Issue #37: barbies. bastards. burnout.
plus goodbye red dye #3 + dancing + a few things from Chicago last weekend
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“Tiny death moments: those moments where we learn that certain aspects of ourselves are inferior, that we need to turn parts of ourselves off in order to belong, or we need to sacrifice our authenticity or button up our weird, quiet our loud, and follow certain rules in order to belong and be accepted and in order to succeed. And so we lose our true selves. We forget what our real desires are and we forget how to listen to our own internal wisdom. We literally forget that we have this magical wisdom within us.”
~ Margot, Episode 1 of Season 7 of the INTERWOVXN podcast
Burnout isn’t just about being overworked; it’s a sign we’ve been pouring energy into things that don’t truly nourish us. Coming off the holidays, we were just talking about how this feeling can hit even harder—after weeks of trying to meet everyone’s expectations, keep up traditions, and manage the extra busyness. It’s a stark reminder of what happens when we lose touch with what we really need and value, leaving us drained and out of alignment.
It has a way of creeping back in when we continue to ignore what truly lights us up. It’s a signal that we’re out of sync with the life we’re meant to live—a life where we embrace our wholeness and honor our internal wisdom. Reclaiming alignment starts with remembering who we are and giving ourselves permission to live fully as that person.
This week’s Five Senses Friday is from one of our podcast guests! Margot is a life coach, mom of 3, and a wife to her best friend who lives in Chicago, IL. After leaving her career as a therapist, becoming a stay at home mom for 2 years after that, and rediscovering her life purpose, she founded Margot Walsh Coaching. She works primarily 1:1 with women who are seeking meaning, purpose, clarity and direction in life. Using their deepest desires as their guideposts, Margot guides her clients towards making their goals reality through the path of self love and self trust and developing the relationship with yourself first. Her clients have made what once felt impossible possible and woken up to a life that truly lights them up. For more follow Margot on Instagram @margotwalsh.coaching or www.margotwalshcoaching.com.
And, as a gift, mention this podcast for a free 45 minute breakthrough coaching call with Margot to kick off your 2025 vision!
TASTE: Vosges - Pink Himalayan Crystal Salt Caramel Chocolate Bar. To know me is to know my obsession with chocolate. It started with truly anything chocolate, but with age, like a fine wine, I’ve refined my taste. I’m a dark chocolate gal who cares deeply about sourcing and intention. Vosges is a woman-owned “haut chocolat” company with an emphasis on enjoying every aspect of your consumption of their product. On every package she teaches you how to enjoy this piece of chocolate mindfully, engaging all five senses, and making it the only thing you are doing. Usually I am unwrapping my next piece of chocolate as I’m working the first, but not with Vosges. I savor Vosges.
SEE: Bad Sisters on AppleTV. I have been glued to this series on Apple over the holiday break. It’s an Irish murder mystery that is quite funny in the first season and turns a bit dark in the second season. Whether it’s a nail biting or hilarious scene, it’s set on the Irish seaside with each bad sister in their own beautiful home along the coast. The scenery is stunning, the actors are beautiful, the wardrobes are cute, and can never get enough of the Irish brogue. These sisters find themselves in sticky situation after sticky situation, each one more cringy than the last. But their unwavering support for each other no matter what shows us what sisterhood is all about.
SMELL: Piñon + Woods Three Wick Soy Candle. This candle bought at a local artisan store by my house but available nationwide is the essence of hygge to me. I love the smell but didn’t realize how deeply it would permeate my entire home and shift the energy to a greater state of calm and coziness. It completes my whole winter solstice vibe!
HEAR: Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. Being a working mom of 3 kids under 8, I am in a phase of my life where reading a physical book doesn’t happen the way it used to. I am notorious for having a stack of books at least a foot high on my nightstand. However, I’ve found that I can listen to (and finish!) a book in a timely manner on spotify. I’m currently listening to James Doty’s Mind Magic. While I do love the woo, the spiritual and the energetics behind manifesting, I also appreciate the scientific evidence he provides to illustrate the power of our own minds. We all have mental baggage that we carry with us from childhood about who we are and what we’re capable of. Much of manifestation is rewriting and re-wiring the narrative we hold about ourselves in our subconscious. In this book he shares the neuroscience and specific practices to actually do the work. It brings manifestation into 3D actionable steps.
TOUCH: Ishtara. So Ishtara isn’t so much a touch as it is a feeling. It is the most profound and magical way I’ve learned to feel. I’ve always been a deeply sensitive and feeling person which left me feeling generally overwhelmed and anxious. I had also developed coping mechanisms to protect myself which aren’t always helpful anymore and actually were leading to self sabotage. Ishtara, the meditative dance I practice almost every single morning, has allowed me to alchemize my emotions into gifts, find love for my body and the wisdom she holds, and work with my nervous system in a way that helps me feel in control of myself again.
Did you miss Episode 1? the. UNHAPPY. achiever.
Season 7 of the podcast launched with an amazing group of women led by Ashley Jordan, diving into her new book Unhappy Achiever: Rejecting the Good Girl Image and Reclaiming the Joy of Inner Fulfillment. This episode explores the myths of perfection, giving yourself permission, the pursuit of inner happiness, and the idea that true balance often feels anything but steady.
how would you answer our season 7 THREAD question?
what are you UNAPOLOGETIC about at this time in your life?
BARBIES + BASTARDS
Excerpt from Unhappy Achiever: Rejecting the Good Girl Image and Reclaiming the Joy of Inner Fulfillment.
”You bastard!” I swung Barbie’s stiff, cupped palm until it smacked against Ken’s tanned cheek.
“Ashley!” my mother gasped. She dropped the laundry she was folding to peer down at me. “That’s not a nice word.”
“Sorry,” I said. Embarrassed, I lowered my head, hoping if I avoided her stare long enough, I’d melt away into the floor amid the sea of blond, frizzy-haired Mattel dolls, and she’d forget about my shameful infraction.
I didn’t know what a bastard was. My only reference point was the soap operas my chain-smoking babysitter watched where heroines shout it at scorned lovers. On serials like General Hospital, All My Children, and One Life to Live, bastard was uttered with impunity and as frequently as words like baby and beautiful.
Although it hadn’t been clearly defined for me, I knew it was something angry women said to men who wronged them. And in the context of my dolls’ storyline, Ken had made Barbie angry, so, logically, he was a bastard.
Still, I’m not sure what was more humiliating. That I was ignorant about the word’s meaning, or that my mother said my language was something other than nice.
Growing up in a Midwestern family, I knew the word nice was supposed to describe me. Nice was synonymous with good. Good was synonymous with girl, and “good girls” were also “nice girls.” I was a good girl, or at least, I tried very hard to be. Being a nice Midwestern girl meant being someone else most of the time. So, I created a version of me that was unequivocally other than my true self, a representative to perform social interactions on my behalf. I called her Amber.
Amber was polite and accommodating. She wasn’t the girl chastised for being bossy in kindergarten when she stepped up to lead her friends during free play. Amber was serious most of the time, except in instances where she felt comfortable enough to let her dry sense of humor and silliness sneak out.
Most of all, though, Amber was quiet and deferential. She listened and submitted to the voices of everyone else, never stopping to question whether those voices were acting in her best interest or theirs.
The first time being Amber seemed safer than being Ashley was after a day I spent playing at the home of my aunt who often babysat me. When it was time to clean up, she told me her son, who was a few years younger than me, wasn’t responsible for the mess he and I made together, and I’d need to clean it up by myself. She left the room and closed the door, and I picked up the toys, one by one. As I worked, I talked to myself.
I recited a string of hurts I harbored against her, not just from that day, but from days past. All the times she had made me a punching bag to beat out her bitterness and burning family resentments. The times she told me I was too much or too spoiled. The humiliating mealtimes in which she criticized me for overeating. Pain poured out of my young psyche like a song. And for a moment, I was lost in a rhythm of unrepressed emotions.
Suddenly, the bedroom door burst open, reminding me where I was. My aunt looked down at me on the floor, still sifting through the mess, and glared. “I heard everything you said,” she said. It was as if there had been a trial and she had found me guilty. “I could hear you through the heating vent.”
“I . . . I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean it!” I said. “I was just mad!”
The glaring intensified. “We say what we really mean when we’re angry, Ashley.”
Then she left me alone again with the mess.
That’s when I decided it was best not to say how I felt, that revealing what I thought could be dangerous. Even if I’d intended to be heard, my aunt’s reaction made it clear I wouldn’t be listened to, and now I had to clean up two messes instead of one: a pile of toys and repercussions from my childish attack on an adult’s ego. So, I sacrificed my voice, instead of speaking my truth. And I made sure Amber always said what everyone else wanted to hear, even when it contradicted her reality and ran counter to what she felt in her heart. Amber searched for truth externally, believing it could only be found in other people’s judgments and opinions.
The more I used my Amber persona to deal with the world around me, the more Ashley disappeared. The more I evaporated, the more I convinced myself that Amber was the real me. The line between Amber and Ashley became so thin and faint I could barely discern where she ended and I began. Like Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, I believed that my authenticity belonged in a box. Amber was that box. Amber was the Barbie version of me—a perfect, plastic automaton who replaced Ashley.
It took nearly four decades to uncover Ashley from underneath Amber’s good girl mask. It required countless hours of time in solitude and self-inquiry, steadily searching for the bits of me I spent so many years burying. But slowly, over time, a journey of self-healing and self-love unfolded in front of me, and eventually, I transformed from the contrived good girl I constructed to the authentic empowered woman I was born to be.
Now, when I think about nine-year-old me, I reassure her that our own unique, exquisite realness transcends the artificiality of any Barbie. And our worth is too great to be tied to the love and approval of anyone—but ourselves.
news for our HEALTH…
red dye #3 has been banned in food + beverages… what to know before it goes into effect.
Red Dye No. 3 was banned over 30 years ago in cosmetics after a study suggested it might be a carcinogen, but hundreds of foods and drugs still contain this chemical made from petroleum for coloring. This week, the FDA has banned Red Dye No. 3 in food due to concerns about cancer risk, giving manufacturers until January 2027 to reformulate products. Experts also highlight its potential impact on children’s behavior, such as hyperactivity, noting the U.S. lags behind countries like the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand, which have already banned most uses of the dye.
and we leave you with…
some random things from the week!
I (Rebecca) was in Chicago with friends this past weekend and we had brunch at Avec (the River North location) and it was SO good. Someone ordered hummus for the table and while I like hummus, it is not something I likely would have picked out. It was so good that I have been thinking about it all week! I am a sucker for a jammy egg and the harissa- yummy!
We also stopped in Uniqlo and I got this super cute skirt! I am all about comfort these days and I love that I can dress it up or keep it casual!
Melissa of Nourish Massage, Bodywork, and Skin Therapies shared this Cherry Magnesium Sleep Drink in her 5 Senses Friday feature in Issue #1 and another friend reminded me of it! Looking for an alternative to that evening glass of wine? I tried a version last night- grapefruit sparking water with tart cherry juice in a wine glass to be fancy (my magnesium supplement on the side;)! It had me super relaxed and ready for bed after a busy day!
Have a GREAT weekend!
I am unapologetic about saying No. Not No, but... Not I'm sorry but No... Just No. It is a complete sentence, and I use it frequently.