Kristen 0:02

Hi, I'm Kristen with an E, and this is Talk with Kristen with an e. A place to slow down. Be honest, without having all the answers and feel a little less alone together. Let's talk it out. Hey everybody. Oh, welcome back. So excited to to one of my favorite guests here again with us. Hi Emily. Hi Kristen. Yay. So Emily and I have been talking about several that we wanna about back and and

Speaker 2 0:36

gonna do

Kristen 0:37

do first? And which one? And the one that we kind of brought up last week that I think is super good

Speaker 2 0:42

about

Kristen 0:42

about right now is,

Speaker 2 0:45

well, I don't, how would you describe what we're

Kristen 0:47

what we're about to talk

Speaker 2 0:48

'cause we used

Kristen 0:48

words for it, but like,

Speaker 0:51

I

Emily 0:51

Like playing the role of somebody that you think you are, but you don't think that person is authentically you.

Kristen 0:58

Like you're wearing a costume and performing for people on stage is kinda what we're talking about and how we

Speaker 2 1:04

kind of got there

Kristen 1:05

there or get away

Speaker 2 1:06

there.

Kristen 1:07

Of the direction we're going, right?

Speaker 2 1:08

All right, so let's see.

Kristen 1:09

see.

Speaker 2 1:10

That's how

Kristen 1:10

some of my notes here. You've

Speaker 2 1:12

notes

Kristen 1:12

All right, so how would you define competence as a costume? If we're looking at that performing verse being yourself.

Speaker 2 1:19

How would you

Kristen 1:20

you explain it to someone?

Emily 1:22

So kind of like your skills becoming more than the person that you are.

Kristen 1:27

Ooh.

Speaker 2 1:29

your

Kristen 1:29

Skills are more important than you are.

Speaker 2 1:31

See,'cause I've thought of it like that, but a little bit different. So for me, I almost feel like.

Kristen 1:38

I'm playing a role in front of

Speaker 2 1:40

Like I was

Kristen 1:41

I was in theater a lot, so you're, you know, whatever. But then when you're on stage and the lights are on, you become this person.

Speaker 2 1:46

And I feel

Kristen 1:47

like a lot of my time has been that a lot of my younger years until like last year when I decided I wasn't gonna do it anymore. Like feel like I have to be what

Speaker 2 1:54

want me to be.

Kristen 1:55

What they want me to

Speaker 2 1:56

what I think they

Kristen 1:57

they want me to be. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:58

Be the smart girl, be the good girl.

Kristen 2:00

girl. Yeah. And then as I became later, like to your skills point, it's like,

Speaker 2 2:04

be the good worker, be the responsible one.

Kristen 2:07

I mean, I still am those things, but it's almost like I elevate it and like put it out even more.

Emily 2:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:15

And

Kristen 2:15

And that's where I think that performing piece comes.

Speaker 2 2:18

what does it feel like, you know, when you are,

Kristen 2:22

are

Speaker 2 2:22

talk to me about the

Kristen 2:23

the skills kind of overplaying what you think you are, like, how does that feel for you and how do you think it looks to people externally?

Speaker 2:31

A lot

Emily 2:31

A lot of times I think it, externally, I think people think that person has all their stuff together.

Kristen 2:37

Mm-hmm.

Emily 2:38

They're really going above and beyond of what somebody is expecting of them. Internally though, you could be really drained while doing that because again, you're, you're putting out this like false performance

Kristen 2:53

mm-hmm.

Emily 2:53

Or elevating your skills

Speaker 2:55

in,

Emily 2:55

in front of people, you're acting one way, and then in private you're just kind of like, mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:01

Just

Emily 3:01

existing.

Kristen 3:02

Yes. And it almost feels like there's that disconnect mm-hmm. Of what's really going on and what you're portraying.

Speaker 2 3:09

Again for the theater thing. It's almost like

Kristen 3:11

like I can turn it off and on. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 3:13

Sitting in my office at

Kristen 3:14

at work like just like you said, mentally drained, just fried. And then somebody will pop in my door and they'll be like, Hey, Kristen. And suddenly it's like,

Speaker 2 3:21

Hey, how's you going?

Kristen 3:22

Are you doing?

Speaker 2 3:23

And then

Kristen 3:23

then I'm all about learning how they're

Speaker 2 3:25

how

Kristen 3:25

how everything

Speaker 2 3:26

and then as soon as they

Kristen 3:27

as they leave again, I'm like, Ugh.

Speaker 3:29

Yeah, that, that breath,

Speaker 2 3:30

that's, it's more of a heavy than like a

Emily 3:33

a relief.

Kristen 3:34

Right.

Speaker 2 3:35

And it's like, I love

Kristen 3:36

engaging with people. Mm-hmm. But then when they walk away, it's like, was I just being fake?

Speaker 2 3:40

But at the same

Kristen 3:41

time, you feel the pressure that you have to do it, because when people stop by,

Speaker 2 3:45

they're like, Hey Kristen, how's it going?

Kristen 3:47

And you're like,

Speaker 2 3:48

Hey, really,

Kristen 3:49

Really, really crappy day.

Speaker 2 3:51

Whatever.

Kristen 3:51

Whatever. Like nobody wants that version of you. And it's being able to balance what's going on inside and still being there for other people. But then where's that balance and when are you going over too much or I, I don't know. Like, can you share any examples of maybe when you

Speaker 2 4:08

you were

Kristen 4:09

you were performing more than you were being yourself?

Speaker 4:13

I think so kind of like the,

Emily 4:16

the biggest thing for me is

Speaker 4:18

because of the

Emily 4:19

of the job that I have. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:20

A recital.

Emily 4:20

What?

Speaker 4:21

while I'm

Emily 4:22

I'm on stage, like talking on the microphone mm-hmm. That is an over exaggerated.

Speaker 4:27

Everything is

Emily 4:28

is so great. This is so easy. And then if you've ever seen me

Speaker 4:32

it's just,

Speaker 2 4:33

oh

Speaker 4:33

yes, I'm sitting in front of

Speaker 2 4:34

don't get in Miss Emily's way, she the

Emily 4:36

She, yeah. I'm sitting in front of the fan, I'm like, it's

Speaker 4:38

back here. Like nobody's

Emily 4:39

listening.

Speaker 2 4:40

What are the dancers happening?

Kristen 4:43

is happening?

Emily 4:44

So that's where I think sometimes people snap. Mm-hmm. And then, then you realize that hidden burnout.

Speaker 4:51

Wow, they really

Emily 4:52

really don't have it all together, but trying to play that role as long as possible.

Speaker 2 4:57

Right.

Kristen 4:57

You ever, like,

Speaker 2 4:59

does it hit you?

Kristen 5:00

As an

Speaker 2 5:00

but are there other

Kristen 5:01

times where you feel it like certain times of the year? Or do you feel like there's sometimes where it just becomes too much even during your regular day?

Emily 5:11

Yeah,

Speaker 5:11

a regular like work

Emily 5:14

day. Like all

Speaker 5:16

my, my whole day might

Emily 5:17

revolve around work.

Speaker 5:19

That either need to get

Emily 5:19

to get done

Speaker 5:20

prepped.

Emily 5:20

And

Speaker 5:21

the time I get to the

Emily 5:21

to the kids, it's kind of like the same thing.

Speaker 5:23

In and I need

Emily 5:24

I need to be like happy and greeting everybody.

Speaker 5:26

To greet everyone who walks through the

Emily 5:28

the door,

Speaker 5:29

And

Emily 5:29

and sometimes that's just not possible.

Kristen 5:31

Mm-hmm.

Emily 5:31

You just can't. And so then you're thinking like, wow, I didn't greet that,

Speaker 5:35

child or

Emily 5:35

or that mom, so

Speaker 5:36

what are they

Emily 5:37

they thinking?

Kristen 5:37

Mm-hmm.

Emily 5:38

That I'm not keeping up that standard

Speaker 2 5:40

right

Emily 5:41

work,

Kristen 5:41

which is a made up standard. Yes. Because nobody has ever said, Ms. Emily has to say hello to me as soon as I walk into the room. Yeah. So that's something you've gotta work on with accepting that you know, you don't. That's an expectation you've put on yourself, not that anybody else has put on you.

Emily 5:57

Yeah.

Kristen 5:58

Now do you find after you're performing all day, and I, I mean like

Speaker 2 6:01

not performing, but the performing we're

Kristen 6:03

we're talking about now, pretending being

Speaker 2 6:04

Yes. When you're playing the

Kristen 6:06

the role of Miss Emily, do you find that when you're finally leaving and you're either on your way home or you get home, do you have, and I don't wanna call them issues'cause I'm not like starting any marital drama for you, but have you found that you like crack or break there or you snap more?

Speaker 6:23

I would think

Emily 6:24

I would say my drive home from work is about 10, 15 minutes, depending on the day, and

Speaker 6:31

it's

Emily 6:32

normally in silence.

Kristen 6:33

Mm-hmm.

Emily 6:34

I normally have the radio low, low or off.

Kristen 6:38

Yep.

Emily 6:38

And it's just kind of just focusing on letting things go and getting home. And every once in a while I might sit in my car for a little bit longer. Mm-hmm. But I do have a really good support system at home. And so it's more of like a comforting, like, okay, I can finally be

Speaker 2 6:53

Yes. I

Speaker 6:53

don't

Emily 6:54

have to keep up this like perfect, have everything together. I can just finally

Speaker 6:59

relax.

Kristen 7:01

Yes. So I feel the same way. And sometimes it's like that coming down, it's almost like an exhaustion. Like I come down and I'll come home. And especially on days where I've had to be on more than not.

Speaker 2 7:11

because there's sometimes I can just

Kristen 7:12

just kind of be in my office or I'm working on tasks and I'm not, facing people a lot. But on the days where I am having to perform more than usual, by the time I get home I do, I feel like it's just kinda like a ugh. Mm-hmm. And I feel like sometimes my husband and my son don't get the best version of me because I've been performing all day. And my husband's even said that sometimes to

Speaker 2 7:31

I don't

Emily 7:32

don't care what kind of day you've had.

Kristen 7:33

You don't have to treat us this way when you get home. And it's not intentional, it's just like. I'm so exhausted from performing and it's hard to kind of get into the,

Speaker 2 7:44

The turn, the

Kristen 7:45

the switch on and off. Mm-hmm. I can turn the switch on and everything at work, but

Speaker 2 7:48

home

Kristen 7:48

off and knowing, like you said, like it's a safe space. I don't have to impress anybody. Yeah. I don't have to perform anybody. It's, it's sometimes more challenging for it to be better, I guess.

Speaker 2 7:59

So we talked about, it kind of

Kristen 8:00

of shows up like the identity fatigue, you know, I've been calling it exhaustion, some people calling it

Speaker 2 8:05

So how do

Kristen 8:06

do you deal with that identity fatigue kind of day to day?

Speaker 8:10

A big thing is like walking for me.

Emily 8:14

I, like, I just try to like

Speaker 8:16

walk and

Emily 8:17

and that's like my goal every day is to walk 30 minutes, whether it's outside or inside.

Speaker 2 8:22

30

Kristen 8:23

minutes at one

Speaker 2 8:24

Are you like, well, here's five minutes. I'll do another seven minutes later,

Speaker 8:27

30 minutes at one time. Okay. I, you know, a day is

Emily 8:31

is long. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:33

you can

Emily 8:33

can get through 30 minutes of hopefully,

Speaker 8:36

like not thinking about.

Emily 8:39

Mm-hmm. And just kind of letting things go, doing something different. I'm not a big like TV watcher or anything like that, so just 30 minutes to

Speaker 8:49

walk on the

Emily 8:49

on the treadmill, walk outside. If you can do it outside, that's a lot better.'cause there's,

Speaker 8:54

you know, fresh air.

Emily 8:55

Air

Kristen 8:55

mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:56

Trees like you can distract or So little more Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:58

Touch grass. Good. Have a nature. Now another question for

Kristen 9:02

for you. So

Speaker 2 9:04

we talked about the

Kristen 9:06

performing and everything

Speaker 2 9:07

kind of tied to

Kristen 9:08

to our work, but do you, can you remember a time back, like have you been performing for longer than just at your job when you

Speaker 2 9:14

back at

Kristen 9:15

at your younger days?

Emily 9:18

I

Speaker 9:19

a lot of it

Emily 9:19

it started as

Speaker 9:20

the teacher pet. Mm-hmm.

Kristen 9:22

Mm-hmm.

Emily 9:22

The

Speaker 9:22

pet persona and

Emily 9:24

And then

Speaker 9:25

that's kind

Emily 9:26

kind of just how you get stuck with it your whole life.

Kristen 9:28

Mm-hmm.

Emily 9:29

Wanting to do better. Wanting to be, you know, the good child,

Speaker 9:32

the

Emily 9:32

the good student.

Speaker 2 9:35

Yeah.

Kristen 9:35

Same.

Speaker 2 9:37

say, I think high

Kristen 9:38

high school was really when it

Speaker 2 9:41

I don't

Kristen 9:41

I don't wanna say it

Speaker 2 9:42

bad for me,

Kristen 9:43

me, but when I'm looking back to see, when I really started losing myself to mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 9:50

This,

Kristen 9:50

this person, this character that I played,

Speaker 2 9:53

I think it was

Kristen 9:53

it was a lot in high school because similarly, I was the, I remember teacher's pet, I remember in seventh grade I was teased incessantly.'cause these older boys called me suck up like, oh, you're such a suck up. Oh, you're so, hey, there's suck up. And like, it was clearly, I'm still affected by it.

Speaker 2 10:11

mean, it didn't stop me.

Kristen 10:12

me. I continued to be teacher's pet pretty much my entire life. But it was getting that. Validation and the acceptance. Like, oh, I'm good enough. Like somebody notices me. I'm getting attention, I'm being helpful. Like,

Speaker 2 10:25

Oh my

Kristen 10:25

I'm still the teacher's pet because who gets to your class and starts handing out the hats?

Speaker 2 10:30

I'm still trying to like impress my teacher.

Kristen 10:33

My gosh.

Emily 10:35

It never leaves

Kristen 10:35

you. This is way worse than, than we thought it was. But no, I, I got to the point where even I was hiding a lot of my true feelings and

Speaker 2 10:44

the word was perky

Kristen 10:46

they used when they back in the day

Speaker 2 10:47

oh, you're

Kristen 10:47

Oh, you're always happy. Mm-hmm. Like, oh. And so I felt like I had to always be happy and it's probably in one of my journals somewhere. I remember writing about.

Speaker 2 10:57

how

Kristen 10:57

How frustrated I was that I felt like I always had to be the happy one and I couldn't have a bad day because if I was upset or

Speaker 2 11:04

like people would

Kristen 11:04

would

Speaker 2 11:04

their minds

Kristen 11:05

minds like, oh my gosh, Kristen, what's wrong? Like, how can Kristen be upset? And it was really hard for me, so I felt like I had to always be on and happy and it,

Speaker 2 11:16

I think it kind of

Kristen 11:17

of made me

Speaker 2 11:18

not

Kristen 11:19

actually find myself or figure out who I was until sometime in my thirties because I was always trying to be what everybody else wanted me to

Speaker 11:28

Yeah.

Emily 11:28

Yeah.

Kristen 11:29

Or what I thought they wanted me to be.

Speaker 11:30

I would say junior high, high school was

Emily 11:32

was like,

Kristen 11:32

mm-hmm.

Speaker 11:33

what really drove it home and probably didn't really realize that until I was like 18 and graduating and like looking back on my high school years and being like, okay, I should be like reminiscing

Emily 11:46

about like going to basketball games and football games and things like that.

Speaker 11:50

It

Emily 11:50

It was just like

Speaker 11:51

the

Emily 11:51

the relationships I built with the teachers were more valuable than the relationships I built with the kids.

Kristen 11:57

Mm-hmm.

Emily 11:57

That I went to school with.

Speaker 2 11:58

That's interesting.

Kristen 12:00

And you were with many of them for so much longer than your teachers?

Emily 12:03

Yes.

Kristen 12:04

Wow. So how did it follow you from there then?

Emily 12:09

I

Speaker 12:09

a lot of it came

Emily 12:11

from,

Speaker 12:11

again, my job.

2026-01-15 19-46-17 12:13

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 12:14

I was very young when I started my job, so I related more with the students that I had than

Emily 12:20

than the parents that I had. So I was performing for the parents at that point and like my adult classes and

Speaker 12:26

have

Emily 12:26

have it together and I know what I'm doing and I'm prepared and I wanted everybody to not leave me. Mm-hmm. Like not pull away

Speaker 12:34

their kids out or

Emily 12:35

out or anything like that because they didn't think I was good enough for it.

Kristen 12:39

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 12:40

Now

Speaker 2 12:40

the confidence killer all

Kristen 12:41

all the time. Not good enough. Yeah.

Speaker 12:43

And

Emily 12:44

now that I'm a little bit

Speaker 12:46

older, I relate

Emily 12:49

more to the parents and to my older students than I do to like my younger students. So I'm seeing that gap now where it's like, they're so into social media, so they're seeing all these trends and everything. So now I feel pressure

Speaker 13:02

up with the trends or combat it with, just

Emily 13:07

because these are the things that you're seeing online, doesn't mean that every studio or every dancer can do these things.

Speaker 13:15

So

Speaker 2 13:15

I,

Kristen 13:15

oh, I hadn't thought about it that way.

Speaker 13:18

So before it was

Emily 13:19

was more like performing to

Speaker 13:22

like the outside parents'

Emily 13:24

perspective. Mm-hmm. Or like the adult perspective. And now it's

Speaker 13:27

of

Emily 13:27

of like

Speaker 13:28

the

Emily 13:29

the kids viewing me as like, I don't know what I'm talking about. Because on TikTok they saw this, or

Kristen 13:34

Oh my

Emily 13:35

gosh.

Kristen 13:35

Yep.

Speaker 2 13:36

Like,

Kristen 13:37

Like, why can't we have a dance like this? Why don't we do that?

Speaker 2 13:40

When, I think you brought up another point too

Kristen 13:43

that's interesting about, it's almost like we use the performance as a kind of imposter syndrome. Like imposter syndrome is kind of like not believing that you're good enough for what you're in

Speaker 13:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 13:57

And I think as

Kristen 13:58

as we're talking, it's almost like we've used it as a way

Speaker 2 14:01

to

Kristen 14:01

not necessarily convince ourselves that we belong there, but to convince other people that we belong there.

Speaker 2 14:08

One of my

Kristen 14:09

biggest stories that I always go back to is I'd been working. I had a job, I had gone out of state for a new job, a place that I was definitely qualified for, but I was still younger. And I think a lot of other people were like, oh, she's not, she's not gonna make it. She's not ready for it. And I felt like I had to prove myself even more.

Speaker 2 14:27

And I was going

Kristen 14:27

would go around and talk to everybody and see if they need anything.

Speaker 2 14:30

Just very, like, I

Kristen 14:32

I thought I was like, I don't know, just super friendly, super kind things that I am, but probably a little bit more, and again, like on stage, like

Speaker 2 14:40

this is Kristen. This is Kristen, the worker, this is, you know, it's different than

Kristen 14:44

than who I am. And when I was leaving, they have this picture that everybody kind of signed leave notes as I was leaving, and

Speaker 2 14:51

So there was this guy at work

Kristen 14:53

and he had signed my going away picture and he was like, I really enjoyed working with the role that you play an Oscar winning performance.

Speaker 2 15:03

Right. So that's how you would think like, oh my gosh, how could you write that?

Kristen 15:06

I thought it was one of the nicest messages anybody had ever sent to me.

Emily 15:09

Mm-hmm. Because

Kristen 15:10

he wasn't

Speaker 2 15:11

calling

Kristen 15:11

me fake in a way. He was, I took it more as like he saw me. Like

Speaker 2 15:16

somebody

Kristen 15:17

could tell that I wasn't that person. Yes. And it, I didn't feel like

Speaker 2 15:21

fake

Kristen 15:21

or a fraud. Like I felt like

Speaker 2 15:23

good,

Kristen 15:24

'cause I know this version of me is not the real version.

Speaker 2 15:27

Guy who, I don't even remember talking

Kristen 15:29

That he acknowledged that like, Hey, I see you. I know this isn't the real you. The real you is in there

Speaker 2 15:35

Like, and maybe I'm

Kristen 15:36

reading into it too much, but

Speaker 2 15:37

he made another

Kristen 15:38

comment to me one other time and it just was like, oh my gosh. And I think it's times like that where you're like. It's okay to just be me.

Emily 15:48

Mm-hmm.

Kristen 15:48

Like people don't need me to be this version that I think they need me to be and that it's okay to just be myself. are there

Speaker 2 15:58

patterns in

Kristen 15:58

certain roles or environments that make this more of a thing for you? Are there other times that, like are you ever around other people not at work where you still feel like you have to be a different version?

Speaker 16:10

So obviously the big thing is like at work or like work

Emily 16:14

style meetings, anything that like

Speaker 16:16

around my job.

Emily 16:17

I go to like career days and everything.

Speaker 16:19

Career days are

Emily 16:21

all day long. Um, that's a, a long day for me. Mm-hmm. To be on and with different groups of kids, it's repetitive, it's repeating the same information.

Speaker 16:33

But even at like

Emily 16:34

extended family events, like seeing extended family members who don't really know what I do back that up. A lot of people don't really know the extent of my job. They don't know all of the background work that goes into it. They think I just teach kids how to dance. And it's for fun.

Speaker 16:52

They

Emily 16:52

don't see that I run a business.'cause when you get down to the nitty gritty part of it, I'm a business owner. And that comes first.

Speaker 16:59

So

Emily 16:59

when we go to larger family events with people, we may not see that often. It goes into like the same thing.

Speaker 17:07

Are you doing? Oh, that's so great. And it's more of a

Emily 17:11

like, surface level or like meeting new people and so then you wanna be that happy. Mm-hmm. Like, oh,

Speaker 17:17

life is great.

Emily 17:18

Like everything's been just fine.

Kristen 17:20

Yep.

Speaker 2 17:20

Love

Speaker 17:20

it, love it.

Emily 17:21

Working and you know, we just got married and everything's. Love and married

Speaker 17:26

And it's

Emily 17:27

all kind of just no

Kristen 17:28

complaints.

Emily 17:29

Yeah. It's all just kind of, I don't know. You wanna be the happy person.'cause if somebody comes up to you

Speaker 17:34

the

Emily 17:34

family reunion and they're like, oh, well, how have you been? Well, really bad. Mm-hmm. Just like you were saying at work, nobody wants to talk to that person.

Speaker 2 17:42

So, not to bring up my picture of

Kristen 17:44

of social media again, but I feel like this is a good point to bring it in that I

Speaker 2 17:50

think, I think part of this is

Kristen 17:52

because of social media.

Emily 17:53

Mm-hmm.

Kristen 17:54

Because social media, you're only supposed to post your highlight reel,

Speaker 2 17:57

the great

Kristen 17:58

things. Everything's wonderful. Nobody's posting like, oh, I had a fight with my husband, or Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:04

oh, I got a flat

Kristen 18:04

tire

Speaker 2 18:05

Or, oh, I don't know why I'm paying my credit card bill.

Kristen 18:07

Nobody talks about the stuff that you're not supposed to talk about. So we all create these. For

Speaker 2 18:13

for lack of

Kristen 18:13

of better term, these fake online personas. Mm-hmm. Because the people that we are showing ourselves to the world on Facebook, Instagram, pick, whatever other social media app you're on,

Speaker 2 18:25

is not

Kristen 18:26

necessarily the full version of ourselves either. So I think it's provided another avenue to either

Speaker 2 18:32

extend the current.

Kristen 18:35

character we play for people or create a different one.

Speaker 2 18:39

I feel

Kristen 18:39

like that

Speaker 2 18:39

kind of

Kristen 18:40

exacerbates what we're doing and feeling that we have to be on all the time. Because you can't, you

Speaker 2 18:46

not be on for the world. Thoughts on that?

Speaker 18:48

I like how you brought up

Emily 18:50

create a new one.

Kristen 18:51

Yeah.

Speaker 18:52

Because I have found myself with

Emily 18:55

a new group of people that I might not know as well,

Kristen 18:58

mm-hmm.

Emily 18:58

And it's

Speaker 18:59

like

Emily 18:59

you start listening to like what they're talking about and you're like, okay, well I can interject here because I know this much

Speaker 19:05

that. So now we're

Emily 19:07

bonding on this level,

Speaker 19:08

but it

Emily 19:10

might not be actually something that I am interested

Speaker 19:12

myself

Emily 19:13

or something that I do myself, but you wanna be included and you want them to like you. Yes. You want to

Speaker 2 19:19

accepted. Yes.

Kristen 19:19

Yes.

Emily 19:20

So you want to be

Speaker 19:20

of their

Emily 19:21

So you'll, you'll pick things to say about that,

Speaker 2 19:24

and then they can start creating

Kristen 19:26

their opinions

Speaker 2 19:27

you based on that too.

Kristen 19:28

And it's so hard,

Speaker 2 19:31

I don't know what the right balance is because you wanna be open about trying new things

Kristen 19:35

and exploring different parts of you, but like, at what point are you changing so much of yourself to fit in with people that you've lost yourself?

Speaker 2 19:44

How do you balance that?

Speaker 19:46

I don't

Emily 19:46

I don't know. I think that is something that

Speaker 19:49

like

Emily 19:49

the curtain has to go down at some point. Mm-hmm. So whether it's like. We talked about earlier, like people like snapping or seeing their true

Speaker 19:58

like mm-hmm.

Kristen 19:59

Like

Emily 19:59

'Cause the more that we've talked about it, it's kind of brought to light how much I do it. Or sometimes I even just think, well if I can just play Miss Emily for five hours today, tomorrow will reset and tomorrow morning I'll do whatever I want.

Speaker 20:15

'cause

Emily 20:15

I've noticed like when we get really deep into

Speaker 20:19

like

Emily 20:19

the season and I am, I'm trapped, you know, more into that role.

Kristen 20:25

Mm-hmm.

Emily 20:26

There's just a time where I'm like longing for that next break and then on that break I'm not doing anything dance related or anything work related. Right.

Kristen 20:34

To actually be

Speaker 2 20:34

real you again. Now do you have different

Kristen 20:37

versions of

Speaker 2 20:38

So you have the Emily at

Kristen 20:39

the studio,

Speaker 2 20:41

you probably have another version

Kristen 20:42

of yourself around certain friends or a different version around family.

Speaker 2 20:46

Or am I

Kristen 20:47

I

Speaker 2 20:47

making you sound like a crazy person?'cause I know

Kristen 20:49

I have different versions, but do you have different versions of yourself for different people?

Emily 20:53

I would probably say yes, but they're not like, like very different. Mm-hmm. They're just slightly different.

Speaker 21:00

Like,

Emily 21:01

like I said, it's more like friend group to friend group, Around my sister's friends.

Speaker 2 21:05

Yeah, because that's something

Kristen 21:06

I found over the years is depending on which group of people I'm with,

Speaker 2 21:11

I almost feel like they get a different

Kristen 21:13

version of me too, if I'm around the

Speaker 2 21:16

that like this, if I'm around the friends that do that, or like when I was in Florida,

Kristen 21:21

a lot of the moms I was friends with were stay at home moms.

Speaker 2 21:24

Was a

Kristen 21:24

a working

Speaker 2 21:25

So you could act a little

Kristen 21:26

bit

Speaker 2 21:27

around them to try

Kristen 21:28

to fend in

Speaker 2 21:28

them.

Kristen 21:29

Friends that maybe are more outdoorsy than you are,

Speaker 2 21:31

you try to be like them. And I found too that depending on

Kristen 21:38

The level of

Speaker 2 21:39

deepness of the friendship, I'm

Kristen 21:41

a different version of myself too. Like if they're just acquaintances or kind of surface level friends, I'll be more closed off. And that's when I usually won't even talk about myself. Like I will just have them talk because I don't wanna open up.

Speaker 2 21:53

like I've talked about it as

Kristen 21:54

as like a turtle syndrome. Like if I'm around certain people, like I'll just close up my shell because I don't want any

Speaker 2 22:00

of it.

Kristen 22:00

Around friends, I'm a little bit closer to then maybe I'll like offer like little parts of my life or I'll share things and kind of open up a little bit.

Speaker 2 22:08

That I'm like really,

Kristen 22:09

really

Speaker 2 22:09

to,

Kristen 22:10

not that many that I can be who I think is the real version of me.

Speaker 22:15

I have experienced that, and we know a lot of the same people

Emily 22:20

and all the groups

Speaker 22:21

very

Emily 22:22

different. Mm-hmm. And I have noticed that when

Speaker 22:24

the both

Emily 22:25

of

Speaker 22:25

are together

Emily 22:26

in certain groups,

Speaker 22:29

the

Emily 22:29

way we

Speaker 22:30

to each other

Emily 22:30

is even

Speaker 2 22:31

Yeah.

Emily 22:32

Like friend groups or like, if just even one person walks in the room, it's like we,

Speaker 22:39

we

Emily 22:40

see a change.

Speaker 22:40

In us and how

Emily 22:41

we Yes. Communicate with each other.

Speaker 22:44

I don't

Emily 22:45

hope that other people notice that change, between me when I'm in different groups, but there are lots of instances where I am with the same people.

Kristen 22:53

Mm-hmm.

Emily 22:54

But I might be

Speaker 22:55

a little bit different depending on who we're with.

Speaker 2 22:57

Well, and that's interesting too

Kristen 22:58

too

Speaker 2 22:59

you know, here we are living in

Kristen 23:00

in this little small town, there are

Speaker 2 23:02

circles

Kristen 23:03

that overlap. Mm-hmm. And there's people that

Speaker 2 23:05

friends with in this group, and maybe some of those people

Kristen 23:07

are in this group,

Speaker 2 23:08

Then these people are in this one.

Kristen 23:10

one.

Speaker 2 23:10

You're right.

Kristen 23:11

About all the overlap.

Speaker 2 23:12

And I wonder if some people see me in one group like, huh, Kristen's a little bit different than she was over there.

Kristen 23:18

I hadn't thought about it that way.

Speaker 2 23:20

But then

Kristen 23:21

like you said too,

Speaker 2 23:22

I don't know

Kristen 23:22

know if people notice that kind of thing or if, because

Speaker 2 23:25

we're more sensitive

Kristen 23:26

to that. Mm-hmm. If we're just projecting that they're,

Emily 23:30

they're

Kristen 23:30

noticing, noticing those things. Noticing, yeah. Oh, I hadn't thought about that.

Speaker 2 23:34

Well, what are

Kristen 23:35

some of the consequences of the sustained identity

Speaker 2 23:38

on your long-term wellbeing?

Kristen 23:40

That's a,

Speaker 2 23:41

That's a hard part.

Speaker 23:42

She's a deep

Emily 23:42

one.

Speaker 2 23:43

I know. Like we're just talking about all this child, I'm like, so what's the long-term effects

Kristen 23:48

of this Sonya? Emily?

Emily 23:50

think,

Speaker 23:50

Personally, I will

Emily 23:51

see myself,

Speaker 23:54

I almost stopped taking care of myself.

Speaker 2 23:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 23:57

And

Emily 23:57

stopped taking care of my space.

Speaker 2 23:59

Oh.

Speaker 24:00

So I will notice like

Emily 24:03

when my

Speaker 24:04

like safe space, like my bedroom is

Emily 24:07

messy

Speaker 24:08

things aren't getting put away in the living room and kitchen or the car,

Emily 24:12

Then I'm really like, okay, I've been checked out

Speaker 24:15

a minute and it's time to kind of pour back into myself.

Kristen 24:20

I think it's the same

Speaker 2 24:20

the same thing. I, it's drained and it's like, you can almost see like if you have this meter where like you're full and then like

Kristen 24:29

you are giving a little bit of yourself

Speaker 2 24:30

everybody,

Kristen 24:31

little bit more of

Speaker 2 24:31

yourself to

Kristen 24:32

everybody. Mm-hmm. A little bit more to, and like all of a sudden it's all the way down and you're like, I

Speaker 2 24:35

don't have anything left. And like when I hit the wall, when that happens to me

Kristen 24:39

and it's the craziest thing, like,

Speaker 2 24:41

it's

Kristen 24:42

so weird. Like it'll usually be on a weekend.'cause I've been

Speaker 2 24:45

playing the role of Kristen, the boss bitch, like all week long. And then on

Kristen 24:51

the weekend it's like I

Speaker 2 24:52

sit on the couch and I put YouTube on and I put a show on. I just sit there and like

Kristen 24:58

In my head, I will think of all the things I should be doing

Speaker 2 25:02

or it could be doing or need

Kristen 25:04

to be doing.

Speaker 2 25:05

I don't have the energy or the motivation to get up. And then I start feeling

Kristen 25:11

worse about that because now I'm being lazy and I'm not doing

Speaker 2 25:14

and I'm just sitting here.

Kristen 25:16

But at the same time, I don't want

Speaker 2 25:18

do anything else because I have been the person for everybody else.

Kristen 25:21

Need to like, it's like a reset time for me. Mm-hmm. And it's hard

Speaker 2 25:26

I

Kristen 25:26

I don't, I don't,

Speaker 2 25:27

I love it and I don't love it all at

Kristen 25:29

at the

Speaker 2 25:29

time

Kristen 25:30

because it is nice to just not do it, to stay in my pajamas. I don't

Speaker 2 25:33

my hair sometimes, don't brush my teeth. Like, it just, it just exists.

Kristen 25:36

exists. But it's kind of like that reset.'cause like you said, I don't put in the time, I don't, it's not the self-care and I'm kind of losing myself. Physically and mentally and emotionally mm-hmm. All the same time because of what I'm giving to other people.

Speaker 25:49

Yeah. I would say like the health and habits part of your life are a

Emily 25:53

a lot of times the

Speaker 25:53

thing to go when

Emily 25:54

you're so drained. So you might be

Speaker 25:58

able to keep

Emily 25:58

up with those tasks at home or at work

Speaker 2 26:01

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 26:02

And

Emily 26:02

then

Speaker 26:03

when you

Emily 26:04

finally decide, okay, today's the day I'm taking care

Speaker 26:06

my home. Well now I don't wanna work.

Speaker 2 26:07

Right.

Kristen 26:08

Because it's like you're so focused into like, I'm doing this and I'm gonna do this, and then you're all in and it's like, oh wait, now I've gotta do this too.

Speaker 2 26:15

it's exhausting. Well, can you

Kristen 26:18

talk about a time where your high functioning

Speaker 2 26:21

mask burnout or stress? Speaking of burnout?

Speaker 26:25

Yes. I had a, a little bit of a rough end to 2025,

Kristen 26:29

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 26:30

I don't think that people that I only knew me

Emily 26:34

in the

Speaker 26:35

setting, I don't feel like they were able to

Emily 26:38

tell that something was

Speaker 26:40

on and

Emily 26:40

and that something was wrong.

Speaker 26:42

Because day to day, you know, social media

Emily 26:44

posts for the business were still going out. Communication was still going out.

Speaker 26:48

almost the holidays. So we have all of these parties at,

Emily 26:52

Work planned and everything.

Speaker 26:53

And even

Emily 26:54

people just in the community that again, just kind of know

Speaker 26:58

surface level, Emily, they didn't realize like things

Emily 27:02

were happening in our

Speaker 27:03

life,

Emily 27:04

until we shared at the end of the year

Speaker 27:06

was like going on.

Emily 27:08

The last couple months of 2025 were rough.

Speaker 27:11

I

Emily 27:12

kind of

Speaker 27:13

those things

Emily 27:13

in until we had a space where

Speaker 27:16

work

Emily 27:16

was set up and we were getting ready to go on our break and we were just kinda letting go for a while.

Speaker 27:21

And

Emily 27:22

then dealt with those in private.

Kristen 27:25

Do you ever,

Speaker 2 27:27

when you're playing the

Kristen 27:28

part and kind of masking what's truly going on, do you ever wish that somebody would see through it

Speaker 2 27:34

Hey, just

Kristen 27:35

to make sure you're doing okay?

Speaker 27:36

Yeah, and I think

Emily 27:38

a lot of people

Speaker 27:41

will catch like

Emily 27:42

subtle things like

Speaker 27:44

maybe feeling

Emily 27:45

more frazzled.'cause

Speaker 27:46

see this in,

Emily 27:47

like students who are involved in more than one thing and they're not really taking care of themself and doing things that they like because their sport or school is really tough.

Speaker 27:56

Like,

Emily 27:56

not upset, but like something is off, but they're still performing at a really good rate. I try

Speaker 28:03

say like. Like how are you feeling?

Emily 28:06

Is everything okay? And you kind of see like

Speaker 28:08

weight lift off their shoulders,

Emily 28:09

But there's not a whole lot of people in my life that will.

Speaker 28:14

kind of pick at it.

Emily 28:16

Yeah, they'll just kind of leave it alone.

Kristen 28:18

Mm-hmm.

Emily 28:18

But

Speaker 28:19

kind

Emily 28:20

of circling back to the workplace that you said you were leaving and somebody did see through.

Speaker 28:25

That,

Emily 28:25

sometimes that's nice. For other people to recognize, hey, maybe she's not doing so great.

Kristen 28:31

Yeah. And so this is something I've struggled with for years is kind of that thing of like wanting somebody to realize like, does anybody see this is just an act. I'm not always this happy all the

Speaker 2 28:45

time,

Kristen 28:46

but at the same time, if somebody were to be like, Hey, what's wrong? I would probably, depending on the level of friendship, be like wrong, nothing's wrong. Like totally fine, no worries. Even though in the back of my head I'd be like, oh my gosh, somebody noticed

Speaker 2 28:58

as a positive

Kristen 28:59

I don't know,

Speaker 2 29:00

I

Kristen 29:00

say that I wanna portray that. Like you said, I've got it all together. I know what I'm

Speaker 2 29:05

doing,

Kristen 29:06

Boss,

Speaker 2 29:07

babe. But at the same

Kristen 29:10

time, that vulnerability, I think that's important too for people to see that you are

Speaker 2 29:14

So again, the struggle

Kristen 29:15

Is like, why doesn't anybody see, like, why can't they see through this? Why can't they tell that? Like, I'm hurting, I'm broken, I'm struggling. Mm-hmm. And like I said, I don't, I don't open up that easily to people either. So I would get mad at people for not noticing, but then not wanting them to notice or getting mad at them when they ask me. So it's this,

Speaker 2 29:33

it's been a struggle

Kristen 29:35

with me forever for trying to get that balance of being who they want me to be and letting people in.

Speaker 29:41

Absolutely.

Emily 29:41

I think

Speaker 29:42

it's also uncomfortable to talk about

Emily 29:44

your feelings depending on

Speaker 29:47

how

Emily 29:47

close you are with somebody. But just in general, I feel

Speaker 29:50

a lot of people don't want.

Emily 29:52

The

Speaker 29:52

side

Emily 29:52

of things. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 29:54

Of like, Hey, can you proofread this?

Emily 29:56

You still don't want them to see

Speaker 29:57

flaws. Right.

Emily 29:58

Right.

Speaker 29:58

You still don't wanna

Emily 29:59

ask for that help.

Speaker 30:00

Oh,

Emily 30:01

They saw like, I'm not perfect.

Kristen 30:02

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 30:03

Yeah.

Kristen 30:04

Do

Speaker 2 30:04

you,

Kristen 30:04

have you ever had struggles with the fear of failure?

Speaker 30:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 30:10

Okay.

Emily 30:10

All the time.

Kristen 30:11

So,

Speaker 2 30:12

So, because this is another thing

Kristen 30:13

again,

Speaker 2 30:14

also have not like understood, like

Kristen 30:16

I really am

Speaker 2 30:16

am going through

Kristen 30:17

this journey on my own. So I have, in, in my days of sitting on the couch and watching nothing but YouTube,

Speaker 2 30:24

thankfully

Kristen 30:25

the algorithm has been trying to help me. Mm-hmm. And, um, mark Manson, who wrote the book, the Subtle Art of Not Giving of.

Speaker 2 30:33

F

Kristen 30:33

word or whatever. Good book. His YouTube videos are actually even better than the book.

Speaker 2 30:37

he had this

Kristen 30:38

video about, people who are really good students or who learning was easy for, actually,

Speaker 2 30:43

I don't think he

Kristen 30:44

said struggle, but like, why do they have trouble as adults?

Speaker 2 30:46

Because everything was

Kristen 30:47

easy for them. They never had to fail. They didn't learn how to come back from that. Whereas people who did struggle had to learn how to fail and would

Speaker 2 30:56

more

Kristen 30:57

risks

Speaker 2 30:58

do more

Kristen 30:58

things because they weren't afraid of failing.

Speaker 2 31:01

And this

Kristen 31:02

became very prominent.

Speaker 2 31:03

over

Kristen 31:04

the Christmas break when our oven broke

Speaker 2 31:06

oh my.

Kristen 31:07

oh my gosh, our oven broke.

Speaker 2 31:08

And my husband just pulls it out from the wall,

Kristen 31:11

takes it apart,

Speaker 2 31:11

what's going wrong with it,

Kristen 31:13

figures it out, does all the thing. And I'm like,

Speaker 2 31:15

oh my gosh. And he was like,

Kristen 31:16

if you, do you think if I was afraid of failing or thought that I couldn't do it, like I wouldn't like. It's fine.

Speaker 2 31:21

I fail,

Kristen 31:21

we'll just get a new one. Well, we ended up buying a new part, not a new oven.'cause those are crazy expensive. But

Speaker 2 31:26

But he ca like came up a

Kristen 31:29

a different way where he didn't feel like he had to be perfect.

Speaker 2 31:31

no,

Kristen 31:32

you fail, you try again.

Speaker 2 31:33

Like

Kristen 31:33

you keep doing it until you get it right. Like, that's so much you do. And I'm like, oh my gosh, no. Like

Speaker 2 31:38

if

Kristen 31:38

I don't think I'm gonna be good at it, like I'm not even gonna do it. And that's something I've struggled with because it's like,

Speaker 2 31:43

how many things

Kristen 31:44

have I missed out on in my life because I didn't think I was gonna be good at it, or I didn't wanna fail, or I didn't want people to think I wasn't good at it, or I didn't want people to see me fail.

Speaker 2 31:53

Typos,

Kristen 31:54

they're gonna know I'm not a great writer, or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 31:58

And what are we missing

Kristen 31:59

out on by those fears, which I think are very much tied into our performing because the parts we're performing are not

Speaker 2 32:08

leaders.

Speaker 32:09

Yeah. Which is funny that like

Emily 32:11

he mentioned, like students

Speaker 32:14

did really well

Emily 32:15

And then like students who

Speaker 32:16

had to work a

Emily 32:17

a little harder. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 32:18

To work my butt off in school to even just scrape by with a B, like learning was hard for me. Reading was hard for me. Like school was never

Emily 32:26

my setting. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 32:27

like

Emily 32:30

friends

Speaker 32:31

and teachers, like kept obviously like kept coming.

Emily 32:34

Coming back to school

Speaker 32:36

for them, right? Like I wasn't coming back for the

Emily 32:38

the material. I was

Speaker 32:39

Like

Emily 32:39

I learned something, I took a test outta my

Speaker 32:41

Mm-hmm. Moving on to the next subject, like, took a test out of my brain. So I think that's like where my work ethic comes from is like

Emily 32:49

trying to

Speaker 32:51

that like perfect part

Kristen 32:52

Mm-hmm.

Emily 32:53

And never truly failing. Never have I ever

Speaker 32:56

actually failed at

Emily 32:58

But just always carrying that like, well, if I'm not good enough, well if I, if I do fail, what will everybody say?

Speaker 33:04

will everybody think?

Speaker 2 33:05

Right? And who determines what is

Kristen 33:07

good enough?

Speaker 2 33:08

Why do I even

Kristen 33:09

use that phrase? I

Emily 33:11

don't

Speaker 2 33:11

Like good enough for what?

Kristen 33:13

Good enough for whom?

Speaker 2 33:14

Where, how did that, where did that even

Kristen 33:17

come from in our vocabulary? Like, when did we learn we had to be good enough? Because honestly good enough

Speaker 2 33:22

means, good enough. Like, oh, that works. Product good enough, you can send it off. Like, to me, good enough

Kristen 33:27

isn't necessarily

Speaker 2 33:30

like the

Kristen 33:30

the best, right?

Speaker 2 33:32

Like, oh, okay, well good enough. So I don't know why you struggle

Kristen 33:36

so hard to wanna be, oh, I need to be good enough. Like,

Emily 33:40

I dunno.

Kristen 33:41

I dunno,

Speaker 33:41

and that's something like, with the kids that I teach, I try not to use that

Emily 33:46

vocabulary.

Kristen 33:47

Mm-hmm.

Emily 33:47

And

Speaker 33:48

we've been talking about that a lot

Emily 33:49

Actually. One,

Speaker 33:50

one of

Emily 33:51

of my students said, well, next year I just don't

Speaker 33:53

I'm

Emily 33:53

gonna do this style because I'm not good at it now.

Speaker 33:57

I said, you're really good at it. Why would you try? Well, I just, I have to work

Emily 34:01

at it and I'm just not

Speaker 34:02

like good at it. Right off the bat. You're not

Emily 34:04

gonna be good at anything right off the bat. Right. You have to try at everything

Speaker 34:09

throughout your whole life

Kristen 34:11

Also, that sounds like my son that would say that because that was his issue with tap.

Speaker 2 34:15

Again. I'm not good at it. Like I love

Kristen 34:18

I love tap dancing. I should tap dance.

Speaker 2 34:20

It's

Kristen 34:20

But I just don't know how that became the thing. I don't know. We should all try to do something that we're not good at. Like, and try to learn something new because, and get

Emily 34:31

better at it.

Kristen 34:32

Yes. And you become better and learn more when you fail, because you know what? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 34:36

Okay,

Kristen 34:36

so you would take the test and forget about it, but you would probably remember more a question that you missed

Speaker 2 34:42

on a quiz or test than the ones that you got, right?

Kristen 34:44

I'm gonna, you know, if you missed on the quiz, you would like study it more so you get it right for the test. Whereas if you got it right,

Speaker 2 34:51

there's no need to go back and remember it again.

Kristen 34:55

Maybe that should be one of our goals for this year. Emily, we, we should

Speaker 2 34:58

fail. Let's have the goal

Kristen 35:00

to

Speaker 35:01

to fail. To fail at something. Yeah. Well, we thought we were gonna fail on our painting the other night.

Emily 35:05

together night.

Kristen 35:05

Oh,

Speaker 2 35:06

Oh,

Kristen 35:06

right.

Speaker 2 35:06

That's actually a very good, we'll take a side journey into this

Kristen 35:11

Okay. So Emily and I have been painting together. She has a friend who runs a business who we adore. Shout out to Maddie. We love painting with her.

Speaker 2 35:20

And

Kristen 35:21

I've painted, had you painted before she started doing so you'd never painted

Emily 35:24

Painted?

Speaker 35:24

Her?

Speaker 2 35:25

Yeah.

Kristen 35:25

So we

Speaker 2 35:26

we started, I had painted

Kristen 35:28

I love painting. But we were painting a scene and I thought it was so beautiful. Like I'd been wanting to paint this picture of these mountains and it was like

Speaker 2 35:37

the colors of my life, the pink blues and purples that are in, like, literally everything in my life.

Kristen 35:43

So I was so excited about it. I was so excited about that painting there. Emily and I are

Speaker 2 35:48

painting our

Kristen 35:48

little

Speaker 2 35:49

fair shirt. And then what happens? Then what happens?

Kristen 35:51

Emily?

Speaker 35:52

Well, we get the

Emily 35:53

the background done and

Speaker 35:54

like, we're gonna start shading

Emily 35:55

on our mountains,

Kristen 35:57

shading on our mountains.

Emily 36:00

And it just went downhill

Speaker 36:01

there. Literally

Emily 36:02

It's

Kristen 36:03

literally, yes.

Speaker 2 36:04

this little, and I had told this

Kristen 36:06

this story to several people now, and I'm like, so she was saying, you gotta,

Speaker 2 36:09

gotta go

Kristen 36:10

down and swoop? So I'm like, okay, I'm painting. I'm swooping down, I'm swooping down. And I look over at Emily's and Emily's like, well, I'm going down, swoop down and swoop. I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 36:21

So

Kristen 36:21

got so frustrated.

Speaker 2 36:22

Up the entire picture, like in

Kristen 36:24

the mountain area.

Speaker 2 36:25

Starting over dying.

Kristen 36:27

So I go back and I'm like, swooping still doesn't look right. So Maddie comes over and she's like, well, Kristen, why don't you show me how you're doing it? Like just so kindly, right.

Speaker 2 36:36

how are

Kristen 36:37

show me how you're doing it. How

Speaker 2 36:38

Yeah. I'm like, well, I'm doing it. Like you said,

Kristen 36:41

said,

Speaker 2 36:41

swooping down. Swoop, swoop, swoop, swoop. And she's like,

Kristen 36:45

like, how about, why don't we try smaller soups? I'm like, oh, a smaller soup. Okay. Small soup, small.

Speaker 2 36:52

Oh,

Speaker 36:53

feather

Kristen 36:54

that kind of actually, looks right.

Speaker 2 36:55

Like, she's like,

Kristen 36:56

I didn't explain that very well. You think, Maddie, maybe

Speaker 2 36:59

didn't explain it very go,

Speaker 37:02

but at the end of the night

Emily 37:04

we,

Kristen 37:04

all came

Speaker 2 37:05

together,

Speaker 37:05

we painted our mountains and we took our picture and they look too bad.

Speaker 2 37:09

Don't look fantastic.

Kristen 37:10

When this, episode goes live, I'll

Speaker 2 37:12

to close the picture because you know another great life story or life lesson on that.

Kristen 37:17

We'll take another little side tangent

Speaker 2 37:20

when we were

Kristen 37:20

were painting,

Speaker 2 37:21

like

Kristen 37:21

right there, right in front of you, and all you can see are all the imperfections and everything you don't like about it. And it is so hard to get past that and you don't know, like it's never gonna work out. And then by the end, like everything

Speaker 2 37:34

looks good. And then when you look bit farther away, you're like, huh,

Kristen 37:37

huh.

Speaker 2 37:38

not a half bad mountain.

Kristen 37:40

How often do we do that with ourselves? Whether it's something physical we don't like about ourselves or something

Speaker 2 37:47

Oh,

Kristen 37:48

stick with the physical, but like there's something you see that you don't like about yourself. Mm-hmm. And you're just like keep like, Ugh, I hate this about myself. Ugh, I see that. Ugh. Everybody else probably sees how ugly it looks or whatever. And then like from a distance where like

Speaker 2 38:00

literally any other person's

Kristen 38:02

opinion, they don't see

Speaker 2 38:04

And it's the same thing with the painting.

Speaker 38:06

Yeah. Take a, take a step away. And that's something that, you know, Maddie kept telling us. She was like, just get up from the table and walk away and

Emily 38:13

look at it from over here.

Kristen 38:14

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 38:16

I

Kristen 38:16

I didn't do that. I just kept angrily

Speaker 2 38:18

painting. And for the record,

Kristen 38:20

it was not Maddie's fault.

Speaker 2 38:21

I

Kristen 38:21

don't know. It was like the more frustrated I got, the harder it was for me.

Speaker 2 38:26

I started to

Kristen 38:26

to hate painting. I love painting. Like it is so peaceful. It is one of my actual stress release. And I was so angry. I'm like, I'm never painting again. I'm the

Speaker 2 38:35

turn the world like all that negative self talk, poor nothing. It was painting. It was supposed to be something funny and it was, but like, ugh.

Speaker 38:42

But I think that's even like a good point

Emily 38:43

Circle us back into what we've been

Speaker 38:45

been less.

Emily 38:45

the more angry you got, the harder it was to see that it was working.

Kristen 38:52

Right, because you were like clouded by that. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 38:56

A little bit of.

Kristen 38:57

per performance, right. I don't want people to see me struggling.

Speaker 2 39:01

I'm just gonna retain it. It's not a big deal. Everything's

Kristen 39:04

okay. Meanwhile, I'm like,

Speaker 2 39:08

so, but again, you've gotta be, you know,

Kristen 39:11

positive on the outside.

Speaker 39:13

the whole time. Everything's great. I love painting. Love you Maddie. Great. The whole time she

Emily 39:17

was mad at her mountains. She was smiling.

Speaker 2 39:20

Thank you. Although there was one

Kristen 39:21

time I was like, oh my gosh, don't cry. Don't

Speaker 2 39:23

Because like I started get like, and it was more just that frustrating and

Kristen 39:27

and like being upset with myself. I'm like, you can't cry at a

Speaker 2 39:30

painting thing, baby.

Kristen 39:33

Anyway, where were we?

Speaker 2 39:35

were we?

Kristen 39:35

Definitely.

Speaker 2 39:35

We are not the only ones

Kristen 39:37

that are feeling like that.

Speaker 2 39:38

In

Kristen 39:38

We talk about opening up and taking down the mask for people to see who we really are. And it's crazy that, like I do it more with strangers because I feel that my podcast is a place where I wanted to be more vulnerable and share that and show like I'm

Speaker 2 39:56

perfect.

Kristen 39:56

Like whatever version of Kristen you may have seen either now or if you knew me in the past may not be who I really am, because here I am at 42, almost 42 and a half, and I'm still figuring out who I am

Speaker 2 40:09

I think

Kristen 40:10

I lost so many years of whoever I really was by being all the versions of Kristen for all the different people.

Speaker 40:17

Yeah.

Emily 40:18

And,

Speaker 40:19

and you wanting

Emily 40:20

this podcast to be something like of a safe spot. Is what made me feel comfortable to come in here and come into your life and into your, your space. be able to share, you know,

Speaker 40:32

my

Emily 40:32

stories and my perspective.

Kristen 40:34

It has, it's been great. love it.

Speaker 40:35

I love it. It's been perfect.

Speaker 2 40:36

So I feel like we've talked a lot about this, but are there. How have you been

Kristen 40:41

able to step out

Speaker 2 40:43

the costume in your work

Kristen 40:45

and personal life?

Speaker 40:46

still working

Emily 40:47

on that one. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 40:48

It's like kind of getting to that

Emily 40:50

point where you almost

Speaker 40:54

feel yourself breaking out of that character before you're like,

Emily 40:57

I need to

Speaker 40:58

away.

Speaker 2 40:59

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 40:59

So

Emily 41:00

putting boundaries on like phone times man and message times.

Speaker 41:05

So I work

Emily 41:07

evening hours, so.

Speaker 41:09

I

Emily 41:09

typically will answer messages in the morning, anytime from, I try to, I try to do

Speaker 41:15

a work

Emily 41:16

So like 10:00 AM so that way most people have either put their kids on the bus or taken their kids to school before I'm responding to them, or maybe they just got to work to, So putting times in place to where like, I'm gonna message people from this time to this

Speaker 41:30

and if they

Emily 41:30

message me outside of that, they'll have to wait until I come back to my phone, And I check my phone right before I start teaching again.

Speaker 41:38

Taking

Emily 41:38

personal breaks away from like, my business in general.

Speaker 41:43

Taking that 30

Emily 41:43

minute walk a day or just even if I'm not walking just 30 minutes for myself where I'm not

Speaker 41:50

interacting

Emily 41:50

with the thing that causes me to go into that character.

Speaker 2 41:56

I think that's a,

Kristen 41:56

a really good way to do it too.

Speaker 2 41:59

And I, I love that you are, first off

Kristen 42:02

love boundaries. As soon as you said boundaries, I'm like, yeah, boundaries

Speaker 2 42:05

But I'm wondering too,

Kristen 42:06

too,

Speaker 2 42:08

you do that for the

Kristen 42:08

the business, but do you have any boundaries or ti,

Speaker 2 42:13

I don't know if time

Kristen 42:14

constraints is the right word, but for messaging friends too, like are there areas where you're like,

Speaker 2 42:22

I

Kristen 42:22

I don't know.

Speaker 2 42:23

I have thoughts about, but I wanna see what you say first. You know what I'm getting at though, right?

Kristen 42:27

know what

Emily 42:27

you're getting at

Speaker 42:27

Because we just

Emily 42:28

talked

Speaker 42:28

and I am taking a page out of your book

Emily 42:31

So I have always been the person that my phone dings, I answer it, I get a email, I open it, there's no waiting. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. I'm cooking dinner, I'm getting ready to put a load of laundry and I'm stopping what I'm doing

Speaker 42:46

and

Emily 42:46

I'm opening or answering

Speaker 42:49

And after talking with you, Kristen, I decided that

Emily 42:55

My time and what I was doing needs to continue and I can get to my phone when I have a

Speaker 43:01

Yeah.

Kristen 43:02

Yeah. And it's been hard because I feel like I'm almost a slave to like, you hear ding

Speaker 2 43:06

Like dinging. Like, oh, I've gotta get it. And yeah. And it can be like we're in the middle of eating dinner or

Kristen 43:12

mm-hmm. Like I'm driving and it's ding like, oh

Speaker 2 43:15

And then the thing is

Kristen 43:17

though is anytime I'd open a message, I would feel like I owed that person a response. Especially because text, it's like instant communication. Like I need to write back.

Speaker 2 43:26

And

Kristen 43:27

it has been hard for me to break it. But I have been working on it

Speaker 2 43:32

actively

Kristen 43:33

If I am in the middle of something, I shouldn't have to drop everything because somebody texted me. So oftentimes, I will either have my phone in another room if like we're doing something, I don't wanna be distracted by it, or I will really use the focus times and I will put my phone in like focus mode. So I can only get messages from like immediate family. Like I'm not gonna be distracted by anybody else. And then it is like telling myself I do not need to reply right away. This can wait.

Speaker 2 44:02

And it's hard though because I think it goes back

Kristen 44:05

to that meeting other people's expectations

Speaker 2 44:08

again, aren't necessarily their expectations, but

Kristen 44:11

but that

Speaker 2 44:11

projecting on like, oh,

Kristen 44:12

oh, if I don't reply, they're

Speaker 2 44:13

think I

Kristen 44:14

I don't wanna talk to them.

Speaker 2 44:15

Busy for them or,

Kristen 44:16

Or,

Speaker 2 44:17

and then I

Kristen 44:18

I don't know if you've done this too, because this is something else I'm trying to break from. If I don't reply

Speaker 2 44:22

a while and

Kristen 44:24

and then I do reply, then I'm like,

Speaker 2 44:25

I'm sorry, I was in the middle of doing whatever.

Kristen 44:28

Do we do that?

Speaker 44:29

I

Emily 44:29

I don't know.

Speaker 44:29

That's something

Emily 44:30

else that you have

Speaker 44:32

to light for me is like, I don't

Emily 44:34

have to say I'm

Speaker 44:35

for living my life.

Speaker 2 44:37

Yes.

Speaker 44:37

I

Emily 44:37

I don't have to say I'm sorry for being busy.

Kristen 44:40

Mm-hmm.

Emily 44:40

And I don't have to give you

Speaker 44:41

reason why I

Emily 44:43

didn't answer.

Kristen 44:44

Right. And also, you don't have to give a reason if the answer is no. Yeah. Which is the other part I'm working on is, you know, somebody saying, oh, do you wanna do this? Oh, can you do that? Oh. No, thank you. Appreciate the invite. No, thank you. Yeah, because I

Speaker 2 44:58

to have the hardest

Kristen 44:59

time,

Speaker 2 45:00

I don't like to remember, there was

Kristen 45:01

was like a meme a while ago and it was like, I still wanna be invited even though I'm not gonna go.

Emily 45:06

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 45:07

But then I would

Kristen 45:07

would get invited and stuff and I would feel bad, like, oh, well maybe I

Speaker 2 45:11

go. Like even if

Kristen 45:12

if I had

Speaker 2 45:12

else or like, I, sometimes I would overbook

Kristen 45:16

myself because I would feel like I couldn't

Speaker 2 45:18

no.

Kristen 45:18

If I did say no,

Speaker 2 45:19

like, oh my

Kristen 45:19

my gosh, I'm so sorry

Speaker 2 45:21

because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Kristen 45:23

Mm-hmm. Nobody cares. So, I have been working very hard on

Speaker 2 45:28

you

Kristen 45:28

Hey, thanks for the invite. I really appreciate it, but I'm sorry I'm not gonna go

Speaker 2 45:31

time, this time.

Kristen 45:32

Please think of me

Speaker 2 45:33

time.

Kristen 45:33

because I don't want people to stop inviting me.

Emily 45:35

Yeah,

Kristen 45:35

at the same time. I'm finding that my time is valuable.

Emily 45:41

Mm-hmm.

Kristen 45:41

And I don't have to give my time to everybody else. Just like you said, not responding to text right away. I don't have to go and do all the things or be all the people.

Emily 45:50

Yeah.

Speaker 45:50

When you

Emily 45:51

do have the time to answer, you're more like thoughtful with it.

Kristen 45:55

So

Emily 45:55

I'm not

Speaker 45:56

with whatever I was doing. I'm fully reading

Emily 46:00

and responding to the email or the text that someone, right. Somebody sent me.

Kristen 46:05

Yeah. So then they get your undivided attention. Because if you're

Speaker 2 46:07

while somebody else is talking to you, like

Kristen 46:10

somebody's not going to get the attention. Yeah. And being fully present with whoever you are with at the time,

Speaker 2 46:15

or even the

Kristen 46:16

the activity. Because

Speaker 2 46:17

you're watching a

Kristen 46:18

a movie and somebody texts you, now you're not

Speaker 2 46:20

a movie like you said, the

Kristen 46:21

the laundry,

Speaker 2 46:21

which kind of needs to get done. But then if you go away

Kristen 46:23

from that for something, it's just, it's so hard.

Speaker 46:26

And

Emily 46:26

then I

Speaker 46:27

then I like if I don't

Emily 46:28

finish a task sometimes

Speaker 46:30

I got distracted. Now I'm on a new

Emily 46:31

task

Speaker 46:32

I'm doing whatever,

Emily 46:33

whatever,

Kristen 46:33

DH, ADHD brain.

Emily 46:34

Yeah. Either they've asked me to look at something or go somewhere. So I'm like, now I'm in a totally

Speaker 46:39

room and my day or

Emily 46:40

Or my time has

Speaker 46:42

diverted

Speaker 2 46:43

So Harry was doing my laundry and then I got the text and after I applied to them, then I decided to work on the dishwasher. Yeah. And then got another text and I was like, oh, what was I doing? So I went and made the bed like these half done tasks because nothing actually got done.

Emily 46:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:58

Well, we talked a little bit about it, but I don't know if there's anything else you want to share about it and kind of talked about vulnerability and authenticity and kind of how those play together or how you see them, like those thoughts on it.

Speaker 47:13

I have in my notes like letting people know that you're not invincible.

Kristen 47:18

Ooh.

Emily 47:19

So

Speaker 47:20

we wanna have that like perfect. Nothing can

Emily 47:22

can happen to me. Or like,

Speaker 47:24

it doesn't matter what happens, I can handle it.

Speaker 3 47:26

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 47:27

Like sometimes we need to tell people like, Hey, I do need help with this really quickly.

Emily 47:31

Can you run and

Speaker 47:32

it?

Kristen 47:32

Yeah.

Speaker 47:33

That way you don't reach that breaking point because you don't have, even if you're keeping up the, the perfect persona,

Emily 47:41

people might still think

Speaker 47:43

like, oh, well, you know, they're

Emily 47:45

little

Speaker 47:45

sad right now,

Emily 47:46

but they'll be fine tomorrow because they're perfect. Mm-hmm. Or they, you know, they're

Speaker 47:50

how

Speaker 2 47:50

they are. She's always happy.

Speaker 47:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:53

Yeah. I think that's good.

Kristen 47:54

That vulnerability plays a part in authenticity because, you

Speaker 2 47:58

and

Kristen 47:59

I do think when I think of authenticity, I think of that true version of yourself. The one you are on the inside, the one you are when nobody else is around, when you're not performing or trying to be somebody else. That's your authentic self. And I think vulnerability plays into it on you for well on me, like on the person. Yeah. You have to be vulnerable to it. Knowledge and accept that that's who you are and be okay with this is who I am, and kind of being vulnerable with yourself, but then also being vulnerable with other people.

Speaker 2 48:28

Like

Kristen 48:29

like it's okay for people to see those cracks in you sometimes. Mm-hmm. It's okay for you to be like, I'm not

Speaker 2 48:33

because nobody is.

Kristen 48:35

And for you to be that, it almost makes you more relatable when you're showing people like, Hey, look, it's okay to not be perfect.

Speaker 48:41

Yeah. I work with a lot of young girls, like a lot of girls who are just going into the world,

Emily 48:48

Like the real

Speaker 48:49

or

Emily 48:50

these impressionable girls growing up, and even the boys that I

Speaker 48:54

but I find it

Emily 48:55

more often in the girls.

Speaker 48:58

they need

Emily 48:59

somebody to look up to

Speaker 49:00

perfect because then they have that.

Emily 49:03

That.

Kristen 49:03

Mm-hmm.

Emily 49:04

So if they can see

Speaker 49:05

it's okay to be upset, it's okay to have your

Emily 49:07

your bad days, but we can still get through them and

Speaker 49:10

get over them. I would much rather be that person for them

Emily 49:15

Mm-hmm. And then be the happy always

Speaker 49:17

person.

Kristen 49:18

I think you're right, because having examples that they can look to and kind of model after. And not trying to force something. I think that's huge for them to have examples. The other thing I think it's important for impressionable children is I've heard,

Speaker 2 49:34

you

Kristen 49:34

You know, when we talk about how, when we were younger and teacher's, pets and all that, the acceptance of validation, how important was it for us to hear somebody say, oh, I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

Speaker 2 49:45

And again, I read

Kristen 49:47

That it's important to teach children, for them to be proud of themselves and to find that pride within them. Because you don't want to do it for somebody else. You don't need to do it for somebody else. You need to do it for you. And I think if I'd been taught that more when I was younger, like I'm proud of me because there's been a lot of times I'm not like, mm-hmm I'm not comfortable with what I am, or I don't think I'm good enough. And I think that that's a lesson that I've tried to, you know, I still tell my son like, oh, I'm proud of you. But I have tried to turn around and be like, oh, you should be so proud of yourself for that, and really kind of build that confidence in people and make them feel that you don't have to do it for somebody else.

Emily 50:25

Yeah.

Speaker 50:26

I have a lot of people ask me if I can write letters to their children, either for like time

Emily 50:32

capsules. Oh, I love that.

Speaker 50:33

I, I have a lot of people who ask me just like for little

Emily 50:36

notes and things. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 50:37

A lot of kids on

Emily 50:38

on dance teams

Speaker 50:39

to, you know, big competitions, their coaches will reach out and be like, can you write a little letter?

Emily 50:44

They all open these letters,

Speaker 50:45

all of their loved ones,

Emily 50:47

And that is something I have always tried to do is be like, you should be so proud of the accomplishments that you have achieved. Yes.

Speaker 50:57

because

Emily 50:57

I know I am

Speaker 50:58

of you.

Speaker 2 50:58

You know, like

Kristen 50:59

I love

Emily 50:59

that.

Kristen 50:59

You

Emily 51:00

know, lead it into, like, I never try to say, I

Speaker 51:03

you are doing great. I hope you

Emily 51:05

you know, like your team does well.

Speaker 51:07

I want you to

Emily 51:08

to know that you should be so proud of yourself that you are here because you worked hard and instilling that in them.

Speaker 51:16

I say all the time, and many people have heard me say this and I say it at recital every year, my goal

Emily 51:23

is for your student to be a better

Speaker 51:25

when they leave here. Not to be a better dancer or like to

Emily 51:29

to be the highest achieving

Speaker 51:30

in the. So

Emily 51:31

They should be a better human going out

Speaker 51:33

the world.

Kristen 51:35

They should.

Speaker 2 51:36

Now, I'm

Kristen 51:37

I'm gonna turn this on you for just a minute. Those letters that you write, those girls or dancers and you know, you should be so proud of you

Speaker 2 51:46

What if you

Kristen 51:47

talk to yourself that way? And what if that's the letter that you wrote you, how would you talk to yourself differently?

Speaker 51:54

I would definitely have a lot more, I don't know, I would have a lot more like appreciation for myself.

Kristen 52:02

Mm-hmm.

Emily 52:03

And the job that I do.

Kristen 52:04

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 52:05

Because

Speaker 52:05

again, a lot of people don't know what I

Emily 52:07

I do and they just see it as like

Speaker 52:10

it's a play fun job.

Kristen 52:12

Yes.

Speaker 52:13

And if I, if I told myself I would, if I got the chance to say, you should be so proud of yourself. And just like looking back at the years that I've

Emily 52:23

I've had,

Speaker 52:25

it just hits a little different.

Emily 52:26

different.

Kristen 52:26

It does, because can we take this one step farther, talking about vulnerability?

Speaker 2 52:31

All right,

Kristen 52:32

right. So think about when did you start dancing?

Speaker 52:35

I started dancing

Emily 52:36

I was

Speaker 52:37

three.

Kristen 52:38

So it's been a minute. Let's say, I don't know what three or 4-year-old Emily would've said, but let's imagine, Hmm. 8-year-old Emily. If 8-year-old Emily could talk to present day Emily, what would she say to her about what she thinks she's doing?

Speaker 52:57

She'd say she's living her

Emily 52:59

her dream.

Kristen 53:00

Mm-hmm. So what if I could encourage you or other listeners.

Speaker 2 53:07

that when you

Kristen 53:08

you are looking at yourself and you're performing and you're maybe getting near burnout and struggling, what if you turn it around and

Speaker 2 53:16

I don't know, just

Kristen 53:17

thought about what 8-year-old you would say to you now?

Speaker 2 53:20

Saying, you

Kristen 53:21

Hey, you should be proud of you. Look at everything you did from where 8-year-old you was to here,

Speaker 2 53:28

and

Kristen 53:28

Put in perspective and be kinder to yourself.

Speaker 3 53:31

Yeah.

Kristen 53:32

So

Speaker 2 53:33

I

Kristen 53:33

I think you should do that.

Speaker 2 53:35

And I bring that up

Kristen 53:36

'cause my husband had said something recently to me about, so when I was younger, I wanted to go into broadcast journalism. I wanted to be a reporter. I wanted to be the like the out and the like back to you in

Speaker 2 53:45

Studio Bob. Like I wanted do that or

Kristen 53:48

Or I wanted to be John Stossel and I wanted to get to an investigative reporting, or I was gonna be Barbara Walters and I was gonna be on, this is 2020. Like, I had all these big goals. Obviously, um, I didn't do any of that just for the record. And my husband was giving one of his

Speaker 2 54:03

talk the

Kristen 54:03

the other day also what I call a lecture, but, you know, pep talk. And he was like, what a 12-year-old

Speaker 2 54:10

Kristen

Kristen 54:11

could see you now? Like, is she gonna ask you like, Hey, why, why aren't you a reporter? Why aren't you doing this? Like, why didn't you do any of the things you wanted to do? Oh, crap. At least you are doing what you're doing. But I think we all need to take a step back and be like, what did, who were we when we were younger? Because then that was a more vulnerable version of ourselves, and that person probably could have some things to say to us. Now

Speaker 54:35

also, if we think back to that younger self, that was probably the,

Emily 54:39

the

Speaker 54:39

realest of ourselves we ever were,

Kristen 54:41

Mm-hmm.

Emily 54:41

Because

Speaker 54:42

the world and people's perceptions hadn't shaped us

Emily 54:47

yet.

Kristen 54:47

I would say hardened us. They hadn't hardened us. We were, we were who we were meant to be.

Speaker 54:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:52

So I

Kristen 54:53

love this. Well, any closing thoughts on performing or wearing a costume and playing a role?

Speaker 55:02

I think if you notice yourself playing a role or

Emily 55:04

or stepping into the costume that you choose for that setting

Speaker 55:08

group of people, I

Emily 55:09

I think that you should take a

Speaker 55:11

to share

Emily 55:13

just a small

Speaker 55:15

that you're having with somebody in that group.

Kristen 55:18

I would agree.

Emily 55:19

Just a small one.

Speaker 2 55:20

Yeah.

Kristen 55:21

Just let down your guard a little. Let it crack a little, show a little bit of vulnerability and see how much more it can deepen that relationship and how much more comfortable you can be without having to feel like you have to play a role.

Emily 55:32

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 55:33

Well,

Kristen 55:33

as always, Emily, this has been so good and I hope it has been helpful

Speaker 2 55:37

I

Kristen 55:38

I know

Speaker 2 55:38

good for me, so like great for me. That's

Kristen 55:40

fantastic. Fantastic. So, I'm sure we'll talk again soon.

Emily 55:45

Thank you much.

Kristen 55:50

Thanks for spending this time with me. I hope this conversation made you feel a little less alone. Take care of yourself and I'll talk with you soon. I.