Running In Slippers: Angie Hawkins On Resilience, Healing, And Finding Your Glow

Today, I sit down with Angie Hawkins to talk about people-pleasing, boundaries, and the journey to rediscovering your inner glow. Ms. Hawkins, an Inner Glow Coach and author of Running In Slippers, shares how childhood wounds, perfectionism, and the pursuit of external validation shaped her early life and relationships. She opens up about how grief, toxic relationships, and a suicide attempt became the breaking point that pushed her toward transformation.

Ms. Hawkins explains how people-pleasing often leads to unhealthy dynamics, guilt, and resentment. Together, we discuss practical boundary-setting strategies and how honoring those boundaries can create healthier relationships, even when it means saying no to family, friends, or partners. She also shares how emotional regulation, intuition, and daily habits of self-trust changed her belief system and helped her move from unworthiness to self-love.

We also talk about her work with high-achieving women who struggle with love and approval. Ms. Hawkins emphasizes that fulfillment doesn’t come from chasing success or relationships but from reconnecting with the light we are all born with. Through her Inner Glow Coaching and programs, she empowers clients to replace people pleasing with confidence and authentic living.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in toxic cycles of over-giving, guilt, or performing for approval, this episode is full of hope, tools, and encouragement. Ms. Hawkins’ story is one of resilience and renewal, reminding us that no matter how dimmed our inner light may feel, we all have the power to reignite it.

https://www.runninginslippers.com/book

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of nus. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey. And today's subject, there's gonna be a couple subjects all tied together. The one that is most personal to me is people pleasing. I'm a huge people pleaser and it's, uh, led me into toxic relationships into some terrible situations, and I've.

Slowly grown into boundary setting and other healthy practices that we'll talk about today. And uh, for those of you listening, not watching, I'm wearing my brightest shirt I own is like super bright, neon pink, courtesy of grandma. Shout out my grandma. And so that's because I am with a Inner Glow coach today.

And we're gonna teach all y'all how to glow as well because, um, sometimes, sometimes. We just lose our inner glow, and sometimes we give it up without realizing it. So it's important to see about how we can revitalize that. And maybe for some of y'all, you didn't even know you had one to begin with. So we're gonna get into a lot of heavy conversations today.

We're here with Angie Hawkins and Ms. Hawkins, before you even introduce yourself, I have to ask, I was scrolling through your Instagram and I saw a variety. Of glasses, of, of, of large size of different designs. Very artistic. Today's pair. I was making a bet, you know, before the podcast started, like, what pair is she gonna have today?

What is the story behind today's pair? Um. I don't know if there's a specific story, but I will say I am known for my statement eyewear. And when I worked in corporate America and would join conference calls similar to this, people would make bets like, what glasses is she gonna wear? So what you're doing is not unusual, but I will say, so these are a, these are actually men's.

Frames. Okay. They're Tom Ford aviators and I used to only buy designer eyewear, which is very expensive, especially if you have prescription lenses for sure. But then I found this website, I think I always pronounce it wrong. I call it Zol. It's Z-E-E-L-O-O-L. But they have the coolest frames. Uh, you don't even have to have a formal prescription, like you just enter in your own prescription if you need prescription lenses.

Oh, wow. Nice and it's super cheap. Like you could get a really nice pair of glasses, the frames, prescription Ns and everything for $30. And I get way more compliments on my cheap glasses than I ever did on any of my designer frames. So it's unusual that I truly wear, uh. High value, like true, like monetary high value frames, but this is what I'm wearing today.

Yeah. I think spending your money on having a more diverse range of, you know, similar quality glasses of all different designs is much more efficient in my opinion. You know, I, I've always hated that we live in a day and age of celebration. You know, celebrities is celebrity that putting people up on pedestals and same with designer stuff I've seen like.

Uh, Supreme was one of those examples. It was just a shirt that said Supreme on it. Yeah. And like, people were selling it for so much money and it's like, it's just ridiculous. You know, like some of these, you know, athletic gear, it's like just regular athletic gear like everyone else. But because of the branding, some of the Hawaiian shirts I have, I like, I'll thrift them for eight bucks and.

Then I'll see like a similar Hawaiian shirt from let's say like Tommy Bahama or, um, yeah. South Tide or whatever it is for like $120, you know? Yeah. It's like sometimes the quality is a lot better, but n in my opinion, never to, to the extent that it makes up for the cost. You know, it's like, and for me, I don't.

I don't see that stuff. I'm like, wow, this person, you know, has so much money or something. I'm just like, what an idiot. Spent $120 on that Hawaiian shirt and I got, I got three of them for $8 on the summer, a summer blowout sale, you know, summer clearance. Yeah. It's just, uh, yeah, I, I think consumerism is getting out of control.

And that's like a whole separate topic. Oh yeah. With the, and. It ties into like with the time of year we're recording right now it's September and it's like I, in beginning in August, I was seeing Christmas stuff, Halloween stuff. Yeah. Like they are just pushing it so far out. And for me, I know. Yeah. I love clothing and looking good.

What did start happening and it's so ridiculous. Yeah. I. Know, I know a lot of people with that. Like, you just can't justify spending so much money on clothing. You know? It's like, there's so many better things we could be putting our money into, so, yeah. But yeah, Ms. Hawkins, you know, like I said, I, I had to know about the glasses.

I, because I was so cute. So, but tell us a little bit more about yourself outside of your statement eyewear. Um, well. I'll go back to the beginning, 'cause I think all of our stories start in childhood. So I grew up in a home. The best way to describe it is both of my parents were emotionally unavailable.

Mm. So. As an adult, I understand what that means, but as a child, I didn't have the tools to really interpret the situation. So as a young girl, the way I interpreted the situation was that I didn't deserve to be loved. So I developed that belief from a very young age, and as you're probably aware, your beliefs.

Dictate your behaviors, which dictate your experiences. So I became a hardcore people pleaser. I was also a perfectionist. I was an overachiever because I didn't believe that I was worthy if I wasn't chasing or performing for love and approval outside of myself and with people pleasing. As you're aware, you're putting other people's feelings.

As a bigger priority as your own. So it, it's a real testament to how you're not even respecting yourself and. To your point, then you start drawing in other people who reflect that back to you. So not only are you not respecting yourself, they're not respecting you either. So as I went through life, my self worth was slowly getting chipped away and a big turning point happened in 2017.

My boyfriend broke up with me and then my dad passed away and I was 37 at the time and I had spent 37 years. Running away from my feelings and doing everything I could to suppress it, numb them. But I was in such profound grief that it was impossible to suppress my feelings. And so I, for the first time in my life, I actually had to feel my feelings, but I didn't have any of the tools for emotional regulation.

So I basically just spent the rest of the year feeling like a zombie and feeling like shit, because I just felt so gross and I didn't know what to do about it, and I didn't even realize. That there were tools available to help me with this. So in the beginning of the next year, I decided, okay, I'm tired of feeling this way.

So I wanted to make some changes in my life. So I was living in Chicago and I decided that I wanted to move to Hawaii, which was well intentioned in the sense that I. Wanted to make changes in my life. Very A better life. Different places. Yeah, exactly. And so I was like, oh, it'll be sunny and the Aloha spirit, and so like I'll be happier.

But you can't move away from your problems. So I moved to Hawaii and not only did I have the exact same problems that I had in Chicago, I developed this whole new host of problems. So, for example, this was in 2018. It was before remote work was the trendy thing to do, but my job was extremely generous.

They let me move here and work remotely. But around the same time that I moved, there was a huge management shakeup at work, which threatened my role. So the entire first year that I lived here, I lived in constant fear of losing my job. When I first moved here, I had a really hard time making friends, which was something that I had never experienced before.

'cause in Chicago it was super easy to meet people and make friends, and so it was a really lonely and isolating experience, especially being thousands of miles away from anyone I knew. And then the other major thing that happened right off the bat when I moved here is to prove how committed and all in I was on my decision.

I bought a condo immediately, but then a month after I closed on my condo, a shared pipe in the building back flowed into my bathroom sink, and I wasn't home, so my entire condo flooded. So right off the bat it was just. It didn't go well. And then again, that was 2018, so like the next two years it was just like thing after thing after thing.

Like my grandma died and I, or like I eventually did make some friends, but they ended up being toxic. And so then COVID happened, so I don't think I have to explain why that was. Right. The icing on the cake. Right, exactly. And so, and then the straw that broke the camel's back was the end of a relationship during COVI.

And so at that point, I was just like, I cannot take this anymore. And I think we all go through things in life where we have that feeling, but the layer on top of that feeling was. I just had a sheer feeling of hopelessness. Like it was like nothing had been going well and I could not see any hope for the future, which is such a dangerous place to be.

And I intentionally overdosed on my anxiety medication 'cause I didn't want to be here. And I spent a day and a half unconscious in my bathroom. I spent a day and a half in the hospital and after I was released from the hospital, I called a friend. I told her everything that happened. And I ended by saying, I can't believe I didn't die.

And her response was, it's not your time. And that those words were so profound that they actually changed my life and made me want to get help and get it the right way so that I could turn my life around. Yeah, I think it's important, like you kind of hinted at there and mentioned when you're a people pleaser, one of the issues is you can end up attracting people who will take advantage of that.

You know, and they will, they, they know, you know, and it's, uh, it's a shame. One of my issues with, with being. People pleaser has been the concept of trying not to project stuff onto people while still establishing boundaries. 'cause I don't want to villainize people for what others have done. Right? You don't wanna assume that everyone is the same.

And so balancing and not confusing caution with projection has been um, definitely a journey. And I think that's what a lot of people struggle with is like, Hey, I don't wanna be gullible. I don't want to be a, a jerk, you know? So what would you say to that degree about your work with balance and how you have kind of been able to do so?

That's a, that's a really amazing point because that was something that I had to learn pretty early on because I was blaming other people for tanking advantage of me. And to your point, in a way they are because. They see that there's kind of an in where they can take advantage of you, and they do. But on the flip side, you have to take accountability for your part in that dynamic because ultimately you're letting them take advantage of you.

So this is why boundaries are so important, like, I don't know about you, but having strong boundaries. Changed my entire life because again, I feel like I was always playing the victim like, oh, well this person's taking advantage of my energy. They're taking advantage of my time. And again, they were. It's because they saw that outlet that I was giving them to take advantage of it.

And people who are truly healthy for you, if you are setting a boundary and enforcing a boundary, they will actually respect you more for that. Whereas people who don't respect you, even if you said it and attempt to enforce it, they, they're the ones who are constantly pushing back and trying to walk all over your boundary.

And a lot of times, I don't know if this is your experience, usually the people who are doing that. Were the people who were benefiting the most from you not having boundaries. Mm-hmm. So again, like you have to take accountability for your role in that because it's like, okay, for X amount of years I was letting them walk all over me.

So you, that's even more motivation for you to stay for 'em in your boundaries. I completely agree. You know, when you set up boundaries, it really shows people's true colors around you. Yeah. And I think. Kind of goes back to the fool me once, fool me twice. Expression, right? It's like, yeah. That kind of mentality of like, if a person has taken advantage of it multiple times, it's like, yes, they keep taking, but you keep giving.

Right? For me to answer your question about my experience with boundaries and, and have I experienced a great change, I would say yes, specifically in the field of addiction, recovery and working with addicted individuals. So my father. I was unintentionally an an enabler, right? Yeah. Because I was in that child of an addict situation where it's like, Hey, I, I want my father's love.

I wanna spend time with him. Sometimes that means enabling his addiction. Right? And eventually it got to the point where I did set boundaries. It was like, I still love you. You're still my dad, but if you're drinking. At all, or to a certain degree, I'm not gonna see you. If you're not sober, I'm not gonna see you.

Yeah. And this has led to cancel travel plans to, um, not seeing him on my birthday the past two or three years in a row because he wasn't sober. Right. And it hurts, but I have a much healthier relationship with him because ultimately what eventually happens. Is when you continually enable someone and they keep taking advantage of you, eventually you might snap and then it's gonna be worse.

Right? Because you're kind of, yeah. Bottling up all that energy of uh, you know, you just, the frustration with yourself because you're enabling them and you know, that, and the frustration with them for continuing to partake in what they're doing. And I'll say like, with my, my father too, it's, it's made it better.

You know, there, there are still a lot of rough patches, but even like. The most recent example when I saw my father, he was like, son, get a, get a drink with me. And I said, no. He goes, look, my dad was 30 years old or older when he bought me, you know, had his first drink with me and he passed away not too long after.

Like, I want to, you know, get my, my first ring with you before it is too late. You never know what, what tomorrow holds. And I said, dad. You're an alcoholic. I, I can't drink with you. He goes, you drink at social events. I said, that's right. With sober people in, in proper environments. I said, I don't want to enable you and I don't want to support you drinking.

And this is what, this is what he said. And I, I want everyone to listen to this because this is a type of manipulation. I, I will say, um, maybe not maliciously, but what he said is, well, I'm going to drink. Whether you drink with me or not, so you might as well join me. And I had to say, dad, I know I can't stop you from drinking, but, um, joining you is a form of supporting and enabling.

I'm not gonna partake in that. And um, you know, it was frustrating, but that is some of the boundary work I've done in my life, specifically with addicted individuals and anyone who has an individual in their life who is addicted, whether it's to drugs or alcohol or something else, that can be really frustrating or even eating.

A lot of the people, like if you watch my 600 pound life or other shows or documentaries, covering that kind of stuff, a lot of them were enabled by a parent who just fed, fed, fed them. Whatever you want. Whatever you want, or a, a individual. A lot of times we don't realize that by giving people exactly what they want, especially if it's something that can harm them, I mean, we're, we're destroying their lives and we think we're loving them by fulfilling their needs or their wants.

But really their needs are different from their wants. So yeah. Wow. That is so profound. And I love that story about your dad. Well, I don't love it 'cause I'm sorry that you have to it hard. I what? I think it's so beautiful because I understand how hard that is, and so for you to hold up your boundaries in a situation like that, and I love that you brought up guilt because I would say I'm at a point in my life where my boundaries are pretty strong, but I still feel guilt sometimes, and that's.

Really hard to overcome. And you're absolutely right. Whether it's intentional or unintentional, people will manipulate you with guilt and it makes it even harder 'cause you're already feeling the guilt and then they're adding that dynamic to it. So this is not to say boundaries are easy 'cause they're not.

But they are worth it. And to you, to your point. You know, you love your dad so much and that's your motivation to sticking to your boundary because you don't want it to en enable him in a unhealthy way. Yeah, and I think the opposite spectrum is bribery. It doesn't happen as much, but I'll give the example, uh, again, an alcohol story.

When I was fresh outta bootcamp in 18, I uh, ended up meeting this 24-year-old woman. I think she took advantage of me in a lot of ways. I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a day on her buying for coats and alcohol and stuff because um, she led me on with, oh, if you do this, we can go on dates and we can get, and you know, I didn't ever really get anything out of it, but it was always just like characteristic mentality.

The only time I said no to her really. Besides the end when I had enough and I was like, this is crazy, because one time she called me, she's like, I just got a whole tattoo sleeve and he's waiting for you to come pay for it. I was like, what? I never agreed to this, you know? No. She's like, yeah, and, and then she was like, yeah, we talked about getting tattoos together.

I said, yeah, I had said that we, that I have a back piece I want to get, so we had to schedule something. We can't just walk in. And right now, because of the COVID restrictions in military. I'm barely allowed off base at all, and tattoos are completely prohibited right now. Um, so I know for a fact I didn't agree to you getting a sleeve and me paying for it.

Um, but the, the big time was she wanted me to drink and I was not gonna do that one because of, you know, the way alcoholism had destroyed my family. Um, until the time was right, I definitely didn't wanna drink. I was also 18 in the military and they take underage drinking very seriously. Right? Yeah. And I definitely did not see it at alcohol.

Had been villainized my whole life, so I certainly saw no reason to, to risk my military career over. But we were at this, this club and she goes, oh. You really wanna make out though, don't you? I was like, well, yeah, I've like never kissed a woman before. Of course. I wanna, you know, make out with you. You're 24 and I'm 18.

Like of course I got that young male mentality where I'm like, this is so cool. So she was like, well, I, I'll we can make out if you let me spit the alcohol into you. And I was like, no. I'll be honest. It was very tempting. Yeah, she, she continues to drink throughout the night. I'm kind of just like not having a good time.

When she comes over, she goes, look, just one sip and I'll let you stick it in me. So what she said verbatim, word for word. Yeah. I'm sure everyone listening you understand what that means. Right. And I still had to say no again. Fresh outta bootcamp. 18 years old. Never been with a woman. Really. She's 24.

She's good looking. But I had to say no. Like I don't drink alcohol. And that was, that's always been like, I have been people pleased and, and, and, and, you know, really enabled a lot and, and compromised a lot of my life and sacrificed a lot. But alcohol was one of those boundaries that I just because of the villainization of it in my life, that it was easy to maintain.

But the reason I bring all that up is. Sometimes it's about bribery. It's about not guilt, but reward. And I think going back to what you said about your childhood is when you're, we're not just given parental love. We think we have to earn it. Yeah. And then that goes for a lot of people in our life and we end up compromising ourselves and people pleasing to try to earn something that is either being bribed towards us intentionally or unintentionally just through what we've been through.

Yeah. That's an amazing point. And it took me forever to learn that we're inherently worthy of love. Like, and you don't have to be chasing or performing for it, but yeah. And also people who are unhealthy for you will be bribing you and causing you to chase and perform. Yeah. I think it's like if they, if they can't get you with the, with the, you know, manipulation, then they're gonna switch tactics, you know?

And I think. I've had a lot of relationship experts on this show and you know, getting into gaslighting manipulation. Yeah. Love bombing. So much stuff. But I wanna tie all of this too. I mentioned you were an. Inner Glow Coach. Yes. What does that mean? What role does this play? Obviously this is just one facet of many things that you touched upon, so could you kind of tell us, you mentioned having a turning point with the, with the suicide attempt and then getting back on track in life.

At what point did the whole Inner Glow coach kind of come into play? Yeah, so I'll go back, I'll get to that. I'll go back to right after the attempt. So when my friend made that comment to me, it's not your time, I realized that, okay, I think I have a purpose and I'm not sure what it is, but all I knew in that moment was that I wanted to get help and traditional therapy had never worked for me.

So I actually invested in myself and hired a coach and he never. Said to me like, okay, I'm gonna teach you how to love yourself. Basically, I just worked with him on things like setting boundaries or you know, just developing daily habits that taught myself how to love and respect myself, and over time having.

A regular habit of these behaviors actually changed my subconscious beliefs. And so I had that belief that I didn't deserve to be loved. And over time I realized, oh, I do deserve respect. I do trust myself. So over time that belief changed into I do deserve to be loved. So now. Like the boundary setting and everything that is like almost running 100% subconsciously because I truly believe that I deserve those things.

Yeah. And so once I realized how powerful that shift was in my own life, then I decided that I wanted to be a coach and help other people because there are so many other people who struggle with this. And I remember. Old me, you know, I spent most of my time feeling unhappy and unfulfilled, and I didn't even realize there was a different way of living available.

I just thought that's the way life was, and that's what I deserved. And then on the other side, I spent a majority of my life. Happy and fulfilled. And I think there are a lot of people how I used to be thinking that it's not even available for them. So my job as a coach, I want people to understand like this is available for you and there is help available, whether it's with me or someone else.

So for example, I'm an inner low coach. I help high achieving women who are chasing love and performing for approval to finally feel happy, confident, and loved for who they are. The whole concept of my inner Glow coaching, my program is called Shine From the Inside, and we kind of touched on this earlier.

It's based on this concept that we're all born with this light inside of us. You know, you see little kids, they're running around and screaming and they don't care what anyone thinks. But then as we grow up society or family systems or whatever, slowly start dimming that light. It's, I feel like a lot of self-help is about, like the messaging is, oh, you need to fix something about yourself, or you need to change this.

But really it's about coming back home to who you really are because again, you're born with that self-love. It just gets dimmed. So you just need to bring that light back up again. And when you do that, you do feel happy and fulfilled. You inspire other people to live that happy and fulfilling life like it's such a ripple effect.

You talked about implementing some daily habits that led to the understanding and awakening of self-love. Could you share some of those? Was that just like self-talk, positive self-talk, or was it, uh, journaling? What kind of stuff? Yeah, so there's so many different things. I'll just touch on the ones that I think are the most important.

One is obviously boundaries. Like if someone only worked on one thing, if you worked on your boundaries, that would, you would see a significant improvement in your quality of life. Another thing that helped me a ton was developing my intuition. I had always known that I had intuition, and by the way, everyone has it, whether you feel it or not, or whether you're aware of it or not.

But I had always ignored mine, so, and I didn't work on this with my coach. It was kind of a separate trajectory, but I started developing my intuition and tapping into my intuition, and it is so powerful and it builds your own self trust, because I used to be the kind of person I didn't trust myself. So I would ask, yeah, everyone and everything outside of myself, well, what should I do?

You know? I di I just didn't know how to make decisions for myself or be confident in the decisions I was making for myself. But the thing is, there is nothing or no one outside of you that knows what's best for you, better than you. So to be able to plug into your own magic will again change your life because having that level of self trust is will.

Just make your confidence soar, really and your self-love. 'cause self-respect and self-trust are the highest forms of self-love. So boundaries, intuition. And then again, I could go on and on, but the last one I'll say is emotional regulation, because I used to have chronic anxiety. I used to feel like, or like in the period after my dad died and I was in heavy grieving, I used to think that my feelings when they were that big and overwhelming, I used to think that they had control over me and 'cause they just felt like so consuming and I didn't know how to deal with them and I would try to repress them.

But when you basically make friends with your feelings and learn how to feel them without them overwhelming you. Then that will also change the quality of your life. And that's also like you see a lot of people like on social media like Karen's or whoever who are overreacting. And it's the same concept.

It's because they don't have the tools to actually manage the feelings that they're feeling. So I also used to be, maybe not that outwardly, but I also used to be very in inwardly, highly re, highly reactive emotionally. But that all changed when I learned emotional regulation. So those are the top three, but there's obviously more.

Okay. For sure. And you mentioned high achieving women struggling to find love. Obviously those women deal with the same issues that we all do in, you know, regular relationships, but they also have their own unique challenges. What would you say so far in your experience is one of the biggest obstacles that high achieving women are facing and finding love that are maybe unique to them?

Well, usually what happens is, and this isn't all high achieving women, right? But usually because achieving in itself is not inherently bad because we should be learning and growing as human beings, and we should be constantly striving to achieve. But where it becomes unhealthy is when you're searching for that achievement too.

Basically be the source of your self worth. Mm-hmm. So high achieving is unhealthy if it's like, I need this to feel worthy, and instead it should just be enhancing whatever you have going on inside. So if a high achieving woman is the kind of person who is primarily seeking the things outside of herself for approval, she's also the same woman who's.

Chasing after love because she doesn't feel that she's inherently worthy without it. And that's unhealthy for several reasons. One, it's unhealthy for herself because she, her self-worth is low enough that she doesn't believe she's worthy without chasing for it. But also, just to reiterate the points we've been making all along, you are going to attract unhealthy people because.

It, it's it basically, you know, like energy attracts, its its own level. So if you're acting in an unhealthy dynamic, you're gonna attract someone at that level. Whereas if you actually love and respect yourself internally, and you're not chasing for that love, you're gonna attract someone at a higher level who actually respects you and loves you for who you are.

So another thing about my coaching, even though it's the inner work. Once you level up you, it changes your entire life. It changes your romantic relationships, it changes your friendships, it changes your family dynamics. It changes your work environment because you're showing up as this person who loves and respects yourself.

So you're drawing in experiences that match that. Right. And then besides your coaching, 'cause you've mentioned that a few times, you also have a book running in slippers. Yes. Can you tell us about that and kind of the role that plays in all of this that we've talked about? Yes, so running in slippers, basically what the title means, I live in Hawaii, so flip flops are called slippers.

So it basically means running in flip flops, which is a metaphor for life, because life and running in slippers, it can be fun, adventurous, and playful, but it can also be dangerous, scary, and painful. Yeah. And so running in Slippers is a memoir. It covers about a five year period of my life, and it starts when my dad passed away.

And it takes you on way more details than I discussed in my overview before. Right. But it all the train wreck stories that happened within that period where I was really struggling and then I covered the attempt and then a little bit afterwards. But the whole goal of the book, 'cause it's extremely vulnerable, and the reason that I wrote it that way is because I feel like social media is profoundly filtered and edited.

Even in real life, if you ask someone how they're doing, they put on their happy face and pretend everything's fine. And I don't feel like we talk enough about, 'cause life is hard and I don't feel like we talk enough about the shitty things that happen to us. So the whole goal of the book is connection through vulnerability.

'cause it's like we're all going through this, so let's just talk about it. Yeah. No, I, I agree a hundred percent. And I don't recommend, you know, throwing on some flip flops and running outside and test how dangerous it is, you know? Well, I, I, I was actually thinking, I used to be an ice cream salesman on the beach, and I actually would do it barefoot, even though the sand was so hot, because if I walked in flip flops, it would actually kick all the soft sand to the back of my, my calves, and it was like, it was worse.

It was worse. So I was just thinking about, you know. I gotta make a, I gotta make a book now to, to partner up with yours walking through soft sand with flip flops, you know, doesn't roll off the tongue, but yeah. And then. Could you tell us a bit about the, um, the unshakable You, uh, event, I guess that's, um, it's happening, it's happening.

ROL have already happened, um, when this episode comes out. But how often do you do events and what can people kind of expect from those? So I'm actually going to start do, doing a monthly after masterclass. I don't know. I haven't vetted out if it's gonna be the same theme or okay. You know, like a threaded storyline or whatever.

But specifically the unshakeable you, which is in a few days, which will be passed by the time this airs. It's the three keys, the inner confidence that nobody can take away. So the principle is a lot of people think that confidence is how you talk and things like that, and those things. Can be a source of confidence, but the problem is that they're based on things outside of yourself.

So if you're confident is the thing that makes you, or excuse me, if your outfit is the thing that makes you confident and you change your clothes, then you're not confident anymore. So we're gonna be talking about things that can be taken away from you because when who you are as a person is the thing that makes you confident.

Nobody can take that away. Even if they criticize you or whatever, then it's, and just to be clear, like we're all human beings and have feelings. So if someone criticizes you and it hurts for a minute, there's nothing wrong with that. But the difference is it doesn't ruin your day or your, your entire life.

So. Basically those are gonna be the concepts. And I guess another good topic I should have a masterclass on is people pleasing and boundaries. 'cause again, I think that's something people really struggle with, but I really, the whole point of the masterclass is to drill into people that they have way more power.

Then they realize, because again, if you're giving the power to your outfit, that's just so ungrounded and variable, but the power is inside of you. All you need to have to do is harness it. Yeah, no, I, I totally agree. And, uh. I try my best to be just as handsome and confident and charismatic without my cowboy hat.

It's uh, not as easy, you know, but, uh, yeah. I'm just kidding. But, but there's nothing wrong with doing that though. 'cause like, same thing with my glasses, like, I'm confident without them, but they do enhance it. So I get what you're saying. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Well they make a good, I'm sure you probably have the same thing I do.

Uh, my hat makes a great icebreaker in co like, people will come up like, oh, I like your hat. Um, same with my, my dog. It is, uh, my dog is, when I take care of me, I'm a great icebreaker. Yeah. Well I tell a lot of young guys who struggle with dating, uh, 'cause the cold approach is one of the hardest things for young males.

Um, I just let them borrow my dog. I'm like, here, just take, just take the dog. People will come up. Oh, that's such a nice dog. And he. You know, that starts the conversation and then you go from there. You know, it's uh, makes it easy, but, well, my point I was trying to say is your glasses are probably the same way.

People will probably come up to you and like, wow, look at your glasses, you know, all the time. I never looked at it that way though. Like, so if I'm ever in a situation where, 'cause I do feel socially awkward sometimes 'cause I don't do well in like big groups. I do better one-on-one or smaller groups. So.

Actually, that's good. And so next time I'm in a situation where I think I might feel uncomfortable, I'm just gonna wear my most outlandish classes. Yeah. For, for me, because of my field of work, I talk to people every day virtually. Yeah. And then I also go, like last night I was at an event with probably a hundred people or more.

Right. And at these events, I just go up to people and I start conversation. And I can do that pretty much anywhere now, bars, restaurants, bookstore, right? 'cause I've done it in all these networking event and, and settings. But with the hat, uh, people come to me and I don't have to go chase them down. So it just makes me, I can just stand in place.

It makes it easier, you know, instead of having to go walk toward people. The people just going to be, but I can, I can do both, like you said. And then I just want to say. Speaking on a lot of the stuff we've gone over obviously is all on your website, which we're gonna have in a description below. You also have, uh, an option for people who to book a free Find Your Glow session, and we've mentioned finding your glow quite a bit here.

Who should do that? I know you mentioned high achieving women, but in general, like what can people expect? Is that kind of just like getting a feel for that one-on-one feeling like, hey, this is what you're struggling with, and kind of making a determination from there. Yeah, so definitely if you are a high, high achiever, people pleaser type of person, and even saying that I kind of struggle sometimes because I don't know about you, but there was a long period of my people pleasing.

Where I didn't actually have that word to identify it. So my recommendation is if you're struggling with anything, even if it's a feeling of something's missing from my life, or I'm spending a majority of my time feeling happy and fulfilled. Because the entire point of the Find your Glow call is to get people help because it's 60 minutes long.

So we will work through whatever you're struggling with, with, with as much time as we have. And at the end, I will give recommendations for going forward. So for example, I do have a coaching program, but it's not a good fit for everyone. So if it's not a good fit, I know other coaches, I have other resources, so I can definitely point you in a direction to get you help.

So if anything we talked about today is resonating with someone, you can set up a call. Again, it's free and it's 60 minutes, so at least it at least gets the momentum going to get you on the right path to get help, whether it's with me or not. Yeah, and I think if you feel. Mandated, obligated or reluctant about any social event in your life, any relationship you have going on or anything like that, that should be not an instant red flag or calls for alarm, but maybe you wanna take a step back and look at it, because at the end of the day, overall, you shouldn't feel mandated, obligated, or reluctant in those kinds of situations.

Right? Obviously there's, there's a difference between the, pardon me, the. Ugh, I don't want to go see the in-laws in the, uh, I don't want to do this. You know, like there's, there's a difference between just, you know, those normals, like, ugh, this is a pain in the, no, I'm uncomfortable, or I feel obligated, or I'm worried that if I don't do this, they're gonna react X, y, Z way.

So I think it's, uh, always good to constantly step back and kind of reflect on stuff in your life. Um, also the fact that people change, right? So sometimes maybe you're not. You know, a people pleaser and you're like, I've never have been. Uh, people change and you may have become one without realizing. Yeah.

Or the people in your life can become toxic without you realizing it, you know? Um, people change. So whoever was your best friend may have been a great person and now. They went through some things and, and now they're just a different person and maybe they're toxic now, you know? So it's good to always be stepping back and reflecting on everything your, your self-love, your self-respect, your self-trust, your relationships, your situations, all of that.

I. I 100% agree because it can be hard. 'cause again, to your point, dynamics change, but also like it took, just took me a while to get to that level of self-awareness to actually label it as people pleasing or whatever. But you had touched on this earlier, I think a good, if you aren't sure if you're a people pleaser or you aren't sure.

You can always tell by the way you feel. 'cause you touched on resentment earlier. So say you would, and it could be even simple things like say a friend is like, Hey, do you wanna go out to eat this weekend? And you really don't, but you say, yes. Like, there's that undercurrent of resentment, like I always do what they wanna do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or that, that exact situation was, was, was me. You know, especially in the military. And even now too, with how much work and traveling I do, I feel obligated to say yes to, to going out with people. 'cause I always worry, well, you know, you never know how much time you're gonna have with them. And, and it's, it's good to get out of the house and not burn out and, and to have self care.

But they, there's a lot of times where I just wanna say. Look, I, I love going out to eat with you. But we've already done it multiple times this month. I've got a lot of work to do. And you know, so it, it may seem simple like, ugh, I, I, no, I need to go be social. But it's like, yes, but you also need to take care of what you need to take care of.

So I, that, that exact example you gave, I think is probably the most common one, you know? Agreed. If we feel I obligated, the society kind of shames us. If you Oh, oh, what are you, a hermit, a recluse that you, you wanna stay home or. Or you know, you need to have a social life. You need to get out and and do stuff.

It's bad for you to be home all the time. And it's like, yes, but I shouldn't have to go to every single social event that pops up. Yeah. Or like, I'm the kind of person. I can be social, but I also like to recharge my batteries. So yeah, it's like if I, yeah, hundred percent gone out every single other weekend this month, maybe I just wanna spend the weekend recharging myself.

So yeah, there's a balance with everything. 'cause I also agree that it's not healthy to spend every single weekend isolating yourself and being a recluse. Yeah. Yeah. So it is all about balance and, and maintaining that inner glow like we mentioned. So, Ms. Hawkins, thank you for your time today. Like I said earlier, we're gonna have your website and description below for people to check out, whether it's the book, their free consultation, one of the master classes, or just to connect with you further and learn more about you in detail.

I'm gonna have that in description below for them to check out, which I highly recommend y'all do. Or if you are a glasses connoisseur, do you wanna chat up different glasses or have recommendations, you know? Yeah, feel free to reach out. Email me your eyewear questions. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, you can check out Ms.

Hawkins, um, Instagram if you wanna see her jump out of a helicopter into the, uh, ocean or a ghost guy diving as well. Uh, but Ms. Hawkins, thank you for your time today and for what you've shared. I really appreciate it. Yes, thank you so much.