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Have a Cup of Johanny
Where every "oops" is a gateway to "aha!" Join Johanny Ortega, the dynamic host of this one-woman show, as she takes you on a journey through the transformative power of self-reflection and learning from mistakes. In Have a Cup of Johanny Podcast, Johanny shares her personal experiences, from embarrassing moments to life-altering missteps, and shows you how to pivot and thrive through adversity. Each episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tips for self-improvement and personal growth that you can apply in all aspects of your life. Whether you're looking to boost your resilience, enhance your communication skills, or simply find inspiration, this podcast is your go-to source for motivation and empowerment. Don't miss out on these inspiring and actionable episodes to help you turn every setback into a stepping stone to success!
Have a Cup of Johanny
Mind Your Mask, Mind Your Business
Five comments in one day—just because I wore a mask.
In this episode, I share a fresh, real-time reflection on what happened when I returned to work after recovering from both COVID and the flu. Spoiler: it wasn’t the illness that hit hardest. It was the unsolicited opinions.
Why does someone else’s choice to take precautions trigger so much discomfort in others? Why do people feel entitled to comment on a boundary that doesn’t involve them?
This episode unpacks resistance, autonomy, and the deep discomfort some folks feel when they see someone making a different choice. It’s not just about masks. It’s about the right to choose what works for you without being ridiculed for it.
🎧 Tune in to explore what happens when you stop shrinking for other people’s comfort, and start standing firm in your own.
📚 And if you’re drawn to stories about self-trust, ancestral power, and the courage to live outside the lines, preorder my novel The Ordinary Bruja at https://haveacupofjohanny.com/product/the-ordinary-bruja-book-one-of-las-cerradoras-series-j-e-ortega/. It’s a magical, haunting tale of reclaiming your power in a world that wants you small.
If today’s episode hit you in the chest the way it hit me, don’t just walk away—walk toward something that reflects you.
Subscribe to the podcast, hit that YouTube channel for the behind-the-scenes, and if you’re ready to read a story about what it really means to come home to yourself—
👉🏽 Preorder The Ordinary Bruja.
https://haveacupofjohanny.com/product/the-ordinary-bruja-book-one-of-las-cerradoras-series-j-e-ortega/
It’s about a Dominican-American bruja who’s been running from herself her whole life until ancestral magic, generational wounds, and a haunted-ass hill force her to face the truth.
If you’ve ever felt “too much,” “not enough,” or like you don’t fit anywhere, you’re exactly who this story was written for.
🎙️ Subscribe.
📺 Follow on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2SRDePbyy8M85Wbf25VUCg
📚 Preorder The Ordinary Bruja. https://haveacupofjohanny.com/product/the-ordinary-bruja-book-one-of-las-cerradoras-series-j-e-ortega/
Because becoming who you are is the bravest kind of magic.
Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny. This season isn't about hustling harder. It's about coming home to yourself, to your voice, to your breath, to the quiet truth that you're still here and you're not starting over. You're starting again. This is your space to reflect, reset and remember who, to tell you why. So pour your cafecito and let's begin. Hello friends, and welcome back to Habacuc of Johnny podcast, where we talk about the messy, magical process of becoming one cup at a time.
Speaker 1:It's still August, still my birthday month, and I've been walking you through the lessons I've learned at 43. Today's reflection. This one is hot up the press and I'm glad that I'll be scheduling this one immediately after the first episode of listening to my body, because you need to hear this. Let me tell you something happened this week and because this is like recently. So it's a very raw lessons learned. I got to warn you, it's not polished, it's not poetic, it's just very raw and real and it's about something as small and as politicized as wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it.
Speaker 1:Wearing a mask. God damn it. The title of this episode is Mind your Mask and Mind your Business dude. Y'all ready for this? I'm going to take out the dude part out of the title, just letting you know let's go. So picture this, okay, put the vision in your head.
Speaker 1:I'm back at work. I had to take some days off because I was recovering not just from COVID but also the flu and I was highly contagious. I was still getting fevers and chills and all of that, so I couldn't come back to work. So that combo was atrocious Zero out of 10. Do not recommend. Don't ever want to feel that again, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone either, not even the guy who side-eyed me today when I walked in wearing my mask. Because, yes, after coming back to work, after the chills and the fever stopped, I wore a mask and I had every reason to. First of all, I'm still recovering. Second of all, I want to protect others. I don't know others' medical conditions right, so I want to make sure that I protect others and I also like I don't want to get re-infected people, especially while my immune system is recovering and it's in the fritz. You know, I just I don't feel like going through that again. Call me dramatic, you know, but I mean come on now. I mean my immune system is already hanging on by a thread in a peppermint tea, as it is right now, like golly.
Speaker 1:But in the span of a few hours of me coming back to work that first day with my mask on, I got like five comments. Five no exaggeration there. Five comments within the span of a few hours All from men, by the way. Okay, don't, please don't come into the comments saying like I'm a man hater or anything like that. I'm just stating the facts here. Okay, all the comments came from men and all these comments were ranging from awkward jokes to sarcastic digs, to why are you wearing that ridiculous thing? And like I had to pause. I thought I was getting pranked for real.
Speaker 1:Like I thought I was getting pranked and I think that's why I had to take a pause on the first few comments, because I was like, am I really like being talked down to because I chose to wear a mask? To me, that was the ridiculous thing of all of this In my mind. I'm like really Still, after everything we've seen, we are doing this. We're like dogging out the masks. Jesus Christ, have mercy on their souls. So here's what gets me.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you this is not a pretty episode. This is very raw, but here's what gets me. I wasn't forcing anyone to wear a mask, like I wasn't saying to anyone you've got to wear a mask. I wasn't campaigning in the hallway putting posters up, you know, or anything like that about how masks are the way to go, or anything like that. I was just existing quietly wearing something on my face, on my body, that I paid for because I had the fucking flu and COVID and I don't want to feel like death again.
Speaker 1:Like, call me dramatic, say it again, call me dramatic, but I don't really want to go like death again. Like, call me dramatic, say it again, call me dramatic, but I don't really want to go through that again, you know. So if the way to have the odds in my favor of that not happening again is to wear a mask to protect myself, you better believe that's exactly what I'm going to do. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of wearing a mask whenever I travel, possibly whenever I'm around all these folks in a small space. Fact, I'm thinking of wearing a mask whenever I travel, possibly whenever I'm around all these folks in a small space, because I thought I was going to die. It was a horrible feeling to have the way that I felt and if you don't know, listen to the previous episode please, so that way you know I'm not being dramatic here I had two viruses at once in my body, wrecking all sorts of havoc. It was horrible. So I had to ask myself, like what is it about me taking care of myself with the things that I've bought with my own money that's making these folks so uncomfortable? And I kept turning this over in my mind and finally today. That's why I'm making this episode because today, after turning it over for like three days, it just comes down to this in my mind my opinion, folks.
Speaker 1:I believe that some people make a decision like I will never wear a mask again. You know, fuck the fuck the masking, I'll never wear it again. And then they see someone who didn't make that same decision as them and it forces them to confront the possibility that they may have been wrong or at least that there's another valid way to move through the world other than the way that they chose to do it. And that discomfort that they're feeling is like a bully. Instead of sitting with it and acknowledging it and going through the feels of it, they try to shut you down, belittle you, be sarcastic about it, say these unwarranted jokes about it, because that is easier than sitting with the feeling of inadequacy or, oh shit, I may have made the wrong choice, or maybe I need to rethink about the choice that I made, you know, because that's really uncomfortable when human beings have to face the fact that maybe they made a mistake.
Speaker 1:And look, I'm not here dragging people into clinics. I'm not mandating what anyone else should do. I'm not invading their rights or shouting about science in the hallway. I'm just doing what I can to stay healthy and prevent harm. Like I even had a hard time breathing, guys, you know that's how bad it was. Like I really would like to forego this experience, if I can have it that way. Right, I would like to forego that experience ever again.
Speaker 1:But still, five comments in one day, and not a single one of them was from a woman. But let me backtrack a little bit, because I did in fact get a comment from a woman while we was in the bathroom, and you know what the comment was oh no, you're sick. And when I told her I was recovering, she simply took a step back and let me have a wider berth. And I completely understand it. She's probably like me. She don't want to get sick and then that's it. She was like I hope you feel better. I was like thank you, that was it.
Speaker 1:Boundaries, respected, space, given no judgment, or if she had any, she kept it to herself. Why can it be all that simple? Y'all Like why? Why can it just all that simple? Y'all Like why? Why can't it just be that simple? You see somebody like making a choice for themselves, for their bodies, that causes no harm to you. You know why can't you just let it go? But that's not what happened. No, and what hurt wasn't just the comments. It was a reminder of how people treat difference.
Speaker 1:The mask on my face just became a trigger, not because it affected them, but because it reminded them that they had a choice and that someone else made a different one and instead of respecting that, they tried to erase it. And I know this is deeper than a mask. I know for a fact this goes way deeper than a mask. It's about control, it's about autonomy, it's about how uncomfortable some people get when someone dares to live outside of their norm, when you say no, thank you, to peer pressure or conformity or whatever other toxic quote-unquote normal they've internalized. So here's what 43 has taught me when it comes to this Other people's discomfort is not my responsibility.
Speaker 1:If wearing a mask makes you feel all sorts of weird inside, that's your feeling. To unpack, that's not my feeling. If seeing me set a boundary or making a different choice shakes something loose in you, good, let it. That's an invitation for you to grow, for you to inspect that feeling if you so choose to, or totally ignore it and go about your life. But what I will not do is I will not shrink to ease your unease Not anymore. Because every time I listen to my body, every time I honor what I need, I am practicing something bigger than health. I am practicing sovereignty, and I think we all deserve that kind of self-respect.
Speaker 1:So here's my call to action to you all. If you've ever been mocked or questioned for setting a boundary and taking a precaution or simply choosing you, just know you're not alone. Keep doing what works for you. Let them deal with their discomfort. And if you're someone who finds yourself reacting to someone else's choice, I want you to take a pause. Ask yourself what's really being triggered here, because it might not be about them. It might be about what you haven't admitted to yourself. And, as always, vacitos, thank you so much for listening to my rant today.
Speaker 1:Today, my reflection and revelation this August, in this entire year as a 43-year-old has been full of insights, but this one right here, as you can tell, as you can hear from my voice, this one hit deep. But, as always, if this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it. And don't forget about my novel that's coming up in November. It's called the Ordinary Bruja and it's now available for pre-order. All ebooks are 50% off. I encourage you to check it out, pre-order it or send it to somebody who you know would love such a book.
Speaker 1:This is a story about reclaiming your voice, just like I did here, confronting the ghosts of your past and stepping fully into your power the same thing that we're trying to do here, one episode at a time, and you can pre-order it now on my website, and I'll have that link in the show note. But whatever you do, let's keep honoring ourselves. One mask, one choice, one cup at a time. Until next time, stay sovereign, stay soft and, as always, I hope to see you here so we can have another cup. Bye. If today's episode spoke to you. Share it with somebody who's finding their way back too, and, if you haven't yet, visit haveacupofjoanniecom for more stories, blog posts and the books that started it all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, be soft, be bold and always have a cup of joannie.
