MGU 343 | Being Seen

 

A lot of people struggle with how society sees them. Beauty is power, and if you don’t conform to what society thinks is beautiful, you’ll be seen as weak. This whole mindset is just wrong. Embrace who you naturally are. Let go of the wheel a little bit and just be yourself. Remember you’ll be more remembered for your personality and how you show up versus how you look. Join Whitney Lauritsen as she dives into the topic of breaking your habit of preparing yourself to be seen. Learn how to be comfortable with yourself and don’t take what society says too seriously. Know that it’s sometimes okay to eat food that you like even if you know it’s bad for you. It’s all in moderation. Start breaking those bad habits today!

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The Trouble With Being Seen

The day that this episode comes out, I will be on a road trip. I mentioned this last episode or maybe not. It’s hard to keep track of when I mention things, but I talk about my road trips a lot. This is one of many. I am going to a conference. I do remember bringing this up in the Web3 episode, where I was talking about this event happening in Phoenix, Arizona called CEX. By the time you read this, I have already left CEX and I will be with my sister in Colorado with one of our friends. I am so excited about it.

Breaking The Habit Of Preparing To Be Seen Physically

One thing that I find challenging and a habit that I would love to break is trying to prepare myself to be seen physically in person. That has become increasingly challenging for many people because many of us haven’t spent a lot of time around other people in the past few years. I’ve seen some close friends and family, but there’s still a little bit of discomfort that I feel because I’ve spent so much time at home. Granted, I’m on camera almost every single day, I feel pretty comfortable with my appearance on camera. Although sometimes I look back on videos and feel uncomfortable.

My habit is feeling uncomfortable about my weight. For those that don’t know this, I have struggled with that most of my life. It’s extremely common. I didn’t even realize that until more people started talking about their weight challenges and disordered eating or eating disorders. When I was going through the height of that when I was in high school and college, I felt alone because it wasn’t talked about. We didn’t have social media back then, which was nice for a lot of reasons. Social media does bring us together and raise awareness.

Podcasts weren’t around. Even if they had been, in the time that I was going through that stage in my life, I feel like it was almost taboo to talk about ourselves, especially with so much emphasis on losing weight and getting in shape. Looking back on all the magazines I saw, I was into reading magazines. They’re very stimulating to me. I had a big fascination with them. I’m not sure if every high school girl did.

This is before social media. Maybe we feel more satisfied by social media and maybe that has replaced magazines in some ways because I would turn to them for advice and be like, “What are the latest tips on makeup and clothes and diet? What are the celebrities doing?” We can do all that by looking at somebody’s Instagram. There’s this natural tendency, especially for women or people who identify as women to see what others are doing and what’s working for them.

The downside of that is that advice works for them, not necessarily you. I have spent most of my life, at least since I was a teenager, feeling a bit frustrated that what works for other people has not worked for me. I’ve talked about that many times on the show, but not necessarily about my body. I was prepping for this upcoming trip in which I’m going to see a bunch of people, some people that I’ve met online and never met in person. I’m going to see my sister. I’m going to see friends. Even mentioning that gives me a little tightness in my body because I want to look attractive to them.

This is the habit that I’m trying to break. I feel so much pressure to be attractive but I don’t want to live my life focused on my appearance, as I’ve been very clear about. I am afraid of people seeing me and not perceiving me as attractive because there’s power on being attractive. This came up in an episode that I did with a guest. Her name is Amber. We weren’t talking about beauty as a theme, but it did come up. I mentioned how beauty and looking attractive can be something powerful. I feel weak when I feel unattractive.

Try to break the habit of preparing yourself to be seen physically in person. Click To Tweet

I noticed this about myself when I was shopping for some new clothes for this trip. I was in the changing room and I had to mentally coach myself, “When you look at yourself in this mirror in these clothes that you’ve never put on your body before, be gentle and kind.” I don’t feel great about my body right now. I feel heavier. When I feel heavy, I feel weak. That is a mental habit that I want to release because it does not serve me and I’ve been battling that most of my life. It has become a habit because I think about it all the time.

What’s interesting is before that fitting room experience, which didn’t go so poorly, I experienced that more when I was buying clothes for this trip and a party. I don’t go clothes shopping very frequently. I much prefer to do clothing swaps with my friends, but those have become few and far between during the pandemic. I’ve gone to secondhand stores and I bought brand new clothes that I wasn’t able to find at a secondhand store.

We Don’t Have To Constantly Change

I was hard on myself because I was surprised at how my body looked and felt. I was frustrated that it didn’t look and feel the way I wanted it to in the clothes that I was trying on. I started to feel some shame. I was trying to be very intentional about not falling into that trap. Additionally, I was thinking about how it’s interesting that I try so hard to change. It’s truly exhausting.

I was reflecting on how we live in this society that’s constantly telling us we’re not enough. That seems like an obvious concept. I was reflecting on it on another level that I don’t think I’ve thought about much. We don’t have to constantly change. In fact, I took a note here. I started with, “What if you accepted yourself as you are? What if instead of trying to change, you let yourself evolve into whatever direction you naturally went into?”

This applies to so many things. My hair, for example, if you’re watching the YouTube version. By the way, it probably won’t be out in sync with the audio version of the podcast but I have been on top of releasing new videos on YouTube. If you go to the Wellevatr account, it’s YouTube.com/Wellevatr, you’ll see that I’ve been trying to upload old podcast episodes. I’m trying to catch up so I can be current again.

When you do see some of these videos, you may notice that I have some gray hair coming in, although it’s still pretty subtle. Depending on where I turned my head and how my hair is done, you can see the gray hair. I’ve learned to embrace that. It’s very exciting to me because when I first started getting a lot of gray hairs, I felt a lot of shame. I was plucking them out and thinking about what I was going to do. I felt panicked.

I’ve mentioned ageism in a previous episode that came out on my birthday, March 21st of 2022. I talked about beauty a bit either in that episode or some surrounding episodes. I’ve relaxed into it and I’m okay. I don’t think about my gray hair that much. I notice it more and sometimes I wonder, “Will I ever dye it? What will it be like when it’s more prominent?” Right now, it blends in. I don’t know how many people notice it. Will I feel differently about it when it’s 25% or 50% of my hair color? How long will I feel like I can hold out to not dye it? Why do I even want to hold out?

MGU 343 | Being Seen

Being Seen: There is so much pressure to be attractive, but at the same time, you don’t want to live your life focused only on your appearance.

 

Let Ourselves Be

It’s a complicated thing. Am I trying to prove something by having gray hair? No, I just don’t like dyeing my hair. I don’t want to fight against something that my body is naturally doing. This is part of this pondering here. With my body size and the way that it feels, I’ve spent so much of my life trying to fight against it. I can’t remember if I’ve ever mentioned this before on the podcast, but I am drawn to this idea that our bodies have a natural size to them and that will also fluctuate. What if instead of fighting against that, we just let our bodies be?

I remember when I first heard that, I felt so taken aback because that concept was never brought up to me. I was surrounded by messaging in those magazines, friends and family members, on TV. Everywhere I turned, it was like, “Lose weight. Here’s how to get in shape. Here’s how to get these abs.” I was constantly doing things.

I had this flashback. A friend of mine who knew me since I was a teenager said something interesting. I was about to go visit my family. I tend to visit my family at least once a year and they’re all the way on the other side of the country, so it’s a big trip. I said, “I’m working out a lot more before I go home and I’m eating differently before I go home.” He said, “You always do that before you see your family,” something along those lines. I was like, “Really? I had never even realized how much time I would try to prep my body before seeing my family.”

It makes sense. A lot of my struggles mentally with my body are tied to the way I was raised. Having a mother that encouraged me to look a certain way and having a sister who naturally looks the way I want to. My sister has a much more slender frame. She doesn’t seem to have to work for it and neither did my mom. Now I’m wondering how much my mom’s worked for it and not just sharing it.

I have always been a little bit larger in size and shape than my mother and my sister. I felt this pressure to try to conform to their size and felt shame when I didn’t. If I were to compile photos of my body throughout my whole life, you would see it go up and down. I wonder how many of the downs are the times where I was trying to control it, shape it, change it, and manage it, and how many of those ups, meaning the uptime, is when I was a larger size.

What if that’s just the way my body is? What if the rest of the time is what my body looks like when it’s being controlled? The word control is so key because I do not like being controlled. Who does? I have been controlling myself or trying to so much. What if instead of getting frustrated with my body as it is now, I just embrace it and say, “That’s fine.”

I’ve noticed that I enjoy seeing mothering styles that are accepting of children, just letting them be. One of my friends has three children and she seems so radical in her approach to parenting. Her kids just run wild and do whatever they want. It seems to go against so many mentalities we have around how kids should be raised. In the context of what I’m sharing right now, that is so amazing.

Know that you don't have to constantly change with society. Just let yourself evolve in whatever direction you naturally go. Click To Tweet

Granted, I’m not an expert on parenting or being a mom. I’ve never been one. There’s something so freeing about that. Maybe that’s because I didn’t feel a lot of freedom. I did to an extent, not to get into all the nuances of it. Especially when it came to my body and my education, I felt a lot of pressure to conform, be a certain way, and shape myself into something that I wasn’t naturally.

A lot of the experience many people have, especially women in the society and people that identify as women feel like they have to show up and look a certain way and conform. If they don’t, they are perceived as less powerful and less valuable. That word value is key here too. The word power is interesting because my desire is not to dominate, be in charge or be better. I want to be equal. I want to be seen as inherently valuable. We all do. I want to feel accepted and seen.

Going back to some of my fears that I’ve noticed coming up, when I was picking out clothes at the store, I was observing each of them and thinking, “How will I look in this? What will that convey about me? Am I going to look young? Am I going to look stylish? Am I going to look smart? Am I going to look too sexy? Am I going to look sexy enough? Am I going to be seen as someone worth taking seriously? Am I going to look cool? Am I going to look interesting?” All this stuff, all the colors I’m looking at, the patterns of the clothing and the style.

I put on the clothes and I remember imagining myself in different scenarios that I’m going to be in on this trip. I’m like, “When will I wear this outfit? What will people think of me as I’m wearing it?” It’s exhausting. I don’t want to live my life that way but it’s in my head all the time. A lot of people feel like this is the way to be successful. It’s like we have to think this way.

Here’s another interesting thing. I feel like right now in my life, I have all of my needs met. I don’t talk a lot about my personal life, but my personal life is very satisfying. I’m in a good place, however you want to view that. I have so much love in my life on many different levels personally. Occasionally, I will feel a desire to get approval from various people in my life, whether that’s friends, family or a romantic partner. Maybe it’s just a habit.

I’m even noticing how I want to look good for my sister and what my sister is going to notice. My sister notices my body. It’s that fear and wondering what she’s thinking about my body, but she has also been conditioned in her own way so I can’t blame her for it. In 2021, I saw my sister a few times, once in July when I felt not so great about my body at the time. In September, I felt good about my body. I remember her saying, “You look good.”

Somewhere either in July or maybe when she saw me the second time, she noticed a difference. She noticed that my body changed shape. It was this positive reward and also a little bit of sadness like, “If I don’t look “as good” as I did when she saw me in the Fall of 2021, will I feel shame?” I still want my sister’s approval. I want her to think my clothes are cool.

MGU 343 | Being Seen

Being Seen: There’s a lot of pressure to shape yourself into something you aren’t naturally. Women especially feel like they have to look a certain way and conform because if they don’t, they’re seen as weak.

 

I remember in July of 2021, she didn’t like all my clothing choices. Maybe that’s just the dynamic, but I feel pressure there about how I show up for my sister. My sister has what I perceive to be this natural ability to always look good in whatever she wears. She does pay attention to her appearance. Her hair always looks nice. She dyes her hair. She probably won’t have gray hair for a long time. She always wears stylish clothes. She is always in shape.

That comparison of trying to measure up to my sister. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. My sister and I have an amazing relationship. We deeply love each other. I don’t need to prove myself to her. I still want her approval though, which is interesting. Do I subconsciously feel like I have to win her over? Will she think less of me if I don’t look as stylish and as thin and whatever else? She’ll still love me. There’s that unconditional love.

It seems, in my head, that she may think better of me when I look a certain way. That is pressure. As a society, that is always underlying. What happens when I show up to a podcast a certain way or take photos and have meetings with people? Do they judge me for how I look? I’m trying not to care about that. I had a Zoom meeting with a new company that is becoming a client of mine and their entire team is men, at least that was on the call. There’s maybe one other woman on their team.

I had this moment of like, “I didn’t dress up for it. I don’t usually put on makeup before a Zoom or do my hair.” I don’t remember what I was wearing. I had a moment of like, “I know that they take me seriously because of the work that I do and the way that I speak. Did they deduct points because of the way I look? In other words, would I have earned more from them and their attention and approval had I been a little bit more polished?”

I love to think that no would be the answer, but the reality in which many of us operate in our society is leaning towards yes. We will generally perceive someone a certain way based on their appearance. It’s frustrating. If I’m working on these mental habits, especially around my body size, if I don’t want to fight my body all the time, what I’ve been working on is being mindful of how I treat my body physically and mentally.

Being Mindful To Your Body Physically And Mentally

I’ve been mindful of drinking water. I am good. This water bottle has changed my life and my relationship with water. It’s called the Hidrate. They are not a sponsor. I didn’t even get this water bottle from them but I did get it as a gift. It’s wonderful. I’d probably use an affiliate link so if you buy one, I might make a little commission, in full transparency. No agenda in mentioning them other than to say I’m so thrilled at how hydrated my body is at all times, but it didn’t change my body size.

Some people recommend water as if it’s going to be some game-changer. It has done wonders for my organs, including my skin, but it hasn’t helped me lose weight. I’m mindful of food. I find myself eating comfort food and snacks and stuff, but I’ve realized I enjoy that. I enjoy snacking. I enjoy having a sweet treat. Aside from those two things that I do very regularly, I’m present to the fact that I nourish my body with great food. Unless I am mindful of what I’m eating all the time, I will not lose weight and that’s okay.

Be mindful of how you treat your body both physically and mentally. Click To Tweet

I’m drinking water and I’m eating food to take care of my insides. I’m allowing myself to snack and have sweets because that scratches an emotional itch. I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like it’s junk food when I eat potato chips that I love. I love grain-free tortilla chips from time to time. I love grain-free foods because they feel better to me than gluten, which I’m sensitive to.

I’m treating my body a certain way because I would rather pay closer attention to how I feel. If my stomach isn’t upset, that’s a win. If my skin isn’t itching, that’s a win for me. If I don’t feel super bloated or inflamed, that’s a win. For so much of my life, weight was always the primary concern when it came to food.

As I’ve mentioned before and done an entire episode on December 31st with my friend Liz, I have felt good about eating a vegan keto diet. That doesn’t always feel good to me emotionally. Physically, it’s one of the best that I felt. Right now, I feel a little inflamed. I can feel it in my neck. It’s frustrating because I have felt positive about my food choices emotionally and physically, yet sometimes I still feel like my body is inflamed.

This is one of the big reasons the keto diet has felt so good for me over the past few years off and on that I’ve been dabbling in it. I generally do not feel inflamed. There’s something about either the carbohydrates or certain foods that I’ve been mindful not to eat when I try out that way of eating. I’ve also found that that diet can feel very restrictive. Mentally, I don’t always want to restrict myself. That feels not worth it.

Physically, I have taken tests and been evaluated by a doctor a bunch of times in 2021. My blood work is good. All things considered, I’m healthy, so I’m taking good care of myself. What I was trying to figure out how to formulate is that it’s all a mental health thing for me. Sometimes I prefer to feel mentally comforted by food and not restricted. Other times, I prefer to feel mentally better about my body. It’s certainly the inflammation side that I sense, whether it’s my imagination or not.

I like the sensation on my body of feeling less inflamed but sometimes I’m willing to feel some inflammation because the food that I ate was comforting. I have to go through a list of everything I ate and what could have possibly made me feel inflamed. It’s tough having a lot of food sensitivities. As I talked about with Liz on meat-free keto, both of us have had this journey of being drawn to the keto way of eating because we both have a ton of food sensitivities and it’s tough.

We also grew up with very similar mothers so I’ve often wondered, “Do we develop food sensitivities as some psychological reaction?” Liz also has some more challenging relationships with food on a physical level than I don’t have. Navigating food has always been challenging for me physically and mentally, and that can be exhausting. Sometimes I eat gluten and I’m like, “I know this is not going to make me feel good. I’m going to ‘pay’ for this for a few days, but I will eat it anyway.” At that moment, that food feels like the best choice for me mentally.

MGU 343 | Being Seen

Being Seen: Navigating food can be challenging for some people, both physically and mentally. They eat something, knowing that they’re going to pay for this someday. They eat whatever feels best for their mental health.

 

I would rather not push against that. I would rather not resist that because I’ve spent so much of my life battling what I wanted and feeling like I couldn’t have it, I had to conform, and I had to abide by other people’s rules. That’s so exhausting. A lot of this is experimenting and embracing the fact that my body and my mind are constantly changing. That’s the message that I thought would be helpful to share because I know I’m not alone in a lot of this.

What works for other people does not necessarily work for me and it may not work for you either. Ask ourselves, “Do we need to constantly be changing?” What’s interesting about that is that we are constantly changing. Let me clarify, do we need to be constantly adjusting ourselves? It’s interesting to pause and think about this because our bodies are evolving. Our brains are evolving overtime all the time. In subtle ways, we are aging, learning, and experiencing new things. All of that leads to a change. It’s a ripple effect. We are never the same.

Yet, a lot of us try to resist that. Maybe we want to cling to who we used to be. Maybe we feel like we have to constantly keep ourselves balanced, resisting the changes like, “I’m always going to have to try to keep myself in this middle ground even if I’m swinging one way or another.” It’s like driving. If you let go of the wheel, your car would probably go in a direction you didn’t want it to. You have to constantly adjust the tires to stay on track for where you want to go. That’s a lot of work.

It’s perfect timing for me on my road trip. It can feel like just driving is so exhausting. I’ve noticed this on my road trips. When I finally get to a destination, I feel so tired even though my body has been sitting in the same position and all I did was drive. I didn’t work and do the other things that felt so intensive for the rest of my life, just driving takes a lot out of this.

What if we applied that to the rest of our lives and realize when we’re constantly trying to keep ourselves in line, it is taking a lot of energy? What if we let go of the wheel a little bit more and just let ourselves be? That’s hard and uncomfortable. I don’t think I’m going to be there. I bought all these new clothes, not a ton. I bought a few new outfits and I’ll probably feel more confident wearing them. The reason is that I’ll look better than I do right now in my black t-shirt and the sweatpants that I’m wearing underneath the table.

I picked these outfits because they felt flattering. They emphasize parts of my body that I feel good about. They don’t exaggerate the parts of my body like my stomach that I feel insecure about. They minimize it. That’s what I would consider flattering. It still feels like a bit of a facade. I’ll probably curl my hair. Most days, I wear my hair up in a messy bun with zero intention behind it, just to get it out of my face. At events like this, I usually let my hair down literally and figuratively. I curl my hair and I put on makeup. I’m there in a way that is not truly authentic to who I am for the rest of my life.

I don’t like showing up in that way but I do know that if I were to show up to an event dressed as I am right now, I would feel so unattractive and uncomfortable. That’s not the way I want to be seen, which is interesting. The fact that I don’t want to be seen for who I am at my most comfortable is a little sad to me. If I allow myself to be comfortable, that is not a state in which I want other people to witness me. In other words, I generally want to be seen for who I am when I’m controlled.

Be seen for who you are. Control the way other people see you. Click To Tweet

True Love And Support

I want to control the way other people see me because I’ve been taught that that is acceptable. It’s unacceptable to be seen as comfortable and natural. That to me is a little bit mind-blowing. I was talking to a friend who’s going through a rough time. This friend shared that they were having a tough day and somebody came to support them. They felt a little insecure about their appearance because they were not wearing a nice outfit or not doing their hair. They describe themselves as a little bit of a wreck.

The context in which they shared this was like, “I can’t believe this person cared about me despite what I looked like.” I thought, “Of course, they cared about you. This person loves you. They’re there to be supportive of you going through a rough time. They’re not expecting you to have your hair done and be wearing a nice outfit, and they probably didn’t even notice.”

If my friend called me and said, “I’m going through a rough time. I need you to support me. Will you please come over?” The last thing I’d be thinking about is their appearance. I might notice it but I could care less. That is true love and support. That’s true acceptance. That’s what I hope for with other people perceiving me.

In fact, even though I feel pressure to show up a certain way with my sister, she is not expecting me to look polished all the time. She might have that expectation if we go out somewhere, but I certainly don’t feel like I have to dress up for my sister every second that we’re together. She doesn’t expect that of me and she doesn’t care. Neither do the other people in my life whom I have loving relationships with. Those are the safe people. Isn’t that odd that we separate people? At least I do. A lot of us do.

We have our family members and our close friends. They’re the ones that can see us looking natural and comfortable. God forbid, anyone in our professional lives sees us that way, and yet, I can guarantee that most people that we know professionally have that comfortable side. We’re seeing them in this uncomfortable fake state most of the time. We’re all putting on these acts. This is generalizing. I’m not saying everyone is like that.

I’ve leaned into the fact that I’m not wearing makeup or doing my hair to go to a Zoom meeting. If these were in-person meetings, I probably would. When I went to the clothing store, I was just wearing an outfit of leggings and a workout top because that’s what was clean and comfortable. I remember the whole day I was out wearing that. I thought, “I look awful.” I was constantly having these moments of discomfort and not wanting anyone to see me.

Even though I chose to go out wearing that, I felt self-conscious about it while I was out and felt like I should have dressed up to go to the clothing store. It’s funny for me because it’s so silly. They were all strangers. Who cares? Many of us care. We’ve been trained to care. The reality is if I were to think about all the people that I passed by and the few people that I interacted with when I was at that shop and running some other errands, I have no idea what they were wearing. I don’t remember what their hair was like. What I remember was how they treated me, as cliché as that sounds.

MGU 343 | Being Seen

Being Seen: When someone is having a hard time and needs you as support, the last thing you should be thinking about is their appearance.

 

There’s one guy in particular who was working at this optical shop. I went to get new glasses as part of my errands. He was so nice. The only reason he stands out in my mind physically is that I wanted to take in all of him. I remember how he made me feel. I was noticing him not because I was judging him but because I was like, “This man is amazing.”

From an aura energy standpoint, he had this beautiful shininess about him. It wasn’t about his outfit. I could not tell you what he was wearing. I remember that he had nice hair. Whatever outfit he was wearing, I perceived it to be nice but I couldn’t tell you what it was. I could just remember how he made me feel.

I remember how the employees made me feel when I went to my PO box. They always make me feel good. They’re nice people. I don’t care what I wear to the PO box because we all like each other, at least I think so. I think it’s mutual. I never worry about what I’m going to wear there because they light up when they see me. We light up when we see each other. It has nothing to do with appearance.

I felt most insecure around strangers who I was just passing by at the clothing store. That’s so strange. I don’t remember what any of them were wearing. I’m fascinated by the fact that I’m excited about all my outfits. Maybe I feel like I’m playing a role. Maybe the outfits feel like costumes. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an occasion. Many of us look forward to getting dressed up, and maybe that’s what it’s about.

It’s not that I’m going somewhere to be fake, be someone different than I am, and mask myself. That’s certainly part of it because it’s not truly representative of who I am on a regular basis. I’m playing a role and maybe that’s why I’m looking forward to it. It’s like, “I get to do something different and dress up and act.” Around my sister, that’ll be interesting after processing this out loud.

I will have a lot to share about that event and my whole trip. Let’s see. I’ll be doing a few more episodes before I leave for the trip. I’m so excited to have some time off. I did my last guest episode and I’m taking a full two and a half weeks off from this show. I do have another podcast that I do weekly. I’ll certainly be doing work at this event. I have clients there and I’m presenting a talk there. It’s not quite a vacation for a full two weeks.

Outside of that event, I won’t be working a ton. I’ll be visiting a few friends. I’ll be going to the national parks. I’m so excited and I can’t wait to drive. Even though it feels exhausting like work, I love driving. I’m listening to audiobooks and podcasts, and listening to nothing. It’s sad because Evie is not coming with me. I’m still debating. I’m like, “Should I make a last-minute decision for her to come with me?” I’m still 90% sure that I’m going to leave her behind and it makes me sad. The bonding that I feel with Evie on these road trips is so special.

People don't remember you for what you're wearing. They remember you for how you treat them. Click To Tweet

I’m going to a conference and I’m going to a concert with my sister. I’m doing a bunch of things. There’s always an extra element of taking care of Evie that I don’t mind, but it adds more stress, consideration and adjustments. I want to give myself the freedom to truly do the trip. I was going to say on my own but I’m not going to be on my own most of the trip. The driving will be on my own and it’ll be interesting to experience it without her but it’s hard. She’s my little companion and comfort. I feel so connected to her. It’s hard for me to leave her.

Maybe I’ll have more to report about that. I know I’ll have more to report about the trip, but the Evie side of it would be interesting. With all that said, which is a phrase that Jason used to say a lot when he was on the show. As I’ve been editing the YouTube videos, I noticed that he would end almost every episode saying, “With that said,” and then he would say, “You can visit Wellevatr.com for the show notes.”

I don’t know much to point you to aside from the YouTube video whenever that goes up and referencing some other episodes. Beyond Measure is worth mentioning after the topic of this episode. If you didn’t know about that, it’s my private community that I’ve been working on for a few years now. It’s rooted in this concept of accepting people as they are. I encourage people to be their full selves, feel comfortable, and show up in their comfortable selves. I certainly do. I never wear makeup. I sometimes don’t even clean my home.

I show up to Beyond Measure as I am. When I say that, we have weekly calls where we support each other, talk through things, and do group activities. I have a special guest lined up for the near future. That’s a new feature that I’ve added. We have a private community where you can post, share updates, ask questions, get support, and support others. It brings me so much joy. It’s developing now that I’ve decided to share it.

I spent the first year and a half of Beyond Measure keeping it very private, testing it out, and exploring it. It has only been the past few months that I’ve started talking about it publicly. I invite you to come to join. I am working on charging for it at some point. I don’t know when that will be. As of the end of April 2022, it’s free. I added new features to it that have cost me money so it’s time for me to charge a little bit. I want to keep it a nominal fee that does not prohibit anyone from joining.

I always want to keep the option open for someone to join for free. I have to work out how that would be. If cost is ever a barrier to joining Beyond Measure, please let me know because I would love to have you there. Having people that listen to the podcast as part of Beyond Measure is the greatest thing. There are a few members in there who listen regularly and sometimes they share their notes and thoughts on episodes. It’s cool.

Beyond Measure is not about me. It is about everybody collectively in this community. The members are unbelievable. There are a few core members who show up to every single call and post frequently there. I’ve also built in the reward system, which I talked about in the Web3 episode. I have this social token called the WELL coin. It’s part of this platform called Rally. I started rewarding people who participate in Beyond Measure with free cryptocurrency.

If you haven’t seen the Web3 episode and this makes zero sense to you, I encourage you to read that because I explained all about it. Speaking of cryptocurrency, I have been deep in research about the environmental sides of cryptocurrency and NFTs. I’m working on an episode for my Web3 podcast, Web3 With Whitney, to talk all about that and explain what I’ve learned. It has been eye-opening.

If you’d like to learn about that, if that’s a concern of yours, which we should all be concerned about, I will let you know about that when it comes out. You can also go to the Web3 With Whitney page and check out past episodes. Depending on when you read this, that episode might be out. Thank you so much for reading. I’ll be back with the next guest episode. Bye.

 

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