Hey, and welcome to Smooth Stones episode 192. We are talking about you are not for everyone, so just be you. And I’ve been inspired to talk about this topic. I think we’ve talked about it before, but. If there’s a lot going on in the world right now that is just telling me, Amy, you need to say this. So today’s episode, I gotta shout out my little butterfly necklace if you’re watching on YouTube.

Um, I do have video on YouTube, friends, check it out. I have this little tiny diamond rose gold butterfly necklace that I got. So my anniversary is in May and Lauren died in March. And so for my anniversary gift, my husband and I went to a jewelry store and I picked something out and I wanted a little butterfly to represent her.

So I love this necklace. It is. So fun and cute and I love wearing it when I think about her. And I also recorded, I was a guest on another podcast today. And so I was like, I need to represent, I need to have my little symbol there and it always makes me feel good, um, just holding onto it. And speaking of necklaces, I also, here’s my pregnancy after loss tip or anytime tip.

Anytime you’re going through something hard. Um, when I was pregnant, my last rainbow pregnancy, I had a friend who made me a necklace. Um, she had a little jewelry business and I wanted the words “be still my soul” because that hymn. Really spoke to me and I needed stillness. I needed my brain to shut off and to not let the fear run everything.

So, um, I had a necklace with my motto made up, and it was awesome. I wore it every single day, that entire pregnancy, and I just kept that close to my heart. So I think there is something magical about having jewelry or having, I mean, some people have tattoos. I do not. Um. Who knows if it might ever happen, we’ll have to see.

But yeah, just having something near you to represent your baby. Now what inspired this? Let’s just be real. Uh, it’s Taylor Swift because. It’s the first week of October, 2025 and Taylor Swift’s album just came out the life of a showgirl and there’s been a lot of hype leading up to it, a lot of exciting stuff.

A lot of people are really excited and thrilled and following all the Easter eggs and getting into it, um, a lot of people went to the theater to watch the release party. A lot of people are loving it and a lot of people have other things to say. When they’re not loving it. And I think what I like to do in my life is observe other people.

Sometimes when we’re trying to look at our own self, it’s hard to see what’s happening ’cause we’re in our own head. But we can look outside ourselves at other people and their experience and just observe it. Be like a scientist, notice what’s happening. So I noticed. With Taylor Swift. Very interesting.

Her album is the same. It is some musical notes. It’s some lyrics. It’s different words. It’s got different coloring, it’s got different imagery, right? But that is just facts. That’s just a thing. How many variants? Variance, how many colors of records, um, how she chose to do things. Those are facts. They just are.

You can’t really argue with it. And that is like a circumstance. So a circumstance in our life could be any fact that’s going on in our life. And then there are people just having tons of thoughts and feelings about it, and a lot of those thoughts are negative and. People are not afraid to say it. I don’t know.

I gotta get a little on my soapbox. I don’t know what happened to this world that we think we get to just have an opinion on everything and we ought to share it and we ought to share it publicly. But you really don’t have to. You can just cheer for people. Like just be happy. For other people doing things that they think are cool.

I don’t know. It seems really simple, but it’s really hard these days. So, um, you know, you do you if you like to share your opinion, but we just don’t have to, and I don’t know why we think we have the right to, but the thing about Taylor Swift. Is she’s put out lots of albums. They’ve all been different.

Some are country, some are a little bit angrier, some are sweeter, some are more acoustic, some, you know, there’s lots of different things she’s doing. And it’s been interesting because my algorithm is full of this, but there’s people that go through each one of her albums and. Tell the criticism. So this one’s too this, you know, this one’s too country.

Then this one’s too pop. And this one’s too, you know, mean. And this one’s just, there’s too many songs and every single album, no matter what she does, somebody won’t like it. And if she took all that feedback and you know that she hears some of it, I know a lot of it she blocks out, but. If she took that and listened to those people, where would she be?

Like just chilling at home, playing music for herself so that nobody would criticize her. And I think that’s a great example of noticing. No matter, like, um, my mentor who I went to, um, life coaching school with, she would always say, you can be the juiciest peach and someone still won’t like you. And that’s true for anything.

Like I have some close relatives and friends, um, that don’t like chocolate or don’t like, you know. Things that I think are amazing and it’s just too bad. But there are people that don’t like the sweetest things in life because we all have preferences and that’s okay. But how I wanna turn this around for you is to say, if people aren’t gonna like what I’m doing, people might have opinions about it.

Am I gonna let that stop me? Am I gonna listen to them? Am I gonna change myself for them? And in that sense, just kind of like become smaller and I know that I’ve done that in my life. This is something I’m in a season right now of just figuring out. And I always have been myself and I’ve done a lot of things that I wanna do, and I’m a pretty confident person.

But I definitely have done some people pleasing. I definitely have, um, made myself smaller in some ways, or definitely edited myself. I think that’s what it is more for me, is I wanna be really careful with what I say because I do care about people and I don’t wanna upset anybody and I wanna help all the people.

But you know what? I’m not for all the people. I’m not for the people that wanna stay mad and angry forever. I’m for the people that want to heal and want to have hope after baby loss. So, you know what? I’m gonna lean into that and I wanna be an example for you of leaning into that as well and just speaking and using your voice and, um, you know what?

People might not like it. As I was preparing for this, I was really thinking, it’s funny because what we do is when we’re in grief mode, when we’re the after version of ourself, our after loss version, a lot of times we think that’s not actually us like we were us. Before our baby died, we were us before we had multiple losses.

We were us before we were dealing with pregnancy after loss or secondary infertility or whatever challenges. But what if who you are now is actually the most authentic version of you yet? We’re always gonna grow and change. But I think the gift that grief gives us is we really don’t care about a lot of the fluff.

We’re gonna say things, we’re gonna do things. It’s kind of like PMS. Sometimes we think, well, that’s the grouchiest version of ourselves. And again, each person is different, but sometimes I think like the pmms version of me anyways. Is like the most honest, the most authentic. I might not always love the way it comes out, but she’s sick of it and she’s not gonna put that nice, like oxytocin, whatever, all the happy hormones over it, right?

It’s not wrapped in fuzz. It’s like, pick up your crap. I’m over it kids. So, um. Think about yourself right now and who you are, and is this version of you? Are you leaning into it or are you fighting it? Because when we fight ourselves, we lose. You are a juicy peach. You are a Taylor Swift. You are inspiring.

You are amazing. Uh. You are loved for who you are, right? And when you can just be you no matter what, you’re gonna have much more authentic connections. I think that’s the other thing is that when we try to shrink ourselves, when we try to soften our things, when we try to just avoid conflict or avoid.

You know, even for me, it’s funny because even saying that, like talking about Taylor Swift, I know there’s such a like thing about Swifties or there’s judgment or like, who are you? So to be talking about this, but I’m like, no, I actually have really enjoyed the past couple years of just following along with what’s going on.

Um, it’s been a great distraction through some challenges I’ve had in my life. And I’m happy. And I love love and I think that this new album is really fun and I have been listening to it a lot. So even like saying things you like, there’s so many ways that we just shrink. What if you just stopped doing that?

What if you really be you? And if this grief version of you has something to say, why don’t you say it? Why don’t you do it? Or maybe it’s like you think you can’t do something because you’re grieving. Maybe you have big goals, maybe you have cool things you wanna do, and you’re like, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can.

What if this is the perfect time to do it and stop fighting against yourself? And just go with it. Have fun with it. This life is hard enough. We know that there’s plenty of things to be upset about. I think what makes the world a better place is each one of us finding the confidence to be ourselves and to share our heart and to do the things that we think are cool and fun and amazing, and that will bless the people in our lives.

And so what I wanna say. Is think of somewhere in your life that you are holding yourself back right now, today. I’m guessing for most of us, you can think of something pretty easily if you can’t take a moment. But where is somewhere that you’re holding yourself back? And I am not saying. Again, that you need to interject your opinion into life and just like go tell someone off or whatever it is.

If you need to do that, do that. But what I’m saying is if you really love you and you love who you are and you love what you care about and you stop caring so much, what like the peanut gallery thinks, life is just a lot more fun. Like it’s just a lot easier. You don’t need to be afraid of what other people think, because if other people don’t like you for liking what you like or doing what you do, then are they really your friends?

Like are they really important? Is there opinion important? Or you might have people in your life that you’re like, rock solid. You know, they love you. And they don’t like a certain thing you’re doing, that’s okay too. Do your thing. Let them love you. Let them evolve. Let them change their minds. That’s the other interesting thing I noticed about the Taylor Swift album, even for myself.

The first time I listened through, I was like, huh, I don’t know about this. Because it seemed really specific to her life. So that’s a first opinion that I had. And that’s her, right? That’s her music. That’s her story. That’s, and her story can mean, I mean, these songs can mean anything. Um, but I was happy that she was happy.

I, I enjoyed it. I. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it. And it was like that with tortured post apartment two. Um, at first I was like, huh, okay. And then the more I listened to it, the more I loved it. And I have had that on repeat when I’m alone in the car. Like I will just listen to that. If I go on walks, sometimes I will listen to that so people’s opinions can evolve.

. And not the same but similar with our grieving selves. If you’re able to say like, Hey, this is who I am, this is what’s inside of me, this is, you’re gonna have to get used to this family and friends.

’cause this is who I am now. Um. You know what? Give ’em the benefit of the doubt. You never know how they might be able to step up for you, how they might be able to evolve, how they might be able to change and continue to support you and grow in their own ways. And that’s a good thing in my opinion. So I don’t really see a downside.

To being who you really are, to doing the things that you wanna do, to stepping into like your own power in your life right now and letting go of those voices that say, well, what if someone judges me? What if this, what if that? What if they probably will? And that’s okay. Our brain thinks it’s dangerous.

They think we’ll die if someone criticizes us. That’s where you can go back to people in your life that you admire that have gotten some criticism.

Taylor Swift gets tons of criticism. She doesn’t let it stop her, right? So look at what you wanna do. Look at the things you’re worried about. Um, look at who you’re worried about. This is a tip I often coach clients on is when we say, well. Nobody’s gonna like it, or everybody’s gonna think I’m stupid or everybody’s gonna think this is annoying.

Um, it’s almost never everybody quote unquote, it’s always like one to three people in your life. And the interesting thing is when I ask people to say, okay, you’re saying everybody. Name one to three people that you’re actually worried about their opinions. Sometimes it’s like people that aren’t even in their life.

It’s like some old boyfriend that used to criticize you about whatever, or like some uncle that like died already and, or you don’t really talk to them anymore. But they always said this about what you, you know, they always had ideas about what you should be doing with your life. Um. When you just narrow it down and be like, oh, it’s this person that I’m just hearing their voice in my head, here’s your permission to just throw it out.

That person, like, it’s not even them saying it’s your brain telling you that if they said it, it would be the worst and it would feel terrible, but you know what really feels terrible not being yourself. Hiding who you are. Hiding what you’re really going through. Hiding. Hiding, hiding. That’s what sucks.

And if other people want to be like, have opinions on what you’re doing, let them good for them. They’re allowed to have an opinion. They’re even allowed to say it. They’re probably adults, you know, even kids, they have lots of opinions too. Let them. Have their opinions, but stop trying to shape shift into something where nobody will have an opinion on you.

’cause that’s, I mean, or like everyone will have a good opinion or that they’ll have nothing to say about you. I want people to be talking about you. I want people to be sharing. I want people to be like, oh my gosh, look. At this girl, look what she’s been up to. This is amazing, and I think you’ll find that there are more people in your circle who are gonna cheer for you when you’re your authentic self than the other way around.

It’s just our brain is so stuck on those voices and that that become our inner critic that keep us small and hiding. So here, I’m gonna say it one more time. You are not for everyone, so you might as well just be you as my friend Allison always says, be the you-est you that you can be, because this life is short and I don’t wanna spend any more time trying to appease everyone around.

Trying to edit myself for everyone around me, I’m gonna be more me. So watch out on our upcoming episodes. It’s gonna be fun. Uh, you know, I love a good soapbox, but here’s the takeaway. Ask yourself again, where am I holding back? Where am I hiding? Where am I masking? Where am I editing and where do I want to be?

Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? What is a goal you have that you wanna, you know, we do New year’s resolutions. Let’s do a fall one. Let’s do a holiday one. We’re like, oh, it’s so busy in the holidays. I can’t make goals. I can’t get out there. Yes you can. Nobody said you can only make goals in January.

Make one today and then like, hit me up on Instagram, send me an email and I will help you with it. Um, but yeah, start today. To lean into being more you. And if that is more griefy, let’s do it. If that is more like I wanna step back and be a little quieter about my grief, do that because that is one other thing.

One other place where you might feel this imaginary judgment is from your own baby, who’s no longer with you. We worry about what they’re gonna think. I can’t speak for those babies, but I imagine that they want you to live your life and to be who you are, and they want you to take care of yourself, and they want you to support yourself, and they want you to do whatever you need to do.

Like I have clients where being their most authentic self was like not going to any baby showers. For a year. Like just, you know, not being involved in their book club anymore, not being, it was like taking time for themselves. That was the best thing they could do. That was them being themselves was actually saying no.

So that’s my challenge for you today, and I want you to like buckle up because. Listen, it’s October, it’s pregnancy and infant loss awareness month. You got a lot of opportunities if you want them to be able to be more authentic with the people in your circles or whatever it is you’re doing. And I’d really encourage you to visualize who you wanna be.

Do you wanna be that juicy peach? Do you wanna be, I don’t know. Like an apple pie. This is a funny thing. I make a really good apple pie and I still always have like one kid that’s like, ah, I don’t like homemade apple pie. Or they’ll be mad about the crust. This is, this gets to me. I will make, I make this like Martha Stewart butter ridiculous flaky crust.

It’s so good. And I have one kid that will just eat the, the apple pie filling and will leave the crust and he’s like, yeah, I, I don’t like it. So again, you are. Apple pie crust. You are a juicy peach. You are a shining pop star. You are a diamond. You know, you’re all of it. Pick who you wanna be and understand.

Not everybody’s gonna like that, and that’s okay. You don’t need to please everyone. You gotta take care of you. You gotta be who you wanna be. You gotta like be who you wanna be in your relationships.

But that’s also somewhere where we really do hide who we are. Um, and if you’re in a relationship, like whatever type of relationship with someone who kind of wants to keep you small, like what are you doing? How can you maybe shift that dynamic? How can you stand up and say, no, this is who I am, this is who I wanna be, and this is important to me.

So. Um, sometimes those conversations need to be had. And the thing is, when you take action, when you stop hiding, you take action, you’re kind of gonna force that person to have to decide how they wanna show up and how they wanna be in relation to you. So that is what I have for you today. Just be you.

Love yourself. Give yourself so much compassion and just again, look around you. There are so many ways to be a human. There’s so many ways, like, um, like I love looking at houses like real estate. There’s so many amazing ways to be a house. There’s amazing properties, there’s amazing, and they’re not all the same.

That’s cool. And some people like modern design and some people like a log cabin, and some people, you know, really want white walls. It doesn’t matter. They’re all cool. And there’s room in this world for all of us and all of our likes and our dislikes and the things we’re into. So be more you this week.

And if you need support, and if you are on the edge of saying, Amy, I know what I want, and I just need a little help getting there, please come and talk to me. I have some spots open for coaching. We are gonna talk about this. We are gonna get you going, and you’re gonna be so freaking proud of yourself. I love you so much, and I thank you for being here.

If you have a friend that needs to hear this message. Because again, it’s always easier to see it in other people, but if you have a friend who needs to hear this message and they’re a loss parent, please send this episode to them and I will see you next time.