Monica Curtis Talks: Showing Up for Yourself

What does holding a mirror for yourself and others feel like? This podcast offers the realness of calling yourself on your own Bull$hit.

Together Joy! To-Get-Her-Joy blogger and writer Monica Inestroza-Curtis is our first guest on The Kindling Project, and she does not disappoint. Monica shares with us her journey to starting her blog, To-Get-Her-Joy, and the layered meaning of its title. She explains that during the height of pandemic chaos, she was compelled to put herself in a timeout. She had to get real with herself and call herself on her BS.

Monica explains what holding a mirror to herself and others looks like. In other words, Monica takes us down her path of vulnerability, humility, and overall badassery to truly show up in life.

Get to know our favorite girl with a pen by subscribing to her blog: https://togetherjoy.com/.  Learn more about The Kindling Project at our website: https://www.thekindlingproject.com/ and join our Facebook group for women looking for that extra kindling to start their next big fire! The Kindling Project - Ignite. The Kindling Project is sponsored by Memora, an experience design agency that creates memorable brand experiences. Memora is offering our listeners a FREE 30-minute brand consultation. Schedule yours now. 

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Transcript

Melissa: Hi everyone. It's Melissa and Amy. We're back with the kindling project podcast. We're here today with one of our favorite people, our friend Monica. Is a blogger. She's our neighbor. She's a community friend. And she's just the perfect guest for our podcast. This week. She has a kindling project of her own.

It is a blog called to get her joy or together joy. And it's just a really special meaningful. Storytelling place on the internet. Amy, do you wanna tell us a little bit more about it and introduce Monica? Yes. Thank you, Melissa. 

Monica: Hi, Monica. 

Amy: Welcome. We're so excited to have you here you are our first official guest here with our podcast.

Monica: So I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. Yay. 

Amy: We are so excited. We're truly so honored to have you here. And we're gonna, we're gonna talk a little bit about you and we're gonna talk a lot about you if that's okay to everybody out there, we just wanna say welcome. And we're just working through some kinks here.

This is our very first guest podcast. So please bear with us so Monica, I would like to introduce you now for the third time Monica 

Monica: Inestroza Curtis, 

right 

Amy: you are from central America, from Honduras. So 

Monica: that is correct. 

Amy: English is your second language. It is. And you can detect a small accent, but I also lived in Canada for many.

Monica: years so I often get asked if I'm Canadian, but it's a mix of everything, I think. 

Yes. And when did you come to the United States? 82. I was eight years old. 

. 

And I remember coming into this country flying in for the first time. And. Being stuck at afraid at the airport in Washington, because I had never seen escalators and we were all paralyzed. And my mom there's six of us. She had to like, usher us through one by one. Like it's okay, you got this. And that's the first memory I have of what America was. And it, everything seems so. Big and automated and fast. And it started with a stairwell, a automation there. 

Melissa: I'm still afraid of escalators 

Monica: yeah.

I know. 

Melissa: At least coming down. 

Monica: Exactly. Exactly. 

Amy: Yeah. You have to know how to get on them and you can't mess around. You gotta be holding on and I can only imagine as an eight year old with your family. How that just must have been, it just imprinted in your brain when that happened. What real quick, what number are you in the family? 

Monica: I'm number four. So I'm the ideal middle child of always trying to, and it all fits, trying to make everyone happy, compromised the negotiator and those, all those things had definitely rolled into my. Life 

Amy: Yeah, I have. So I have some questions about that, that I wanna tie into your blogging, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you a few other questions before I do that.

So one of the things that I am really impressed with reading, reading about your bio, is that what you talk about is do you go by to get her joy or do you say together joy? How do you phrase it? 

Monica: The point of it is just, it's meant to have people pause and try to understand it because it is a play on words.

It is to get her joy. And that is ultimately what I want all of us to do. But also is the word together in, in meaning that the only way to really do it is by a sisterhood of coming together. I got you, I got you, you got me. And that's why it fits perfectly. That to get hurt in order to, in order for us to get our joy.

I've seriously consider like my sisters, my friends, the two of you, the tribe we need each other to do so 

Amy: And that's what I love about to get her joy is that you describe it as essentially a call to action, to pause, to reflect and to re. And what's exciting about it is you say you lend your voice to basically blow up the false narrative of perfection.

So many of us women that we strive to, to be that look it's, we're never gonna achieve it. And so what you talk about is you talk about sharing the stage happily with women sharing stories, illuminating nudging, to do better, being better. Holding a mirror for those who need reminding. I love how you word that.

That is so powerful. That's really what we wanna talk about is essentially how that looks for you, how that shows up in your writing. 

Monica: Okay. 

Amy: And so we're really excited to know more about this because you really embody what the kindling project. You have bought well, we're all about, yeah.

Yes. Our core values. 

Melissa: It the minute I met you, and from my first reading of the blog, I felt like she's one of our sisters. This is exactly what our project is about. It just really resonated that it's all about creating a stage and creating a space for each other. 

Monica: Thanks for saying that.

Melissa, because that's really what I strive for. And I knew in order for this to be successful for me to start this project. the only way to come forward is by being vulnerable. And I really wanna resonate with women and I want them to not feel so alone. And the only way to do that is by sharing my stories.

And so therefore I have to be pretty honest with my feelings and, so through the blog, as you read through it I touch on mother. Being a wife being, choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. What, it's the guilt of when I worked the guilt of not working the ne never having enough time, the guilt of taking time.

And also just in sharing my messy there's so many messages of hope there. and then I get other women coming together again, the word together plays a lot and we grow together and realize that, Hey, it's okay. It's okay to feel this way. I. I'm no different than every other woman.

I have dealt with weight issues. I have dealt with insecurity issues. I have dealt with, a band image issues. I have dealt with too much issues, meaning too much luxuries, too much of fakey. What I like to call where you start heading a, down a different road and you realize, oh whoa.

This is not who I wanna be. And so you have to retract. So it's a constant battle and I feel that we need to start talking about it and being okay with that in order to really find our true joy figure out who we really are inside. And going back to those whispers that I often refer to that are in all of us.

Amy: . Yeah. And and that's something that Melissa and I talk about with the kindling project. It is about fueling fanning that fire inside. So obviously you've had. That fire inside. And so that's one of the first questions we wanna ask you is okay. When did that, if you have a memory, how long have you in, put pen to paper or tell us the evolution of this?

Melissa: Yeah. When did you start the blog and what made you start the blog? 

Monica: Like many of you. COVID hit. And we were stuck at home. And so here I am, my kids are in their room. I have two teenage boys that I refer to as thing one and thing two on my blogs and my writings, cuz I don't think that they want the world to know about 'em just yet.

So I still wanna protect them. They're in their bedrooms, teenagers. My husband's still working. Full on he's busy. I'm no longer having to be in 10 different places. I'm no longer out there fixing things. And I found myself like a lot of people immersed on the news and just getting angry, just being so angry at what I was seeing in the world and the divisiveness.

And I was thought to myself, After months of being angry, drinking too much. And frankly, eating myself to way too many brownies and cookies. I thought I can't do this. This is not who I wanna be. And I think I needed this entire world to strip away. I put it like I was actually being put in time out okay, you don't get friends, you don't get to save the world.

You have to go sit in your room. And when I realized that I'm like what do I do? What about me? Who am I? Because for the first time I had all this space and time, and I thought to myself, I am not liking this person that is evolving from this, and that's not who I am. So for me was, it was really taking a look.

I got on my Peloton, true story. I sweated it out and I said, no, this is not gonna be me. And I went back to my writing and I've always journaled and. Journaling has been something that has been close to my heart. Most of my life since being a little kid, I think being one of six kids, you get lost a lot in the middle.

And I, once I started journaling I went through a journal so quickly because I had so much to say, and then I put it away with the rest of my books and I looked up girls and I had volumes of my entire life and I thought to myself, oh, okay. Wait a minute as I started delving in and going through them, I thought, oh my gosh, the evolution of Monica has been so much that I think I'm onto something here.

And these are really honest words and raw words. Perhaps I'll put 'em out in the world and see if they resonate with others and that's how it evolved. It was during COVID. 

Amy: Wow. That's so you, it sounds like you really surprised yourself. So you had journals from all of these years, you saved all of them.

Monica: Yes. And part of my writing, if you go back I will actually pull entries from those that moment. So for example, my nephew had a, you. Passed away. He had he overdosed and this was over two years ago and there were journal entries from that moment. So those experiences that I share with my my followers are words that I was actually living and going through during those moments.

Wow. So they're very timed based on my life. 

Melissa: But it's universal that kind of pain, lives with, all of us. It doesn't have a time. It doesn't have a place and time. It's right. A universal experience. Another thing that you could talk about is you haven't just written about your own experiences.

I know that you have shared in our community, the experiences of others. So I think it would be if you're comfortable, if you could share a little bit about the recent experience that you shared on your blog about a community loss and someone else's experience. I think that's powerful work that you're doing.

Monica: Thank you. Yeah. I think, for me most of my life, a lot of my life has been trying to discover the beauty in pain. I think we all have scars. , how we choose to heal. it's up to us. I feel like too many women walk around with them too exposed, or just with a bandaid feel like it's really important to heal them.

And in, in discovering the purpose for that, I believe they're in every, in all our pain there is purpose. And so to me, it's really important to talk about that and shed some light on some amazing women. Who have done exactly that my sister being one of them who is starting this nonprofit to raise money and awareness to give families some support who, deal with family members of addiction.

Gabriela D is another one who is. Working diligently to build a skate park right in our community. After her son died with a skateboard accident right here in our neighbors, six in Sheldon, you girls know that intersection well, and again, she turned her pain. Her ni her 19 year old son was there one evening and did not come home no different than these parents are going through.

Now in Texas, they sent their babies to school. And they didn't come home. What do you do with that? How do you reconcile with that? And so I go after these stories because after time, after it settles in, after the pain never goes away, what they do with that is magical. Not that the.

The pain goes away in the missing of their loved one, but they can turn it into something purposeful and help in helping back and giving back. And I find beauty in that and I feel like that's something we need to share more of. 

Melissa: It's powerful that you're sharing it. You're magnifying it with your words.

And we really appreciate that. Amy and I appreciate it, but I think everybody who reads it and I think that the women that whether it's the foundation or whether it's the skate park your words are helping to magnify that. And I really appreciate that personally. 

Monica: Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. To me, they're illuminators. They are the ones that are just picking ass in the human category simp honestly. And so to me, I say, we need more of those stories and listen, I get, I'm all for the celebrities and the people who have all this money that are given back.

I just feel that's their obligation anyway, but nonetheless, they do it. And I applaud that, but have a up that. But how about the, on main street and every small town in America, the people who, the women who are rolling up their sleeves and really making an. and making this world better. I say we celebrate them.

I say, we start talking about them cuz they're the ages of change. They're the game changers, right? They're the ones that in our community are building us up. And so yeah, if I can write about them. I'm happy to do it. It's my honor. 

Amy: Yeah, that is so powerful. Monica, because especially working with grief and loss for so many years professionally to be able to capture a loved one who has passed for the family and to be able to put it all together on paper and to be able to tell a story and to be able to really it doesn't end at.

The end of that person's life you're showing the beginning of a whole other chapter of the people who are left behind. So the family members. So you talked about you, you said something about women walking around, being exposed, whether they are being exposed or they have a band.

With their scars. Is this the, is this what you're referring to as the illuminators or tell me what you mean by that? 

Monica: I think that let said we all have a story to tell. I could sit here and ask you 10 questions, Amy, and I will find pain. I will discover it in you. I can do the same thing with Melissa. I can do that with every one. but it's how we take that and transform. And I'm not just talking about personal loss. I am talking about our inner demons, our childhood, our not just losses, our self doubt, our insecurities, our I'm not good enough or self all those things. And I say, yes, face them, look in the mirror, own them, give them power, give them a voice, give them a stage.

And then tough get the heck outta your way. Cause you got things to do. And that's what I mean. It's I feel too often we go back to that, not victim, but a little too excuses or the here's the re a million reasons why we can't boy, we could really do that so easily, but. What about the reasons we can and how we can do that.

And so for me, it's about inspired action for me is that's what I call bullshit. Let's call bullshit on this. Okay. I hear you. I empathize with you. I get it. I've probably been there, but now what do you do with that? Do you simmer it? Do you wanna continue to simmer in it? Great. Then that's where you're gonna end up and you are gonna boil down into nothing.

And I say, no. Turn it off and reset. And it's all right here. I know that's very simple. I get it simple. I get that. I'm I love it. broad brush 

Melissa: it's not, I don't think it's simple. I think it's very profound and I feel like you've maybe simplified it with words, but people need words for feelings and they need a vocabulary for pain or for obstacles.

And I think the fact that you have found. Beauty in pain, or you have some catch phrases of no bullshit or you have some catch phrases of, your illuminators or to get her joy. I think this is what's so charming about you and what's so compelling about you. Yes. That that you have put some titles or, and some phrases and some names for things that are universal to all of us.

Monica: If I'm completely honest, the only way I could do that is by looking back and reading my own journals and say, oh that's bullshit. Oh that's, you're just, yes, I get it. Or. That's just a whole fuckery, a fakey there, Monica, that is not you at all. So get on that train. That's just, where are you going with that? So it was really calling myself out 

Amy: well, that's exactly it. And I love that you said that because it's almost as if what you're saying is what I do with clients. Is okay. Is help them get to that place where Hey, you can make these changes, but what you did, and I love that you brought this up, Monica is that you dug deep inside.

You got your ass on the Peloton. and obviously you did a lot of more, a lot more things, but you looked in your inside. Yep. And that's, and I think that really corresponds with the kindling project as well, because if you have this fire inside or you have this dream or this vision, You have to be willing to go inside and say, look, no one is going to do it for me.

I have to do it. Myself's that means I have to be vulnerable. I have to have courage. I have to have faith in myself, even if I don't believe in believe myself. And that's why I love our community that we're growing. So I ask you this, how. What if someone comes to you and says but I can't I, I'm not like you're braver than me.

I just don't like all this stuff. What would you say to this woman that would say this? 

Monica: I would say you're absolutely setting yourself up for that. If you're saying you can't, you absolutely. Won't it's again, I'm very broad brush here, but all of this, all of us.

Whatever your project, whatever that fire that you girls talk about, which I love, I think that's, we all have it in us is putting words to it and flipping the conversation from oh, I can't, I guarantee there's a whole list of reasons. Why you can't. I get that. We all have it is can we focus on how you can and what you can do and what steps you can take to make it happen?

And for me writing was taking a pen of paper. and making an actionable moment where this is what I was doing every single day. Anyway, I'm putting it out on a blog, obviously a little scarier. I'm not a formal writer. I don't have any formal training. English is my second language. There's grammar, like issues and concerns.

And I remember telling one of my, a proper author that I was starting a blog and she looked at me and. And I didn't feel the love, cuz I, I could tell in her eyes and the way she was looking me like, Hey, wait a minute. I went to school for this. I've worked my ass off for this. And you think you can just start a blog and call yourself a writer.

And so I did remember still every day, there's self doubt. There's always gonna be someone coming at you, not giving you the love that you need. Doesn't matter. You still have to feel like, Hey, this is important to me. I'm gonna put it out there. It's never gonna be perfect by the way, girls, if you look through my blog, there's a lot of mistakes.

It's okay. Guess what? No one cares. No one cares. It's okay. It's like the anything we do, it's like that party. Do you guys get like crazy? Like the house has to be clean? I clean my house before the housekeeper comes. Sometimes that is not okay. That is a little weird, right? I know. Yeah.

You're just welcome to obsessed with having everything in his. It's silly. So letting go, a lot of that perfectionism is so important and I, it's just doing it just starting. 

Melissa: can you tell us what's next? So you always were a journalist, you were journaling, you were putting your feelings into your private journals and then during COVID you were putting them out into the world in a blog.

Yes. Can you tell us what you feel? What's coming. 

Monica: So now I'm focusing on writing a book. , that's always, that was always, my dream is I'm going to publish a book. So I felt like the blog, by the way, if you're a writer out there or thinking about writing the blog is a great way to experiment and practice because it disciplines you to.

Be consistent. I blog once a week. So that's really important. And it makes you practice your writing wish like anything else you have to practice to be good at anything after now it's been, I think a year and a half of blogging every week, I think. Okay. I'm ready. I'm ready to hone in on message and draft a book.

And that's where I'm. and I I'm really enjoying the process. It's harder than I thought, but guess what? I've never written a book before, so I'm learning and I'm okay with that. And I'm failing a lot and I'm having those moments where I'm like, you have nothing to say, who's gonna wanna read my book.

No one cares. I still all every day, those pop in my head and every day I have to hit cancel, cancel, cancel. Yes, no, you got this. This is your path. Go do it. Go. If I fail. So what I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, it's those things, we're still afraid of what it's like. I was always living in either like fear or anxiety of what may or may not happen, which was ridiculous, cuz that's never there.

Or in some sort of like depression or something that happened or shame of something happened in the past again? Yes. Nothing I can do about that, but this love be here. I know. I love this girls. 

Melissa: You're coming back. You're coming back to this podcast with that book. Yes. Okay. With that final kindling project, you are launching that book here.

I know it. I can feel it. 

Amy: I know. I love that. I, I love that. That is, is something that is really driving you is to write a book you're facing your fears your while you're building your confidence. One of the things is one of your blogs. You talk about your tribe.

So you mentioned that interaction with a writer who had that self doubt, what do you say to these women who. Who have that self doubt who want to write, but they stop themselves short or they surround themselves with other women that are not lifting them up, helping them evolve that they just, they do it because it's the right thing to do.

Or this is what I'm supposed to do, or this is what my husband or my family wants me to do. What do you say to that? 

Monica: I unfortunately am missing a little bit of that gene of being too soft. I'm a pretty direct person. And so my tribe, my people know that if you pose a question, example, your website, if you're asking, I'm gonna answer, it's not always gonna be soft and fuzzy.

I wanna get right to it. Listen, I am not. Gar-. I'm not gaining anything. I'm not getting paid to this for any of this. But if I see women who are tinkering back and forth, I just call bullshit. I love that. And I that's all, let's start there and let me hold a mirror and let's really talk about who do you see?

Because I, I see you. I see you. I see you. I know what you're trying to do, and it's incredible. These women it's let's hold the mirror and let's have a real honest conversation. It really boils down to crawling bullshit on yourself. And the excuses. And at the end of the day, it is having said that, let me retract because I'm coming off a little strong here.

It's not lost on me that, Hey, why aren't you eating healthy? Everybody should eat healthy. Okay. If you're a single mom, barely making it and barely making minimum wage. I'm pretty sure buying organic is not in your radar. I get that, I understand that life is hard. I understand that not everyone gets to be a stayat home mom and then gets to write her blog all day.

So I understand that I have. Very unique opportunity here, but I believe that every single one of us has something to offer the world. Every single one of us is magic and not sharing it with the world. I just think it's fruit. I just think, I want these women to shine bright and it's just let it out.

And so if it starts small and then builds, just start a little something for yourself. Who you are. And that to me, if I can do that and go around, waking up these women from, I call 'em sleeping beauties. So many sleeping beauties. Yes. Hey, wake it's. I'm not your shirt. I'm not your prince, but I'm gonna give you a nudge.

And I'm gonna say it's time to wake up ladies. 

Amy: Yeah,

Melissa: I like that imagery. 

Amy: I do too. I love the imagery of holding up the mirror. So how did you come to that? How did that, because that's what people want to avoid is looking in the mirror. Yeah. Especially moms it's so much easier to say this person that and that teacher and my husband and my family and my kids, it's all about everybody else.

But when we hold up the mirror, it's. Only us holding that up and looking in the mirror. So it, it takes a lot of courage to do that. It takes grit, it takes it takes strength to look in the mirror and say, wow, this is not who, this is not who I. Truly see, or this is not my authentic self.

And I know I have felt that over time I look in the room, I'm like this isn't who I am. This isn't who I wanna be. So I have to, I've had to make really big changes and it's, and it is an inside job and everybody has a story. Everybody has some sort of adversity. Some of us have had.

Different more privileged than others or more true tragedies or more trauma than others. But if we sit and we compare and we stay in a pity party and I always say, it's a pity party of one, and those are boring parties. Nobody wants to be in a pity party. Sometimes people get really comfortable in their pity parties.

So they wanna- 

Monica: it's easier, it is, it's a lot easier. It's it is they write themselves off. Like it'll never be me. Oh, I can never do that. I'll never. be able to lose the weight. I'll never be in a meaningful relationship. This is how my marriage is. It's just gonna be empty and it's gonna be Loveless and I'm not gonna have sex with my husband because we've been married so long or whatever you fill in the blank there's million things.

And I say, no, it doesn't have to be this We get to be the authors of our lives. We get to, write our story in our chapters. So I say, author, Get that pen out and tell me, what is it that you want? And it's not about kicking the characters of your life, current situation. It's about rewriting your role in it.

And you don't always have to be some, like secondary character. I need you to be the main character of your life. 

Amy: I love that. 

Melissa: I think that's a good place to leave it. I think that's really the message for today. I love it. 

Amy: Okay. Yes. Yes, that's perfect. Yeah. So be the main character, be the, 

Melissa: be the main character in your life.

We all are the main character in our life and make it a good one. 

Monica: Make it a good one. You're in charge of that, author up. Get a good one. yeah, make it a good one. We're here. We're not, it's not guaranteed. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. So just focus on this moment and obviously loving big and living big and laughing and.

Being all of it being, if you're gonna be married, you'd be happy. you're gonna be a mom, enjoy it. I know they're pain in the ass a lot, but still love it and get that you get to parent that we get to parent and go through their growing pains. That's the privilege.

And it's a hard one, some taste. I know, we all know. 

Melissa: Yep. It is. It is. 

Amy: Yeah. and Monica. You're so inspiring. Truly, really are. If I'll tell you if writing wasn't your thing, you would be an amazing therapist and social worker. because- 

Melissa: I wanna invite everybody to check out Monica's blog. Yes.

Monica: Thank you.

Melissa: It's www.Togetherjoy.com you will find something there, something inspiring or something to make you laugh, something you'll remember. Yeah. It's really funny and heartwarming 

Monica: Thank you girls. I really appreciate you. And what you're doing too. It's interesting that we both started this journey.

I know you started during COVID two getting together and brainstorming and perhaps it was a good time to put us all on. Like time out and everyone can go back and figure out what it is they want and our missions or our thoughts. Our intentions are very similar, 

Melissa: right

monica's an active contributor to the kindling project, online community the kindling project ignite. So you can find her there too. I, if you wanna talk books or writing and blogging, I think she's always happy to put her 2 cents in right. 

Monica: Absolutely. And if anyone out there who any of your listeners are thought about writing or write or starting a blog, please reach out to me.

I will be your biggest cheerleader. I will clap the loudest and I will hand you a pen and a piece of paper. You got this, 

Amy: and we're also gonna have you for one of our live events in the fall, and you're gonna be helping conduct one of our writing workshops. So there's definitely more to come with. And you're just so inspiring.

Thank you so much for being here for showing up for us, for sharing your experience and for really inspiring us to, to be better to be courageous to be willing, to be vulnerable because that's what being vulnerable that's was your step at getting to where you are today in a lot of ways.

In terms of exposing yourself and writing and putting yourself out there. So we get to enjoy the benefits of that. So thank you. 

Monica: Oh, thank you. It's been a messy ride. It's been some painful years. It's been a lot of emotional yes. Lot of emotional luggage that I just had to leave behind and making that decision changed my life and I'm discovering my. joy. So 

Melissa: I really think that you said it best when you said that there's a lot of beauty and pain 

Monica: for sure is. Yes, 

Amy: there is. We have many podcasts on the beauty and pain. And that's really where the growth that's where the growth starts is in that pain. That's a whole other conversation, but that is real.

That is real. And I think we can all attest to. Where we're at in our lives and the experiences that we've had. And even though it's, there's pain it is a matter of gratitude as well, because without that pain, we don't get to the blog or we don't get to create that. . The podcast and all of these things.

So there's a lot of gratitude in all of this as well. Monica, thank you so much. We're so grateful that you were here. 

Monica: Thank you ladies. I appreciate you so much. Thank 

Amy: you. Thank you so much. What one last thing that we, how we're adding our podcast is that we wanna be able to send everyone off project for the week and our challenge for.

The women and the men listening to our podcast today is to really consider putting pen to paper going old fashioned. Now I know a lot of people do the keyboards and things like that, but putting pen to paper, going on a keyboard, just writing something down, whether it's. Ideas for a book, whether it's a letter you've been wanting to write, maybe it's ideas for what you want your kindling project to be.

Maybe it's something that's been tucked way in the back of your mind. Yeah. We wanna encourage you to go for it, to put pen to paper. Think about what Monica has shared with us how all of her to get her joy. Has come to fruition, take that risk, take that chance because you have a whole community here that believes in you.

So that is the pavilion project for the week for everyone listening 

Monica: and Amy, a good prompt would be is a letter to yourself. And to your younger self or your, and just start by forgiving, whatever you're holding onto. And how about that? You just start with a letter to yourself. I think it's a beautiful thing.

Yes. And dear Mick for myself, I forgive you and I'm sorry, I let you down or I'm sorry that I didn't think you could, and that I held you back for so many. But, we're gonna start over. So I think that's a really good, nice prompt and something that should come easily to all of us, cuz you're writing to yourself.

Amy: Beautiful. 

Yes. Oh, yes. I love that. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for that. I love that. I love that. We'll have you back and we'll talk about what to do with that letter once it's 

written. 

Monica: Okay. That's great. All right, girls. Thank you. 

Amy: Thank you so much, Monica. 

Monica: Thank you.