Where is your line in the sand? The moment when you say: “Enough—it has to be me,” and fight for change in your life and in the world?

In this solo episode, I explore why our actions often fall short of our values, and the fears and dynamics that hold us back from advocating for ourselves and others. Weighing up the costs of staying silent, I go on to the importance of staying informed, using critical thinking, and having the courage to listen to our intuition even when it challenges what the people we love and trust are saying.

We dive into the power of adding our voices to the collective, the responsibility that brings, and the consequences of our actions and endorsements. Upgrading our interest and investment in both expands our impact.

I share the non-negotiables that dictate where my line is, and where I put energy and resources, with the aim of closing the gap between how things are and how they ought to be.

Our commitment to the collective directly reflects our regard for ourselves. How bad does the pain have to get before we prioritize our health and quality of life, go into action, and go after what we want?

We have influence without wielding power. If we just use our agency.

TESS’S TAKEAWAYS:

Suffering grows in the gap between our values and actions.

We don’t control the world. We do play a part in creating it.

Speaking up is the beginning of change.

Be mindful about your participation. You magnify what you endorse.

Personal responsibility expands agency. Blame relinquishes it.

Upgrade the level of investment in your own life and the collective.

Regulation comes before response so we manage our reactivity.

Create more than you consume.

MEET TESS MASTERS:

Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs.

Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.

Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.

CONNECT WITH TESS:

Website: https://tessmasters.com/

Podcast: https://ithastobeme.com/

Health Programs: https://www.skinny60.com/

Delicious Recipes: https://www.theblendergirl.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/

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What is the line in the sand for you? That last straw, your breaking point, the final nail in the coffin. When you say enough is enough, it has to be me to take action and use your voice to demand change in your own life and in the world. That's what I'm talking about today. So let's dive in. Your

voice matters. Use it wisely. That's what my mum and dad said to me my entire childhood, and they continue to say to me in adulthood, and I really thank them for helping me see that every day of my life, encouraging me to use my intelligence and resources and privileges for good, to care for

myself and others, to listen and value alternate points of view to change my mind if I needed to do my own research, use my critical thinking, come to my own conclusions about things, even if it was in opposition to what they believed. And that's the point of this podcast is celebrating the agency that we

have, that we can give ourselves permission to have a unique perspective and share it, and it is of value, and it does start with permission, permission from ourselves. And then we do seek permission from other people, from our parents, our family, partner, co workers, community, higher power, a lot of different

places where we're seeking permission. And what happens if we don't get it? What do we do then? Do we have the courage to accept the consequences of our own intuition, even if it flies in the face of what the other people in our life think and believe. What happens then that's a real test, isn't it, of

our own ability to give ourselves permission. But what's the cost of our thought or our action? The physical cost, the emotional cost, the energetic cost, the safety costs, the financial costs. You know, are you safe to fully and freely express yourself? Sometimes we're not. There are people all

over the world that are not free to express what they believe in exactly the way that they want to. But let's just assume, for the purposes of this conversation, that we are free to speak our minds, use our voices and stand up for what we believe in our own life and in the world. So if we do feel safe

enough to express our views, what holds us back from doing it. Sometimes I'm constellating around this a lot, particularly over the last several years, that sense of belonging, that sense of community, is so important to us as human beings, I'll be other. I hear that voice in my head quite a bit when I'm

about to go out on a limb and do something I've never done before. It flies in the face of, you know, what other people in my life think is appropriate or right, or what I should be doing, or whatever the case might be, I'll be other. But I'll be other is what I hear sometimes in my mind,

particularly when I'm going beyond where my family's gone before, or beyond something that they can get their heads around or understand, or, you know, they might laugh, or, you know, make fun of me, or kind of question it, or whatever. You know, they're incredibly supportive of me, but we don't

agree about everything, and we are all very different people in a very loving family. So these conversations come up, and it does rub me, of course, because I care what they think, and I want to be part of a family that's incredibly loving, but that often moves through the world quite differently than I

do, as much as there's so much love there. So there is that sense of albe other, sometimes that sense of betrayal. This comes up a lot, you know, when you're the first person in your family to go to college, or you're the first person who's decided to be an entrepreneur and start your own business,

when everybody else in your family has been an employee, or you've got a different political belief, or you join a church, or you leave a church, for example. I mean, there's so many examples of this in a political landscape, you know, we're seeing whole families ripped apart, where there's differing

viewpoints and things like that, so lots of reasons where there's this sense of betrayal and not belonging, and that you'll be other, you'll be an outsider. I'll lose friends and family members, I'll lose money, I'll lose social media followers, I'll lose opportunities. Where will I go if I'm different and

I'm doing something different to everybody else? Will people, the people in my life, still accept me. I don't know what to do if I go and do this other thing. I don't even know I don't even know anybody that's doing that or is out there believing that or saying that, not in my community anyway. This comes up

a lot, and there's lots of different scenarios, and then imposter syndrome that comes up for me all the time. Who am I to think that? Oh, I'm thinking too big. I want too much. I, you know, I should be content with what I have. You know. Who am I to go for that? Or what if I, oh, what if I don't have the

goods to make it happen that I'm not enough, slash, I'm too much story that I talk about all the time on the podcast. I can't do that. I. Won't be able to meet the moment. What if I'm a fraud? That comes up in my head quite a bit. So it's all about intentions. If we show up with truth and integrity and respect

and kindness compassion, we're listening to our own heart and head, and we're listening to the hearts and heads of others where, using our muscle of critical thinking, if something doesn't look right, smell right, sound right, it's not right. And we always go back to the body, that body listening but doesn't

feel right, that gut feeling everyone's saying, do it, but just doesn't feel right for me. Oh, trust that instinct. I don't know about you, but every time I go against my instincts, I screw things up. I should have listened to myself. We our body always knows if it's right or not. We talk about this a lot on

the podcast, a lot of the embodiment practitioners and somatic practitioners, you know, a lot of people that I've interviewed, we've talked about this, our body always knows our heart always knows what we want, and then our head gets in the way, and then societal expectations and relationships

and all kinds of things, it just muddies the water about the clarity that we actually have about what we believe and what we really want, about that heart focused listening that we've spoken about a lot with several of our guests, so your voice matters. And if you were not fortunate to be taught that as a

child in your family like I was, you can learn that now you can decide that your voice matters right now, right now, your voice matters. People want to hear what you have to say. I promise you, the world needs your voice. Needs your unique perspective, your unique life experience, your unique story has to be in

the mix. We want it. This comes up a lot in my office hours for skinny 60 where particularly women in middle age, you know, in their 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, a lot of women just think it's all downhill and that, you know, I'm invisible, nobody wants to hear what I have to say. Or, you know, they've been

beaten down their whole lives, or whatever the situation might be, this comes up a lot, and then they learn, oh, wow, I've got something to say. And people want to hear, gosh, when you're sharing the story of your life, and people are listening. Gosh, it's a good feeling, isn't it, and they're truly present, and

they're asking questions, they're curious about you. Oh, it is such a good feeling. It feels good to share and it feels good to truly listen. So use your voice. It matters. I want to hear it. The world wants to hear it. Your family want to hear it. People want to hear it. So what? What is the

contribution that you want to make? I'm very contribution focused like I want to make a contribution to the world. I want to leave the world better than how I found it. I want to be contributing to causes I believe in. I want to be helping people with my work. I want my life to matter, and we all want

our lives to matter to mean something. So what do you want your contribution to be? And part of our contribution is not just what we put out into the world, it's what we support. And by supporting something and participating in the contributions of others, we are endorsing those contributions,

and they then become an extension of our contribution. We play a role in amplifying the contributions of others. So we've got to choose wisely, going back to what my mummy and daddy told me, right? Who do you support? Who do you spend the most time with we become like the people we spend the most

time with. It rubs off, whether we want it to or not. Happens slowly over time, or it can happen very quickly. Depends how impressionable that we are, depends on how solid we feel about who we are, our self esteem. We gotta have some healthy belief in our in our opinions and our unique

perspective, that there is value to it. Otherwise, we do get very easily swayed. Without a lot of proof and without a lot of

trust being established, is what I see and what I feel. Just because someone's in power doesn't mean they're telling the truth. We've got glaring examples of that in the world right now and in history. You know, there are convenient narratives that we buy into because we are not clear about

who we are and what we want, and when we're clear about who we are and what we want, personal responsibility becomes extremely important. I live my life with personal responsibility. It is a non negotiable mandate of human behavior. For me, I want to take responsibility for what I do and the effect that it has on other

people. And when we abdicate that personal responsibility, that's when we get into trouble. We start blaming everybody else for why our life is the way that it is right, and that's how a lot of people win elections and they gain leadership. Is. Of making people afraid of and telling them who's to blame for

it. So we see that a lot. I don't want to play a part in that way of moving through the world. I want to take responsibility. I want to engage my critical thinking. I want to put something out there with good intention, and I want to be extremely intentional about who I support and endorse, who then

becomes an extension of my offering, becomes an extension of my story, because our stories intersect at that point. So who are you supporting and endorsing? Would you leave your children with that person? What's their character like? I think about that all the time when I'm voting for people, when

I'm endorsing people, when I'm supporting someone's business, anything, I got to really look at the whole story, you know, because then it become my my endorsement is an extension of me. So what is it saying about you? Who you support, who you endorse, the things that you're consuming on the internet or in

the movies or television shows or newspapers or or news outlets, whatever it is, what is the character of that organization or that person? What are they putting out into the world? Are you commenting on social media? Are you reposting? Are you forwarding posts? What? What are those posts saying

about the world, and what does that then say about you when you repost it or comment on it. I find it really curious. I'm curious about when people post really, really nasty things about other people, and then they comment these heinous things on other people's posts, which really aren't hurting

anybody. They're just sharing their opinion and oh my goodness, it goes back and forth. I don't want to participate in that either. I find it really, really destructive. So what is that saying about you? Because it all, it all forms a body of evidence about who we are in the

world. Every single thing we do forms a body of evidence about us. So what story are you putting out in the world? What other stories are you participating in, and what does that reveal about you? So where are you investing your energy? I think about this a lot. Where am I investing my energy, and I

would invite you to invest some of your energy and personal growth in your own growth, in your own awareness, your own emotional intelligence, like we were talking about with Pete o'hanra Han about the Enneagram in the last episode, self self care, self growth. It's all part of the same bucket, right? Are

you investing in your own health and nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, quality of relationships, communication, your ability to be in the world in a clean way with integrity and love. Are you caring for your family and your friends, your community, the world at large, or are you? Is there a

lot of angst, lot of anger, resentment, blaming of other people? Are you abdicating that personal responsibility? Where are you putting your energy? Because what you what you give energy to, expands. It's just how it works. Look like, like the law of physics. Now, I think we're all a mixture of all of

it. But if I was going to give you two jars and you were going to put marbles in each jar, marble every time you took personal responsibility and sat with that enacted from that place, and a marble in the jar every time you abdicated personal responsibility, it's pretty interesting exercise. I

would do it. I would do it myself, particularly if I find myself in a dark place. And you know, we all go through the cycles of the moon. Sometimes you're flying high and you feel on top of things, and you feel really great and positive. And other times you're in the toilet and you feel like crap and you

just cry. And I mean, we've all been in all of those places. I think when we're brought to our knees. It's really a test of our character. Am I going to sink or swim? Am I going to take personal responsibility and decide, okay, it has to be me to pull myself out of the quicksand, to make a change, to

do what needs to be done, even if it is terrifying. Remember that courage is not the absence of fear. It is taking action in the presence of fear. So what are you feeding? What are you ordering? What are you nurturing? Is it love and fear? Love or fear? Is it hatred? Is it division? Is it possibility,

or is it destruction? What are you creating? What are you participating in? The creation of there's some pretty alarming statistics out about how we are consuming more than we are creating. And again, I go back to that marble jar exercise that I give a lot of people in, in during office hours, in skinny

60 now 60 day reset because. It's It's so illustrative, because you just look at it over a week or over a month and it's like, wow, okay, that's a visual representation of where the energy is going, where my where my mindset is. So, ah, feels good to create. This is actually what I love about cooking. It's

a chance to create every single day, it's a chance to put something nourishing into your body and out into the world. Every single day, we get an opportunity to do this multiple times a day for other people, it's reading, it's writing. I would say reading is consuming, but I'm going to say it's also

creating, because we we go into another world and we participate in the there's a co creation aspect, because our imagination engages. So writing, some people, dance, some people. I mean, there's so many ways that we can be creative in the world. So how are you creating and putting something out there of

value? Are you living the life you want or someone else's version of the story, who's the dominant voice in your head? Is the question I ask everybody in our program. It's typically a parent, and what is your relationship with that voice? What are they telling you you're allowed to do and allowed to

have? Is it a loving voice? Is it a destructive voice? But I think we ever get rid of that voice, but we can learn how to build a different relationship with it and the effect that it has on us when it shows up so often, when the dominant voice is really taking over from our own voice we're living in the

shoulds, as opposed to the I wants, or the I cans, or I get to that whole world of possibility. So when we're living in the shoulds, there's a lot of resentment and fear, and because it's not a house, it's not actually ours, so we can't take ownership of it. So when we're when we're deciding to

live in the I cans, I get tos, there's possibility and there's energy. Oh, we can take ownership of that. There's agency there again. So how do you feel about your life? What makes you happy right now? What do you wish was different? I think that that we can put marbles in both of those jars

all of us at any time in life, no matter where we're at, there's a mixture of all the things, right? I don't think that every single thing is in place in every single part of our lives. And just acknowledging that, that, Oh, you know what, over here, I'm cooking with gas. This is

awesome, but over here I got some work to do, maybe that needs a bit of attention, and I'd like that to be different. And what can I do to affect change in that area of my life? So I can bring it up to the level of joy of this other piece, and I don't think that it's all at the same level all

the time and at different phases of our life. You know, there's different things are going on, but just that acknowledgement and that awareness, and again, reminding ourselves of the agency that we have to affect change. So how do you create change in your life and in the world? What is your relationship

with change? And depends on what kind of change, right? So, if the change is favorable to us and it makes us feel good that we love change, if it's change that we're dreading and change that we think is going to destroy us, then we hate change. You know, if you ask the average person, most people will tell

you they're afraid of change. Fear and excitement activate in the same place in the body. It's just a different expectation of the outcome. So if we accept the notion that change is always going to be good for us, because it's always going to take us to another place of opportunity, and we stay open to all

possibilities, and we go, You know what? No matter what happens, I will figure it out, and I got the goods to survive and thrive if we accept that about ourselves, because we all have the ability to do that. We just doubt it, but our heart knows, and sometimes it's really painful and really challenging

and gut wrenching and takes a long time, and it's a long road, and it's a labyrinth, and all the things that we know about the human experience, but leaning into the excitement of it can really change the way that we meet the moment and meet every moment after that, because everything dovetails into the

next thing. So what motivates you to take action?

What's the thing that gets you to do it in the end, that actually gets you off your bum and into action and go right? It has to be me. What gets in the way of you doing that? What are the principle obstacles to you doing that? How can you work with those patterns and obstacles so that you can make

different choices? Again, this comes up all the time in skinny 60. Are you proactive or reactive? I think that we're a mixture of all the things. It depends on what it is in our lives. I'm pro in our lives. I'm proactive in some areas, and I can be really reactive in other areas. I'm not proactive in

absolutely everything I do. If I'm afraid of something, I don't know if I'm so proactive, right? And then I can be really incredibly proactive in things that I feel confident in. I mean, I think that it depends what kind of personality type. Again, go and listen to the. Episode about the Enneagram a

lot. Last week's episode with Peter Hanrahan, we talked a lot about this like that's what the Enneagram is. It's a personality system to understand what drives us, our core motivations and fears and oh, is it illuminating and really serves as a map, a beginning point we're more than our patterns, but a beginning

point to understand them better, so that we can respond rather than react being more conscious about what's going on in there. And sometimes it feels like, you know, mess in there. You know, I certainly go through those periods where, like, I just don't even know what to grasp onto right now, and feel so

overwhelmed or so angry or, you know, and then that's when I know I've got to go back to breath and calming my and regulating my nervous system and getting into a place where I can see clearly again, sometimes that means I've got to go for a cry. I got to go for a walk. I got to jump on a trampoline,

dance it out, call a friend. I mean, so many ways that we redirect ourselves and change our state so that we can mindfully, consciously respond in a measured way, rather than knee jerk reactions, where we hurt ourselves and others. And something that is really coming up for me right now is, what is

the line in the sand? What is the last straw, the breaking point, the final nail in the coffin, when you go Enough is enough. I want change. It has to be me to speak up, to advocate for myself, to go after it, to demand it for yourself or the world. What is it? What is it? And I think it's different with

different circumstances. But what are the negotiables and the non negotiables in your life. Oh, and those are heavily influenced, aren't they, by experience, by family, culture, education, work. So many things affect the where that line is if we're going to go with the line, and there are some serious

problems in the world. The world is a beautiful place and the world is a horrific place at the same time. And we have to hold all of it. You know, there are some serious conflicts and wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Myanmar, Africa, Central and South America. I mean, it just goes on. You know, parts of Asia.

Climate change is an existential threat to our existence, the refugee crises around the world, the rise of authoritarianism and dictatorships and incredibly horrific leadership that's really, really enacting cruelty, you know? And there's always been these trends of obviously, but it feels really, really big

right now. You know, there's, they're just, there's, they've sort of got unchecked power, some of these people. And it's really alarming and in and around that I can have spirit to debate about these issues as strongly as I feel about who I am and what I believe and what is negotiable and non negotiable

for me, and where the line is, and all the things, I can still stand firm in my opinion and listen and respect the opinions of others about a lot of big issues in the world, I can see somebody else's argument, and even though it might make my blood boil, not everybody you're not 100% right. You're not 100%

wrong. With most things in life, there's that gray area where we where there's room for us to meet and find the points of agreement so that we can come together and collaborate. That is part of the dance of life and living with other human beings that have free will and believe and come from all different

backgrounds and believe different things than we do and see the world differently. Going back to the Enneagram, like we were talking about last week, I can have spirited debate with somebody that comes to me with the same set of facts, and we agree that this happened in the world today, and then we might

have a different opinion or interpretation about those set of facts. And I actually enjoy spirited debate, because I'm really open to someone changing my mind that I might actually be wrong. I think it's a real strength to admit that you're wrong about something, and you didn't have all the information,

and now maybe you've got a bit more information, or another piece of it's clicked in, or maybe you're older, or you've had some life experiences that's changed your perspective about something. Oh, being malleable and changeable is such a strength, and I think that often we can get really locked into

cement, tagging our identity to our views and beliefs that maybe we had 30 years ago about something, and if we suddenly change where it's a weakness, I really feel like it's a strength. So there's a lot of issues, depending on your perspective, where I can go, Okay, I think the war in Gaza is

globally sanctioned genocide, and I think it's purely evil, and my heart bleeds for those people. But then. Anybody who's lived in Israel, they've just got a completely different view about it, right? So this is where, okay, let's talk about it. But there is something that I I don't know where to go in

conversation, and that is human trafficking and sexual abuse. I don't I can't think of an argument where that would ever be acceptable to me. I just find that that that's a line in the sand I cannot cross and accept that there would be any circumstance under which human trafficking and sexual abuse and

pedophilia would be acceptable to me. I don't care who did it. I don't care where they came from. I don't care what happened to them. There is to me, it's just no, absolutely no. So obviously, you know, the Epstein files is a very big story in the world, and I don't see it as a political story. I see it as a

very, very human story that is touching people of all cultures, races, backgrounds, political beliefs and so forth. And in my office hours, abuse comes up a lot because our food choices, we comfort ourselves with food, and we abuse ourselves with food, just like we abuse ourselves with alcohol or drugs or

exercise. Some people, you know, a lot of a lot of things, isolation and so sexual abuse comes up a lot alcoholism, drug addiction comes up a lot in our community, because people are coming in to heal themselves with food, with lifestyle choices be better, understand themselves better, and

particularly, you know, we have a dietitian call once a week, and then we have the mindset Office Hours call once a week, where we really get into this stuff, because it when we understand our choices better. We have more agency over our food choices. It's incredible how these things intersect. I

talk about this a lot on the podcast, where the way you choose to nourish yourself, or not, your relationship with food has a direct correlation to the way that you treat yourself in other parts of your life, and your psychology in general, and how much you believe you're worth and how you nourish

yourself. It's all connected. So last week, it's a lovely lady in our community that was incredibly honest about the fact that she had been sexually abused and had, you know, historically abused alcohol and was now sober, but was an emotional eater because of it, her whole life, she was seeking

comfort with ice cream and candy and potato chips and all kinds of food. This is an incredibly common story, incredibly common, and she had joined the community because she wanted to get out of that habit and wanted to nourish yourself and build a really joyful, safe, empowered relationship with food. And I

was so inspired by her courage and her transparency, her vulnerability, because it gave all these other women on the call permission, and then either people chimed in and said, Yep, I've been sexually abused too, or I there's alcoholism in my family. And then people that didn't, maybe not feel

comfortable saying it and speaking up, would email me. I got a lot of emails from people that were either on the call live or listen to the recording, so I was already following the Epstein story and horrified by it. And I was watching the news stories and reading some things in newspapers, and, you know,

seeing some things on social media, but I really wanted to again engage my critical thinking, do my own research, really look at this stuff for myself. So I went on to the US Department of Justice website, and I read a whole bunch of the emails.

And even though all the files have not been released, even though legally they have, many months ago, should have all been released and full with full transparency, but they have not been. I have not read all the files, because I can't, and even the ones that are released, I haven't spent the hours and

hours and hours and hours it would take to to read them, and I, to be honest with you, don't think that I have the stomach and the heart for it, because it's so incredibly disturbing. Most, many of them have been redacted in a very bizarre way. But what I was able to read for myself makes it very clear that

some of the most powerful, high profile, richest people in the world were participating willfully and gleefully in the trafficking, sexual abuse and rape of women and children. Children, people from all walks of life, the current US president, former US president, prime ministers, ambassadors,

other world leaders, members of royal families. We know who they are, business owners, entertainers, doctors, spiritual guides, people from all walks of life, Democrats, Republicans, people from all over the world, conservatives, progressives, of all cultures, races. It's just It's astonishing how deep and

wide the rot, the corruption, the depravity, the willful neglect, the carelessness, the sport, the illness, the lack of respect for women. It's It's disturbing on so many levels, and there have been a lot of public denials, claims of exoneration, which simply just do not exist. Not one single

person has been charged with sexual crimes. There's investigations, but not for that. It's for sharing state secrets or acting inappropriately, or profiteering, or whatever it is. Not one single person is being invested investigated for sexual abuse. These people have been

caught with their pants down, literally, literally, and they're still denying it, and millions of people are going along with it. There is no justification for sexual abuse, rape and pedophilia, the willful rape and sexual abuse of children. It is. I can't get my head and my heart around it. I

don't want to. I find it disgusting. I find it heartbreaking. There is no justification for doing it, and there is no justification for covering it up, covering and supporting people who have committed these crimes. You know, even murder, there's extenuating circumstances. You

know, self defense, I mean, there's just, there's so many circumstances. But pedophilia, I do not understand how anybody can justify that, can turn the other cheek, can deny it, can spin it, but my God, they're trying. I am stunned that not every single human being is on the line right now, demanding

that these people are fully investigated and prosecuted for their crimes, and that there's justice for every single victim and survivor. The spin in some of the official statements and news outlets is utterly deplorable. And again, this is not political both sides of the aisle people of all walks of

life. I mean, it is. It's ridiculous that this is being politicized in the way that it is, because it affects current people in power. They have a lot to lose the desire for justice and truth and transparency. It's not a political witch hunt or a bunch of people telling lies for sport. This is a very, very,

very real problem. We have undeniable proof, and if we ever see the rest of the files, there'll be more. One thing I am really grateful for about this story is that it's really shone a light in a very, very, very public way all over the world to the harsh reality of what a lot of people have been trying to

highlight for many, many, many, many years, the pervasive nature of human trafficking and sexual abuse in the world. It is a multi billion dollar industry, the business of buying and selling people. There are actual human farms in parts of the world that that take people, they rape the women. The women

have babies, and then they rape them again, and the babies get sent off, then they rape them again, and it just keeps going. Some of these people live in these farms their entire lives, until they're murdered, or until they kill themselves, or until they just die, or die during childbirth or whatever, or

escape. Don't know what the statistics are about that, but it is. It's so alarming the numbers that they estimate, and they're probably higher. It's about 49 million people. 49 million people on any given day are estimated to be in situations of modern slavery that includes human trafficking,

forced labor, forced marriage. They estimate over about five and a half million. Of those are children. We all know children. We either have children, or we know children. If my niece or nephew was caught up in that, there is nothing, I wouldn't do. I mean seriously, so this, this, this this distance that we put

between the other and us, if it's not on our doorstep, I don't care about if it doesn't what doesn't affect me doesn't affect me. Think that we all make decisions like that sometimes, and if we got Let's go. Let's go closer to home. Let's go into everyday life, the statistics there are incredibly

alarming. So nearly half of the women in the United States have experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime. Almost half most people never speak about it or share it or share it with anybody in their life. They're too ashamed, they're embarrassed. They think that

it's their fault. More than one in four women have experienced attempted or completed rape in Australia, it's one in five, but still terrible statistic, have experienced sexual abuse and one in four children. I mean, these statistics are unacceptable. There is something very, very wrong with this and and taking

it off the page for a second, I know that this is true in my own life. So thankfully, I'm extraordinarily grateful that I have not been sexually abused, but the stats match up in my own life, I know many women in my personal life and in my work, women that I have coached over the years, over 30,000 people

have done our programs at this point, but 1000s of people have done the 60 day reset. I see them every week. I speak to them. I touch them. I see that, you know, I touch their lives. I know what's going on. Many women that I know have been assaulted by men that they know, a family member, a parent, people at work

in their community, so it's parents, uncles, family, friends, doctors, dentists, priests, teachers, coaches, bosses, co workers, ha. It's they can't all be lying. I know that that's what the perpetrators would like us to believe. Well, she she wanted my money, or she's a bitch, or

she's a liar, or whatever. Now I'm sure that there are obviously situations like that, but more often than not, what woman wants to come forward and put herself through that takes enormous courage to step forward and decimate your life. In many instances, your life's never the same again, particularly if it's

a very high profile person, my money's always on the women. As a woman, you know, My money's on the women that I know that are very capable of being honest about other things in their life. I've got a body of evidence about them that they can be honest about other things. But speaking truth to

power is scary, and there is a power imbalance in our lives, does it? We don't have to be dealing with a president. We can be dealing with someone in our community where they're high status and we're low status. We can be in a relationship with someone where they've got the power financially or physically

or whatever. There's always a power imbalance. We'd like to think that it's equal, but we don't live in that world. People are literally killed for standing up for what they believe mean. That's the world that we live in, and the corruption in the top corridors of power is is disturbing and

disgusting, and we we've got it on full display right now.

I am filled with grief and rage about this, this human trafficking, pedophilia, rape, sexual abuse story in the world, not just the Epstein files, but all of it. And the more I educate myself about it, the more I read, the more I watch, the more disturbed I become. I have never spoken about this

publicly before, until now, I haven't used my voice to add to the collective outrage and demand for justice, and I've crossed the line now, and I'm not going back. I am using my voice now, and I will not let go. I have decided that I am one of the people in the world who has decided we are not letting

this go. This is not okay. It is deplorable. It is disgusting. I don't care who the person is, what, where they are. They need to be brought to justice. I don't care. I don't care if I voted for them. I don't care if I bought their product, if I sat on a panel with them, in some instances. I mean, seriously.

Don't care. It is disgusting what these people have done. So I'm not going to be quiet anymore. I would feel like I was complicit in this if I didn't say publicly, this is not okay. I will be using some of my time and resources in the future to participate in groups who are actively supporting victims and

survivors. I will be using my voice to continue to say, this is unacceptable. It is not okay. I will not let this go. I will be one of the people in the world that is never going to let this go. It's not okay. And some people on the list, it's shocking, no matter what your beliefs, there are so many

people that are implicated in this, people from all walks of life, people that we trusted in many instances, to find out that they've been living these double lives, and they've been talking about longevity or meditation or leading countries, and they've been raping children. I mean, it's just, it's disgusting, and

laughing and joking about it in emails. It's there in print. They can't run away from it. They tried to a lot of and these people are still trying to it's not going away. It's actually only going to get worse. And I and I am actually tongue tied. I'm actually I actually don't have words for the rage and the

grief that I feel in my body about this. I cannot even imagine what somebody involved in a story like this feels in their body and what gets triggered for them, the one in four women, the half of women in the United States that have had some kind of an experience. I mean, I can't, I actually can't

even imagine what they must feel. And this compassion and empathy, piece of this where even if it doesn't touch you. We have to be invested in the collective consciousness of the world. We have to be invested in the stories of other people. We have to be invested. That's how I feel about it. So what is a

deal breaker for you when if you get information about somebody that you voted for, you, trusted you believed in you bought their product, you thought they were great, and then all of a sudden you actually see undeniable evidence that they're not that person. And what, what is the deal breaker? I think we've

again, we've all got our own right to have the deal breakers that are ours, but this is a deal breaker for me. You know, if someone turns out to be to be a liar and an abuser, that's it. That's it for me. Done, done, done. So do you ignore the evidence and stay the course and continue supporting these

people? Just you hear a convenient narrative on the news that spun it some way. I don't, I don't know how you could even spin it. If someone's in those files and 1000s of times, it's not simply, oh gee, they're just mentioning that they had a meeting with me about something else. There are people mentioned

in the files, and that is absolutely the situation. So not every single person mentioned in those files is a pedophile or a raper or abuser or a despicable human being, right? There are many, many instances of that. But when you're in there 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of times, and there's a long history of an

association. I'm sorry, but come on. I don't know how anyone can spin that with a straight face and actually sleep at night. Seriously, it's disgusting to me. So then I know everything I need to know about that person too. Is how I feel about this. I don't feel about that, about anything else I can live in the

gray, like I said, with so many other things, but this issue, that's a deal breaker for me. Anybody that would rape a child against their will, no raping. There is no rape by very by its very definition, is against someone's will. So I don't know what I was saying with that, but I'm in such a state right now

that I just feel so I feel disturbed by it. So how closely are your beliefs tied to your identity and who you are in the world, and what you want other people to believe about you, what you've put out into the world, and you want to maintain that? That comes up for me, you know. And I, you know, I imagine

it comes up for you as well, that what does that say about me if I change my mind and I admit that I'm wrong? See again, I see that as a strength. I have such admiration for people that can do that. Choose to do that, because we can all, we can, we can all do it. But people that choose to do that. It's

incredibly courageous, and it serves as an example, and it inspires other people to do the same. It gives other people permission to do the same. And I find it incredible, and I want to be somebody that can do that too. Can you admit when you're wrong and make. Men's Do you have the courage to take

responsibility for your intuition and values, even if other people don't agree with you? Can you swim against the stream? So I'm thinking a lot about the gap, this gap between our values and our actions sometimes, and I've decided that the gap is too big for me, so I can't be silent. I have to fill

the gap. I've got to close the gap. And silence is a form of moral complicity, unless you're not safe to freely express yourself like sometimes we have to stay silent to protect ourselves from physical abuse, from death. You have to do it to survive. I get that. But inaction, when you are safe and

you do have the capacity and you do have agency, inaction is a form of participation. What does your action say about you? What does your inaction say about you? I'm asking myself these same questions, so I'm just putting it out there for all of us. What's the story I want to be telling? What's the story I

want to be participating in? How can I sleep at night? How do I feel about what I'm doing or not doing. What is your contribution going to be? Do you want to have a life of truth and integrity and kindness and compassion be part of the collective consciousness? Or do you want to be asleep, and I think about

this a lot, where I'll read something or something where it's like I've been asleep. I have been asleep. I have not been paying attention to that. And that's been in front of my nose the whole time, and I haven't been paying attention. So again, what is the line in the sand? What is the thing that

finally wakes you up and you go, I'm going to care about this. I'm going to choose to care about this. Now. Doesn't mean I can't function in the rest of my life, but I'm going to choose to care about this. To care about this now. So what can we do to be part of the collective and use our voices and be part of

the positive change that we want to see? There is that sort of natural inclination to go, I don't have any money in power. I'm just one person. I can't control that huge machine. No one's going to listen to me. What can I do? I can't make a difference. Oh, our voices matter. The world needs every

single one of our voices, and it takes just one voice to change the world, one voice to inspire another person to use their voice and another and another and another and another. Each of us is a powerful instrument of change in our own lives, in our communities, in the larger world, the power of the

collective. Oh, blows my mind blows my mind. We drive change together. And my god, the people that are out there first carrying the torch. I have such admiration for people, and we know who they are in history, people that helped us abolish slavery, women that were there were suffragettes. In the

suffragette movement, I can vote because of those women, and some of those women died so that I can vote.

The civil rights movement, we ended wars. The Vietnam War is a, you know, obviously, a very high profile modern day example of this women's liberation. We have rights that we didn't have before. We can open bank accounts without our husband doing it. I mean, that's the first thing that comes to mind,

but I mean, so many things that we're allowed to do, we have changed laws over and over, around the world, because one person spoke up, and then another and another, and then we, we formed a collective. We said, enough. And boom. And I'm not saying that everybody has to be a crusader, but it's time for

good, moral people to stop, stop being silent. We have to fight for the world that we want to be in. We have to fight for the world that feels right and safe. And we don't have complete control over what happens in the world, but we play a part in creating it. We all play a part. And it can feel very

overwhelming the enormity of the problems that we face in the world, in any phase of history, any phase of history, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of what the challenges that we face, but gosh, does it put our own lives in perspective. We recognize that we have a lot more control and

agency over our own lives than we want to admit. I think that's an amazing thing to come to terms with AND to play around with. Are you? Using that control and that agency that you have, or are you relinquishing it? And if you're relinquishing it, why are you going after what you want and fighting for what

you want? Do you believe that you can have it, that it's possible? Do you believe you deserve it? Are you asking for what you want? Are you resourcing yourself? Are you asking for help and building the relationships and the skills that are required to get where you want to go. Are you actually

owning what you want? How badly do you want it? What does your behavior say about how badly you want it? So often we say that we want things, but we don't do the work. We say we want the thing, but we don't do the work to actually get the thing, and then we complain that we don't have the thing. So where is the gap

in your own life between what you want and the action that you're taking to get it? If you're not taking action, do you actually really want that thing that you say you want? Or have you been conditioned to want that thing from somebody else. So again, I'll go back to that. Who was the dominant voice? What

is driving you? Can you build more awareness and a different relationship with that voice? What motivates you with your health and your quality of life? Are you proactive or reactive? Again? Do you wait for things to get really, really, really bad until you make a change, or are you proactive and you're going

to do it before it gets really, really bad? How bad does the pain have to get before you take action and make a change and do what needs to be done in order to get where you want to go? How bad does the pain have to get before you say it has to be me. This is on me. You are in the driver's seat of your own life

and your own health. You have agency again. You get to decide how you feel, what your aging story looks like, what your health story looks like. We are not our genes. Our genes are not our destiny, epigenetics, our food and lifestyle choices, who we choose to hang out with, what we choose to do, that is what

determines the quality of our life and the quality of our health and how strong we are, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. And I think it's a level of investment like I was saying. Choose to be hungry and thirsty. Choose to be curious about yourself and other people and the world. Choose to

be interested more than preoccupied with being interesting. Decide that you can figure it out no matter what happens, and that you actually want to figure it out, and if you don't want to figure it out, pretty good indication that's not what you should be chasing. You don't actually don't want it

enough. If you're not going to do whatever it takes to make it happen, decide that you can do whatever needs to be done and you can't do it on your own. Accept that reality. We live in a human collective experience. For a reason, we can't do it on our own. So asking for help is a strength. Find people, find

coaches, find teachers, find friends, find community, find programs, find church groups, find community groups, whatever it is, find places where you can learn and grow safely, where you feel listened to and heard. Find that, seek it out, start your own group. You know, if that's what it takes, decide that you

want more. Wanting more is not a bad thing. Wanting more means there's a level in investment. You're up leveling it. You're, Oh, that's beautiful. The only time that wanting more is bad, if it's more cruelty, more pain, you're going to hurt people. Or, you know, you're in all over the music hall. I mean, seriously,

wanting more is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Decide that you want to be better and better and better and better and better. That's the journey of life when you're on a self awareness path. And it's a beautiful journey. It's the harder journey, but it's the richer journey, 100% decide that

you can do whatever you want to do, if you go and ask for help. I see this all the time in skinny 60 in the 60 day reset women who think that it's all downhill, that there's no way that they could lose weight over the age of 40, or sleep through the night, or regulate their blood pressure and cholesterol

and get off that medication or feel good about themselves, and, you know, manage a certain illness or whatever it might be, and then all, you know, no, no. Tess, you don't understand I'm a unicorn. Like, like, I call it the unicorn phenomenon, where people I'm the kind of person my body just doesn't respond. No,

no. I've tried everything all my friends can lose weight, but I can't. I'm telling you, and I'm like, No, I haven't met a unicorn yet. Not one, not one single person in our program has not gotten results if they work with us, and we can keep tweaking and changing and looking at things, not one

single person hasn't got results, because that's why our program happens live, so that. Can help people in our dietitians and go, Okay, hang on a second. We want you to sort of switch up what you're doing here, because that might be causing an issue over here. I mean, it's like a puzzle, and

puzzles can be solved. Problems can be solved too, but I like Pete, my somatic therapist, Petey says it's not a problem, it's a puzzle, and puzzles are meant to be solved, and you can solve them, right? So, and I don't know what the solution is, yet, there's, and there's many different solutions. It's not

just one path to getting what you want. So sometimes, My God is, you know, kiss some frogs to find, you know, the one. And that's in and of itself, can be a very rewarding, rich experience, you know, being in process and relishing the process of figuring it out. Remember that mastery is not a

destination. It's a commitment to a path that has no end. We're always in the middle of the story. The beginning of the story is birth. The end of the story is death in this physical body. We're always in the middle, somewhere in the middle, and gosh, I see people in their 60s, 70s and 80s, living their

best lives and in such extraordinary health, because they choose it, and they do the work that needs to be done, and they ask for help. So, you know, I give those examples because that's the work that I do, you know, with my dietitians, Guinea 60, but in every area of life, that's true. So, you know, I'm a

coach in this area. I'm a mindset coach and a, you know, I help people make it happen and delicious and wonderful, but then I go off and be coached in areas that I'm not really fluent and proficient in. So we are all coaching and we're all coachable, you know. And you again, your voice matters, you

know. Bo and Elizabeth gave this to me. Their friend Don gave it to them that sometimes the best teacher for a third grader is a fourth grader. So you may think that you don't have anything to offer, or you know that your voice doesn't matter in the mix. I'm telling you, somebody out there is going to benefit from

what you know, seriously. So share your experiences. Jump in, add your voice to the chorus. Like, seriously, like, it's, it's a beautiful thing. Like, I know on on our calls, that we're all sharing, we're all learning, we're all leading, we're all following. I mean, it's all it's all happening at the same time,

and we've all got something to offer, and we all contribute to the collective being rich and nuanced and diverse and powerful and having a lot of different perspectives and open to all possibilities. So, yeah, decided has to be me, basically. I mean, that's the message of all of these, these conversations,

whether I'm doing a solo episode or whether I'm talking about it with somebody else, is tracing these stories of people that just decided it has to be me, and part of it has to be me, is sometimes deciding it does not have to be me, and walking away or taking our chips off The table can be, can be really

challenging. I really struggle with this. I often stay too long at the table, because I'm afraid that if I take my chips off the table, then I'm admitting defeat, that it's failure, that, again, that's a strength to going. You know what? Enough. I've had enough. This isn't the right fit for me anymore. It's a

real strength.

I am really interested to hear what your line in the sand is. What is the deal breaker for you? What is really lighting you on fire, that you have to it is that you have to add your voice to the mix in the collective maybe it's something I'm not paying attention to. When I say I'm really interested, I'm

genuinely interested because we know what we know, and so I really would, would like to hear about it. And what motivates you in your in your personal life, you know what? What is it? What is it that makes you jump into action? And I think it's something different in different parts of our life, right? You

know, in health, in nutrition, in some people are motivated in exercise, in your work, your home life. I mean, it could be a lot of different things, but what is it in the end, you know that that gets you over the line, that makes you take action? Please leave a review or put a note in the Facebook

group. Yeah, I'd like to hear your your thoughts about all of this.