Beauti: The Interviews

In this episode, we sat down with Amanda. Amanda is a survivor of birth trauma, a very real experience for many women who have given birth. Challenging the idea that the only "successful" birth story is the one that goes perfectly according to plan, Amanda shares what it was like to walk through an experience that didn't follow the arc she expected. She opens up about how the impact of the trauma didn't surface immediately, but when it did, it began to distort her understanding of the birth process as a whole - an important point for women to hear as they recover from giving birth and find that healing is a multi-faceted, many months-long process. Amanda is tender and vulnerable and completely accessible as she shares from some of her deepest pain and her deepest joy. + Resources for Survivors = Prevention and Treatment of Traumatic Childbirth  QC Women's Therapy

 +Trigger Warning: Sexual violence, domestic abuse, PTSD, depression, chronic pain, miscarriage+ In this episode, we sit down with Jackie - a woman who has survived serial trauma, beginning with a violent sexual assault during high school. The content of Jackie's story makes it one of the most intense of the entire season, but as the storyteller, Jackie does the most incredible job giving access to painful parts of her past without transferring her pain on to the listener. She is resolute in her determination to heal, and her resilience is a testament to the strength of the human spirit. She shares from the darkest parts of her history, and at the same time, manages to shine a light forward, passing on hope to anyone who will listen. Resources for Survivors: RAINN Family Resources NAMI

We've spent a year and a half bringing you the voices of women who demonstrate strength and resilience. We have invited you to open yourself in the same way. But until this podcast, we never offered you any tools to help you put yourself back together after we invite you to let yourself fall apart.   Today's pod is the first of many full of tips and tricks from our very own beauty, Nicole. Nicole is one of the people who helps us create at The Beautifull Project. She is also a trained therapist, an artist, and a brilliant woman. She shares tactics you can apply to every area of your life.. from a major traumatic event to the stressful meeting with your boss (which can feel like a major, traumatic event to be sure)... that will allow you to engage that bad ass brain and move yourself down the path of healing.

 +Trigger Warning: Sexual abuse + "I had finally dug up some self worth and I was ready to throw it around a little." In this episode, we welcome Kira to the mic to tell her story. Kira shares her story about the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of a trusted teacher during her adolescence, a story that is difficult to hear, but so very important to take in. But at the core of Kira's story, the listener will discover that Kira's story is also about her desire to belong, to feel seen, to be known and loved. And the great lengths the human spirit will extend toward in order to experience a sense of belonging. Resources for Survivors of Sexual Assault: RAINN Family Resources

+Trigger Warning: Sexual Violence+   In this episode, we welcome Dr. Kit Ford, Founder of Argrow's House of Healing and sexual violence survivor. Dr. Kit is a force for good in her community, and exudes a sense of purpose about her life in the most beautiful way. Dr. Kit's traumatic experiences do not define her, but have instead shaped her in a way that makes her able to lend hope and healing to other women. She shares her healing journey on the pod and provides inspiration and direction for other women who are surviving in their own right.   You can check out Argrow's House at www.argrowshouse.org.  Argrow's House is a house of healing that provides direct services to survivors and also creates survivor-made bath and body products.    Local resources for survivors of sexual violence: Family Resources National resources for survivors of sexual violence: RAINN

There is nothing more inspiring than a woman who challenges the expectations set in front of her and this woman… she has all the inspiration we need to remember what we are made of when our life requires resilience. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a baby, Sarah has lived and moved in a disabled body for her entire life. In this interview, she shares what it was like to navigate her adolescence, the ways she allowed the pain to take her to some dark places, and the hope she found when she began to find a way to hold out for the kindness. Sarah is brave and beautifull and her episode is live on the pod today!

+Trigger Warning+ Eating Disorder, Depression   In this episode, we welcomed Stephanie to the mic. Stephanie is a survivor of an eating disorder and an advocate for other survivors. She has spent most of her life looking for healing… not just for the eating disorder, but to find a deeper understanding of herself, of all of the things that seemed to ail her. In this interview, she talks about belonging, about the ways she searched for healing outside of her, and about how much power she’s found having arrived at a place that gives her permission to love herself. And as we continue to exist in a culture that saturates us with deeply disordered ideas about our relationship with food and with our bodies, the insight she shares takes on more urgent meaning. She tells her story in a way where the details can become recognizable in our collective experience with food and body, making the healing a collective possibility as well. Stephanie is whole and wholehearted, and we can be too.   Resources for Survivors:

"What matters most is how we walk through the fire." - Charles Bukowski + Trigger Warning+ Sexual assault, PTSD In this episode, we welcomed Maggie to the mic to tell her survival story. Maggie is a semi-retired pageant girl and a two-time survivor of sexual assault. She transformed her pain into purpose by founding Trauma Queens, a nonprofit dedicated to helping other survivors of sexual assault - a bad ass, Beautifull move for sure. But do you know what else Maggie is? She is tired. She is recovering from a major loss last year - a loss she describes as the death of a lifelong dream - and she is tired. Tired of the rigidity, the obsessive pursuit of greatness, the endless expectation she be more. She is right in the middle of letting parts of her life come undone... and that is just as bad ass and Beautifull a thing as all of her other work that came before this part.  Maggie is grace and grit, full of healing wisdom and hope for the future. Resources for survivors of sexual assault: Local Resources:

"There is beauty in terror. No feeling is final. Just keep going."    +Tigger warning: Sexual assault, suicidal ideations, chronic pain, breast cancer + The episode kicks off the Survivor Series with a powerful interview with Laura, a survivor of sexual assault, 6 years of unimaginable chronic pain, and breast cancer. Laura is a force, but a gentle force - she offers the audience a new perspective on suffering, one that turns the listener toward hope. She has words of wisdom for transforming pain into purpose, a transformation she has allowed herself to undergo as a result of learning to survive. Join this chorus of courage by subscribing to Beauti: The Interviews and check out more about The Beautifull Project.   Local resources for sexual assault survivors: Family Resources: http://www.famres.org/services/survivor-services National Resouces: www.rainn.org Resources for people surviving central pain: America Stroke Association Resources for breast cancer survivors: Local: Gilda's Club National: S

Prepare to be filled, friends... Season Two is HERE! In this episode, Sarah spends just a few minutes prepping you for what you can expect from Beauti: The Interviews during this Season of Survivors. She talks trigger warnings, trauma, and big ass triumphs in this short intro.

Surprise! A bonus episode with Mikhayla Hughes-Shaw, Miss Iowa 2018. Mikhayla opened up about growing up in a body that she felt she needed to hide, about her decision to believe that she had more to offer the world than her body, about her commitment to helping other women know the same thing. Find out more about Mikhayla and her platform - How About Hope - at her website. www.mikhaylahughesshaw.com. Enjoy this special episode and be sure to subscribe to the podcast before the January 24th release of season two - the Season of Survivors.

In this episode, the Founder of the Beautifull Project tells her body story. She shares her earliest memories about being a little kid in a fat body, about a lifetime of disordered eating and body dysmorphia, about finding freedom in a chorus of courage that refuses to shrink in order to fit. This episode is the final episode in Season One: Taking Up Space, and she discusses the plans for Season Two: The Season of Survivors. You don't want to miss this one.

In this episode, we sat down with Ann, a woman who struggled to find her truth, but now speaks with a voice so clear and articulate that it's hard to hear anything but wisdom in her story. We made space in this interview for her story of living in a thin body. She laid out some great structure for the connection between weight and health, making way for a new understanding... one that is defined by the way our body FUNCTIONS as opposed to the way our bodies appear. We also talked about roller derby and burlesque and how we can only find our body by literally FINDING OUR BODY. She's a courageous genius, this one.

She's baaaack! Jessica joins us again, a happy, healthy, postpartum mama with some good stuff to share about the birth of her second child, about releasing herself from parent guilt, about beginning to accept the limits of her control.

In this episode, we make space for Nicole, an entrepreneur, an artist, a light to the people who are privileged enough to be near her. She helps us understand her experience as a child caught between her feuding parents. She sheds some light on the way access to food influences our relationship with food. She wants all of us to understand that fat is something she has, not something she is. This woman, and her words, are a gift.

In this episode, we sit down with Teri, a woman who weaves truth and humor together into a story that invites the audience to lean in. She survived an abusive childhood, an experience that she’s allowed to galvanize her into a force that unapologetically takes up space in the world.

In this episode, Kim talks about her own body story, one marked by her experience as an adopted child in a family with whom she shared no physical characteristics. Kim talks about searching for her people for the ones to whom she could belong and she ultimately channeled this sense of disconnection in a way that propelled her to discover the healing power of touch. As a massage therapist and body worker, Kim offers compassionate touch to her clients, accessing their healing by way of her own.

Trigger Warning: In this episode, Tiffany talks about surviving sexual assault and other forms of violence. She also references suicidal ideations and other substantial impacts of trauma. If any of these topics could be harmful to you, please exercise caution if you choose to listen.

In this episode, we talk with Jenna. Jenna is a woman with a story about awakening. She gently weaves her narrative through a childhood marked a body that was too much, around an adolescence tightly wrapped up by insecurity, and then directly toward a place of healing and transformation. She talks about starving and binging and obsession over every ounce of food that passed her lips. She unpacks her belief that the size of her body was directly proportionate to the amount of love she was worthy of receiving. She details the events that led to her healing with such crystal clear vision that it could make even the most cynical person believe that healing could be in their reach too.

In this episode, we interview Ashley, a mama, a wife, and a woman who has spent a lifetime trying to compensate for feeling like she was taking up too much space in the world. She tenderly shared a story from her childhood about understanding that she just didn’t fit, and went on to reveal the ways that she has worked to develop a personality that distracts people from the size of her body. We talked about people pleasing and the inevitable loss of self that we discover when we are constantly hustling for acceptance. We talked about raising daughters and the fact that we absolutely MUST unpack our own pain in order to be present to our girls. We talked about fear and pain and loss… and we talked about courage and hope and joy.