S5 Bonus 05: How The Circle Can Help You

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:28.3] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we’ve always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement, and structure. 

I’m on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you’re ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence and publish your travel stories, you’re in the right place. Let’s go.

[DISCUSSION]

[0:00:38.0] YD: Welcome back, everyone. We’re taking this month off to rest here at the Travel Media Lab Podcast and we will be back with fresh season six interviews and episodes with you very soon. Until then, I’d like to share with you a few conversations that we regularly have in our membership, The Circle, in which we help you get your stories published with ongoing support, encouragement, opportunities, and a community as you establish yourself in the travel media space.

So on the heels of the discussion we had last week about restoring ourselves, I wanted to bring another very important conversation to you this week. But first, I want to ask you a couple of questions. Do you feel like you’re worthy? Do you know it deep in your bones that you absolutely deserve all the amazing things and opportunities and accomplishments that are coming your way? Do you put yourself first? Are you prioritizing your dreams? 

If you hesitated, even a little bit when thinking about these questions, this will be a very important episode for you to reflect on. In it, we discuss worthiness and why we may feel unworthy. We also discuss structural reasons for feeling this way, including the conversation around boundaries and invisible labor. 

We also discuss the ripple effect of feeling worthy or not and how everything we do is connected to this feeling. We dedicated a whole hour to this conversation inside The Circle and in today’s episode, I share with you a part of that discussion.

[0:02:21.5] In The Circle, we continue talking about the ways we can boost our worthiness, and that part of the conversation and all of our workshops and calls, in addition to all the support and the community that we offer are available to you as a resource when you join us over at travelmedialab.com/circle.

Here is another review that we recently got on our podcast from T.G. Simpson that says: “Yulia has created what is now one of my favorite podcasts. I am grateful for her heart to empower women to follow their travel journalism dreams. The guest she brings on offer a wide variety of insights and experiences. I always come away feeling energized and like there are others out there with similar ambitions.”

Thank you so much, oh my goodness, what an amazing thing to say and I’m just so glad that what I’m trying to put out here is resonating with you because that is exactly the mission of everything we do inside Travel Media Lab including this podcast is to empower you to follow your travel media, travel journalism dreams. So thank you so much and if you’re listening right now and if you enjoy our podcast, I really encourage you to go to your podcast platform right now and share your thoughts with us as well.

I look at every single review that we get, they are very important for us because that’s how the algorithm decides that they’re going to put our podcast in front of more people or not, so you have a role to play in this as well. So please, go ahead, if you haven’t yet, please go ahead and leave your review for our podcast. It’s really, really important for us, and who knows, maybe I will be reading your review on the podcast next. Thank you so much.

All right, let’s get into this super important discussion about feeling worthy and what are the reasons why we don’t sometimes feel worthy, and what we can do about it as well.

[0:04:22.6] Today, we’re going to be talking about worthiness and what that means for us and ways we can cultivate it, and how it helps us, or lack of it, prevents us on this path. And I already shared this theme with our genies this January but, you know, we have lots of new people in The Circle and I wanted to resurface it because a lot of what we’re talking about on the weekly basis in the circle actually all goes back to the question of whether or not you consider yourself worthy.

Worthy of doing this job, worthy of pursuing the pitches that you want to pursue, worthy of prioritizing your needs over the needs of others, worthy of charging enough or asking for what’s your work deserves to be paid. You know, all of those questions, imposter syndrome, all of that, you can find all of it leading back to the question of, am I worthy?

For me personally again, I’ve been sort of on this journey, on this evolution for the past several years that culminated and actually started genius women where this is the question that I’ve been asking myself, right? Because even something as silly, that made me question like, who am I to pursue this path, who am I to pursue this frivolous path instead of getting a real job and even being able to support my family with a more stable corporate job, for example? “Who am I to frivolously pursue this path instead?” and questions like that are all rooted in the question of worthiness, okay? 

The other way in which worthiness or lack of it shows up is also related to the questions of abundance versus scarcity because when we feel like we’re worthy, we know, we have this feeling that the right opportunities will come to us that we are not competing for resources with other people, right? That there is enough to go around for everybody.

[0:06:27.4] When we have this lack of worthiness, we feel like there is never enough, right? There’s like this scarcity thinking, there is never, “I’m never doing enough, I need to hustle more, I need to go after more, I need to compete for opportunities with other people” all of those questions are also related to questions of worthiness and, you know, not assigning the highest priority to our own dreams, our own aspirations is also going back to the questions of worthiness, right?

If, like, we all have – and I know Charlotte, with you, for example, you had this question before and I struggle with that as well, we all have so many things to do on the weekly and on a daily basis. You know, how do we prioritize pitching National Geographic over doing accounting work, or what have you, right? How do we actually do it or you know, putting our kids, I don’t know, taking our kids to the kindergarten over pitching National Geographic, right? It’s such a hard question to… or cooking dinner for the family or breakfast or I don’t know, whatever, lunch, over pursuing your dreams, right? It’s such a hard question for many women to balance that and somehow, we always put that last. We always put that freaking last, you know? Then, we wonder, why there’s so many women who are feeling unhappy or unfulfilled. Well, that’s going to happen if you keep putting your own aspirations last and not even talking about aspirations, self-care for example, right? Putting that last, it’s very easy for us to put all of that or like, to put the needs of other people ahead of our own.

[0:08:06.5] It’s very easy for us because that’s how we’ve been socialized for many years, continuing behaviors that are, we know that they are draining energy from us and we still continue to do them, that’s also part of thinking that we are not worthy of something better, right? 

Scrolling on Instagram, working with a client who’s draining as I know Samantha have a situation like that recently. Many, many different facets in how it shows up in our lives but it all comes back to the fundamental question: do you believe we are worthy, worthy of all the best for ourselves, worthy of going after our dreams, worthy of receiving on the opportunities that show up in our lives. It’s really fundamental question to ask yourself, you know? 

I want to just sort of take a little side route to talk a little bit about why we feel unworthy, many wants in many different ways because even that in itself is all wrapped up in another part of guilt and shame. “Why do I feel unworthy? What’s wrong with me?” you know it’s like this never ending cycle and actually there is a lot of structural reasons for why lots of people especially women, especially people of color feel unworthy, right? 

We have traditionally a lot, a huge chunk of work, a huge chunk of labor that was assigned to women, that was assigned to caretakers, right? Was unpaid, invisible, and undervalued and it still is, right? There is ton of work especially for all of us caregivers because I don’t have children for example but I take care of my grandma who lives with me in the house that responsibility falls on me. 

I have to take her to the doctor’s appointments. I have to make sure all her prescriptions are always filled. I had to make sure she has all the things that she needs, that’s a labor and I dedicate maybe you know, a number of hours each week caring for her. That is a labor that is never recognized, nobody recognizes that as a labor, nobody pays for it for sure and it is not valued. 

In fact in my culture, in Russian culture, it is something that even it’s assumed that that’s what you do for your grandmas and grandpas or even walking your dog, which of course is a pleasure but at the same time, it’s a job. You pay a dog walker, you know a number of – you pay your dog walker a salary to do that. Washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the house, I spend the whole weekend you guys cleaning this two-bedroom house that I’m in, you know? 

[0:10:49.6] It is not recognized as labor, it is not paid, it’s not valued but that’s what it is. I could have relaxed the whole weekend. I could have reset my creativity this weekend, instead, I was cleaning the house, you know? I’m sure you could recognize lots of things that you do on a daily and weekly basis that is like, that is unpaid, invisible, and undervalued and that’s structural. 

We are supposed to be doing all these things, especially as women, right? People socialize as women especially. 

We have a lack of boundaries, we have such hard time telling others what our needs are and standing our ground. Such a hard time as women to do that. All of that is feeding that beast that says, “You’re not worthy. Look, here is all the proof in life that you are not worthy” right? The invisible labor that we just discussed, your boundaries that nobody respects, culture really. 

Again, in my culture, in Russian culture, if I start talking about how worthy I am, how I’m deserving of all the good things in my life, it’s immediately viewed as bragging, as you know, you should be very low, you should be very quiet, you should not be raising your voice in this way and that’s a cultural component too. 

In a lot of other cultures around the world, it’s the same as well and of course, if we look at again, on a broader societal level, we don’t even have to say how there’s this huge gender gap of women consistently being underpaid, consistently across different industries, across just different roles, you name it, women are always getting the short end and again, if you are a woman of color it’s even more horrible than a white woman, right? 

[0:12:34.1] So just this little sideway, sidestep to recognize that the reason we feel unworthy is not because again, there is something wrong with us or we are somehow deficient. It is because this is the environment we’re brought up in, right? So it is a natural outcome of being raised in this society so we shouldn’t feel bad about it but we should be aware of it, so we can start doing something about it as well, right? 

Again, why are we talking about worthiness in this membership for women, on the creative path membership for women who want to get published, who want to be in the travel media space? Well, because it is all directly related. Every choice we have on a daily basis is related to how we feel about ourselves, whether we feel we’re worthy to receive and to go after and to prioritize ourselves, right? I can’t believe how crucial this realization is for your own journey. Why I know this because I am just recently arriving to the spot myself, where I feel it’s – I don’t know how to describe it. It is an inherent feeling, it’s in your bones that you know you are worthy, you are amazing and all the opportunities that you want, you know, they are coming your way and it’s all happening and it is all incredible. 

It took me many years to get here, you guys. You know, it’s a journey that is consisting of many, many, many thousands of steps but it is probably the most important journey that you can take for yourself in your life. And I don’t know why today the words are not coming out as eloquently out of my mouth as they usually do. I usually feel like you know, I can just today is like this. I am not sure why, maybe it is a topic, maybe because it’s Monday but that’s basically it. 

[0:14:26.3] There is this journey that we all have to embark upon and I think we are all sort of at various stages in that journey. Every stage is valid, every stage is equally as good but what I want to share with you today after we talked about what worthiness is, whether or not you’re worthy, why it’s important for us to feel worthy and some structural reasons for why we don’t feel worthy, I want to share with you some ways in which we can start boosting that worthiness. 

Very simple, very practical ways, and a lot of them you may already do them, and maybe you can share and offer your own, right? Because we’re all learning from each other but that is sort of the intent today. So for the next half an hour, I want to share with you some of the ways in which we can start boosting our worthiness and also share with you my personal journey on the way there.

Because I actually recently shared it on Instagram that I mean, worthiness and self-love to me are sort of interchangeable. It’s this similar space we’re talking about and I have recently shared on Instagram that literally, this summer was some pivotal moment that happened in my life where we finally understand what all this time people were talking about when they said you have to accept yourself and love yourself and feel like you’re worthy. 

Again, feel it in your bones like if you – it is so matter of factly, I didn’t know it before and I had no idea how you get there, what is the state, what are people talking about? So I want to share with you some ways in which I have gotten there as well because the thing is that whether or not you feel that you are worthy or not, it’s not like all of a sudden when you feel worthy, your life is going to magically turn into no obstacles, no challenges, no hardships. 

[0:16:18.7] It’s not like all of a sudden, people are going to start knocking on your door with opportunities and stuff like 24/7. No, right? Objective reality is probably not going to change that much but what’s going to change is how you react to all of that objective reality and then from your own choices and from your own actions and behaviors, that’s what’s going to be changing then, the objective reality, right? 

So when I feel that I am 100 percent worthy, when I feel that, it changes how I react to everything. It changes what I chose to focus on throughout the day. It changes how I view opportunities. It changes everything, you know, in how I process everything. It doesn’t change the reality, I mean, it does little by little based on my choices but the most important thing that changes is your choices and your actions every day. That’s what then changes the reality that you are facing, okay? 

[END OF DISCUSSION]

[0:17:17.2] YD: Thanks again for listening to our bonus episode today. I hope you found the conversation we had here today relevant and inspiring and helpful to you. If you are looking for support, opportunities, and community in the Travel Media space, consider joining us in The Circle, where we have conversations like the one you just heard on a regular basis. Visit travelmedialab.com/circle to learn more and I just want to remind you that enrollment for The Circle is ongoing, you can join us at any time. 

Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for the last bonus episode of this season break coming your way next week. 

[END]