How to Own Your Unique Story

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts Triumphs and challenges are all a part of the journey. And on this podcast, you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business that thrives. Okay, am I the only one who loves The Voice, the show? I know I'm not, and I know I'm not alone. For any of you guys who just love talented people and the beautiful gifts that they have been given. Anyway, this is Nikita Williams from She's Crafted to Thrive, your host as well as your friend, shouting out from the airways in Lawrenceville, Georgia. And I'm hopping on, on a solo cast just to talk a little bit about something that I have been seeing in the social world as well as experiencing myself, and then the voice What does the voice have to do with anything? Well, the voice like brought this all to fruition in my head of how this can really affect me. And you're like, what are you being— why are you being so cryptic, Nikita? I don't want to give it away within the first 5 minutes of the conversation, but I am. We all have something that we're really good at. Some of us have multiple things, but we have one thing at least that we are super, super gifted in. And sometimes we allow our surrounding circumstances and exterior belief systems to tell us that that box that we're so well at doing isn't good enough. Now, what does this have to do with the voice? Well, if you don't know what the voice is, I don't know where you've been, maybe under a rock, but it's been around for like ever, for at least like 10 or 15 years. I wasn't at first, to be honest with you guys, I wasn't a fan. My husband and I really weren't into it, and then one day we decided to watch it because we were in a show hole, hahaha, and The Voice was there, and we're like, oh my goodness, we've missed out on this because it's such a good show. Now, what is the show about? The synopsis of the show is basically in the first few episodes of The Voice, no one is able to really see— the judges don't see the person. They hear the audition turned around, and they have to make the decision whether or not to turn around and say, "Yes, I want you on my team." Now, if you guys are like fans of The Voice, or if you're not, go check it out. But this year they've changed up the judges It's Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani, John Legend, and of course Blake Shelton. He's been there since the inception of this whole show. He's been there the whole time. I love the show because that's the synopsis, right? You are being judged based on your talent of singing, whether it's good or bad or uniquely different or not so uniquely different, needs some training, needs needs a little help, needs more enthusiasm, whatever the case may be. That is what you're being judged on, not on whether you're tall, weird looking, whatever is weird looking looking like, whatever. It's based on your voice. And it's always impressive to me what these people come to the audition with. Like, they come with these songs where you almost feel like sometimes, like, did they make it themselves? We know that they're covering some famous artist's song, but they've made it uniquely theirs that you almost forget they are not the originator of the song. However, I always feel this changes as the episode continues, like as the show continues throughout the season. There's always at least one or two times where a singer has made very clear who they are by what they do, how they sound, the things that they do, and you think to yourself, why did they pick that song, and then why did they sing it that way? And of course, this happened to us this year as we're watching the episode. There is a singer on there where my husband and I were like, dude, why did you like step away from your very uniquely different sound? Why did you cover that song that way? The songs that he had done prior to that were amazing. Kind of had this Caribbean sound and sounded really cool, and he would trans— like, transport you to another place in a song that you never thought would sound that cool as a Caribbean or kind of, you know, island song. And his voice was amazing. And then he sung this song, and we're like, okay, well, maybe he's going to make it his— that unique talent, that box that he is like busting out of the seams at because he's amazing at it. And he didn't do it. And I still believe to this day that was his downfall. He didn't stick to what he knew that he could do and he was doing so well. Get— don't get me wrong, it's okay to go outside of your box and try different things, but don't leave the thing that makes you you, right? Like, don't leave the thing that connects you to be different. Like, everyone can sing, right? There's tons of singers, there's tons of photographers, there's tons of graphic designers, there's tons of a lot of different things. But you have a unique gift to bring to the table to this very broad and spacious thing that everyone else does, and it's you, your spin, how you do it, and your story. And this connected with me so well because I didn't realize it, that I kind of started to walk away from my thing. And you're like, Nikita, what are you talking about? Well, you guys know I started this podcast to really share about my journey dealing with chronic illness and to connect with women. Now that part of my process has not changed, and it still hasn't. I still have a chronic illness and I still connect with amazing women on the show. And I still do that. I'm doing that more actually. You guys hear less from me and more from them, and I love that because the pressure is off of me. But I was like, I'm missing a piece of this show that I haven't really focused my attention on, and that's sharing my story and then sharing the story of other women who are going through chronic illness. Now you might be like, Nikita Williams, but not everybody wants to talk about this. And yeah, I get that, but it's about the way. And the reason why it's so funny to me when I think about these things that just happenstance to happen, and I'm like, oh, they left their box. I'm thinking about the voice. And then I see people on Instagram and Facebook, like they start switching and they're like, but you used to do this and I don't see that anymore. And I realized that I had stopped talking about that thing. And here's why I know I stopped. It gets uncomfortable. It's like an uncomfortable, weird space to be in. Nobody wants to talk about the negativity, and I'm all down with that because negativity is no place to be, right? We want to be positive and outgoing and uplift people, and that's what the purpose of this show is. But let's be real, life is a roller coaster. We have ups and downs, we have struggles. And one of the biggest things that I have gotten since the inception of this show, She's Crafted to Thrive, is multiple emails from women who are like, thank you for being so raw and real with what's going on in your life. Because there have been times where they had tell me, well, I almost quit, or I almost stopped because I just was in so much pain, or This new thing happened to me and I was thinking maybe I shouldn't do this, but then I listened to your episode about how to cope with endometriosis and run a business, or how to move on through the pain and all those things, right? So I'm getting these emails and those honestly are the most emails I get. The last time I did an episode about me or even someone else dealing with like a chronic illness, really um, like in deep delve has been like at least 15 episodes ago. So here's my, here's my whole caveat. I'm going to go back to that. That's going to be a big part, a huge feature of the show, whether it's 1 or 2 episodes, and whether the solo cast talks about me, me talking to you guys about what's going on with my life as dealing with a chronic illness. I have multiple chronic illnesses, you guys, but so do so many other women. And whether or not it's chronic or whether or not it's just like this thing that happened, like you were just diagnosed with, um, lupus or cancer or something that's undiagnosed but you know something's there, I'm here to share with you that it's okay to be scared. It's okay to feel uncomfortable. It's okay to ask questions, and I'm here for you. So that whole voice thing brought me back to like my box, right? My box was I started the show because it was therapy for me, and I really wanted to connect with other women because I was always home. I was stuck in bed with my heating pad, and I was like, this sucks. Let's just be real, this is horrible. I'm used to being out and about doing things, and now I'm here. Now I'm stuck here dealing with this. But then I realized I needed to share my story because I was internalizing all of that, that pain and that fear and those frustrations and the emotions. And then I started to feel a lot better, and so I stopped talking about it. And then when I did have moments, and like I'm having some moments now— I'll get into that in a second— I kind of got afraid again. I got afraid. So from the voice episode, I Aha, light bulb. Then I got an email for someone who listened to my show on the podcast about coping with endometriosis out of the blue. You guys, that is like one of my, like, later ones of an episode. And I'm like, wow. And then I had an amazing opportunity to interview a lady that you will hear soon on the show coming up soon, Amber from Brain Girls Collective. You'll hear more about her story. And in that conversation, you guys, I had a moment of like emotional breakdown. Like I started to feel all the feelings. Here I was sitting in my new office at my table, like with my new amazing light from my window. Like, yeah, I was so excited. And then we're talking about like real raw things about, you know, diversity and the social space and why we need to see more women that look like you or me or the other person that you're thinking about. And then we started talking about the fact that she was a fellow Indowarrior. Now I talk about this often in my head, but I hadn't talked about it a while with you guys. And I just had— she had started saying things, and then after the episode I just felt like, oh my gosh, I apparently have not been talking about this and I've put it back on the back burner. And this is a piece that really connects me to what I'm doing right now, like what I'm doing in my show, what I'm doing in my business, which is shifting. And I need to go deeper into that box. I need to go deeper and wider and keep connecting and growing. Of course, outside of my box, I'm doing that all the time, but sometimes the box that we know so well can get so uncomfortable or it can become too comfortable that we don't dig deeper, right? We don't dig deeper. And that's what I realized that I needed to do. So here's me digging deeper. You guys, I am in the mix of beginning a new section of Crafted to Thrive. It's going to be a new retails piece. I know you guys heard me talk about it, but here's the, here's the thing. Ever since we've moved, I've been having like a transition period of trying to figure out what is going on with my body. Um, it could just be the weather and all of the things, but it's been really difficult and finding new doctors and all that kind of stuff. And the biggest thing that's been affecting my health lately is my stomach issues that are usually flared on by stress and endometriosis, which still resides within me and a conversation I recently had with a doctor that basically said that there was nothing else that they could do for me except pain management. Y'all, I'm in my 30s and I just couldn't help but thinking, this is all you can do for me right now? Obviously you guys know that I'm a Christian and I believe in the Bible and I know that there is a hope at the end of all of this, right? I know that there's a hope that no more sickness, no more pain, no more crying, no more tears, any of that will be here anymore. We'll be living in a paradise and perfect and with our family and the people we love. But to be honest, right now it's hard. Like, every day is a struggle, and prayer and Bible study is so important to me. It's the lifeblood that I cling to. So when a doctor tells me, well, right now all we can do is help manage your pain and you need to go see a chronic pain specialist so that you can have a specialized pain regimen of pills that could be addictive, I can't help but go down that rabbit hole of thinking, oh my goodness, this is my life, how horrible it is, and da da da da da, and this is so depressing, and all those things. And I'm not gonna lie, those things come up because I'm human. But then I realize I have the choice. I have the choice of whether or not I'm going to allow that statement to dictate what I do and how I feel. Yes, I'm in pain, but I'm living, I'm breathing, I'm, I'm doing all that I can in the circumstances that I have, and I'm not allowing it to stop me from trying. I mean, for goodness sake, I'm sitting here at my desk, and you guys know to hear me talk about my desk because I didn't really have a desk for like ever. Like, really, um, sitting at my desk in my comfy chair with my heating pad in pain, have a slight cold if you can't hear it in my nose, and I am making the choice to do something. I am making the choice that despite I can continue to make what I can do. And that's my box, and I'm digging deeper. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's my box. And I really appreciate having a different perspective of things. I'm thankful for that because it could be worse. And I've always said that on the show, things can be worse. That's one of the things I've learned talking to all these amazing women. Is that all those circumstances, all the different things they're going through, everyone has a different thing. And to some it could be worse, for others— the point is, I'm here and I'm doing what I can. And so She's Crafted to Thrive, the shop, was being affected because of fear on top of what's going on with my body and what I've been, you know, dealing with. And so just this week did I make the decision really to just like, you know what, just do whatever you can. Don't get stuck in the middle of trying to figure it all out. Just do, and you'll figure it out along the way. And that's what's happening, you guys. It's so cool how that works. I do believe it's partly because I've been praying a lot about it. I've been thinking a lot. I've been having a lot of conversations with my husband and just with myself and it's working. And so if you guys are feeling stuck, or you feel like your box that you are doing, the thing that you do, is like not good enough, keep digging deeper because there is something in there. Because that's what is your gift. It's a gift that you've been given, and you have to just figure out how to bring it to the top. Right? Just gotta figure out how to make it available to yourself and to everyone you want to share it with. So anyway, that was my two cents this week. If you want to know more about The Voice, check it out online or Hulu. I think it's on Hulu. It's on Hulu or Netflix. I do know it's on Hulu because that's where we watch it. And look, boxes are not a bad thing, especially if that's where your unique gift lies. Dig deeper and keep opening your horizon as far as your perspective to things. Reach out for help. Share your story because it can help yourself and it can help someone else. It really does. Please, you know, review on iTunes and share what you think. Share what box you think you're in and how you can go deeper on sheescrafted.com on the comments for this episode. And in the meantime, you guys know what's up— you are crafted to thrive.