You Are Not What Happened to You — Here's What to Do With It | EP 318

You Are Not What Happened to You — Here's What to Do With It | EP 318

According to history, my life wasn't supposed to amount to much. Divorced. Single mom raising two babies on my own. And then I lost my two anchors in this world. Any one of those things could have taken me completely out of the game — but what happened to me was never meant to be my whole story. And friend, neither was yours. Friend, I'm getting personal about the years I spent stewing in what happened — and the simple three-step process that helped me step out of it, reclaim my power, and build a life I am genuinely in love with. Because you are not what happened to you. You are the one who gets to decide what you will do with it and what you will build instead. If you have ever felt defined by your past, stuck in the why and the how-could-they, or like the hard things you've been through have quietly staked a claim over your future — this episode is for you. WE’RE TALKING: → Why we get stuck in the story of what happened — and why it's keeping you from the future you actually want → The difference between giving something its airtime and giving it all of your time → Why the hero's journey resonates with all of us and what that means for your own story → The three-step process to reclaim your power and your position: process and release, reclaim your power, and define your new story → Why healing is not something you Amazon Prime your way through — and how to grant yourself grace in the process → How falling in love with yourself opens the door for everything else TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 My Story Isn’t Over 01:35 You Decide What’s Next 04:21 Grief Changed Everything 06:36 Stop Living the Before 08:13 Who Will You Become 10:14 Create Heaven on Earth 11:03 The How Better Questions 12:24 Self Love Two Step 15:47 Grace Over Timelines 16:45 Write Your New Story 19:03 Final Encouragement THE SELF LOVE 2-STEP REMIX Knowing is one thing — but we don't just talk about it around here, we ‘be’ about it. Here's your remix for this episode: Step 1 — Process and release. Honor the story. Do the work. Get whatever support you need to walk through it. There is no shame in needing help — that is wisdom, not weakness. Just don't stay there. Open your hand and allow the release. Step 2 — Reclaim your power. You get to decide who you will be in spite of what happened — or because of it. Don't let a season assign you a permanent label. That power belongs to you. Step 3 — You get still. You get quiet. And you ask yourself: what is my heart telling me to do next? Whatever comes up is your next right aligned step. Not the whole plan — just the next move. Trust her, friend. She already knows. GET YOUR JOURNAL PROMPTS Want to go deeper on this episode? Journal prompts are waiting for you — designed to help you get clear on your desires, honor yourself now, and start stepping toward your next level with intention and without guilt. 👉 Get Yours [https://encourageovereverything.com/shop] LET’S STAY CONNECTED 📍Come share what shifted for you after this episode. Drop a review, comment on a YouTube video, or hit reply on the weekly Love Notes newsletter. 💌Not on the Love Notes list yet? Join at the link below — it is the best way to stay connected and keep the encouragement coming straight to your inbox every week. 👉 Subscribe Here [https://encourageoe.myflodesk.com/mylib] 📺 New videos DAILY on YouTube: @EO_E [https://youtube.com/@eo_e] 🎙️ New podcast episodes every Tuesday and Thursday 🌐 encourageovereverything.com [http://encourageovereverything.com] 🎵 Music: It's Easy to Love You 💖💖 Confident and Empowered Women with Letitia Hopkins drops every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today's conversation shifted something for you, leave a review — your words help other women find this podcast and there is a woman out there right now who needs exactly what you just heard.

You Are Not Who You Used To Be | EP 317

Friend, have you ever looked up in the middle of your life and felt like a stranger was living it? Like the woman you used to be is somewhere you cannot quite reach, and you have been quietly searching for her ever since — retracing your steps, looking in all the usual places, wondering if you left her somewhere in the loss? That is exactly where this episode meets you. And I need you to know: what you have been calling lost is actually layers. When my mom made her transition to heaven, I thought I had lost myself right along with her. What I found on the other side of that grief changed everything about how I understand identity, becoming, and what it actually means to get to know yourself in a new season of life. And today I am sharing all of it with you. IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT: ➡️ Why feeling like a stranger in your own life after a major transition is not loss — it is layers rising to the surface ➡️ The difference between the core of who you are (which never left) and the new parts of you this season has been calling forward ➡️ Why getting to know yourself is not a crisis — it is a practice most of us have never stopped long enough to do SELF LOVE 2-STEP REMIX — Step 1 — Name what stayed. Write down at least three things about you that have never changed no matter what season you have been in. Your values. What you will not compromise. What makes you laugh even on a hard day. Start with your favorite color if that is all you have — because you still know it, and that is proof you are still in there. Step 2 — Name one new layer. One thing this season has revealed that was not on the surface before. A new limit you are holding. A new way you love. A new thing you care about. You do not need the whole list. One is enough to start. Name her. Honor her. She showed up for you. Step 3 — The YOU Step: You get still. You get quiet. And you ask yourself — what is my heart telling me to do next? Whatever comes up, that is your next right aligned step. Not the whole plan. Just the next move. Trust her, Friend. She already knows. LOVE NOTE — THE TRUTH THIS EPISODE IS ANCHORED IN ~ You are not who you used to be. And that is not a sign that something went wrong. That is a sign that you have been living. The seasons have been doing exactly what they were designed to do — building something in you that had to be built through the going, not around it. The woman you are becoming is not a lesser version of who you were. She is a fuller one. And it is time to reintroduce yourself. GET YOUR JOURNAL PROMPTS Want to go deeper on this episode? Journal prompts are waiting for you — designed to help you get clear on your desires, honor yourself now, and start stepping toward your next level with intention and without guilt. 👉 Get Yours [https://encourageovereverything.com/shop] LET’S STAY CONNECTED 📍Come share what shifted for you after this episode. Drop a review, comment on a YouTube video, or hit reply on the weekly Love Notes newsletter. 💌Not on the Love Notes list yet? Join at the link below — it is the best way to stay connected and keep the encouragement coming straight to your inbox every week. 👉 Subscribe Here [https://encourageoe.myflodesk.com/mylib] 📺 New videos DAILY on YouTube: @EO_E [https://youtube.com/@eo_e] 🎙️ New podcast episodes every Tuesday and Thursday 🌐 encourageovereverything.com [http://encourageovereverything.com] 🎵 Music: It's Easy to Love You 💖💖 Confident and Empowered Women with Letitia Hopkins drops every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today's conversation shifted something for you, leave a review — your words help other women find this podcast and there is a woman out there right now who needs exactly what you just heard.

From Bracing for the Worst to Expecting the Best | EP 316

I went from being a single mom who handled every single thing alone for years — to being a married woman with a man who genuinely wanted to show up for me. And I almost could not let him. Not because he was not everything. Because I had been bracing for the worst for so long I forgot that good things were even an option for me. If you have ever gotten good news and immediately started waiting for the catch, if someone has tried to show up for you and your first instinct was to question the ease, if you have been so strong for so long that receiving feels almost foreign to you — friend, this episode is for us. IN THIS EPISODE We are going all the way into the identity of the woman who has learned to expect the worst — and how she becomes the woman who can actually hold space for the best. Bracing is not just a habit you picked up. It is an identity you built to protect yourself. And it worked — until it started keeping out everything you said you wanted. We talk about why women are natural receivers and how the "I handle everything alone" identity quietly shuts that capacity off. And what it actually takes to put the shield down safely, learn who is safe to receive from, and start letting the good things land. → Why bracing for the worst is an identity, not just a thought pattern → How to stop filtering every signal through the worst-case scenario and start asking what it might be pointing you toward → Why strong women who have done everything alone struggle to receive — and why that capacity never actually left → The difference between being naive and being a woman who has done enough work to take the armor off → A three-step practice for learning to receive — starting small, building trust, and staying open long enough to find out if something is actually good TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Why I Made This 01:07 For the Strong Woman 03:07 Single Mom Survival Mode 04:08 When Help Feels Unsafe 05:45 Bracing Becomes Identity 08:33 Signals or Invitations 10:39 Put Down the Armor 11:30 Journal Prompts Offer 12:16 Practice Receiving Steps 15:04 Final Encouragement GET YOUR JOURNAL PROMPTS Want to go deeper on this episode? Journal prompts are waiting for you — designed to help you get clear on your desires, honor yourself now, and start stepping toward your next level with intention and without guilt. 👉 Get Yours [https://encourageovereverything.com/shop] LET’S STAY CONNECTED 📍Come share what shifted for you after this episode. Drop a review, comment on a YouTube video, or hit reply on the weekly Love Notes newsletter. 💌Not on the Love Notes list yet? Join at the link below — it is the best way to stay connected and keep the encouragement coming straight to your inbox every week. 👉 Subscribe Here [https://encourageoe.myflodesk.com/mylib] 📺 New videos DAILY on YouTube: @EO_E [https://youtube.com/@eo_e] 🎙️ New podcast episodes every Tuesday and Thursday 🌐 encourageovereverything.com [http://encourageovereverything.com] 🎵 Music: It's Easy to Love You 💖💖 Confident and Empowered Women with Letitia Hopkins drops every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today's conversation shifted something for you, leave a review — your words help other women find this podcast and there is a woman out there right now who needs exactly what you just heard.

She Stopped Performing Perfect and He Actually Stayed | EP 315

If you have ever performed the easygoing, low-maintenance, go-with-the-flow version of yourself for someone who was not even close to being your person — this episode is going to hit home. Identity Shift Coach Letitia Hopkins gets radically honest about a decade of dating, the situationships, the convincing game, and the moment grief stripped away every mask she had ever worn. What happened next is the identity shift that changed everything. Because the right relationship does not require you to be perfect. It requires you to be real. This is the conversation on perfectionism in relationships, people pleasing, and what it actually takes to attract the love you have been praying for — and it starts with you going first. WE'RE GETTING INTO: ✦ Why performing the perfect, easy, low-maintenance version of yourself in relationships is not love — it is fear, and what it has been quietly costing you ✦ The mirror principle in relationships: how the identity shift from people pleasing to radical self-acceptance changes who and what you attract ✦ The real story behind a decade of situationships, the catfishing (including a very memorable 4'11" moment), and how grief became the greatest identity shift of Letitia's life ✦ Why you cannot attract everything while you are still entertaining nothing — and what it looks like to finally stop auditioning for a role that was already yours ✦ How declaring your identity out loud — even before the evidence arrives — is what moves you from performing to receiving THE SELF LOVE 2 STEP — SHE STOPPED PERFORMING PERFECT Step 1 — The Honesty Step: Pick one relationship where you have been performing a version of yourself. Write down what you edit out when you are with this person. What do you not say? What do you not ask for? What do you pretend you are okay with? That list is showing you where the performance lives. Step 2 — The Declaration Step: Write the sentence the real, unperformed version of you would actually say. Start with: "I am a woman who does not shrink to fit. I am a woman who..." Read it out loud. That is your new standard. Any relationship that cannot hold it is information, not a failure. Step 3 — The YOU Step: You get still. You get quiet. And you ask yourself — what is my heart telling me to do next? Whatever comes up, that is your next right aligned step. Not the whole plan. Just the next move. Trust her, Friend. She already knows. GET YOUR JOURNAL PROMPTS Want to go deeper on this episode? Journal prompts are waiting for you — designed to help you get clear on your desires, honor yourself now, and start stepping toward your next level with intention and without guilt. 👉 Get Yours [https://encourageovereverything.com/shop] LET’S STAY CONNECTED 📍Come share what shifted for you after this episode. Drop a review, comment on a YouTube video, or hit reply on the weekly Love Notes newsletter. 💌Not on the Love Notes list yet? Join at the link below — it is the best way to stay connected and keep the encouragement coming straight to your inbox every week. 👉 Subscribe Here [https://encourageoe.myflodesk.com/mylib] 📺 New videos DAILY on YouTube: @EO_E [https://youtube.com/@eo_e] 🎙️ New podcast episodes every Tuesday and Thursday 🌐 encourageovereverything.com [http://encourageovereverything.com] 🎵 Music: It's Easy to Love You 💖💖 Confident and Empowered Women with Letitia Hopkins drops every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today's conversation shifted something for you, leave a review — your words help other women find this podcast and there is a woman out there right now who needs exactly what you just heard.

You Tolerated So Much You Forgot What You Deserve | EP 314

Have you been making excuses for people and situations that had absolutely no business getting that level of grace from you? Friend, what you keep accepting is a direct reflection of what you believe you deserve. And that is an identity conversation we are having today — with love, laughter, and zero shame. This is not a boundary pep talk. This is an identity shift. Because what you tolerate reveals what you think you deserve. And the life you want cannot coexist with what you have been accepting. WHAT WE COVER: ➡️ How tolerating is not a passive act — every yes you did not mean is a quiet declaration about your self worth ➡️ Why high achieving women stay stuck in people pleasing and over giving cycles and what the identity belief underneath it is really saying ➡️ A loving honest inventory across your relationships, your work, and your boundaries with yourself ➡️ How to use radical honesty and radical grace at the same time so awareness becomes a tool for identity shift and not a weapon against yourself ➡️ Why the standard starts with you — and how to close the gap between who you are and the woman you are becoming THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF you are an ambitious woman who feels externally successful but internally disconnected, you have been showing up for everyone except yourself, and you are ready to stop tolerating your way out of your destiny. GET YOUR JOURNAL PROMPTS Want to go deeper on this episode? Journal prompts are waiting for you — designed to help you get clear on your desires, honor yourself now, and start stepping toward your next level with intention and without guilt. 👉 Get Yours [https://encourageovereverything.com/shop] LET’S STAY CONNECTED 📍Come share what shifted for you after this episode. Drop a review, comment on a YouTube video, or hit reply on the weekly Love Notes newsletter. 💌Not on the Love Notes list yet? Join at the link below — it is the best way to stay connected and keep the encouragement coming straight to your inbox every week. 👉 Subscribe Here [https://encourageoe.myflodesk.com/mylib] 📺 New videos DAILY on YouTube: @EO_E [https://youtube.com/@eo_e] 🎙️ New podcast episodes every Tuesday and Thursday 🌐 encourageovereverything.com [http://encourageovereverything.com] 🎵 Music: It's Easy to Love You ABOUT THE PODCAST Confident and Empowered Women is the podcast for high achieving women ready to close the gap between who they are and who they know they were built to be. Hosted by Letitia Hopkins, Identity Shift Coach and founder of Encourage Over Everything, new episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday. SUBSCRIBE so you never miss a thing!