Episode 1 - It's happening

In this inaugural episode of the 'Calm Your Grits' podcast, host Joei Allen introduces herself and delves into her journey. Joei opens up about her life as a homeschool mom, a DIY enthusiast, and a pageant participant. This episode provides a heartfelt discussion about personal growth, overcoming insecurities, and the determination to achieve one's dreams. Joei shares her experiences with pageants, the challenges she faced, and the invaluable lessons she learned along the way. Additionally, she touches on her advocacy for infant loss and postpartum depression awareness.

Watch & listen to episode on Spotify! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mrsallen65/episodes/Its-happening-e2le4mb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joeiallen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090676779778
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@JoeiAllen

Transcript

Joei: 0:00

Welcome to Call Your Grits podcast. I'm your host joei Allen. I'm just your average stay at home mom, homeschool mom and wifey Who loves all things sparkly and anything DIY from party planning to interior design, Basically just a crazy Pinterest Mom. Oh, and I've also recently, Jumped into the pageant life because why not I'm a self proclaimed expert at nothing other than hanging on by a thread. I am living my best life, during what I can only describe as my midlife crisis. This podcast is about nothing and everything. So whether you're here because you can relate or for some comic relief, my hope is that you'll walk away learning something new or at least feel a little less weird about the voices in your head and the decisions you've made in your life Episode one, It's Happening. So how did we get here? I currently don't think I can answer that with just one reason other than I felt called to use this medium to share my story. Maybe hone in on some skills I'd like to master before I'm 40. Good luck with that and have fun doing it, why not? I dove in and I started to do research and one of the things that really stood out was to talk about something that I'm currently really passionate about. At the moment, that would be pageants. I'm just coming out of a five to six month process of preparing to compete in the Mrs. South Carolina, america pageant, which was a dream come true. I currently live in Fort Mill, South Carolina. I was born in Ecuador and I moved to Florida when I was around two, then I moved back to Ecuador when I was 10, and then when I was 18 and I moved back to Carolinas. So I've been here 20 years now. I'm kind of aging myself, but. The Carolinas is what I call home. I'm a Carolina girl and I'm proud of it. Anywho, back to pageants. What an experience. I already said it was a dream come true, but I met so many amazing inspiring women, all ages. You have to be 18 to compete. So all ages from like 18 and up, some of them, this was their first pageant experience and others, they have been competing in pageants for years and years. All levels, all ages. Talk about a wonderful opportunity to just connect with other women and realize that everyone has a story. So why not start a podcast, And what am I waiting for? At the end of the day, part of why I got back into pageants or why I even, went down that path was because I wanted to share my story in hopes to reach more hearts, reach more people, bring more awareness to my platform and things that are near and dear to my heart. At first doing a pageant seemed kind of not silly, but it, I didn't think it was like that big of a deal, but like jokes on me. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I didn't even realize the things that I was about to get to experience the growth that comes with pageantry is so real. And if you've ever done a pageant, you know what I mean, and if you haven't, you're just going to have to take my word for it. Deciding to jump into the Olympics of pageants to straight into the deep end. I did all the things to prep, because if I was going to do this, I knew I didn't really have that much experience, or recent or really relevant experience because the pageants that I did when I was a teen, completely different experience. I worked with a pageant coach and interview coach, professional makeup artists and photographers for headshots, and just even that was hard. It doesn't like, Oh, what's a picture, but for me personally, I had doing that. So all of a sudden, you know, like, okay, the, the getting made up and dolled up, that wasn't hard, but standing there and then being like, okay, give me this, give me that look and I, it just, it felt so awkward at first, you know, and then, it's like a sport, right? The more you practice it, the more natural it feels and the better you get at it, was fun, I love it. I could take headshots, pictures for a living. I was determined to not care how stupid I looked in front of the professionals, and I was open to all the feedback. I knew I was at a beginner level. Part of the process also involved, designing ad pages for the program book and for social media, highlighting, my amazing sponsors. I went to workshops, I did appearances, I happily did all the things because I really wanted to grow and learn and I didn't want to look like an idiot on stage unprepared. I had to change a lot of my mindset too even social media before I would just cringe at posting a selfie. No big deal, right? It's not like I never posted a selfie, but usually like when I would go and post a picture of myself by the time. I found a picture I liked and try to come up with a, caption or something like that. I would just talk myself out of it and not do it because it felt so unnatural and it felt cringy. I'm my biggest critic, right? You look at your pictures and you see, Oh, my hair looks like that, my skin looks wrinkly here, yadda, yadda, yadda, and yeah, I had to get over that, I'm not saying I'm completely over it and I can just post whatever and I don't slightly cringe, but I have a come a long, long way. Now I see it more as sharing about my life, sharing myself, letting go of that,"what people think" crap because it's crap, like you do you. And that's the funny thing is I'd be the first person to tell anyone you do you, why do you care about what people think? But then I would find myself caring what people thought, I've come a long way from that and it's just me sharing me if you don't like it, don't look at it, don't follow. If it entertains you cool if it doesn't fine, I'm not going to let that stop me from sharing and straight up celebrating myself for taking on this new sport. And for anybody that wants to argue that pageantry is not a sport, bring it, I'm happy to spend an episode or five explaining why it's a sport. It takes a lot to put yourself out there and hit that stage, do the interviews while showcasing who you are. I don't know, maybe it's just a sport for me, but I swear it takes a lot. What I'm getting at is that for me at the beginning, it was almost a daily battle where I would be like... what am I doing? Why am I doing this? What am I, what was I thinking? And then I'd argue with myself and be like whatever, it's fine. I'm doing it anyway. I don't care. I'll figure it out. Just do the steps, do the work, do the things, no matter how awkward it feels. Because. I knew I would get better at it and get more comfortable with it. What's the worst that can happen? Look like an idiot. Who cares? The realization that I've come to is that there are still things that I need to work on if I really want this. My motto has been, it's not the will to win that matters. It's the will to prepare to win, also mixed in with enjoying the journey instead of being so focused on the goals and, you know, goal, goal, goal, and nothing else matters. that's what I've been really intentional about doing is just trying to enjoy the day to day, to make sure that I also enjoyed the process. And I did. I absolutely did. And full transparency, even though I am proud of myself, I did have to give myself permission to go through. The grieving process after the pageant. I'm not trying to sound dramatic about it BUT when you put your everything into trying to reach a goal and the outcome isn't what you expect Yeah, there's going to be some level of grief. Duh ask anybody! I'm here to tell you that it's okay to feel more than one way. At the same time and one feeling doesn't cancel out the other or make the other one invalid, it's okay to be bummed out but also proud of yourself like I'm very proud of myself but was I bummed out? I mean, yeah, that doesn't mean I'm not super proud of the winners. They're gonna do an amazing job representing South Carolina, but I can feel that, but also feel a little, you know, bummed out. And, this is the other thing God put something on your heart and you assume, you know Where that path is leading you to all right, like I'm assuming Well, if it's really on my heart, then it's because I'm gonna win and all my dreams are gonna come true That's not how it works. You just have to do the next right thing. What's on your heart and just follow and obey the things that are pushing you and motivating you. Will I ever be Mrs. World? I don't, I don't know. I hope so, what I do know is that everything that I'm learning during this process is making me a better person. It's pushing me to grow to put myself out there. It's pushing me to actually share more about my platform, I've allowed myself, to think through it all, overthink it, feel all the feels. I'm still praying about it. Still trying to figure out what's next. and that's okay. I'll absolutely admit that going through the process of prepping for this pageant. it's a big factor that led me to creating in this podcast. It kinda tipped the scale finally got to the point where the wanting to do this and not caring what people would say and that I can do this feeling it was stronger than all the doubt and all the negative I can pretty much do anything now, if I could walk on a stage in a bathing suit. You know, that was hard, got over it, took a lot of work. I'll share more about that. It's comical, but whatever. I'm done worrying about it. This body has been put through the damn ringer between the kids and age and gravity and whatever. But I also remember feeling similar, in my teens. There's that funny meme that something like, I wish I were as fat as I thought I was in high school or, something along those lines. I'm officially done with putting myself down and calming my grits. Speaking of personal growth and stuff, that brings me to the work I still need to do, to get that freaking crown. And one area that I know I have a lot of room to grow in regarding pageants is the interview part., I also have a room to grow in my stage presence and all of that, but I feel like the biggest gap for me right now is the interview piece of it. I've been thinking a lot about what's missing, why do these interviews trip me up so much am I giving off a vibe that I don't think I'm worthy of winning? Who knows? I can say that I gave it everything that I had up until that day. I did the work. I'm proud of myself. I showed up. pageant weekend was amazing I had so much fun I love the sisterhood and getting to know other women that are also putting themselves out there it's probably one of my favorite parts and that sisterhood is absolutely real. So what's missing? What do I need to work on and how exactly should I go about doing that? I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out and why not document it so I can look back one day and be like look, remember that? My platform is infant loss and postpartum depression survivor, is it maybe too delicate of a topic for me still to talk about I don't think so I'm very open with my story and my struggles and how hard it was one of the things I remember was feeling alone. So I always make sure that I don't sugarcoat it and say it how it is and I'm very transparent about the crazy stuff that went through my head and it gets easier the more I share my story and people are like, me too. I thought it was crazy Thank you for saying that so that kind of makes it easier but yeah, like I'm wondering if it's still too delicate of a topic or if I just need to do more so I could get comfortable talking about it, narrow it down. I don't know. I'm going to figure that out. This past year I did push myself to do more regarding my platform, I currently lead an online support group with PSI, Postpartum Support International. it's a huge organization with tons of resources to help women, families. During that perinatal period. So I'm leading online groups and it was harder than I thought. It was very triggering hearing these women share things and say things that just brings back all the feelings, all the triggers, and I don't know that you ever fully heal from it Personally I've done therapy like I'm in therapy. I'm still in therapy I still go to psychiatrists because I'm not going to Ignore the fact that I still get triggered but a lot of times when you struggle with something and you stop making it about you and you put yourself out there and try to help other people because it's one in five women that are affected by it. So, maybe I just need to get more comfortable speaking about my platform. Who knows? I don't know. All I know is I'm following what I feel I should be doing now which is sharing my story through this podcast. having a little fun with it and I'm really excited to see where this leads, hope you stick around and be a part of it. And that's a wrap guys. Thanks for listening to episode one of Calm your grits podcast. It's happening. I would love it. If y'all would subscribe and follow me on all the social medias. I look forward to sharing more with y'all next time. Thanks. Bye.