous.

Beth Carroll (25:12.483)

a good question. You know, actually, the first thing that comes to mind is I think the biggest obstacle for myself and being courage and having, excuse me, and having courage has been myself. It's been worrying about what other people think. I am a recovering people pleaser. So I will. Oh, well, how about that? And I don't think it'll ever be

Aransas Savas (25:35.682)

Same. What do you know? No, no, it's a work in progress.

Beth Carroll (25:45.172)

That's right, it is. And especially in my case, I'm also a recovering codependent. So having just all of the addiction in my family, so I grew up with a family member who struggled with addiction, you know, than my first husband. And codependents are funny people in that they...

gifts in co-dependence. Like if you're a co-dependent man, you see the best in everybody. Like you are committed, you are loyal to a fault. And so there's gifts in that. But what I've learned through my, I think both my co-dependency recovery and my people pleasing recovery is that there's a difference between something that's good and something that's better and something that's best.

And so maybe the good is being nice and kind to everybody you encounter. And that's a very good thing, but our energy is finite. And so I do think the best thing is being so centered in who you are, who you were created to be, what your focus is, who are the specific people you want to love in your life.

that you make sure that they get the best. And also being okay with the people who you're just simply not called to be with or the people who are damaging to you. They don't get your best. There's just not enough time and energy. Doesn't mean that you're rude or mean or cruel. It does mean that I'm okay with this person not liking me.

and letting that go. And again, that is a lifelong work. You know, I get sucked back into what people think. But anyway, to answer your original question, I actually think that it's me that I decide if I'm courageous and that if other people don't get to decide that for me.

Aransas Savas (27:38.03)

Mm-hmm.

Beth Carroll (28:01.631)

And sure, there have been environments, some environments have been easier than others, right? But yeah, I control what I can control.

Aransas Savas (28:02.041)

You...

Aransas Savas (28:12.782)

But when it feels like the stakes are lower, it feels easier to be courageous. It's not as big an ask.

Beth Carroll (28:17.695)

Oh, totally. Totally. Oh my gosh, you're so right. So right.

Aransas Savas (28:23.662)

So you talk about having a real passion and heart for creating safe and courageous spaces. What does that look like?

Beth Carroll (28:35.955)

It is a moving target because depending on the group of people that I'm trying to connect together, you know, each group has different needs. I just started a group at my at my current church. It's a it's a group called holding hope and it is a it's one part mental health support group.

Aransas Savas (28:37.934)

Mm-hmm.

Beth Carroll (29:03.743)

It's one part Bible study. And it's a place for both those of us who struggled with our mental health, because I am in that category as well. And for others who have struggled with their mental health to be able to say me too and listen and love well. Church has also been a complicated place for people who struggled with mental health. Lots of well-meaning people.

have used Bible verses in such a way that tell us not to be anxious, you know, and all of these kind of things that are so not appropriate and taking certain scripture and words out of context. And creating a safe and brave place for this group has meant, okay.

Where's your growing edge? Like what are the kind of things that people have said to you that have not been helpful? What are the kind of things that have been helpful? So first, you know, sharing my own story, I think is a way that helps up the trust level, the safe level, so that people like, okay, like our pastor, she's not perfect. She has her struggles.

If she can share, well, then maybe I can too. And so me creating the safety and being vulnerable gives permission for other people to do the same and be brave. It is huge. One of the biggest, the best pieces of advice that I've had in my work, there's a wonderful preacher called Nadia Bolz Weber, who I love, I've read several of her books.

Aransas Savas (30:37.215)

It's huge.

Beth Carroll (30:53.279)

And she has this kind of mantra, which is preach from your scars, not your wounds. And so I work really hard at not hiding my scars, that I've lived life. I'm not gonna pretend I've got things altogether or that I have altogether. I've lived my life. I have my scars and they are part of whom I are. Jesus had scars.

in his resurrected body when Jesus like rises from the dead and then comes back to earth to say, Hey, look, I rose from the dead. That's not a direct quote. He, he shows his disciples the nail scars in his hands. The scars are still there. They're part of who he is a part of his story.

And our scars are part of our story. So I will show you my scars and hope that you will feel braver and showing yours.

Aransas Savas (31:52.622)

Hmm, what do you believe happens when we try to hide our scars?

Beth Carroll (31:59.239)

I think we miss out. I think we deny ourselves.

Beth Carroll (32:08.727)

the ability, you know, the chances for connection. The Surgeon General recently talked about the epidemic of loneliness in our country. I think it's like one out of two Americans don't have a friend? Oh my gosh. First of all, let's raise our game and be a friend to people. And for those of us who are feeling lonely, man, take a leap, show somebody your scar.

Aransas Savas (32:12.492)

Yeah.

Beth Carroll (32:38.179)

Yeah, there are going to be people out there who don't treat it well. And that's awful. But there's also going to be people out there who see your scars as holy and beautiful and a sign of strength. And who doesn't want more of that in their life?

Aransas Savas (32:58.946)

Those are your people.

Beth Carroll (33:00.751)

Those are your people. Oh my gosh, yes.

Aransas Savas (33:03.666)

Yeah, I think when we hide our scars and our truths, we hide the opportunity, we hide from the opportunity for true love and acceptance.

Beth Carroll (33:15.815)

Absolutely.

Aransas Savas (33:20.262)

it because we can't even feel accepted if we haven't given our truth. And so then whatever is being responded to feels untrue because the stimuli we have handed as us and has been received, whatever response we're getting is to that, not to our truth. And so we always feel lonely and left out and alienated. And I think one of the...

Aransas Savas (33:48.598)

big things I take from your story is this idea that if you are in a place where your truth is not accepted, then go. You don't have to stay and fight. You don't have to convince anyone. You don't have to change. You just have to go find your place and your people. And that's its own work, but so worth it.

Beth Carroll (34:05.507)

Absolutely. Oh my goodness. So true.

So true. Like one of the churches that I went to before I was a pastor in my town of Holland, I went to a place for many years and it took me five years to make one friend there. Five years. I was like in my 20s and I think I thought there was something wrong with me. Like, why can't I, I'm a relatively outgoing person. Like, I like these people. Why doesn't anybody wanna be my friend?

And then I finally, like, you know what? Maybe I just need to try another church. And immediately upon changing churches, found my people. And it was a real like, oh, I need to pay attention to that. Like, it might not be that there's something wrong with me. It might be, I'm just in the wrong place.

You need to find your places where you're celebrated.

Aransas Savas (35:09.146)

Yeah. And I think the other really important message that I take from that is that all churches are not the same.

Beth Carroll (35:20.812)

Oh, they are not.

Aransas Savas (35:22.93)

just because they kind of come from the same source material, there are many different variations of that.

Beth Carroll (35:32.843)

Oh my gosh, so true. Yeah. America's amazing in that way. There are so many choices, so many choices. And it's a double-edged sword because on the one hand, you need to find a place where, yeah, like I said before, you're celebrated and you find your people and you hear a lot of me too, when you start to connect with people.

You know, you don't want to veer into this kind of consumerist idea where just because you don't like, you know, the bulletin cover or, you know, the song they sang that Sunday that you know, because I think that's the trick of community, right? Is it's a commitment. Like, I think so much in our country, we've made religion so much about me, like what I believe and there's beauty in that it's not that it's wrong. But we have to

Aransas Savas (36:09.483)

Mmm.

Aransas Savas (36:25.166)

Mm.

Beth Carroll (36:28.699)

balance that with community. Like what do I have to give here? Not just what do I have to receive, but where can I give? Like what, how can I make this place better? So it's those two things in balance.

Aransas Savas (36:42.754)

Think of it weirdly, like the way that we bought our house. We started, I know this is not expected, right? But we were like, well, we could focus on like, what's the color of the paint? And what is the exact floor plan? But ultimately we made a really excellent choice because we said, how do we wanna live within this house? What are the most important

values that this house needs to correspond with. And when we came at it from that direction, we actually, I mean, ended up buying a house that looked completely different than we ever would have expected, but it felt right. And it aligned well with how we wanted to grow and who we wanted to be in that house and the life we wanted to create from that place.

Beth Carroll (37:29.85)

I so love that.

I love that.

Beth Carroll (37:41.807)

Oh, that's a great foundation. I mean, that's a place that's something that empowers you to live the life that you wanna live, which is, yeah, again, like, that's what a church should be too.

Aransas Savas (37:45.858)

Yeah.

Aransas Savas (37:54.334)

I think the same is true with relationships, right? Like I could have picked my husband based on his height, his eye color, his hair color, the spelling of his name, but I was like, how do I feel in this relationship? And who am I with this person, right? And so I think when we come at the choice of where to invest our spiritual energy or where to find our spiritual community, I guess is the better way to say it.

Beth Carroll (38:08.48)

Oh yeah.

Aransas Savas (38:24.19)

It's all the same conversation, wherever we're building something that matters, to look at it through those same lenses of values and, as you said, the foundational elements.

Beth Carroll (38:29.563)

Mm-hmm.

Beth Carroll (38:37.52)

Absolutely.

Aransas Savas (38:39.861)

So...

Aransas Savas (38:46.301)

When I think of religion,.

Beth Carroll (38:56.091)

Hmm

Aransas Savas (38:56.202)

It feels like in a lot of ways it has become less central to our national culture. And I wonder for you as someone who has studied it deeply.

Aransas Savas (39:17.39)

What do you believe it needs to become in order to achieve great or to find a new space of relevance and value in our world?

Beth Carroll (39:32.902)

Mm-hmm.

Oh, I love this. I say, I get excited over things like this because I like to think about what's next. And yes, certainly institutional religion, not only in our country, but in Europe, numbers are shrinking. It is not the same in what's called the global South. So the rest other parts of the world, it's actually exploding, which is so fascinating to me. But...

But what I like to think about is, first of all, it doesn't belong to any of us. So it's gonna do what it's gonna do. But I think the next iteration, and so whether that's a smaller church, and that's okay, I don't think numbers really define. That's interesting information, but it's not necessarily the only information.

But I think it goes back down to what I mentioned before in terms of loneliness. That's one of the things we're working at in my current church is I'm currently in the Bay Area where there's a lot of transients, a lot of people who move here, a lot of people who move away. It was especially true during COVID and now with like the tech, all the tech layoffs. And so it's really affecting my region. And so one of the things we're talking about and getting creative about is, oh my gosh, well, if our-

institution, if our church is here to discover what the needs are in our community and meet those needs, the needs in our community are loneliness. What are we doing to solve the loneliness problem? So doing a lot of we're piloting a program like to have meals after church, so we can invite people to just share a meal, you know, becoming a culture of invitation and curiosity about other people.

inviting people to go on walks with us. Like what are we doing to check on our neighbor? And I think the more that we lean into discovering what the needs are around us and meeting those needs, the institution will take care of itself. It'll become something else, something beautiful, something that's needed and necessary. And I guess I'm still at the end of the day, an optimist.

And that I believe that is possible. I think, you know, just even as our country, like as divided as our country is, I believe that so much is still possible for us. But it takes a willingness to be curious about the people we interact with on a daily basis. It takes a willingness to put ourselves out there and to take a risk and love. Can you imagine what it would be like if we all did that?

Aransas Savas (42:28.418)

I want to sit with that image and surround myself with it. I want more of it, right? I want to feel loved and accepted. I want to feel deep, profound connection. As human beings, I think even 

cynical and the most introverted person craves their flavor of connection. What is next for you, Beth?

on your evolution.

Beth Carroll (43:41.971)

Yeah, what is next is I have a new role. I am in a new place. I moved from Michigan to California. So nine months, excuse me, nine months ago.

Aransas Savas (43:51.338)

When was that?

Oh, this is new!

Beth Carroll (43:56.587)

Yeah, so yeah, and I have a new role. I'm a senior pastor. I'm both just honored and terrified by that, which is because only I think they wrote a statistic that was senior pastor roles, which is like that the lead pastor role in a church, only 15% of all of those roles are ever women. And so I'm like, Oh, my goodness, what a what a heavy mantle to carry. But my the next thing is

I'm learning all about this region. I'm learning about this beautiful church, which is incredibly diverse in every sense of the word with all of the beauties and challenges with that. So I'm getting to know these people. My husband's family is out here. So I'm getting to know his family, which is they're just incredible people on a more daily basis. So what a gift that is.

So yeah, I'm learning this new place and this new work and figuring out how can this Midwestern nice girl show up in the big city. So. Ha ha ha.

Aransas Savas (45:13.898)

as her true self.

Beth Carroll (45:16.183)

Absolutely.

Aransas Savas (45:17.918)

Yeah, yeah, so it's not how does this Midwestern nice girl fit into this place, but how does this Midwestern nice girl shine her Midwestern niceness in this place?

Beth Carroll (45:27.816)

Oh, oh, I love that. I love that. That's a good word.

Aransas Savas (45:32.987)

I love it for Oakland.

Beth Carroll (45:36.547)

Thank you, it's a really awesome city. Really awesome city.

Aransas Savas (45:38.954)

Yeah. I think when we go into those places that maybe have a different energy and vibe than we do, I like to think of us as balancing them in some way. Like in our little quadrant of this place, it's like, oh, I'm gonna bring a little of my balance. My sappy balance.

Beth Carroll (45:52.48)

Ooh.

Beth Carroll (46:02.151)

I love that. I'm gonna remember that.

Aransas Savas (46:05.87)

So, Beth, I like to end our episodes with a moment of reflection, big believer in the power of reflection and taking moments of quiet to sort of let ideas simmer for us. And I suspect you are a woman who asks powerful questions all day. What is one of the most

powerful questions that you ask the people you work with.

Beth Carroll (46:47.783)

Probably one of them is, what do you need right now?

What do you need right now, especially since a lot of times when I'm meeting with people, they're in a bad moment, they're in a struggling space. And then leaning into whether or not what they need is from me or helping them identify if what they need is from themselves. Or maybe it's a nap. Maybe it's something to eat, glass of water.

What do you need right now?

Aransas Savas (47:28.414)

And I suspect meeting one of those needs often awakens an understanding of other needs to be met.

Beth Carroll (47:37.211)

Definitely.

Aransas Savas (47:38.666)

It's like an onion. It peels away. Yeah, that hierarchy of need, right? When we say, okay, my thirst is met. Now I can tune into the fact that what I really need is to scream. And now I can tune into the need to cry. And now I can tune into the need to hug. So shall we take a moment together, Beth, and reflect on that for ourselves with the uplifters?

Beth Carroll (47:40.967)

Definitely.

Beth Carroll (47:49.136)

Hmm.

Beth Carroll (47:53.851)

Definitely.

Beth Carroll (48:07.271)

Absolutely.

Aransas Savas (48:08.298)

All right. I like to do this by grounding my feet. It helps me feel really connected to the sturdiness and the stability of the earth. And I bring one hand to my heart, one to my gut, and close my eyes. And let's just spend these next couple of moments quietly asking ourselves.

what it is we really need.

Aransas Savas (48:47.566)

And maybe as you get curious, you begin to ask yourself, what do I need for my body?

Aransas Savas (48:58.166)

What do I need for my heart?

Aransas Savas (49:08.994)

What do I need for my mind?

Aransas Savas (49:18.962)

And what do I need for my spirit?

Aransas Savas (49:38.866)

and breathe that in.

Aransas Savas (49:43.838)

And as you are ready, perhaps you want to get curious about what or whom could meet those needs and what tiny step you might take today or even in this very moment towards meeting your needs.

Aransas Savas (50:09.638)

Ah.

Beth, I am so grateful to have met you and to have heard your story. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all that you do.

Beth Carroll (50:22.151)

Thank you, Aransas. I appreciate that, thank you, thank you.

Aransas Savas (50:27.266)

For all of you listening, thank you for all that you do in the world. You uplifters, you make this world and your little corner of it better and safer. And may we all tap into a little of this big mouth, big idea, big hearted Beth wisdom here and allow ourselves to courageously challenge that which is unfair.

and to advocate for greater acceptance, more love, and more connection.

I'll see you over at theuplifterspodcast.com where you'll hear lots more from Beth and Lisa and lots of other uplifters, as well as bi-weekly, tri-weekly, three times a week, I don't know, as well as newsletters from me three times a week with lots more uplifting news and stories and ideas from out in the world.

Sam France’s childhood was chaotic. But her parents didn’t get a guidebook for raising little Sam, so they were left to learn on the job, basing their decisions on their childhoods. 

Sam’s daughter was also born without a guidebook. Go figure. 

Sam realized there had been a generational curse handed down through her family and felt determined to create a new guidebook. 

In this episode, we walk through each chapter of her daughter’s life from birth to college to understand how Sam broke this generational curse and the influences that shaped the parent she’s become – one who enjoys the journey. 

Parenting is work. All relationships are. They take patience and attention. On the surface, this episode is about parenting, but really it’s about how to be our best in the relationships that matter most.

You’ll learn:

[00:15:00] How to find peace during transitional stages

[00:17:15] How to be responsive instead of reactive when we are triggered **Spoiler alert: Other people’s responses are not about you.**

[00:20:00] How to create open pathways for growth conversations when emotions run high

[00:28:00] Bonus! This episode also includes a meditation at the end, so carve out 3 minutes to breathe, reflect, and honor your vital feelings and needs.

Follow Sam on Instagram and then head over to www.theuplifterspodcast.com for tools, resources, and ideas for Uplifters.

Want more?

Check out our favorite books on parenting:

• The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults

• The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents

• Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood

Listen to our latest episode in Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

This Week on The Uplifters Podcast

Sam France’s childhood was chaotic. But her parents didn’t get a guidebook for raising little Sam, so they were left to learn on the job, basing their decisions on their childhoods. 

Sam’s daughter was also born without a guidebook. Go figure. 

Sam realized there had been a generational curse handed down through her family and felt determined to create a new guidebook. 

In this episode, we walk through each chapter of her daughter’s life from birth to college to understand how Sam broke this generational curse and the influences that shaped the parent she’s become – one who enjoys the journey. 

On the surface, this episode is about parenting, but really it’s about how to be our best in the relationships that matter most.

You’ll learn:

[00:15:00] How to find peace during transitional stages.

[00:17:15] How to be responsive instead of reactive when we are triggered. **Spoiler alert: Other people’s responses are not about you.**

[00:20:00] How to create open pathways for growth conversations when emotions run high.

[00:28:00] Bonus! This episode also includes a meditation at the end, so carve out 3 minutes to breathe, reflect, and honor your vital feelings and needs.

Want more?

Follow Sam on Instagram and check out our favorite books on parenting:

* The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults

* The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents

* Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood

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Let’s keep rising higher, together!

Aransas 💓

MESSY TRANSCRIPT

Aransas: Welcome to the Uplifters Podcast. I'm your host, Aransas Savas, and today I'm joined by my friend, coach Sam France. In this episode, [00:01:00] you'll hear how her own childhood, her mommy mentors, and others shaped her own mothering.

But really this episode isn't just for moms. It's for anyone who wants to be their best selves and their most important relationships. Sam, welcome. Thank you for being 

Sam: here. Hey there. Thanks for 

Aransas: having me. We gotta talk about childhood. Let's just start there. Tell me about what it was like to be Little Sam in 

Sam: the world.

Well, little Sam comes from divorced parents and remarried by the time I was five. So there was, you know, togetherness and separated and was five my stepfather and moved. So I started flying to Florida where my dad was by myself, who was remarried to my stepmom from the age of five or six, maybe on every school holiday until I was an adult [00:02:00] and beyond.

So I lived with my, like I said, my mom, my stepdad, and a family of five children. And I would go to Florida to my dad's house, and I would be an only child with my stepmom. So childhood was chaotic. 

Aransas: What was it like for you to have that vastly different experience in two different places? 

Sam: I used to say I had the best of both worlds and I did.

I love that idea of being able to be an only child and have the attention and be cared for. And yet coming out of though the family in Connecticut where I lived with the, with the Chaos family, it was a challenge going from sort chaoticness to, to be feeling taken care of. It was, um, was disconnect. I'm an emotion.

We're all emotional beings cause we're, we're, we're humans. My emotions were definitely not necessarily being worked with on how to regulate them. They would just be explosive. And so that would be [00:03:00] kinda like tumultuous to go from one space to the other. Cause my emotions would sort of, I wasn't, I couldn't leave the chaos and go into the quiet and know, get into quiet, chaotic, and then return miss.

Aransas: Yeah, it's sort of like those old science experiments, right? Where they put some liquid and baking soda into a bottle and then shake it up, right? There was all of this energy contained in that space, and then I imagine like trying to trap that chaos and feeling like there is the result, as you said, this explosiveness, this emotional human being who.

Just wants to express, but having it to sort of contain it in that chaos had 

Sam: to have been hard. Yeah. And especially without listen, not that no one, none of us come with books. It's not like we birth out a book to go with us. So it's not like, oh, here on page 42 you do 

Aransas: this. Here's the [00:04:00] manual for raising Sam.

Sam: Yeah. So it's not like there's any blame. But looking back, there was not the container of, I mean, my poor dad and stepmom were like, whoa. And then I, I'd quiet.

Whatever, we're not even paying attention to you because it's fine or whatever, you know? So it's sort of just unparented in that way. It's funny, I always wanted to know what the right thing to do was. If someone could just tell me what the right thing to do is or just show me, right. I would that, I always craved that.

Mm-hmm. And 

Aransas: then you became a mother and then I became a mommy. And how well prepared did you feel to do that? Your daughter didn't come with E Emmanuel either? 

Sam: Nope, she did it. My sister-in-law was the one who joked with me. That's where I got it from. She's like, when she, shes like, how you doing? She's like, you know, they don't come with any manuals, you know, like, you know, it's interesting I that I was prepared, but I [00:05:00] wanted to have child.

I had wanted to married, I wanted to family, or at least parent. 

Aransas: What did you do to start to become the mother you wanted to be for your daughter? 

Sam: Well, way back when, when I was in therapy and I've been in therapy on and off since I was 16, so, and I love therapy. I was given a piece of information around family curses that get carried down and how I might be at a place where I could stop my particular line of women family cursing.

And so when I became a mom that came right back up into my life. I'm not my mom and I'm not my dad, but I'm in the middle. So I kind of like went with that. Okay. Like, I'm gonna parent sort of from here and do the best I can, which is, you know, challenging of course at times. Parenting is really freaking hard and it's millions of tiny decisions. Often in an instant. Yeah. We don't get a chance to think through them and to strategize and to plan. We're just living and trying our best to love and support these little people. What was your guiding light? 

Sam: I don't have to take down this generational.

That's been going on. I can be different. And that was force. 

Aransas: Mm-hmm. And how did that in the parent 

Sam: Every stage you get to, like there's the beginning of the stage, you're like, I dunno, do this.

And then you get into the stage,[00:07:00] 

you know, and by the end you're like, I got that stage. It's, and then start all over again. Right. So it was almost that patterning kind started to take structure and be like, alright. Every stage is a new stage. Every stage is awesome. Mm-hmm. 

Aransas: And what did you find to be the most difficult about being present and being true to yourself as a parent?

Sam: The most difficult part was feeling lonely. Right. Feeling like I can't take a day off, you know, I dunno if I'm proud of this, but I, it is true. I was voted class laziest in. And I can't be lazy anymore. Like I can't, oh, I don't. Well, and wanna watch tv. Little nothing do sweetheart

was really challenging. Lonely. 

Aransas: What were those early [00:08:00] teen years like for you? 

Sam: The teen time. The tween time. I mean, I read about it. There's this one book called, That was just wonderfully helpful in terms of like physiologically what's going on and it as to why they tell you they hate you or why they tell you that, you know, they wanna do whatever or they tell you these things.

So I had at least knowledge as to why that was happening in those early years. But it was a real challenge cause it literally one day went from Mommy can and mommy, is this okay? I'm doing this anyways. I don't care what you say. I hate you. And screaming like just, uh, volumous screaming would go on, and that sets me off and that makes me scream.

And then we're all in it together. So that was a challenge. I was like, ready to call the cops on her. Like, what's, what would be said to me? Husband [00:09:00] was like talking about like, that's scaring her. That's making worse. Like, what do you mean? I don't know what? I don't know what else to do. I'm lost. So it was like learning all of that in that time.

Aransas: It is so true. I think that in the times of transition, especially with our kids, that is where we are most likely to fault. Back to how we were parented, because we don't have a yet, 

Sam: it was an eyeopening moment. Oh.

I know exactly who I wanna be. I wanna be the mom who understands that you're the kid and I'm the adult and I give you space to pop off. Cause where else do you have safe space but in your home to like grow and stretch and be uncomfortable and do that stuff and I can contain it for you without taking it personal and I can contain it for you with creating some healthy boundaries.

And I can, you know, I can do that. I could. It was that moment of like seeing [00:10:00] who I knew I could be. That helped. Yeah, move that sort of forward into those directions and then that became my guiding light of like the mom. I, I know I, I know the mom. I can be, I know other mom. I'm a big fan of other people do it.

If other people do it, I can do it. So I could see other moms that would do it and be do it. So it was definitely that shift. It was a choice. It was really a choice. 

Aransas: What were the moms you admired 

Sam: doing? No, not yelling back at their kid. Not the moms I admire would just like let it all roll off their back and know that no matter what, it's gonna be fine.

And yet at the same time, not dropping the ball. Right. So like your kid could yell at you and you could, you know, be like, all right, we'll talk about it later, but then you don't. That's dropping the ball in my opinions

Lesson. 12 year old, of course you're upset. It makes sense. You're [00:11:00] 12, your hormones are raging and God bless your soul for everything going on. That said, when you do scream and yell, it's not fun to hear. Right. You know, you're not doing it on purpose. I get that. Just something to keep in your mind as you work on it, as you go forward.

Right. So like that's what I, that would be the kind of mom that like, It's like you are allowed, you get space to be a mess and I wanna make sure we're contained in this space where there's boundaries I don't want you to learn that yelling and screaming is okay, period, to get what you are.

And so it was just like giving that space to be that. But then making sure I came back around and said, Hey, I just wanna make sure we're clear. That's all. we all do that. And we just say, we're sorry. Hey, I'm sorry for being that way right now.

I'm feeling this way. I did not mean to dump on you. I apologize. Let's move on. Mm-hmm. So was that repeat right? Constantly. So those were the moms, like the moms that would just like, you [00:12:00] know, carefree, easy flow, let it all go and have the best time. 

Aransas: And so how did that affect your relationship with your 

Sam: daughter?

It really gave me an opportunity to enjoy her and to play with the teen tween time rather than taking it so personal and gave me the start of practicing not taking anything personal at that matter, and it really became a lot more fun. Cause I could easily just be like, stop talking to me like that. That's not fair. But in that moment, that's not gonna get what, it's not gonna get what we want. So it was, you know, it really allowed for me to participate and that gave way for us. A much closer relationship probably [00:13:00] than we would've had if I just kinda made sure.

Like to crack the whip every 

Aransas: time. I think a lot about, for teachers, I suspect it's especially hard as a teacher to work in any classroom environment that is intentionally wired for the kids. So the PE teacher, the theater teacher, the band teacher, They're like getting these kids all amped up and then trying to somehow keep them contained at the same time.

Whereas I think, you know, other classes are just quieter and they're more intentionally contained, and so you don't have to. Try to contain a massive amount of juvenile energy while also creating it, which is just a bizarre attention to hold. But I think as parents, we're doing that a lot. We're like, be your full self and let's communicate about the effects of what that [00:14:00] is and how that feels to me as a human being.

And it's a lot to hold. 

Sam: It's a lot paying attention. Yeah. 

Aransas: So your daughter now has started college and how has that been for the two of you? 

Sam: It's been good. I mean, the connection during Covid was so intense cause we're just home together. So I would say the slow roll into college was sort of kinda coming from that, like slowly separating and giving her the information.

It's a, it was a harsh one too. Oh, you're 18, you're on your own. Congratulations. You your own choices. Bye. It's a very, it's like, wait. She's like, it, it reminds me of the opposite when she was like, mommy, can I have to hate you now? It's like you helped shape me, mom, and it's, and can my own opinions and.

What I don't know what to do when I get sick. It's been a slow transition, but I will say that after the first semester kind of [00:15:00] came and got, you know, settled, the second semester was definitely more of a landing. Mm-hmm. And I'd say she definitely started thriving and figuring more out on her own. And the language went from, instead of me giving you everything, it's now for you to make your own decisions.

But I'm here to support you, honey. I am just here to be your biggest cheerleader, your support system, your sounding board. You know, I think we've achieved that pretty much for the most part. What? I think 

Aransas: this is a reminder of something that we see in life in general, that it's really easy to see the transition as the thing.

And so we can get caught up during that transitional period and feel like, ah, this is unsettling. This is confusing. It's uncertain. I don't know how to behave or what to do. It feels really hard, and of course it does because it's [00:16:00] a transition. And it is the way it is going through that, that gets us to what's next, and we use that transition to be uncomfortable and to find out what's hard and uncertain and confusing so that we can make things easier and more comfortable and aligned and confident.

In whatever follows the big transition. And I hear that kind of over and over as we journey through this story of your mothering, that the transitions were hard and messy and you used them to formulate who you wanted to be in that stage of the journey. Then you got to the next big transition. It was like, oh, this is chaos.

Going back to your original idea, No. Let's see what we build out of this chaos. Yeah. What do you believe the best wisdom is that you could [00:17:00] impart on a 

Sam: parent? Oh, God. Don't take it personal. It's so not about you. That for me, has been the biggest lesson I take away as a parent all the time. Like just I can hear myself taking she'll, she'll do something, it'll irritate me, and I can hear myself being like, don't do that.

And I try to, okay, let's pause sweetheart, on the inside. Let's not take that personally. She's not yelling at me. Let's not take it personal. Let's take a moment just to pause and just instead of be reactive, be responsive. That is the biggest practice I do as a parent and the biggest wisdom I've gained is like just being able to take that pause before reacting and that gives you more space to play a little 

Aransas: bit.

How do you do that, Sam? 

Sam: I catch myself. I can. So she'll say something and I can feel it right there. And that's my sign. Oh look, I'm annoyed. Don't say anything like, don't say anything in this moment. I can still be annoyed, but I don't need to [00:18:00] yell at her. I don't need to say anything in this one moment.

Cause she's annoyed. So let's, ok. Great. Talk about it later is a good one for me. We'll talk about it later. That's a great way that I don't react and I'll just respond. No problem. And then circling back later. That's the key I find more than anything, but I just really try to catch myself and then I honestly just be like, let's not take this moment personally, Sam.

It's not about you. It's not about you, and she's a great kid, and so leave her, be in your safety of your home that she's having a moment. Give her a break. Give yourself a break and see what happens 

Aransas: and how well that would serve us in every relationship. I almost almost said, oh yeah, this is really true for everyone who works in any sort of caretaker or caregiver capacity.

And I was like, it's also good for marriage and friendship and being parented. [00:19:00] I guess it's just pretty good in general. 

Sam: Yeah, that pause, that pause. When I can feel that react when I feel myself being frustrated, that is a sign to not react in that moment. Whatever it is, it's gonna be okay in that moment.

And if it's really bothering me, I can wait till it's so, and then figure out how to, it's what I've been trying to do now is be like, so how can I say what I wanna say? Lovingkindness, thoughtfulness, empathy, compassion for them. For me, 

Aransas: when it's authentic though, because I think what you're saying is I don't have to be compassionate and.

Kind and sweet all the time. Sometimes things are gonna get on my nerves and I'm gonna need a moment to go and take care of me before I can parent this other person in the way that I want to, or be present for this other person and the way that I want to. 

Sam: Yes, a hundred [00:20:00] percent. And then with whatever I did wanna say, figure out how to say it through a of lovingkindness spoken.

If someone's gonna yell at me, am I gonna take that and be like, oh, okay, I heard you. No, but if someone says, Hey, by the way, I noticed, or this, or whatever, we kind of have a nice conversation about it that might seem, that probably will sink in a little bit better for me. So I'm trying to do that outwardly as well.

So like, yes, I'm, of course I'm annoyed. You're allowed to be annoyed. We're human beings. Duh. But reactive in the moment with the annoyance, is that gonna get me what I want? Which is for you to stop yelling at me. No, but I can easily say, Hey, Let's just talk about this later. Fine, no problem. I hear you loud and clear.

I understand you're upset. I make sense. Let's just talk about it later. And then that is a way to diffuse it. Cause I can feel myself being so excited. So diffuse, diffuse, diffuse. And then when it's calm, circle back around and figure out how I wanna communicate it. The other 

Aransas: thing you did there,That was [00:21:00] super smart, is you said, I 

Sam: hear you.

I hear you. 

Aransas: So you acknowledged and validated your child in that moment of her intensity before creating that distance? 

Sam: Yes. Cause it's normal. You're a human being of course. Bless you. You, you should, you, of course you feel that way, who wouldn't? And yet, let's just talk about it later. Mm-hmm. Right. I'm not trying to dismiss you or your feelings or your experience.

I definitely, we're all humans get it. But if I'm, if I feel reactive in that moment that I don't, I wanna disengage. I give you your face of whatever you're doing. We'll just talk about it later. Mm-hmm. Talk about it later. Talk about it later. 

Aransas: It's also though, I think just to reinforce something you said that was super important, you said, but you have to come back to it just saying.

I'm gonna come back to it [00:22:00] and not doing that. That only makes it worse, that that takes away from any trust that might be built from there. So the key here is to acknowledge and validate, to create the space and then. To actually come back to demonstrate that you genuinely care. Yep. 

Sam: That's the key, I think, to parenting that is hard or is like, don't forget to circle back.

It's like, remember you got, you remember, you wanna circle back so that the next time that experience happens, there can be a different way of playing with it because you circled back and you laid a different foundation and you shared or whatnot, right? Mm-hmm. It's that habit, that learning lesson, right.

How you build a habit kind of concept, so Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really important. I think one of the things is circle upbringing, terms, giving

boundaries. [00:23:00] You are gonna wanna hang out with you if yell them, but it makes that you're yelling and screaming cause your hormones are ing. Mm-hmm. 

Aransas: Your hormones are raging and you're having a true emotional reaction. I like have a little bit of a resistance to just blaming things on hormones. Fine. 

Sam: It's true.

No. And you're having a human experience, but yes, you're having a human experience. Yeah. But it's just what do you wanna get outta it in that moment? Right, right. And when you circle back around, when it's quiet, it's funny, I do the same thing sometimes. I wanna ask my daughter to do something for me, or I have a thing and I'll say, Hey, do you have a minute?

And in that answer, I could hear if I should keep asking or we'll, Cause that might not be the time that she's gonna be receptive, or I could try and she's like, no, I don't wanna, ok, great. And then, you know what, A week later, I'll try it again. She'd like, oh, I'm in a good mood. Sure I can do that. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Not because I wanna get it done. It's like, where are you on it? And how can I give, you know, I'm the parent. I am the parent. I'm a big fan about being the mom and not the best. Mm-hmm. In that way. [00:24:00] 

Aransas: And you're a human being who wants to be liked, 

Sam: connection matters. Right? Right. 

Aransas: And so, I mean, I think the urge to be the best friend comes from a good place, right?

It comes from a love, it comes from a very human need. Yes. And what is the risk? 

Sam: Right? I, I mean, my risk is like you have, you can have a bazillion best friends. I help support you the best version of yourself. Healthy boundaries, active participation from my, like where I can come back. But I would expect, it's almost like I don't, I don't even care if you like me or not.

I just want us to have mutual love for each other. Cause we're, cause we're connected. So you might not like me. I might not like you at times. I don't really care. I care though, at the end of the day, the foundation is like, I'm your mom. And I am always gonna be the mom and not your best friend who's gonna tell you whatever you wanna hear.

Go talk to your friend. If you wanna hear what you wanna hear, [00:25:00] she'll tell you everything, but I'll give it to you straight. Mm. I don't wanna sugarcoat it a little bit, but that's what I mean about loving kindness. Like SP speaking in a language that we can have a connected conversation as opposed to me like telling you what to do.

No one wants to be told what to do. No, 

Aransas: no, no. It just creates resistance even if it's in our best interest to listen. 

Sam: Yeah, and I just mean for like almost the between teen time, like the younger ones is different cause obviously there's a different parameter or value parent than, but yeah, just sort of keep trying to, yeah, keep trying to shape and not take it personal and.

And almost, it's almost like after I read the book, the Teenage Brain, I, I started to brainwash myself being like, every time she yells at me, remember that's her being normal. And if she didn't yell at me, I should be worried. Mm-hmm. Like tell being authentic, telling the truth, not trying to sugarcoat it or change it, but working with it.

And when you talk 

Aransas: about getting support for parenting, part of it is [00:26:00] reading trusted resources, listening to podcasts, collecting information about what is normal and what isn't. And. Allowing ourselves to, to see beyond our own individual experience, while also being present and aware to what our child individually, genuinely needs.

I also find that in my experience, my kids are best when I create space for them to tell me what kind of parenting they need. And so in those retroactive conversations after a challenging or intense moment to say, So what do you need in those moments? How can I support you best? I get the best freaking insights about how to meet their needs to parent the kid I have when we come back with that question.

Other than [00:27:00] versus assuming I know how to parent 

Sam: them. No, and it's even different in different ages and stages, right? So whatever the answer is today might be a different answer next week or two months from now or a year, but to check in. Aransas: So as we start to wrap up here, what do you believe is most important to remember from this 

Sam: conversation? Parenting is hard just to like play with it and almost enjoy the challenge, I'd say would be the hardest and most exciting thing to do at the same time.

Mm-hmm. 

Aransas: Yeah. 

Sam: Well said. That makes sense. 

Aransas: Yeah. When we're talking about something that often feels like it makes no sense, I think that's an accomplishment. So my friend [00:28:00] Sam, let's just, uh, close out here as we often do with a couple of quiet moments of reflection with ourselves. I will invite you all out there listening to just take one hand and place it on your heart, one hand on your gut, and to really tune in to your experience of parenting or relationships

and. Ask yourself,

how am I now in my most important relationships?

And as you hear a little whisper from yourself of what that answer might be, maybe ask [00:29:00] yourself. 

Sam: What 

Aransas: needs are being met right now

and maybe what needs are not met?

We always have met and unmet needs, and they're direct. Related to our emotions by getting curious about our emotions and our needs, we open ourselves up to greater understanding of ourselves, more grace, and we empower ourselves to ask for what we need. To set ourselves up to be who [00:30:00] we wanna be, even in the most challenging situations.

Wherever you are, I hope you'll just take a nice, deep cleansing breath. Thank yourself for, get curious for a moment. About how you are and what you need, and letting those quiet little voices that come to you be your guide and want to be or do next. Sam, thank you for sharing your story, your experience.

Thank you for being my friend and for teaching me so much through your life and your parenting. For those of you listening will share lots of links on the uplifters podcast.com so that you can find out more about Sam and her work. And we will be sending out, as we do every week, [00:31:00] a few little email newsletters with questions to consider more on some of these ideas that you've heard and more ways to connect with Sam and the rest of our beautiful.

Wonderful Uplifter community. Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation [email protected]. Head over to Spotify, Apple Podcast, or Wherever you get your podcast and like follow and rate our show, it'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.

Christina Testut knows that appearance is not the most important thing about a person, and she’s on a mission to bring this message to the next generation. 

Christina Testut, nominated for the Uplifters by her husband and daughter, never felt like she was “enough,” and was always looking for external validation.  About 6 years ago, she decided to go on a weight loss journey.  She was noticed and celebrated for her weight loss; people called her “dedicated” and “inspiring”, and wanted to know how she did it.  But despite all of the attention and kudos, she realized she still wasn’t happy.

During the great quarantine pause of 2020, Christina, a public school teacher, had a lot of time to reflect.  She realized that obsessing over her appearance and watching every morsel of food she put into her mouth was just reinforcing that her body was the most important thing about her.  She started to really pay attention to the ways society focused on the appearance of her 16-year-old daughter and her friends.  She noticed that when people logged into Zoom meetings, the first thing they would do was apologize for their appearance.  She saw teachers, neighbors, family, and friends all around her, virtually and in person, reinforcing that our looks were the most important thing about us. 

Christina began to question how these messages were influencing her, so she started re-curating her social media, from following weight-loss accounts to accounts that were sending messages she needed to reinforce: “You are enough” and “You are more than a body.”  Immersing herself in those messages helped to change the narrative in her head.  She read a lot of books to help shift her mindset and also started therapy, which Christina credits with helping her learn to trust herself.  

Now Christina doesn’t see her body as something that needs to be fixed; it’s not her identity.  She wants to be seen for how she treats people, how she makes people feel about themselves, for the impact she makes in her students’ lives, and as a human being that deserves respect.

She forgot what kind of person she was when she lost weight because that’s when people were clapping for her the loudest.  But she wasn’t mentally or emotionally healthy when she was smaller.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• [00:08:00] How to evaluate whether a choice is authentically helpful for you or not.

• [00:13:00] How tuning into yourself helps you guide your children in a positive direction

• [00:15:00] How to change your environment to help change your mindset

Suggested reading:

• Embrace Your Features by Christina Testut

• The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

• The Diet Free Revolution by Alexia Conason, PsyD

• You Are Not a Before Picture by Alex Light

• 
  
  Get full access to The Uplifters at www.theuplifterspodcast.com/subscribe

“My body is not an ornament, it’s an instrument.” - Christina Testut

Listen to our latest episode in the player here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

This Week on The Uplifters

Christina Testut knows that appearance is not the most important thing about a person, and she’s on a mission to bring this message to the next generation. 

Christina Testut, nominated for the Uplifters by her husband and daughter, never felt like she was “enough,” and was always looking for external validation.  About 6 years ago, she decided to go on a weight loss journey.  She was noticed and celebrated for her weight loss; people called her “dedicated” and “inspiring”, and wanted to know how she did it.  But despite all of the attention and kudos, she realized she still wasn’t happy.

During the great quarantine pause of 2020, Christina, a public school teacher, had a lot of time to reflect.  She realized that obsessing over her appearance and watching every morsel of food she put into her mouth was just reinforcing that her body was the most important thing about her.  She started to really pay attention to the ways society focused on the appearance of her 16-year-old daughter and her friends.  She noticed that when people logged into Zoom meetings, the first thing they would do was apologize for their appearance.  She saw teachers, neighbors, family, and friends all around her, virtually and in person, reinforcing that our looks were the most important thing about us. 

Christina began to question how these messages were influencing her, so she started re-curating her social media, from following weight-loss accounts to accounts that were sending messages she needed to reinforce: “You are enough” and “You are more than a body.”  Immersing herself in those messages helped to change the narrative in her head.  She read a lot of books to help shift her mindset and also started therapy, which Christina credits with helping her learn to trust herself. 

Now Christina doesn’t see her body as something that needs to be fixed; it’s not her identity.  She wants to be seen for how she treats people, how she makes people feel about themselves, for the impact she makes in her students’ lives, and as a human being that deserves respect.

She forgot what kind of person she was when she lost weight because that’s when people were clapping for her the loudest.  But she wasn’t mentally or emotionally healthy when she was smaller.

In this episode you’ll learn:

* [00:08:00] How to evaluate whether a choice is authentically helpful for you or not.

* [00:13:00] How tuning into yourself helps you guide your children in a positive direction

* [00:15:00] How to change your environment to help change your mindset

Suggested reading:

* Embrace Your Features by Christina Testut

* The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

* The Diet Free Revolution by Alexia Conason, PsyD

* You Are Not a Before Picture by Alex Light

* More Than A Body:Your Body Is An Instrument, Not An Ornament by @Lexie Kite and Lindsay Kite

* Fat Talk: Parenting In The Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith

Find more from Christina on Instagram and on tiktok @EmbraceYourFeatures

Let’s keep rising higher, together,

Aransas

Messy Transcript

Aransas: Christina. Welcome to the Uplifters Podcast. I am your host Aransas Savas, and today I am joined by Christina Testut. Christina has been a teacher for over 20 years in New York and has taken her mission and values and the challenges that she has seen amongst her students and her community and translated that into a children's book called Embrace Your Features.

Her goal with the book is to empower us all [00:02:00] to accept ourselves. And to embrace the features that make us all so beautifully and wonderfully unique. Christina, I have admired you and respected you for so long, and I'm so happy to welcome you to the Uplifters podcast. Thank you so much. When we first met.

You were really focused on weight loss and weight maintenance. You had lost a considerable amount of weight and we're really proud of that journey and we're we're helping others on a similar journey through sharing your story. So take me back to that time. 

Christina: So that time was about six years ago and. I mean, I would have to go even further before that time to preface all of this with, I learned from a very young [00:03:00] age in in school that the way I looked, the way my body looked was just not enough.

Like I never really felt enough from a very young age, and I wanted. External validation and I was always seeking that external validation. And then after like growing up and having children, I married my high school sweetheart who always accepted me for me, all of a sudden when my kids were. Older, like, you know, school age.

I just decided like I needed to change myself somehow, and the way I was gonna change myself was to change my appearance. So I decided to go on a weight loss journey, and I became very good at losing weight very quickly, and I got noticed very quickly by many people by the program I was on, and [00:04:00] I was celebrated.

A lot for losing weight and people from work who never spoke to me before all of a sudden were interested in talking to me. And everybody just wanted to know how I did it. And I was called words like inspiring and dedicated, and I just was considered an amazing person all of a sudden, and I was starting to feel enough.

Because of external validation, and now I realize that I never really still felt enough for myself in the middle of all 

Aransas: that. For somebody who thrived on external validation, that sort of attention must have been pretty exciting and motivating. 

Christina: I was part of like a huge Instagram community and I made an Instagram account based on my weight loss and I participated [00:05:00] in Transformation Tuesdays and face-to-Face Fridays, and I made it like my job to post these photos and getting the comments that I did, which was a lot of comments and a lot of, you know, likes and sharing of.

Me and my journey. I, yeah, I felt good enough. I finally felt I was like that little kid in school who just wanted everybody to love them. And I finally felt the love, you know? And 

Aransas: you've said that in spite of that you weren't feeling the love from you. 

Christina: So like in the middle of it, you don't realize it.

You think every, like somebody wants to ask me recently when I shared my story, were you happy? And I had to like take a minute. To think because I'm sure everybody around me thought I was happy and I felt like. I was on top of the world, you know, with all the attention, but I still picked myself apart and I still [00:06:00] remember looking at pictures, even, you know, in a smaller version of myself and still thinking, I can't post this picture.

It's. You know, not good enough for, you know, I still had to pump myself up with affirmations, you know, in the middle of all of it. I got a tattoo that said I am enough, like that word enough, and that phrase, I am enough, seems to be a recurring theme for me, and I can go back all the, the way to when I was younger.

That was the feeling of never feeling enough. I didn't realize it at the time that I still was not happy for myself and happy with myself. Now 

Aransas: I see it. When did your perspective on this journey start to shift? 

Christina: I started feeling differently and I started feeling a mind shift like in 2020. I don't know if being in quarantine around that time had something to do with it.

Lots more time to think and wonder, reflect about what, you know, what was going on in the world. And I don't know that had a part in it. It might have, but I just started to [00:07:00] think more at that time about how. I didn't really wanna be obsessed anymore with my appearance and with measuring my food and counting every mor morsel of food that I put into my mouth.

And it kind of felt suffocated, kind of by it all. And I slowly thought I was making changes and I did. I started to make changes in how I saw food and looked at myself and. I tried to step away from the program I was on, and it took a long time, though I'm still learning and growing, but it took 2020, I wouldn't say until last year that I finally like realized I needed, um, some outside help and I got, you know, therapy and still in therapy for all that I've gone through.

Aransas: You talk about being focused on your appearance and the [00:08:00] perceptions of others as really being a driving force for those behaviors. And I think what I'm hearing in here is that the shift came from asking yourself, how am I feeling? And it was that moment where you started to say, I don't feel well that you started to understand what it was that you needed in order to heal.

And I wanna share while we're on this practice that I have used in my own life, because I too am somebody who. Likes to do the right thing and likes to be successful and can thrive in a place of big goals and lots of commitment. And the conversation I have with myself now is I know what my top values are.

You know what yours are, right? What are your top values? 

Christina: Happy children. To have happy children, and for me to [00:09:00] be happy and at peace.

Aransas: Yeah, those are three big ones. So yeah. Your relationship with your husband, your relationship with yourself, and your children's happiness. Mine are pretty similar. It's my healthy mind and body. It's my relationship with my husband. It is the health and wellbeing of my children and my work. I like my friends, I love my, the rest of my family.

But if I had to name four top things that I am that are driving my choices every single day, it's those, it's those four. And so when I'm trying to make a decision about whether to stick with something or start something, even my new filter for myself that I have found so powerful is to say, will. This, make my mind and body healthier.

Will this help my relationship with my husband be stronger? Will this help my children be healthier [00:10:00] and happier? Will this support my purpose work? And if the answer isn't yes, really to all of those, or at least most of those, And oftentimes things I want to do actually are, I know on all of those, but that's how I talk myself back into a place of integrity is by gut checking against my values.

I share that because I really heard you doing that or organically. And so when you look back on what you were doing, how does it sit with your top values? How is it affecting your relationship with yourself, your relationship with your husband and your children? Well, 

Christina: at the time it wasn't helping, but I thought that it was because diet culture has a way of making you feel like if you lose weight, it's the answer to everything and it will trickle into your life.

I'm grateful to have a husband who, [00:11:00] like, he's supposed to love me unconditionally no matter what I look like, and he fell in love with me in high school. And I was always in a larger body, so he fell in love with me in a larger body. I had asked him recently, why didn't you say anything to me when I was so deep into what I was doing?

And he said, I'm a supporter. You know, I support you. Sorry to your, I support you no matter what. And so I thought you were happy, so I was supporting you. And now of course he's supporting me in this part of my journey wholeheartedly, and learning from me as well, you know? And then my children. I'm so glad I'm at the place I am now because I feel like if I wasn't my, you know, my daughter's gonna be 16, all you hear about in high school, Is appearance and how you look.

And she started hearing it early on [00:12:00] in middle school at the bus stop from young sixth and seventh grade girls, you know? And I don't think I would've been able to have given her the answers and the support, but I give her now if I was still stuck in diet culture, because I probably would've given her an answer like, Join me in in this diet, you know, and my son as well, you know, like he comes home with health homework and he'll say to me, isn't this fat phobic?

Mommy isn't this, isn't this like anti-fat? And he's a seventh grader. And I think to myself, I would've never been able to have instilled that in them if I was still stuck where I was. So I hope that answered the question. Now I realize that what I'm doing is keeping my children happy and healthy, and my relationship with my husband and myself of course [00:13:00] is, you know, much better now.

I wasn't able to answer those questions back then. 

Aransas: Yeah. And sometimes we need a bit of distance in order to answer them. I'm so glad. Yeah. You brought that up. And it sounds like the pandemic was what gave you that space to tune back into you. Yeah. So what's different now? 

Christina: I trust myself more than I trust a diet program.

I trust myself more than I trust what the world is telling me I should be, or I should look like I'm choosing myself over. What I think other people want me to do or want to see me 

Aransas: as. That sounds hard. If you've spent your whole life training to care about what other people think and to distrust your own needs, what has [00:14:00] helped you make that change?

Christina: Therapy number one, and I wish I would've sought out help sooner, you know? I spent a whole year trying to do it on my own. And although in that year that I did it on my own, I was reading and doing my own, you know, reflection and curating my social media feed. You know, my, like I mentioned in the beginning, my Instagram was all weight loss accounts, and that's what followed me and that's what I followed, and that wasn't helping me in my healing or recovery at all.

And so trying to find accounts that. Were sending me the messages I needed to hear. And reading those messages helped me change the narrative in my head. And I discussed this with my therapist posting my story, my recovery, my truth, even though I was scared and didn't want haters and, you know, [00:15:00] trolls, I hosted it anyway.

And we discussed that. That was helping me change the narrative as well. From being a weight loss success story and posting transformation photos constantly, I needed now to see and hear the difference that was going on in 

Aransas: my life. Yeah. What strikes me about that and two levels is, number one, we know that environment is one of the biggest factors in our mindsets, and so if you were getting.

Bombarded with messages at school, messages from your neighbors, and thousands of messages from the internet that your only worth, or the only reason to pay attention to you was because of your weight loss. That's what you're gonna believe. Yeah. And so I think for all of us, there's a really powerful message in your story [00:16:00] there that if the messages we're getting and that we are surrounding ourselves with are not aligned with the growth work we need to do, then we need to change our environment.

Mm-hmm. And so you actively re curated. Your environment to get a new surround sound message. Yes. Which was transformation comes in many flavors, from unhealthy to healthy, from unhappy to happy. Right. Weight ist the only transformation, but that we can create change and progress and transformation truly in our lives and many different ways.

It's just you defined that transformation on your terms. Right. Based on this, you probably have a unique seat to books, Instagram accounts and resources that Uplifters could look at if they're interested in sort of expanding their own perspective, would you be willing to share those with us? Yes, of course.

Awesome. So on the heels [00:17:00] of this, just for those of you listening, if you'll go to the uplifters podcast.com, you will find both a transcript of this conversation as well as a list of resources from Christina that will make sure to provide you there. Awesome. So Christina, how do you see your body now? 

Christina: I.

Tell you how I don't see it. That's an easier way for me to answer it. I don't see it as something that needs to be fixed. I don't see it as my identity. Like my body is not what I'm about. Like it's not, you're not gonna be able to tell anything about me by just looking at my body. So I used to make it part of my identity.

It was my whole identity, actually, but now it's not. So I don't see it as, What makes me who I am or the only part of who I am, I should say. There's a saying that I learned through all the reading that I've done. [00:18:00] It's, my body is not an ornament, it's an instrument. So I'm seeing it for what it can do and not what it looks like.

Aransas: How do you want to be seen in the world? 

Christina: I wanna be seen, sorry for. How I treat people, how I make people feel about themselves for the impact I make in my students' lives. I just wanna be seen for all my personality traits that make me a good human, you know? And for people who don't know those personality traits that just, you know, see me walking down the street or running, I would like them just to see me as a human being that deserves.

You know, respect, because unfortunately in this world there's a lot of judgment people just by looking at them, 

Aransas: and none of those personality [00:19:00] traits that you describe are about your body and. As I think back to how you described the feedback you were getting during weight loss mode, she's a hard worker.

She's dedicated you in some ways, still want that feedback. I think you wanna be perceived as hardworking and dedicated. It's just that now, It's not about your body, but about how you show up for your students, how you show up for your husband, your children, yourself. 

Christina: But the thing is, I forgot that I was always that type of person and then when I, I, I was always dedicated.

I was always a hard worker. I was always passionate about my teaching and my students, and I forgot all of that when I lost weight. Mainly because people clapped for me the loudest when [00:20:00] I lost weight. 

Aransas: That makes it sound like you're doing it best at that point, but how true is 

Christina: that? It's so hard to rewire your brain and retrain your brain to believe that you don't need to be smaller.

In order for people to compliment and celebrate you, especially when the messages of the outside of the world is that smaller is best, smaller equals healthy, but I wasn't mentally healthy or emotionally healthy when I was smaller. But as a society, we don't really put the emphasis on that. We just see smaller and we think they're amazing.

They're smaller, you know? That makes them amazing. 

Aransas: It's really strange when you step back. Yeah. And 

Christina: examine it. It really is. And again, I know that might be people listening that are thinking, but that's not true. That's not my story. And [00:21:00] when you are in the middle of all of it, when you're in the obsession of it and you're getting all the love and the praise and the compliments, you are not in the mindset to see.

How it really does sound and it really does 

Aransas: come off and to me, I think there are many people for whom losing weight, getting stronger, getting healthier, are very much linked up for them, and that part of the package of getting physically and mentally healthier is. Making a smaller body and showing up for themselves and prioritizing themselves, but that's not always the case and it shouldn't be assumed that that is the answer.

We need to rewind the conversation. Yeah. And start with, well, what would make me physically mentally healthier? What would be better for my relationships? What would be [00:22:00] better for my purpose and impact on this planet? 

Christina: Not what would help me lose weight, what would help me look 

Aransas: better uhhuh, what would help me get more praise and more acceptance?

Christina: Right. Just like making changes to make healthier, you know, choices for, like you say, your mind, body, and soul, you know, but not put weight loss on the pedestal, on, you know, at the forefront. Cause then what are we telling everybody else in a larger body? Because they're not smaller, they're not worthy because they're not on a weight loss journey, that they're not good enough.

And that's the messages you get whenever you. Go on social media. I can't look at a picture of Lizzo without seeing the horrible comments people write about her. And I think to myself, she's a human being. She's a daughter. She, you know, has family and friends who love her, and these people are calling are such [00:23:00] horrible names.

As she gets up on a stage and works her butt off to sing and dance at the same time, which is very hard and a physical feat in and of itself. But they don't even know her. And they don't know the real her. And I just give her as that one example. I know she's a celebrity, but there's constantly every day people who get harassed for how they look when nobody really knows their true story.

And even if they don't wanna lose weight, that's 

Aransas: none of our business. Well, and I think with Lizzo, she is wildly astonishingly talented. And part of what has contributed to her extraordinary popularity. We hosted her at an event in Minneapolis when she was a very much unknown performer, no, not even a decade ago.

And now here she is one of the top performing artists in the world. And I think what has [00:24:00] contributed to that rise is that she was unapologetic. About herself, and she didn't make her choices about what to do or be based on others' perceptions, but she was wildly authentic and in integrity with herself and in her own way.

I don't know what scripts she uses or how she talks to herself, but in her own way I imagine that she was doing what we're talking about here. Which was, instead of saying, what does the music industry want me to be? What does the audience want me to be? What do even, you know, people in my neighborhood want me to be?

What do trolls on the internet want me to be? And she was saying, who am I? And just embracing that. So what inspired you to write this book? Speaking of embracing. 

Christina: This book came out of my recovery and healing from Diet Culture and Stepping Away, and it also came out of 2020, so it [00:25:00] actually was inspired by Instagram posts that I tried to write in 2020 because with the Zooms and Google meets and the remote learning and all these virtual meetings, I noticed.

More than ever than when people came onto a screen, they apologize for how they looked. They would say, I'm sorry, I have no makeup on. Or I'm sorry my grays are showing. Or they wouldn't put the camera on and say, you don't wanna look at me, you'll be scared. And I felt started to feel uncomfortable cuz then you think about yourself, wait, do I look good enough to be on camera?

Like, is am I okay? And then I just also felt sad that they were feeling that they needed to apologize. But how about their appearance? I heard teachers say it, I heard my own children's teachers say it, and my children would say to me, oh, why is she saying that again? And I would think like, if, if my children are uncomfortable or feeling bad and I'm feeling badly, like what is everybody else thinking?

What are [00:26:00] other children thinking when they hear their parents or their teachers? Apologizing for their appearance. I know we like tend to call parts of us flaws in the world. And being a teacher and just words always being powerful to me, I decided just to look in the dictionary like what does flaw mean versus something like a feature.

And when you look up flaw, you see words like defects, you know, imperfection, something that Mars you. And then when you look up the word feature, it's just like at, at, you know, a trait. And I thought to myself, wow, we're calling parts of us flaws, defects, something that Mars you, our eyes, our nose, you know, our skin, our hair, whatever, our bodies, whatever it may be.

Like, wow, like that's horrible. Like I don't wanna call parts of myself a defect. And so I wrote this post. [00:27:00] About, you know, dissecting the words, flaws and features and you know, I would post the hashtag, embrace Your Features instead of flaws like for a long time. And I just wasn't making the impact that I wanted it to make in the world.

And when I started to go to therapy last year, I just was reflecting more and more than ever, and I thought, Wouldn't it be great if I can make an impact with children our next generation? At the same time, maybe they're grownups. And so I started looking into how to write, you know, get a book out there, and I did.

And that's how Embrace Your Features was Born. 

Aransas: Aw. For those of you who are watching this on YouTube or the uplifters podcast.com, you'll be able to see a cover of the book. We'll definitely link to it in our show notes. What has the response been to this story? 

Christina: Amazing. I mean, the [00:28:00] parents of my students just have sent me the most beautiful messages, teachers from other schools.

I was able to like read the book to another school or, um, in Manhattan and didn't know any of the people, the children, the teachers, and just reading it to them and their reaction and the questions my whole school community like just. Anybody who has read it have just reached out and said things like, I wish I had a book like this when I was younger, and that's what I wanted.

Like it helped me heal. I had said I want it to help the inner child of all of us and in at the same time, hopefully help our children grow up believing that their features make them special and unique and are not the most important thing about them. 

Aransas: What do you believe would be possible if we all embraced our features?

Christina: Well, actually one of my favorite parts of the book, [00:29:00] I think that when we embrace our features, we give others the permission to embrace their features, and so, Embracing your features. Not just benefiting you, but it's showing your family members, your friends, your community, that it's okay that they embrace their features as well.

And then maybe we wouldn't be so caught up in things like, you know, how full our lips are, or how great our eyebrows looked, or how thin our bodies were, but maybe we could, you know, start changing the world. In more important ways and deal with things that really impact, you know, the country 

Aransas: and the world.

So I think what you're saying there is that we put a lot of our precious energy and time and resources into manicuring and fine tuning our physical appearance. And I think what we take from your story is if we were to simply embrace our features, [00:30:00] And embrace others. We would free up an extraordinary amount of resources, energy, and time to be the humans we wish to be in the world.

And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with taking care of our bodies. I'm a huge proponent of self-care. I think it's absolutely essential to take care of our minds and bodies. And you're still doing lots of that. You're still doing lots of self-care and self-improvement, and at the same time, you're doing it on your terms based on what serves your values and your priorities instead of just what you've been told is popular or expected or celebrated.

Yes. So what are your 

Christina: best features? My best features are how empathetic I am. How nurturing and caring and loving that I [00:31:00] am. I also think that I have really good hair and I like my hair. For a long time I didn't and tried to straighten it a whole lot and not embrace its waviness, so I'm embracing its weightiness.

Aransas: Beautiful, thanks. And what do you hope your kids see in their features? 

Christina: I hope that they see that. Their features don't define them and their scars, their skin. My daughter has a, a skin condition. My son has a s birthmark on his forehead. I want them to embrace those things and not want to change them or hide them.

Aransas: What a freeing experience. Yeah. Yeah, so Christina, we like to end every episode of our podcast now with a little gift to ourselves as uplifters. And like you, our [00:32:00] audience members uplifters in invest a lot in making their communities and the world better through their actions. And that takes a lot of energy.

And it takes a lot of time and so I try to out a few minutes at the end of each episode for us to reinvest. And ourselves a little bit. And so I wanna just invite us all now to place one hand on our hearts and one hand on our guts. Close your eyes if you're not driving. And allow yourself to really notice your breath, and sense that connection between your hand and your heart.

Feeling your heart beat,

feeling your belly. [00:33:00] Rise into your stomach with each breath,

and maybe just for this one moment, we fully allow our shoulders to soften and relax, and we allow our gut to just hang out

and give ourselves a full moment of freedom. From expectation, a full moment of freedom from holding or hiding, whatever we may be holding or hiding.

Notice what it feels like to let it all hang out. Take another deep cleansing breath, and when you're [00:34:00] ready, open your eyes and if something came to you in that moment that you want to look back on again and get a little more curious about, maybe just make a quick note for yourself. We can get so busy in the hustle and the bustle and the doing and the making progress that we lose track.

Of these things when they come to us. And so by noting them, we just give ourselves a little extra reminder to come back to what matters most truly to and for us. Christina, thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for being so. True. Thank you. We are all better for hearing your perspective and your experience.

Christina: Thank you. 

Aransas: Uplifters, I'll see you [00:35:00] [email protected], where you'll find lots more uplifters and lots more inspiration every week. Delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe for free if you haven't done so already. Let's keep rising higher together. Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast.

If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation [email protected]. Head over to Spotify, apple Podcast, or. Wherever you get your podcast and like, follow and rate our show, it'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.

Big love 

Ever feel like the hits just keep coming? In this episode, you’ll hear how Terri Tomoff, nominated for The Uplifters by Julie B. Hughes, got by with a little help from her friends, family, and a global community of champions during her son’s lifelong battles with recurring cancer.

When Terri Tomoff’s son Ryan was two years old, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with cerebral nervous system involvement.  In the 27 years that followed, Ryan would relapse 3 times and survive tongue cancer twice as an adult.  

Their family essentially spent 8 years living in a hospital ward worried every day that they’d lose their child. Despite this, Terri found a way to “manufacture” her own sunshine through creative and athletic pursuits.  She asked for help when she needed it and relied on her friends, family, and community to prop her up.  

Terri found that keeping a photojournal of Ryan’s journey was a way she could take some control in an otherwise intractable situation.  The photojournal became the basis for her book, “The Focused Fight.”

In this episode you’ll learn practical and powerful steps for taking care of yourself and others, during even the toughest of times, including…

• [00:07:00] Ways to manufacture sunshine.

• [00:08:00] The different ways family and friends can prop you up.

• [00:11:00] Practical ways to help someone going through trying times.

• [00:11:00] How post-traumatic growth can help our healing.

• [0015:00] How Terri and her husband applied a team approach to stay solid during unthinkable challenges. 

Subscribe to our show at www.theuplifterspodcast.com for lots of free resources, newsletters, and more for and by Uplifters.