Hello Reader,

I have something to share, and I wanted to tell the tribe on this list first. I have decided to take a little break from interviewing for the podcast. Season 8 was a beast in the best and most complicated ways. There were some incredible conversations, but there were also interviews that never happened for all kinds of reasons: schedules changed, timing was off, life happened, and somewhere in the middle of trying to keep all the plates spinning, I realized I was ready for something different.

I had a long conversation with my girl Cyn about the show, where I am creatively, and what I actually want to talk about right now. She agreed with something I think I already knew. It was time for me to focus on solo episodes for a while and get back to centering my own audio conversations with you. I love interviewing people, and I am sure I will return to it, but right now I have some things on my mind, and I want the space to really talk about them.

So I am beginning with a four-part series called Life, Unedited. The idea grew out of conversations I have been having with women about this constant pressure to reinvent ourselves, improve ourselves, heal another thing, become more successful, more disciplined, more polished, more whatever. At some point I started wondering, when exactly do we get to just be ourselves? When do we get to slow down long enough to hear what we actually want instead of constantly looking outside of ourselves for another version to become?

Part One is Episode 181, Why Don’t I Feel Like Myself? We talk about comparison, identity, the pressure to constantly improve, and how easy it is to lose your own voice when you are consuming everybody else’s version of what a good life is supposed to look like. Their career, their body, their marriage, their house, their healing journey, their success, their morning routine, and all the rest of it. After a while, you can start looking at a perfectly good life and wondering why yours feels wrong, when maybe the deeper issue is that you have been surrounded by so much noise you have not had enough room to hear yourself.

That is really where this series is going. Not into some dramatic “burn your life down and start over” conversation, because you know that is not how I think. I am much more interested in what happens when we get honest about who we are now, what we have outgrown, what still matters, what we want to keep, and what we may be ready to stop carrying just because everybody is used to seeing us carry it. I want these episodes to give us some room to breathe and take some of the pressure off ourselves to be perfect, ever-evolving, and ever so dignified. Well, that last one may be mostly for me.

There are a few coaching questions at the end of Episode 181, and the whole series pairs beautifully with Envision. I keep describing it like a great meal with a bottle of wine because one opens up the conversation and the other gives you somewhere to sit with everything that comes up. Envision gives you the privacy and structure to really ask yourself what you want now, what you are envisioning for your life, and what needs to happen next.

I hope you enjoy this series, and I also want you in the conversation with me. If something comes up while you are listening, if you have a question, disagree with me, or there is something I say that makes you want me to go a little deeper, hit reply and tell me. I am going to pull some of those questions into the next episodes because I want Life, Unedited to feel like the conversations we would be having if we were all sitting around the same table.

And I know you probably have a friend or two who needs this conversation too. Now, don’t go forwarding my little insider email because I told you first, but you can absolutely send her the podcast link. ​

Oh... and I updated our website: www.blackwomenamplified.com​

Have a great Labor Day and stay hydrated,

Monica Wisdom