Latest / The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook / Self-Care, Boundaries & Honoring Your Energy with Amy Donovan

Transcript

Self-Care, Boundaries & Honoring Your Energy with Amy Donovan · The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook

• 0:01
  Hello, Melissa Crook here. I'm the host here at the Field
• 0:04
  Podcast. Welcome to today's episode,
• 0:07
  self-care Boundaries and Honoring Your Energy with Amy
• 0:11
  Donovan. The ways to engage with today's
• 0:13
  episode are as follows. What are things you like about
• 0:17
  yourself? Not what you don't like, but
• 0:21
  what you can truly appreciate that about yourself.
• 0:25
  Start with character traits. Do you like that you're
• 0:28
  empathetic or funny or patient? What do you like about yourself
• 0:33
  physically? Your eyes, your nose, your
• 0:35
  fingers, your face, your cheeks? You see what I mean?
• 0:39
  Build your confidence and focus on the good rather than picking
• 0:43
  apart the things you don't like. We hope this gives you some
• 0:47
  really intentional, thoughtful ways to engage with today's
• 0:50
  episode with our friend Amy Donovan.
• 0:52
  Thanks so much for being with us.
• 1:10
  Hello and welcome back to the field podcast this week.
• 1:13
  I'm so happy to have a friend here that I forget she hasn't
• 1:17
  been on the podcast yet because she's been a panelist with us
• 1:21
  both on the radio show and on our together.
• 1:24
  We feel YouTube panels several times the last few months, which
• 1:28
  has been wonderful because she's got so much wisdom and insight
• 1:34
  and in her story that's going to be so helpful and supportive to
• 1:39
  women out there. So I'm excited to share Amy
• 1:42
  Donovan with you today. Amy is she's one of those people
• 1:47
  that I met and I knew right away.
• 1:50
  Yep, she needs to be a part of this conversation.
• 1:53
  So I'm super excited to bring her over to the podcast side.
• 1:57
  Amy describes herself as a good dreamer, but not always a great
• 2:02
  executor and over share an open book operates at an 8 and a
• 2:09
  complete empath, which is a blessing and a curse as those of
• 2:13
  us that are are living with empaths or or our empaths know
• 2:17
  she's quick witted, can be quick tempered and she says she's
• 2:21
  pretty much quick at everything except for physical activity,
• 2:25
  which hey, it's not about the speed.
• 2:28
  It's not about the speed. It's good to slow down
• 2:30
  sometimes. It's Amy Donovan.
• 2:33
  Welcome to the Field podcast. Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:37
  I'm so glad to have you. OK my friend.
• 2:39
  Tell me about your journey with prioritizing self-care in your
• 2:43
  life. What does that look like for you
• 2:46
  over time? I think through all the
• 2:49
  different phases of everyone's life as self-care changes.
• 2:54
  And currently I'm a mom of the youngest child I have at home is
• 2:59
  17. And as you know from the phone
• 3:01
  call that I just took before we recorded, that's quite busy.
• 3:05
  There's there's the constant list of errands that somebody
• 3:08
  else needs to do. And there's still, you know, the
• 3:11
  house to maintain, the family unit to look after all of the
• 3:15
  animals need feeding. It's just life is busy no matter
• 3:19
  the phase that you're in. And it's really important that
• 3:24
  we take the time to actually look after ourselves as well as
• 3:26
  we're looking after everybody else because if not, we get
• 3:30
  resentful. And personally, my eight goes to
• 3:32
  10 real quick if I do not take the time and spend the energy to
• 3:39
  do what it is that I need to do for me to make me feel better
• 3:42
  about me and just feel like myself.
• 3:45
  Yeah. And then I'm a priority as well.
• 3:47
  Yeah. How long did it take you to
• 3:49
  figure that out? I well, I'm going to tell you I
• 3:56
  was a grown up and A and a well minted grown up at that.
• 4:01
  Probably. It's been a process over the
• 4:03
  last 10 years. Yeah.
• 4:08
  Up until then my step kids were still at home.
• 4:10
  They were ten and five when I met them and they're 31 and 26
• 4:15
  now. So I feel like I've always been
• 4:17
  in process of raising kids and as at a very young age, my
• 4:22
  grandmother came to live with me and she actually came to
• 4:24
  university with me and she had Alzheimer's.
• 4:26
  So I was a caregiver then as well.
• 4:29
  So everything always was has been about somebody else and it
• 4:35
  just, I don't know when the switch occurred.
• 4:41
  I think I was probably at a hair appointment and I was like, you
• 4:44
  know what, I feel much better about myself when this is done.
• 4:47
  Like I'm a better person when I go home and I'm definitely not
• 4:52
  high maintenance, but taking the time to actually go and, you
• 4:59
  know, see to having my roots taken care of to take the time
• 5:02
  to go get my nails done. I do a lot of tacking and I, you
• 5:06
  know, I'm on social media quite a bit and I am not afraid to
• 5:10
  show up with my hair not done. I'm not afraid to show up with
• 5:13
  my nails not done. But I just know that I feel
• 5:16
  better about myself when I do it.
• 5:17
  And feeling better about myself isn't necessarily physical.
• 5:21
  It's like actually just taking a hot breath and go and do what it
• 5:24
  is that you need to do. Yeah, I love that that take the
• 5:27
  time to breathe and go at it, do it what you need to do because
• 5:31
  you said something so important. I'm not high maintenance and
• 5:34
  self-care is not a high maintenance thing.
• 5:37
  It's exactly what you said. It's taking the time to do that
• 5:40
  thing you need to do that helps you feel refreshed.
• 5:44
  That helps you not go from an 8 to 10 in a nanosecond because
• 5:47
  you've got nothing left to give and somebody else has asked
• 5:50
  something of you out of that empty cup.
• 5:53
  So that's just such a great example of that.
• 5:55
  Thank you so much. All right, talk to me about
• 5:58
  confidently setting boundaries in your life.
• 6:01
  What is your boundaries journey been like as you for many years?
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  We talked about this before as we didn't even know that those
• 6:10
  existed. Like those were not even a thing
• 6:13
  that was talked about. You weird.
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  We get the script when we're little girls of how we're
• 6:17
  supposed to show up and how we're supposed to take care of
• 6:19
  everybody else 1st and there's no mention of me setting
• 6:22
  boundaries and making time for yourself.
• 6:24
  That's considered selfish, or at least that's the script that
• 6:27
  we're given early on. And that was very much a script
• 6:30
  that you got too. And you talked about all those
• 6:33
  years, you know, of caregiving. So talk to me about that, that
• 6:37
  moment or in time span where there was a realization I need
• 6:42
  to set some healthy boundaries around my time.
• 6:43
  You're very busy. You've got your own business
• 6:46
  that you run. It takes time.
• 6:49
  You have to, you know, see clients and decide who it is is
• 6:52
  not that you're going to to serve That requires some
• 6:56
  boundaries setting in terms of that you've got your family time
• 6:59
  and then the time for you. So.
• 7:02
  So talk to me about how this has evolved for you.
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  It also I was a very, very well minted adult before I was in a
• 7:14
  position where I felt confident setting memories.
• 7:17
  And most times, and with the people that I speak to, women
• 7:21
  that I talk to, the biggest boundaries that we tend to need
• 7:24
  to set sometimes are with our family, which makes it the most
• 7:27
  awkward, especially like the extended family, like the
• 7:32
  siblings and parents. And I'm not speaking to one
• 7:34
  specific person here or a specific example to me, but it's
• 7:40
  the people that we come into the world program that we need to be
• 7:42
  the nicest to and give the most time to and always make sure
• 7:45
  that they are cared for and looked after and da, da, da, da,
• 7:48
  da. So when we push back and say,
• 7:53
  no, I'm really sorry, I don't have time to watch your kids or
• 7:59
  you know, I can't duck sit for two weeks while you go to Bora
• 8:02
  Bora or you know, I just I don't have time, space or energy for
• 8:07
  that. I know when I started doing it,
• 8:12
  I was met with push back and like the face and then, you
• 8:17
  know, the call from someone else in the family that was like,
• 8:19
  well, why can't you do that? Like and the trying to problem
• 8:23
  solve and trying to like figure out, work around or you know,
• 8:28
  all the things and then eventually just saying, listen,
• 8:32
  I have my own life and all of these things.
• 8:35
  And this is this is where I draw the line and I don't have time
• 8:39
  to do that. And what I find is, and this
• 8:42
  I've come to this from conversations that I've had with
• 8:44
  other people, is that it is the people who ask the most of you,
• 8:47
  who OfferUp the least to you. So.
• 8:52
  And that's where the boundaries need to come in because if it is
• 8:56
  a, if you have like a symbiotic tit for tat like sharing, I will
• 9:00
  do this for you. And not to keep score like I
• 9:03
  don't want to. I don't want to keep poor, but
• 9:05
  you also want to feel like you are supporting somebody who is
• 9:07
  willing to support you. Exactly.
• 9:09
  And there is there's balance in the relationship.
• 9:12
  Yeah, like you are pouring back and forth between the cup.
• 9:15
  Absolutely. And when somebody is not
• 9:17
  offering that to or bringing it to you in the relationship, it's
• 9:21
  OK to say, hey, I love you and care about you and you know, I
• 9:23
  think you're great, but I don't have the time, energy or
• 9:27
  resources to take care of what you're asking me to take care of
• 9:30
  right now. Like maybe the next time we can
• 9:33
  revisit it, but for right now, it's now.
• 9:36
  No, it's a no. And it took me a long time to
• 9:39
  get to be able to say that. And even with even with clients,
• 9:44
  I will have somebody contact me in early days.
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  In your business, you just kind of are programmed to serve
• 9:51
  everybody because like if you say no, is there somebody else
• 9:56
  going to knock on the doors or somebody else going to call
• 9:58
  somebody else e-mail? Like will the business dry up?
• 10:01
  Is the universe going to say, oh, no, she's closed for
• 10:03
  business. They don't want, she doesn't
• 10:04
  want me. And now I can tell by the tone
• 10:08
  of the original e-mail when somebody messages me.
• 10:11
  If it's somebody that I want to work with and I just
• 10:15
  respectfully respond and then I just never pursue them as a
• 10:19
  client. It's almost like it's easier to
• 10:22
  let them go in the beginning and set the expectation that I am
• 10:25
  not what they're looking for, but there might be somebody who
• 10:28
  is. And normally this comes down to
• 10:30
  pricing. I, I can't do what you're asking
• 10:35
  me to do, but there are lots of people who can.
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  And like, I wish you all the best with your, whatever it is
• 10:40
  that you're working on, you know, and I hope that you have a
• 10:44
  great day. And the first time I did that, I
• 10:46
  nearly threw up in my mouth. But last night, I had to say,
• 10:49
  send the same message somebody wrote me and told me the price
• 10:52
  they were willing to pay for my service.
• 10:54
  And I wrote back and I said, well, it was listed on my
• 10:56
  website. This is the price for what
• 10:57
  you're asking for. If that's not within your
• 11:00
  budget, we can do a custom package and give you less
• 11:02
  coverage. But unfortunately I'm not
• 11:06
  willing to, you know? Yeah.
• 11:08
  Well, if you start doing that with one, then you're doing that
• 11:10
  with everybody and you've violated your.
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  It's very. Declined to pay full price, so
• 11:14
  absolutely. And you know your value and you
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  know what the work requires. I love that those I thank you
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  for bringing up the family examples too, because there's so
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  much pressure on how we're supposed to show up in family
• 11:28
  situations. And it's no conversation about
• 11:32
  what's actually healthy or if, if the other side is operating
• 11:36
  healthy. And so sometimes we have to,
• 11:39
  and, and these can be generational kind of things that
• 11:43
  we have to break up behaviors that we have to be like, I'm
• 11:46
  going to go a different direction.
• 11:48
  This doesn't seem like it's served others well and it's
• 11:51
  certainly not serving me well. And it doesn't mean I don't love
• 11:54
  you, you know, and it doesn't mean I love you any less, but I
• 11:58
  love myself too. And I'm going to guard and
• 12:00
  protect my time and not give from an, you know, out of
• 12:03
  resources that I don't have to give.
• 12:05
  And those can be really difficult conversations because
• 12:08
  when people are used to you showing up a certain way, then
• 12:12
  they're like, and it's like, nothing's wrong and I just am, I
• 12:17
  just need to make some shifts here.
• 12:19
  And those can be the most challenging conversations to
• 12:21
  have. But also knowing your value
• 12:24
  enough and value and how you want to show up and how you want
• 12:28
  to feel, It's like that has to take priority.
• 12:33
  And it can take us to talk about being a well minted adult.
• 12:36
  I know exactly what you mean. Like, I wish I knew how to do
• 12:39
  all this stuff when I was 2223. It did not happen, but hopefully
• 12:43
  if we're having these conversations, we both have
• 12:46
  daughters, they can see how we operate.
• 12:49
  They can see that we've set these boundaries.
• 12:51
  They can see the things that we've prioritized and those
• 12:54
  examples is that's what they'll remember and they'll go and
• 12:59
  they'll start their lives that way rather than having to wait
• 13:02
  to appoint 10/15/20 years down the road where they make that
• 13:06
  decision. Absolutely.
• 13:10
  And but I think it's so important and it's a lesson that
• 13:13
  maybe generation wise people are going to start to understand
• 13:17
  because it's like, it's like we're programmed from kids to
• 13:23
  always do and to always accommodate.
• 13:27
  And I think we're always just programmed to try to accommodate
• 13:31
  and make allowances. But as our daughters are
• 13:34
  watching us say, I don't have time for that.
• 13:37
  I don't have capacity right now. Hopefully they're going to
• 13:41
  internalize that and see. And I see my daughter say no,
• 13:45
  like she I will ask her to do. She does a lot around the house.
• 13:50
  She's she's quite helpful. She's really great Baker.
• 13:52
  She like cooks and does the things and then but I know that
• 13:57
  when I'm asked her too much, she's just going to be like no,
• 14:01
  like just no. And I think she learned that
• 14:05
  from my sister because my sister has always known how to do that.
• 14:08
  Like for her now has always been a complete sentence.
• 14:10
  I over apologize and make, you know, not excuses, but I feel
• 14:15
  like I need to over explain why I'm not going to do things.
• 14:18
  There's always like, it almost sounds like I'm making up why
• 14:22
  I'm not doing it because there's such a huge back story about why
• 14:26
  I'm just not able to do whatever that specific thing is.
• 14:29
  And it could be really little or it could be gigantic, but I just
• 14:31
  feel so bad not accommodating people when really those people
• 14:37
  are probably not even going to think about it and absolutely
• 14:39
  would not think about telling me no.
• 14:40
  So just, yeah, I'm, I'm hoping that she learns to push back in
• 14:47
  a healthy way and not, you know, not be disagreeable about all
• 14:52
  things, but when it's when it's important to say no, that she
• 14:56
  knows to give herself time and space and energy, Yeah.
• 14:59
  Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for that.
• 15:01
  So good. All right, talk to me about
• 15:03
  taking care of your emotional health, mental health, physical
• 15:08
  health. They're all tied together,
• 15:09
  they're all intertwined. So talk to me about how you
• 15:15
  trying to think of the right way to words, how you've recognized
• 15:17
  that in your life, where you've seen those connect points and
• 15:20
  where it became evident to you that this was all connected
• 15:23
  because they're treated in isolation as we've grown up.
• 15:27
  Those, these aren't things we've heard people talking about
• 15:29
  putting together. We're just now starting to have
• 15:31
  those conversations and realize, oh, wait a minute, this is all
• 15:34
  connected. Talk to me about how that has
• 15:36
  borne out for you. So I'm going to use going to the
• 15:42
  gym as an example. I hate it.
• 15:47
  Like it makes me. It makes me go from an 8 to A10
• 15:50
  just driving over. I don't feel accomplished when I
• 15:53
  leave. I don't feel good about myself
• 15:55
  while I'm in there. It is not that I am
• 15:57
  self-conscious. I would take off my clothes and
• 15:59
  do the activities just as easily as I would in whatever I'm
• 16:03
  wearing. It's not that I'm
• 16:04
  self-conscious, I just don't feel great in that environment.
• 16:07
  There's no share, there's no sunlight.
• 16:10
  It's just so. Same.
• 16:13
  I'm not. Feel you wholeheartedly, Yeah.
• 16:16
  Right, it's just now my husband loves it, lives for the jet like
• 16:21
  doesn't miss a workout. It's his place.
• 16:23
  And so he has had no problem in the 22 years of our relationship
• 16:28
  saying I can't do XYZ or I will be late to XYZ because I am
• 16:33
  going to the gym. And it is just completely
• 16:36
  understood now when he misses going to the gym, if something
• 16:39
  happens at work or, you know, there's a family emergency and
• 16:41
  he doesn't get, I can see the impact that that makes on his
• 16:44
  mental health. Like I can, I can watch it
• 16:46
  happen. Yeah.
• 16:50
  I I I don't get the same way, but I do get the same way if I
• 16:55
  just can't get outside. So if I had to spend the whole
• 16:59
  day in my house or in the gym or just inside, even if that means
• 17:05
  just going for a drive and keeping the sunroof open or
• 17:10
  going around the block with my dad, which I admittedly do not
• 17:13
  do often enough, I just feel like a better person.
• 17:17
  I feel more accomplished. It's like it allows me to
• 17:20
  decompress all of the conversations that I need to be
• 17:22
  having. I've rehearsed them in my head
• 17:24
  when I get back. It gives me time and space to
• 17:28
  listen to, you know, audio books and podcasts and things that I
• 17:32
  wouldn't take the time to do inside the house.
• 17:38
  And then that all like, we all know that the more stressed you
• 17:42
  are, the worst toll that takes on your physical health.
• 17:46
  And just when everything is coming at you, you always manage
• 17:51
  to like, get through it. At the end of it, you're like,
• 17:54
  that was so much. And then what happens?
• 17:57
  You end up with like the horrendous cold and then for two
• 18:00
  weeks and it's like the cold came from being stressed.
• 18:04
  I swear where it comes from. I'm not a doctor.
• 18:06
  I have no papers in the mail on my way to tell me that I'm a
• 18:09
  doctor, but I know that the more stressed out I am, the more
• 18:14
  likely I am to to just not to feel well.
• 18:19
  And then I'm neither use nor ornament to anybody in my life.
• 18:22
  I'm not helpful at all to anyone.
• 18:26
  So you I really need to like, do the things that make me not
• 18:30
  stressed in order to not be a miserable person both mentally
• 18:36
  and physically. Yeah, yeah, those are great
• 18:39
  examples. I love that because it's it's
• 18:41
  just, it just shows that tie and that connection and that getting
• 18:44
  outside piece. And you live in Newfoundland.
• 18:47
  You, you, you don't live in, you know, the, you know, the desert
• 18:51
  in Arizona, so the weather is wild, but you still.
• 18:57
  But it's also, you know, getting outside and just getting that
• 19:00
  put your coat on, get refreshed. And I'm saying that's like, if
• 19:04
  you live in those winter places or places with seasons people,
• 19:06
  there's still ways you can find even just stepping outside on
• 19:10
  your back patio. And I mean, I will find
• 19:13
  sometimes just going out and sitting outside and just taking
• 19:17
  it all in, doing a short walk around the block, but find, you
• 19:21
  know, grab your coat, grab your umbrella, find those ways to get
• 19:25
  outside. It does make a difference.
• 19:26
  And just that decompression away from the screens, away from the
• 19:30
  noise is so valuable. Thank you.
• 19:32
  Thank you so much for that. Even just a change of
• 19:35
  environment. So here we, I don't know, maybe
• 19:39
  10% of our days are sunny. And that's not an exaggeration.
• 19:42
  Like it is sunny today and everybody is talking about the
• 19:44
  fact that it is sunny. It happens so infrequently.
• 19:48
  So I can't always count on the weather to be able to change my
• 19:51
  environment, but sometimes I'm sitting in the studio and I am
• 19:57
  like like I would rather be anywhere else.
• 20:00
  And I love this space. I also have an office at my
• 20:04
  house and I'm sitting in my office at home.
• 20:06
  Sometimes I just need to get up, go in the car, listen to music
• 20:09
  while I'm going there and sit in a coffee shop and do the same
• 20:11
  work that I would be doing at home.
• 20:13
  But because there's different things happening around me, it
• 20:17
  just. It's like it triggers a
• 20:19
  different part of my brain. I'm not probably not going to
• 20:21
  speak to the people that are around me.
• 20:23
  I'll acknowledge them. I'm I'm friendly, but I'm not
• 20:26
  there to make friends. But just, if you change your
• 20:30
  environment, it changes your mindset.
• 20:32
  And I, I really struggle with that because I spend a lot of
• 20:36
  time on my computer. So even just sometimes, moving
• 20:40
  the location of the computer makes a huge difference to how
• 20:43
  I'm feeling about what I'm working on.
• 20:45
  Yeah, no, I can relate to that because I work from home and I
• 20:48
  do my recording from home and all and I can, I'm set up to do
• 20:53
  everything from home. I also, and so I can be here for
• 20:57
  days on end and other than a walk around the block, not leave
• 21:01
  the neighborhood, I don't, I find about four or five days,
• 21:05
  six days into that, seven days into that, I can go as long as 7
• 21:08
  or 8 days like I need to get out into the world.
• 21:13
  I need to see something outside of this radius of my
• 21:17
  neighborhood because you know, and just like and just break
• 21:22
  things up a little bit. It does.
• 21:23
  It makes all the difference in the world.
• 21:25
  I know like tomorrow, I've got an appointment this afternoon.
• 21:28
  I'm going to be out all day tomorrow and I'm like, OK, good.
• 21:31
  I need that. It's time.
• 21:33
  It's been a few days. I've got appointments outside of
• 21:37
  the house and I know that I'll come back feeling refreshed in a
• 21:40
  different way for that. So, yeah, I'd love that change
• 21:43
  of scenery piece that's such. And I think with so many of us
• 21:46
  working from home now or having, you know, you've got your
• 21:50
  photography studio, which is like your second home and it's
• 21:52
  set up like a home, but it's important to remind ourselves to
• 21:56
  just break up that space. I used to do a thing started
• 22:00
  during COVID when I was working from home for the first time,
• 22:03
  where I would walk out at I'd finished working at the end of
• 22:07
  the day. I'd get in my car and drive
• 22:09
  around the block if it was raining or walk around the
• 22:12
  block. But the driving, because I used,
• 22:14
  I would drive to and from my office when I wasn't in COVID, I
• 22:18
  would drive around the block and that would like my brain would
• 22:21
  like, oh, she's come back in the garage, She's home from work now
• 22:24
  she's in her home. I mean, even just shifting that
• 22:27
  mindset makes all the difference in the world.
• 22:30
  So thank you so much for that. Such a good point there.
• 22:33
  All right, you do this so well and this is going to allow you
• 22:37
  to really talk about where you where your studio more and and
• 22:42
  how this plays into this. But how we can support ourselves
• 22:46
  and other women in living unapologetically.
• 22:49
  You know, this is is a journey for all of us.
• 22:52
  It continues to be a journey for you, but you, how you have
• 22:56
  learned and evolved and the work that you do now is such an
• 23:00
  integral part of helping other women feel empowered and
• 23:04
  beautiful and strong and unapologetic.
• 23:07
  But talk to me about this journey of getting here because
• 23:10
  you this is not an space that you've always inhabited.
• 23:14
  It's not I I grew up never thinking that I was good enough,
• 23:22
  never thinking that I was pretty, never, you know,
• 23:25
  thinking that I was like the popular kid.
• 23:28
  I was the president of my student council for two
• 23:31
  consecutive years and I had both loads of friends and everybody
• 23:34
  really liked me, but I never thought that I was good enough.
• 23:36
  And it all comes from the fact that I was the chubby kid.
• 23:42
  And when I say that I was probably 1 size bigger than all
• 23:46
  of the kids that were around me. But that's enough to make you
• 23:48
  different, and different is not OK or was not OK in, you know,
• 23:54
  the world that I grew up in first.
• 23:56
  So now, as a big war photographer, my whole mission
• 24:01
  in life is to celebrate people's differences and to make them
• 24:06
  feel good and empowered about how they look.
• 24:10
  And I had. I actually this is a complete
• 24:12
  tangent. I'm really good at those.
• 24:16
  When I'm photographing women, I want them to like, embrace their
• 24:19
  bodies. So I will put them into a pose
• 24:21
  where they feel good. And when someone comes in, I
• 24:25
  always say, OK, what's your favorite part about yourself?
• 24:28
  And they immediately tell me what their least favorite part
• 24:30
  about themselves. And it is always their belly and
• 24:33
  their inner thighs. And I'm like, we'll be great.
• 24:35
  We're not here to take pictures of that, but they will be in the
• 24:37
  pictures. But that's not what we're here
• 24:39
  for. And I'm like, absolutely nobody
• 24:42
  likes that part of themselves. Like, I've yet to meet someone
• 24:45
  who's like, yeah, well, you know, sometimes they're amazing.
• 24:48
  Like, I'm just like, them, let's do it.
• 24:51
  So I recently had a photographer take my boudoir photos and it
• 24:58
  had been a long time since they did it.
• 25:01
  And I would hate for him to hear this said I really would like
• 25:05
  him to not hear this. But what happened?
• 25:09
  You know, I paid my invoice and there's some great pictures in
• 25:11
  there and there's some things that I really like.
• 25:13
  But what I asked for was pictures that just showed my
• 25:16
  whole body. And I did it so that my clients
• 25:19
  can see that it's perfectly OK to have a belly and it's
• 25:21
  perfectly OK to have whatever's going, whatever we've got going
• 25:25
  on. So your listeners can't hear me.
• 25:27
  I wear like a size 1820, you know, whatever.
• 25:31
  I'm plus size. And I just wanted pictures that
• 25:35
  kind of documented it. And what I got were really great
• 25:40
  graduation photos. So kind of like boobs up, just
• 25:47
  like floating head, you know, face shots.
• 25:50
  And it reminded. And as I was looking at them
• 25:53
  now, there's something I really, really like.
• 25:55
  But they are not boob wire photos.
• 25:57
  They are not what I wanted and I had some very specific social
• 26:02
  media posts that I wanted to do these pictures for.
• 26:05
  I had the messaging in my mind. I knew what I wanted had, you
• 26:10
  know, picked out the exact lingerie had actually made
• 26:12
  videos of myself like dancing it to make the real like I was I
• 26:16
  was I was full on not going to complain about my belly in the
• 26:21
  photos, which is, you know, that was going to be the whole point
• 26:24
  of this post. And so I, I did not get those.
• 26:29
  I got graduation photos and I'm like, it really made me reflect
• 26:34
  back on have I done that to somebody else?
• 26:37
  Have I put my insecurities on to a client?
• 26:41
  Have I, that she probably doesn't really like her belly or
• 26:44
  she probably really doesn't like her ball or she probably doesn't
• 26:46
  really like her whatever. And then shot her accordingly as
• 26:50
  though I'm hiding her away. And so I went back and revisited
• 26:54
  sessions and thankfully I don't do that.
• 26:58
  And I am in no way faulting the person who took the photos.
• 27:01
  I just, it was so eye opening to me that I think everybody is so
• 27:10
  caught up in what it is that they are worried about, about
• 27:12
  their own selves that they assume that people will think
• 27:15
  that similar things are also flaws about that.
• 27:17
  And I have done the work to embrace myself.
• 27:23
  I have PCOS, so I have like the PCOS belly.
• 27:26
  It looks like I'm pregnant. I am not and I have to be OK
• 27:30
  with that. That's the body I walk around
• 27:32
  town with. So I don't know how I got off on
• 27:36
  this tangent, but no but. That's such a good example
• 27:40
  though. I thought that that was that was
• 27:42
  it. That was unapologetic in a
• 27:43
  nutshell. But also you got to see it gave
• 27:46
  you a chance to reflect. And I love that you did this for
• 27:48
  many reasons. One, because I think too, when
• 27:51
  you do that kind of work, you have, there's a authenticity and
• 27:55
  credibility that comes with showing you're willing to do it
• 27:58
  too. I'm not just going to ask you to
• 28:01
  be comfortable in this space. I'm going to invite myself into
• 28:04
  that too, so I can be credible and that I'm not asking you to
• 28:08
  do anything I wouldn't ask of myself.
• 28:11
  And that I believe this about myself as much as I believe this
• 28:14
  about you. There's a lot to say to that.
• 28:17
  And also just even just reflecting on what it takes to
• 28:20
  prepare or on that side of it, so you can be mindful of that
• 28:24
  with your people, the time it takes to prepare to get the
• 28:28
  different, whatever it is you want to wear, had the makeup,
• 28:32
  the hair, all those things. But also too, I think for the
• 28:35
  photographer you were dealing with, it talks about the
• 28:38
  societal stuff that is still out there that we make assumptions
• 28:43
  on, whereas you're so intentional about asking women.
• 28:47
  But also the thing that tells us about the societal expectations
• 28:52
  too, is that when you ask what they like, they automatically
• 28:54
  first go to what they don't like.
• 28:57
  And it's like, no, no, no, that's all I asked.
• 29:00
  I wanted to know what? Iran to not say that we write
• 29:04
  things about ourselves. Yes, like, yes.
• 29:08
  It it's and I don't know where that comes from.
• 29:12
  It's like someone somewhere said it is not OK to like yourself.
• 29:17
  Well, we got a message that we weren't supposed to brag when we
• 29:21
  were little kids. And I had Sarah T Moore on here
• 29:25
  a couple years ago. And maybe it's it's been that
• 29:28
  long. Maybe it's just a year ago.
• 29:29
  She was a guest and she literally talks.
• 29:33
  Her newsletter is called the Braggy Bragg newsletter.
• 29:36
  And she's like, we are going to brag and we're going to redefine
• 29:39
  what it means to brag because saying nice things about us and
• 29:43
  celebrating our accomplishments is not bragging.
• 29:46
  That's just simply celebrating and acknowledging the good
• 29:50
  things that we are about that we hope behold, that we are doing.
• 29:55
  And so I think that I think it comes back from that like whole
• 29:58
  like, don't brag, don't you know?
• 30:00
  And little girls, don't be too loud.
• 30:02
  Don't bring attention to yourself.
• 30:04
  And so and it's embodied and in just enmeshed in our culture so
• 30:09
  much that we just kind of grow up.
• 30:11
  It just kind of seeps into us. We're not born that way.
• 30:15
  And because you see it time and time again with the women you
• 30:18
  work with. Well, I through my community,
• 30:25
  there is this lady who I have met and I, I, if we're from a
• 30:32
  different generation, I'm just, and she, I post a lot on my
• 30:38
  Facebook and often it's pictures of me or me doing something or
• 30:42
  me volunteering. And like, if I'm posting me
• 30:45
  volunteering, it's because I'm actively recruiting new like
• 30:47
  volunteers. Sure.
• 30:48
  Posting a picture of me. It's like whatever I'm doing is
• 30:52
  relevant to somebody else. And I do it because I like, I'm
• 30:54
  not like, Oh my gosh, I'm so awesome.
• 30:57
  It's literally like, OK, so this happened to me and how this
• 31:02
  probably has also happened to you.
• 31:03
  And how did you feel in that moment?
• 31:05
  And I think that this is how we need to feel about it.
• 31:08
  And you know, you know, this is life.
• 31:10
  Stuff. Right.
• 31:12
  I and I and I, I talk a lot, so I type a lot and it's, it's a
• 31:17
  whole thing. So this lady who bless, she says
• 31:23
  to somebody else who thinks I hung the moon.
• 31:27
  So she came to me and told me that this conversation had taken
• 31:29
  place because she did not ever want anybody to think that she
• 31:32
  had started the conversation. And she said, and she said to
• 31:36
  me, who does she even think she is, putting her face all over
• 31:43
  the Facebook? And I was like, will you tell
• 31:47
  her that I think I'm Amy Donovan?
• 31:49
  That's who I think I am. It's called Facebook for God
• 31:52
  sakes. It's right.
• 31:53
  That was that was the whole funny thing.
• 31:55
  And I was like, you can let her know that if she does not want
• 31:59
  to read what I'm writing then and she doesn't want to look at
• 32:01
  me, then there's like scroll. On by.
• 32:05
  Move along or just and follow me.
• 32:07
  I don't. Yeah, I don't need her to watch
• 32:09
  me. And if somebody feels that I'm
• 32:12
  irritating, then that's fine. But what she doesn't see is that
• 32:16
  every time I make a post and it's vulnerable and I'm very,
• 32:20
  I'm like, goodness, I'm very vulnerable.
• 32:23
  And I say all the things that I have in my mind and I don't
• 32:26
  filter it out. And I actually type it and then
• 32:28
  I post it and then I read it because that's how the truth
• 32:31
  comes out. Yeah.
• 32:33
  And I'm like, if she does not like that, then that's not her.
• 32:37
  Because my inbox every time I post something is full of the
• 32:41
  people that say, I feel this and I'm afraid to talk about it.
• 32:44
  I feel this. And I am so grateful to know
• 32:48
  that somebody else is having this experience or somebody else
• 32:51
  has felt that way or, you know, a man has done XYZ to me.
• 32:55
  I'm so glad that you addressed that these things are happening.
• 32:58
  I'm so glad to have the support like the messages I receive in
• 33:03
  response to everything I post. Yeah.
• 33:06
  Doesn't make me popular, doesn't make me raise up my ranking in
• 33:13
  like social status. I still have a very small
• 33:15
  following, but I am helping those people by talking about
• 33:19
  what I have been through and. They they can talk about too or
• 33:23
  that's and it invites you invite.
• 33:25
  That's example of, you know, inviting other people into it.
• 33:29
  Like, let's talk about this, let's start the conversation,
• 33:33
  let's show up for each other and support each other through it
• 33:35
  and keep quit living in silence and these things that we've been
• 33:39
  afraid to bring attention to. Yeah.
• 33:41
  That's such a great example of that.
• 33:43
  Thank you so much. So good.
• 33:44
  And I knew you'd have such good things to say about that.
• 33:47
  I love that. All right, this, this aligns
• 33:50
  with you really well too. And really I think plays into
• 33:53
  the shift that you made a few years ago and how you did your
• 33:57
  photography is the importance of setting and coming back to your
• 34:02
  why and your values and everything you do.
• 34:05
  Talk to me about how that has played a role in the shifts and
• 34:09
  how you are serving your clients.
• 34:14
  So I do several different kinds of photos.
• 34:18
  I take weddings pictures, I do branding work with companies.
• 34:21
  I love it. But when I show up and I have
• 34:25
  somebody come through the door and they are trusting me to take
• 34:30
  boudoir photos of them and I am sitting with them as they're
• 34:33
  having their hair and makeup done and I'm hearing their
• 34:34
  stories and their wise. And everybody has a very, very
• 34:40
  different reason for coming. It's it's such a personal thing
• 34:44
  that they finally are able to like push the boat out and come
• 34:51
  and do this. Like I have people who say, I've
• 34:53
  been watching your work for five years and I finally just got the
• 34:56
  NERVA or I really wanted to do this, but I didn't think my
• 35:03
  husband would appreciate it. And now I'm going through a
• 35:05
  divorce and I want these pictures to be for me just.
• 35:09
  And so this lights me up because it creates the safe space that
• 35:17
  people need to come into to have their pictures taken.
• 35:21
  And at the end of it, sometimes clients are like, yeah, my
• 35:23
  pictures are really great. But just the experience was
• 35:28
  transformative. Like, I feel like one lady, she
• 35:33
  came in and it's, I've never done this.
• 35:37
  I did it for like a week and I tried it and I, I'm not
• 35:40
  consistent. We could have put that in my
• 35:42
  list of character attributes and talked about that earlier.
• 35:45
  I'm, you know, consistently inconsistent.
• 35:47
  But so in the video that I took of her when we were done, I
• 35:52
  said, how did you feel when you came in?
• 35:53
  And she was like full of trepidation.
• 35:55
  And when she was leaving, she said, I feel like a goddess.
• 35:58
  And so that's a word I've never said before.
• 36:01
  Like I don't feel like that in any way applies to me.
• 36:04
  I am very different than that. But that is very something that
• 36:09
  would be like in her wheelhouse and her vocabulary and what she
• 36:13
  would say talking about somebody else.
• 36:16
  So the fact that she was able to say, I feel like a goddess when
• 36:19
  she was done her session. And she was somebody who has
• 36:22
  always struggled with self-image.
• 36:24
  She struggled with relationships with men.
• 36:26
  She struggled with relationships with her parents, all
• 36:31
  justifiably so. She's doing the work, she's
• 36:33
  going therapy, she's doing the things.
• 36:34
  But when she was able to come in here and just let go and let me
• 36:42
  guide her and relax into a space where she could just feel good
• 36:48
  about herself. And then when she got to see the
• 36:51
  pictures she got, she cried good tears, thankfully.
• 36:54
  But just even if she had never seen the pictures, the way she
• 36:57
  floated out the door was worth was worth the time that she was
• 37:02
  here. It was worth, you know, all the
• 37:04
  money. And amazingly, this is, I'm not
• 37:08
  going to take any credit here, but I had seen her through a
• 37:11
  series of ridiculous relationships with ridiculous
• 37:14
  men. And she had her pictures done.
• 37:17
  And almost very nearly immediately after, like in maybe
• 37:21
  like terms of weeks, she's met this really great guy and they
• 37:27
  are like a solid couple and he supports everything she does and
• 37:33
  he worships the ground that she walks on.
• 37:35
  So she might have met him anyway.
• 37:37
  But when I see them together, I'm like, it's her energy
• 37:40
  changed. Like she was able to let him in
• 37:45
  and she and I was, I was witnessing her like dating the
• 37:49
  people and I was knowing what was going on.
• 37:50
  This is something I know in my everyday life.
• 37:53
  I feel like her energy shift about herself allowed him to
• 37:58
  come into the energy that she had and she wasn't having.
• 38:02
  It wasn't the same energy that she was putting out before.
• 38:05
  Also, those guys were like disasters and that's what she
• 38:11
  was attracting. But then she loved herself and
• 38:15
  she felt great about herself. And now she's got this lovely
• 38:18
  man. He's really sweet.
• 38:19
  Oh my gosh, I love that. That's such a great example of
• 38:22
  what happens when when, and we talked about this earlier about
• 38:27
  how we, we teach people how to treat us and we teach people
• 38:32
  will watch us and people feel our energy and it will be drawn
• 38:36
  according to that energy. But we will also unknowingly,
• 38:39
  depending on our energy, block people out because of how we're
• 38:45
  feeling about ourselves and what we don't consider a possibility
• 38:50
  versus what we do. So that's such a great example
• 38:53
  of that. And I know that for you has been
• 38:56
  such a shift in just that gift. You've always been a giver.
• 39:00
  You've always been one that's looked after others.
• 39:03
  But this is a different way of giving, where you're giving them
• 39:07
  this tool of empowerment and love for themselves.
• 39:11
  And you're able, because you've gone through your own journey,
• 39:15
  you're able to offer that to others.
• 39:17
  Now. I think that's such a beautiful
• 39:19
  evolution because you you fell into bourgeois photography on
• 39:24
  accident. I think you were you.
• 39:26
  You were, you know, saying yes to a client and and then had to
• 39:31
  go home and Google what it was. Which I think is.
• 39:36
  The funniest story. And then it became this thing
• 39:40
  that is such a big part of what you do and, and, and a way that
• 39:43
  you can really help women embrace themselves, all the
• 39:48
  parts of them, and feel good about it.
• 39:52
  I feel like I feel like everybody is meant to do
• 39:55
  something and whether that's career wise or just in their
• 39:57
  lives. Yeah.
• 39:59
  Like you come into the world and you're just meant to.
• 40:02
  To be in certain places and I feel like if I had not had the
• 40:07
  experiences that I have had and if I didn't have the
• 40:11
  insecurities that I was raised with, I don't think I'd be as
• 40:16
  good at this. Yeah.
• 40:18
  And like, and I'm like, I am good at this.
• 40:23
  I can, I can say that out loud. I am really good at what I do.
• 40:27
  I'm a great relationship builder.
• 40:29
  I am great at making feel people feel comfortable.
• 40:34
  I am foolish and it makes people laugh and it just, I, it just
• 40:39
  disarms people. Besides that, I am a really,
• 40:42
  really, really good photographer.
• 40:43
  Like that's a God-given gift. I don't take credit for that.
• 40:46
  I didn't do anything to make that happen.
• 40:48
  I just, you know, I have looked at doing other jobs and I'm
• 40:52
  like, no, that's disrespectful to wherever this gift came from.
• 40:57
  Like I am good at it. So I think all of those things
• 41:01
  combined made me do or allow me to do what I meant to do.
• 41:08
  Some people are gifted surgeons, some people are amazing singers.
• 41:12
  I but you also need to to be an amazing singer, you need to have
• 41:16
  the confidence to stand on stage and say, hey, I can sing.
• 41:19
  Listen, all you people, you're going to listen to me sing this
• 41:23
  song. And to be a surgeon, you have to
• 41:25
  be able to say, OK, I have steady hands and I am confident
• 41:29
  enough that I can open up your belly, rearrange your organs and
• 41:32
  then soak you back up again. Do you trust me?
• 41:35
  Here we go. So I think you really need to
• 41:39
  like just in order to be good at anything, you need to be able to
• 41:42
  step into your power to do that and say, listen, the worst that
• 41:45
  can happen is it won't work out. And if you do it often enough,
• 41:50
  eventually it's going to work out because it comes with time
• 41:52
  and practice. And also the confidence to, you
• 41:56
  know, you have to have the confidence to say, I'm going to
• 41:58
  do it, it's going to work. And then I get to give that to
• 42:03
  somebody else. And it's, it's, it's in, it's
• 42:06
  in. I mean, I feel like when clients
• 42:09
  are having their pictures done and when they see them and they
• 42:12
  have this whole experience, I experience the experience with
• 42:15
  them and that is the biggest gift.
• 42:19
  Like when I watch somebody feel differently about themselves in
• 42:22
  something that I have created, there's nothing better than
• 42:26
  that. It's so good.
• 42:27
  So good. I love that.
• 42:29
  So good. All right, well, this goes
• 42:31
  nicely into living out of your own expectations versus others.
• 42:37
  You had to learn to do that in a variety of ways.
• 42:41
  And also this goes really hand in hand with communicating
• 42:43
  boundaries, communicating expectations, but also, you
• 42:47
  know, not worrying about other people's expectations about you.
• 42:52
  So talk to me about the expectations journey.
• 42:58
  This is this is huge for me and I don't think I've ever talked
• 43:03
  about it. So I when I was little, I always
• 43:08
  said I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be an RCMP officer,
• 43:12
  which you're in the US. So an RCMP officer is the
• 43:18
  Mounty, like the red. Like the red.
• 43:21
  Yeah. Like with the hat, The police
• 43:23
  officer with the hat. Yeah.
• 43:24
  So we call them Mounties. I wanted that red search.
• 43:28
  Like I wanted to be a police officer.
• 43:30
  I wanted to be a helicopter pilot.
• 43:32
  And so my dad told me I wouldn't pass the physical in order to be
• 43:35
  a Mountie. I wasn't pretty enough to be an
• 43:37
  actress, and I couldn't be a helicopter pilot because that
• 43:40
  wasn't a job for girls. And so I was like, well, thanks,
• 43:47
  Dad, what to do? I went to journalism school,
• 43:54
  hated the thought that I would spend the rest of my life
• 43:57
  looking for negative because that's what journalists do.
• 43:59
  And they do, you know, they do a great job and they make that
• 44:01
  decision and that's what they do.
• 44:02
  But I could not do that. But I was really good at taking
• 44:06
  pictures and so. I had to.
• 44:09
  Tell my father that I was not going to be a teacher like he
• 44:13
  wanted me to be. I was going to go to journalism
• 44:16
  school and he was not pleased. And so I went to journalism
• 44:21
  school, decided I didn't like sad things, wasn't going to be a
• 44:24
  journalist and came home. So that's another
• 44:28
  disappointment. I now decided I wasn't going to
• 44:30
  be the thing that I had and we were a significant amount of
• 44:32
  money into getting to that point and ended up at university to be
• 44:38
  the teacher that he wanted me to be all about because he was a
• 44:40
  teacher. And for some reason teachers
• 44:44
  want their kids to also be teachers.
• 44:45
  I I don't know where that comes from, but I know.
• 44:49
  Yeah, you see that a lot. I guess like doctors want their
• 44:53
  kids to also be doctors. It's like you just maybe because
• 44:58
  it's safe and you feel safe in what, you know, maybe that's.
• 45:00
  Yeah. Or you see, you see the benefits
• 45:02
  of it. So you think that must be the
• 45:03
  benefits for everybody. I don't know.
• 45:07
  Yeah, so I, I'm like, OK, so I register for university and I
• 45:11
  trot off and I like move into the dorm and I'm, I'm doing my
• 45:16
  courses to be a teacher. And so every day is an actual
• 45:19
  slot. I was like, I, I am actually
• 45:23
  going to hate this. I do not hate children, but I do
• 45:26
  not enjoy being in groups of 30 of them and being responsible
• 45:31
  for all of the shoe tying and teaching people to use scissors
• 45:34
  and like running and telling and speaking and me either sticky,
• 45:39
  right? Yeah, it's just.
• 45:41
  I know I I got the teacher lecture too when I was like 17
• 45:46
  because it would be better for my family and I'm like having a
• 45:51
  family I'd be I had. One, but it was, yeah.
• 45:57
  But I was the same way to you. I'm like they're sorry, no, I'm
• 45:59
  not doing it. In my third year of university,
• 46:04
  again significant amount of money into this, I had to have a
• 46:07
  conversation that sounded like dad, I will never be a teacher
• 46:12
  so I can continue on for another year and a half of this and
• 46:16
  finish this up, but I'm never going to work as a teacher.
• 46:19
  So we can continue to throw wood money after bad to like get to
• 46:23
  the point where I am a teacher, but I'm never ever going to
• 46:26
  teach. I would like to just be a
• 46:29
  photographer, please and thank you.
• 46:30
  Like, this is what I would like to do.
• 46:32
  And he was not gracious and said, well, you may as well just
• 46:40
  be a insert expletive here basket Weaver.
• 46:47
  And I'm like, you know what? OK, sure.
• 46:54
  I'm going to do it anyway. Because at that point he told me
• 46:57
  all the things I couldn't do. Sure, in his, from his
• 47:00
  perspective, he probably thought he was protecting me.
• 47:03
  I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
• 47:05
  I'm not going to say that he was a jerk.
• 47:07
  I'm going to say those were jobs that were outside anything that
• 47:10
  he thought he was capable of. So he then wanted to protect me.
• 47:14
  Like if my daughter came to me now and said she'd like to be an
• 47:17
  astronaut, I'd be like, I can't do that.
• 47:19
  But if you think you can, like, let's figure it out because I
• 47:23
  think he was trying to protect me.
• 47:24
  That's all I can say. Yeah.
• 47:26
  So I needed to then say I am not going to be a teacher.
• 47:30
  I'm going to be a photographer. And at that point, there was no
• 47:33
  more deciding I needed to go to school.
• 47:36
  Like, I wasn't registered for anything else.
• 47:38
  I was literally like, this is it, This is what I'm doing.
• 47:41
  And I am too Dang stubborn to let him be right about this.
• 47:47
  So. Yeah.
• 47:52
  So I, I did it. I, I did it and it was a it was
• 47:57
  a spot like it takes a long time to build up your clientele.
• 48:00
  It takes a long time to get good enough that you can charge rates
• 48:04
  that you know you can survive on and raise a family on.
• 48:08
  And then it was like, you're never going to get own a house.
• 48:12
  You're never going to this, You're never going to that
• 48:14
  because you're never going to have stable money.
• 48:15
  And I'm like, so I own a house. There's two parents in the
• 48:18
  driveway. We have a golden retriever.
• 48:19
  There's three kids. We go on a vacation at least
• 48:22
  once a year, most years twice. I am living a pretty good life.
• 48:26
  And now he sees that he was wrong.
• 48:29
  And my stubbornness got me to be right, but I needed to be able
• 48:32
  to say, OK, we're not talking about this anymore.
• 48:36
  I'm going to go and do it. And you can either clap for me
• 48:39
  or you can complain about me. But I don't want to know about
• 48:42
  it either way. And he's the most proud now.
• 48:45
  Like he thinks it's the coolest thing.
• 48:48
  He. Yeah, he's he's pretty pleased
• 48:52
  that I get to, like, go and see and do the things.
• 48:55
  He thinks travel's a waste of money, but he thinks it's cool
• 48:58
  that I get to go. But I needed in order to.
• 49:03
  Now, would I have been an amazing helicopter pilot?
• 49:06
  Probably. I might have been an amazing
• 49:08
  cop. I don't know.
• 49:09
  I have no idea. Like maybe, maybe I was meant to
• 49:12
  do those things. But I did this because I was
• 49:14
  like, you absolutely do not get to have any more opinions about
• 49:16
  this because I need to decide what's right for me because I
• 49:19
  only get one kick at this and I'm willing to go and do it.
• 49:22
  And if I let him say I should be a basket Weaver, I probably
• 49:28
  would be pretty miserable. Yeah.
• 49:31
  Because I would be teaching somewhere because that's what
• 49:33
  was expected of me. Yeah.
• 49:35
  I don't know how baskets get weaved.
• 49:37
  I have no idea. I've never even investigated it.
• 49:39
  It wasn't a back up plan. I know.
• 49:42
  Oh. My gosh, I love that so much.
• 49:44
  That is such a good example. Thank you so much for sharing
• 49:47
  that. That's so good.
• 49:49
  And it goes nicely into accepting the layered aspects of
• 49:52
  ourselves. All those pieces, all those
• 49:55
  parts that make up who we are, that we, I really believe.
• 50:00
  And you and I both have talked about this and we've done the
• 50:03
  work to get to the point where, yeah, those are all the parts
• 50:06
  and pieces and layers of who I am.
• 50:09
  And I'm good with that. And I'm meeting myself and
• 50:12
  loving myself right where I'm at.
• 50:13
  But both of us have had to get there.
• 50:16
  Talk to me about your journey in getting there because this is
• 50:19
  what allows you to show up in these spaces and places.
• 50:23
  You do now how you do and empowering other people to feel
• 50:27
  comfortable in those place spaces and places as well.
• 50:33
  I think I just needed to be sick enough of being told no and that
• 50:38
  I wasn't good enough and that I couldn't and that and realizing
• 50:44
  the things that I did want to and did not want to and was and
• 50:48
  was not willing to do. It took me a long time to get
• 50:52
  here. But I don't know that other
• 50:53
  people get here any faster except the Dang sister because
• 50:56
  she knew how to say no out of the she came out of the womb.
• 50:59
  She knew. I don't know how that happened.
• 51:02
  Like same parents, same upbringing.
• 51:03
  I don't, I don't know how she did it, but I think, I think
• 51:08
  every single experience that we have molds US and like pushes us
• 51:13
  in a direction. So we can either choose to have
• 51:15
  those experiences and let them like make us jaded.
• 51:19
  And that's easily done because we don't typically remember all
• 51:23
  of the great experiences. We remember, you know, the guy
• 51:26
  that yells at you about the parking spot at Costco because
• 51:28
  you're taking too long. You know, the day before
• 51:30
  Christmas Eve, you remember that, but you don't remember the
• 51:33
  nice lady who smiled at you and helped move her car out of the
• 51:36
  way to help you get your ground beef into the, you know, into
• 51:39
  your own car. So I think, I think at some
• 51:44
  point I just needed to look around, be grateful for what I
• 51:48
  did have, be grateful for what I was good at, decide what I
• 51:51
  really wanted. And then just you kind of got to
• 51:58
  be fearless. Like no matter what you're
• 52:01
  deciding to just move in that direction because either will or
• 52:04
  will not work. So you can sit around and wait
• 52:07
  forever and worry that it won't work.
• 52:11
  And I love my husband so much. He's so sweet, but he has to
• 52:14
  look at everything for 5000 dangles.
• 52:17
  And he very much is the well, what if it doesn't work?
• 52:20
  And I'm very much like, OK, you want to fly?
• 52:22
  Let's like, let's try to construct some wings and go like
• 52:25
  jump out the roof. So different personality wise.
• 52:30
  But like, you need to look. You need to look at what the
• 52:33
  positives are and build on those.
• 52:35
  And then you need to look at what it is that you're capable
• 52:38
  of. And then you need to look at
• 52:40
  what it is that you want. And then you, like, mash it all
• 52:42
  together in this, like, big, messy thing.
• 52:45
  And what comes out the other side, I think, is what you're
• 52:47
  meant to do and how you're meant to do it.
• 52:49
  But you really need to be brave. And you need to not worry about
• 52:52
  what anybody else thinks. And everybody has an opinion,
• 52:57
  and that does not matter. Trust me.
• 52:59
  There are many opinions about what I do.
• 53:02
  Yeah, less so now, I think, than in the beginning.
• 53:05
  Or maybe just stop telling me because I they're not as brave
• 53:10
  to tell me anymore. Yeah.
• 53:11
  Like when my stepdad found out that I take boudoir photos, he
• 53:14
  didn't know what it was, so he had to ask my mom, who then
• 53:17
  explained it. And he was scandalized.
• 53:19
  I love him so much. And he was a politician.
• 53:22
  And he says, but Amy, what if people find out about this?
• 53:30
  And I was like, I sure hope they do.
• 53:32
  I pay a lot of money for advertising.
• 53:38
  I love that so. Much.
• 53:42
  Oh my word, That was a whole thing that was that was a whole
• 53:48
  thing that I had forgotten about.
• 53:49
  But just you need to be able to say, this is my life.
• 53:53
  I get one shot at this. We're like moving in the
• 53:56
  direction that I want to move. You are welcome to come with me
• 53:59
  on this journey or pretend it's not happening, but you don't get
• 54:03
  to decide what it is that I'm going to do.
• 54:06
  It's like when I hear people say my husband won't let me whatever
• 54:11
  it is. And I'm like, what do you mean
• 54:12
  let? Like where's the let coming into
• 54:15
  this? Yeah, like you're a full screen
• 54:17
  don't adult. Yeah, like don't do things that
• 54:21
  are harmful. Like maybe don't try to
• 54:23
  construct rings and jump off the roof.
• 54:24
  Like don't do like, maybe they get to have an opinion about
• 54:27
  that. But like, for the most part, if
• 54:29
  you're going to do it, you're going to be happy and you're
• 54:31
  going to arrive at the end of your life, you need to like,
• 54:37
  just just do what you're going to do.
• 54:39
  And like, the people around you need to like, support you.
• 54:43
  And if they don't, you need to say I need you to support me.
• 54:45
  Yeah. And at some point maybe I will
• 54:48
  get my helicopters license. I mean, I'm pretty slow now.
• 54:51
  I'm I'm 43 and there's definitely no way I'm you're not
• 54:53
  going to give me the red surge in the head at this point.
• 54:55
  It's not going to happen. But we probably still learn how
• 54:59
  to fly a helicopter. There you go.
• 55:00
  I love that. Oh my gosh, so good.
• 55:02
  Thank you so much for that. All right, in summary, in living
• 55:06
  out feel, finding empowerment, embracing layers, talk to me and
• 55:10
  we've hit on this already with the example you used earlier
• 55:14
  with one of your clients in the evolution you saw with her.
• 55:18
  But talk to me about how doing this work and and living out
• 55:21
  feel has impacted not only your relationship with yourself, but
• 55:25
  your relationship with other people.
• 55:31
  I think because I'm so I have embraced who I am.
• 55:40
  I have embraced my weird and I have embraced my body and I have
• 55:45
  embraced that I am absolutely not a perfect person.
• 55:51
  And when I say I'm quick tempered, I mean it.
• 55:54
  And it's because that I am and it's but because I know who I
• 55:59
  am, I think it makes people comfortable to be who they are
• 56:02
  around me. And as women, if we don't know
• 56:09
  who we are, the people around us are not going to be able to
• 56:13
  trust that they can be themselves around us.
• 56:17
  And like, we've all met people and we're like, oh, she's really
• 56:22
  fake and. She's trying too hard.
• 56:26
  She's trying too hard and so I have people, I've witnessed
• 56:30
  people look at me and say who does she think she is?
• 56:33
  It's literally happened to me in a restaurant because I have no
• 56:36
  problem going into sit down to eat by myself.
• 56:38
  Yeah, and. Which should be totally fine,
• 56:42
  but it's been over time. It's gotten a little morbid over
• 56:45
  time. It's like, yeah, scandal, like I
• 56:49
  can't go on a date with myself, but yeah, who made this?
• 56:52
  Rule like I travel a lot by myself and I enjoy good food.
• 56:57
  So I'm gonna go out and sit and eat and I'm at this restaurant
• 57:01
  one day and I there's these ladies that are like 2 tables
• 57:04
  away. And so as I'm leaving I'm I'm
• 57:07
  wearing like nice boots. I'm not fancy ever like that's
• 57:10
  not how I roll. But I did have nice boots on and
• 57:13
  I had like a blazer is having a meeting and collared shirt and
• 57:17
  laptop bag. And as I'm leaving I hear this
• 57:19
  woman say who does she even think she is?
• 57:22
  And the second lady says, I know she thinks a lot over herself.
• 57:26
  And I was like, who on earth are they talking about in such a
• 57:29
  terrible manner? Like what?
• 57:31
  Who are they talking about? Like, somebody needs to, like,
• 57:34
  tell them to not be mean to this person.
• 57:37
  And so I like, I'm passing the table and I look at them and
• 57:40
  they all stop eating, and they just stare up at me.
• 57:43
  And I was like, oh. Wow.
• 57:47
  They meant me. They're talking about me.
• 57:51
  And I just. And you used to be OK with that
• 57:54
  and be like, yeah, because I've done the work to be OK with me
• 57:59
  to be confident in public to eat alone.
• 58:02
  Chac la Blas, you know, what a scandal she, you know, going to
• 58:07
  her restaurant. He is settled by herself.
• 58:09
  Like, oh, my goodness. But I think the more confident
• 58:15
  and comfortable with our own selves that we become.
• 58:17
  And so I can tell that you are confident and comfortable in
• 58:20
  your own self. And it makes a supportive like
• 58:24
  comfy environment where I can let my weird show.
• 58:28
  I can talk with my hands and let them fly all over.
• 58:31
  I can like make my weird faces and do my thing, but I can also
• 58:36
  tell stories and be vulnerable. So like the more as people and
• 58:42
  humans and women we do that, I think it's going to make things
• 58:46
  a lot easier for everybody because everybody gets to be
• 58:48
  comfortable in whatever space that they're in.
• 58:51
  And feel safe doing so. You know, it's so much about
• 58:54
  safety for women that feeling safe.
• 58:56
  Thank you. That was such a great example.
• 58:58
  All right, my friend, we are down to the rapid fire.
• 59:01
  Name 5 activities that nourish you.
• 59:08
  Cooking, the actual act of stopping what I'm doing and
• 59:15
  walking into the kitchen. This is actually probably #1
• 59:19
  stopping what I'm doing and walking into the kitchen and
• 59:22
  taking a fresh mug out of the cupboard, even though I might
• 59:24
  have had four on the go already. Laying it on the counter.
• 59:28
  And I collect the Starbucks mugs from the places that you are,
• 59:30
  and I think about where I was and just pouring up the coffee.
• 59:34
  So I drink, I'm using air quotes, a pot of coffee every
• 59:38
  single day. But I actually don't drink it.
• 59:40
  It's more about the act of like stopping what I'm doing, taking
• 59:43
  a minute, being mindful, being present and pouring coffee.
• 59:47
  And it's like my favorite activity, even if I never take a
• 59:50
  sip from that cup. Travel 100%.
• 59:58
  I'm going to a convention this weekend that's 3 1/2 hours from
• 1:00:01
  my house in a town that really doesn't have a whole lot going
• 1:00:03
  on. But just getting outside my
• 1:00:05
  space and going to a different place is as exciting to me as it
• 1:00:09
  is to fly across the continent to go somewhere I've never been
• 1:00:12
  before. Yeah.
• 1:00:13
  Travel absolutely 100%. And I think, I think to grow as
• 1:00:17
  a person, you really need to do travel and you need to learn to
• 1:00:20
  travel by yourself. Yes, yes.
• 1:00:24
  Right. Traveling with your family and
• 1:00:26
  traveling alone are two very different things and two very.
• 1:00:30
  You learn a lot when you travel by yourself and it's.
• 1:00:35
  I think it's so important and I love traveling with my family,
• 1:00:38
  but I also really love traveling alone.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah. Oh, I actually really love
• 1:00:48
  washing dishes in the sink. Not with the dishwasher.
• 1:00:53
  And it's. Really.
• 1:00:54
  Yeah, it's the same mindful thing, like.
• 1:00:58
  Stopping the slow down. Piece Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  And I like the bubbles and then I'm watching and like, what else
• 1:01:04
  do you do where there's such immediate gratification?
• 1:01:07
  Like you put the light in and it's really dirty and you like
• 1:01:09
  wipe your hand over and you take it every rinse it off and it's
• 1:01:11
  clean. Like I never use my dishwasher.
• 1:01:14
  My family does. I don't know, it doesn't occur
• 1:01:16
  to me. I'm like, Oh no, we'll just put
• 1:01:17
  the water in the sink. We'll make the thing.
• 1:01:19
  But it's so you have you're mindful and like the one has
• 1:01:23
  this simple task in front of you and you just get to tune out
• 1:01:29
  while you're doing it. And my other, we get one more.
• 1:01:35
  There's so many things. Oh, the act of getting ready in
• 1:01:41
  the morning. So it's tiny, but like I don't
• 1:01:47
  feel like myself unless I put mascara and I currently have my
• 1:01:54
  hair in a bun. But when I get ready to like do
• 1:01:58
  things, even if I'm sitting around the house, even if all of
• 1:02:02
  the work I'm doing, I'm not going to see a single soul, not
• 1:02:04
  even a video call. Getting up, brushing my teeth,
• 1:02:07
  putting moisturizer on, putting on like my 4 makeup products
• 1:02:11
  that I wear. Like just my basic thing,
• 1:02:15
  combing my hair, making sure it looks like I would like it if I
• 1:02:18
  went out. And then it's like an active
• 1:02:20
  getting right. And I work from home most days
• 1:02:24
  unless I'm at the studio and people say, oh, that's great,
• 1:02:27
  you can work in your pajamas. I cannot.
• 1:02:31
  Like I need to be ready. And it's a.
• 1:02:34
  Mindset thing I think. Absolutely.
• 1:02:37
  Like you, I have to be ready to make like meet the day.
• 1:02:41
  I have to make my bed and then I can go and face whatever else is
• 1:02:44
  happening. And I actually talked about this
• 1:02:46
  with a client today that our day does not go right unless our bed
• 1:02:49
  is made. Like I cannot get in an unmade
• 1:02:52
  bed. I don't want to face it when I
• 1:02:53
  come home. I make the bed and it's like the
• 1:02:56
  first vote towards today is going to be a good day.
• 1:02:58
  I'm going to be productive. Yeah, yeah, I'd love that mic
• 1:03:02
  set. Yeah, I'd love that.
• 1:03:04
  That's so good. And I love that you have so many
• 1:03:07
  more than five. I think that's such a great
• 1:03:09
  example of knowing yourself, knowing what refreshes you, what
• 1:03:14
  you need, what fills you up. I think that's such a great gift
• 1:03:17
  because I talked to so many people that they struggle to get
• 1:03:21
  to 5 sometimes and and it's just, and we're all built and
• 1:03:27
  wild differently, but I'd love the fact that you've got a
• 1:03:30
  plethora of things to choose from.
• 1:03:33
  So thank you for sharing those ones with us.
• 1:03:35
  So good. I love that.
• 1:03:36
  All right, 5 words on how you want to feel the next six
• 1:03:40
  months. Energetic like I've contributed.
• 1:03:58
  Like I have achieved some goals that I have, like I am loved by
• 1:04:10
  others but also love them back. So I'm putting out what I'm
• 1:04:13
  getting or getting what I'm giving.
• 1:04:22
  This is a tough one, and like I've learned something and like
• 1:04:28
  this is a very specific thing. I am not handy, was not raised
• 1:04:33
  by handy people. Me either.
• 1:04:36
  And there are so many like, you know, when you see a real estate
• 1:04:38
  ad and it talks about pride of ownership.
• 1:04:41
  When I, when I go home in the daytime, I'm like, or in the
• 1:04:44
  evenings, I'm like, nobody would say that about this real estate
• 1:04:47
  ad. Like I have a nice house, but
• 1:04:49
  there's like a million little things that need to like and I
• 1:04:53
  keep waiting for Jamie to do them and then Dang it, right?
• 1:05:00
  I just, he's not reading my mind the way I would like.
• 1:05:05
  I don't want to make him a list. But then when I look at the
• 1:05:08
  actual task I'm like this is something I'm more than capable
• 1:05:11
  of doing my own self. Yeah.
• 1:05:14
  And my social media is full of women who are capable of
• 1:05:17
  building shelves and renovating their house and putting up
• 1:05:21
  wallpaper and doing all the things that I think I'm not
• 1:05:23
  capable of. I'd like I want to take a
• 1:05:28
  project and I want to do it and just in that vein of things and
• 1:05:35
  feel like I accomplished something.
• 1:05:36
  OK. Because I'm good at what I'm
• 1:05:38
  good at, Yeah. I'm not trying anything new in
• 1:05:42
  case I'm not great at it. And I know that went so well.
• 1:05:48
  I've got all this stuff. Art, Rachel Laven, our friend
• 1:05:51
  Rachel Laven, we Facetimed last week in my closet, and she's
• 1:05:56
  helping me reorganize my closet. So I've ordered all the things,
• 1:05:59
  but I've got to put some of the things together, which I can do.
• 1:06:04
  But I'm also like, oh, gosh, OK. And so, yeah, so I need.
• 1:06:10
  So that's why it's like, you can do this.
• 1:06:12
  You know, you can you know, if it you mess it up the because
• 1:06:16
  Brady and I are not handy either.
• 1:06:17
  I was raised by handy parents. His dad, not handy mom more
• 1:06:24
  handy chooses not to be handy, but can be handy what he wants
• 1:06:28
  to be. And that's and that's kind of
• 1:06:29
  where we both are. So we've looked at him like we
• 1:06:32
  can do this. We're going to make it something
• 1:06:35
  fun we do together or swear a lot as we're doing it.
• 1:06:39
  I don't know, but I know what you mean by that.
• 1:06:42
  Because it's like, I don't need to ask someone else to do it.
• 1:06:45
  I don't need to hire out. I can do this.
• 1:06:48
  But yeah, we'll have to compare projects and see how it goes.
• 1:06:51
  See what? Just see what we end up
• 1:06:53
  accomplishing. Oh my.
• 1:06:55
  Gosh, just like the little, the little things that should not be
• 1:06:58
  a big thing, but I know there's so there's so many little
• 1:07:02
  things. It feels like a big thing.
• 1:07:03
  Yes, yes. Yeah, I need to learn to conquer
• 1:07:06
  doing the little things which I'm capable of, but haven't
• 1:07:10
  done. So because I don't know that I'm
• 1:07:11
  good, I'm afraid that I won't be good.
• 1:07:13
  And then there I don't do them. So I need to get better at that.
• 1:07:17
  Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's a great one.
• 1:07:20
  All right, We can work on that together.
• 1:07:21
  OK. Thank you so much for being with
• 1:07:24
  me today. This has been so much fun as I
• 1:07:26
  knew it would be. Let people know where they can
• 1:07:28
  find you and follow you. And also, this will be on our
• 1:07:31
  resources page, listeners on embracinglaters.com.
• 1:07:34
  But let people know real quick. So I'm on both Facebook and
• 1:07:39
  Instagram under Amy Donovan Boudoir, and you can find me
• 1:07:45
  there. And also I have a really sweet
• 1:07:47
  little community. It's called Boudoir and Beyond,
• 1:07:51
  and my my goal for that community is that it is in fact
• 1:07:55
  a community of women who rise up and support each other and help
• 1:07:59
  each other rise while they're doing it.
• 1:08:01
  Yeah, and that's on Facebook, right?
• 1:08:03
  Facebook, yes. Yes.
• 1:08:04
  OK, perfect. All right.
• 1:08:06
  Thanks so much for being with me today.
• 1:08:08
  Ladies, I hope you feel emboldened by this conversation.
• 1:08:11
  I hope it makes you stop and think about your own journey.
• 1:08:15
  Where is it that you need to like communicate some healthy
• 1:08:18
  boundaries with some family or friends?
• 1:08:20
  Are you living out of your own expectations or is it time to to
• 1:08:24
  communicate those as well and start living out of alignment
• 1:08:28
  with yourself? Are you able to show up
• 1:08:31
  unapologetically for yourself? Because that's then going to
• 1:08:34
  enable you to show up unapologetically for others and
• 1:08:38
  help them to be their best, most authentic, healthiest selves,
• 1:08:41
  safest selves with you. And Amy has spoken to all of
• 1:08:45
  that today, but I want to challenge you on that this week.
• 1:08:47
  Take good care of yourselves this week.
• 1:08:49
  Know you are a valuable not because of what you do, but
• 1:08:52
  because of who you are and have a great rest of your day.
• 1:08:55
  Thanks so much for joining us. Hello, Melissa Crook here.
• 1:09:03
  Thank you so much for joining us on the field podcast today.
• 1:09:07
  Finding Empowerment. Embracing Layers.
• 1:09:10
  I hope you found today's framework and resources
• 1:09:14
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• 1:09:18
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• 1:09:21
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• 1:09:26
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• 1:10:49
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• 1:10:53
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