Road to Radical Visibility Show/Podcast
Road to Radical Visibility Show/Podcast
Breaking Free from Toxicity and Embracing Self-Discovery with Rachel Freemon Sowers
🔥 BONUS EPISODE! 🔥 This was so freaking fun!
It was such a privilege to be on the The Creative Soulpreneur podcast. Nick and I dive deep into the importance of finding joy and authenticity in one's life. I share my personal struggles with societal expectations and feelings of inadequacy, as well as my journey towards prioritizing joy and self-love. From overcoming anxiety in a dark tunnel to coming to terms with my own LGBTQ+ identity, I share insights I've never shared before into the power of self-acceptance and healing. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation on finding joy and healing in a world that often tries to keep us down.
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Ever come face to face with your true self, and felt that pang of guilt or shame? Rachel Freemon Sowers, a liberation & visibility coach and Licensed Marriage and Family therapist, joins us to discuss how to break free from those toxic feelings.
Specializing in helping individuals in the LGBTQ+ and female communities, Rachel shares her personal journey of healing and self-discovery. One profound moment of clarity led her to take control of her life, change her environment, and leave toxic religious constructs behind.
Hearing Rachel's story, you'll find yourself inspired by her remarkable resilience and self-determination. She shares how the principles of being unapologetically ourselves all the time have shaped her life, and they can shape yours too.
Rachel brings a deep insight into the power of trauma and its capacity to transform us. Her wisdom on self-trust, surrendering, and letting go is especially enlightening.
We also dive into the rewarding journey of being an LGBT+ member. Rachel's upcoming manifestation of being on a stage in front of three thousand people is a testament to her courage and determination.
Her podcast, 'Road to Radical Visibility,' an exciting platform for those on the path of self-discovery, healing, and seeking radical visibility. This conversation with Rachel is filled with warmth, insight, and a whole lot of inspiration. Don't miss out!
Love this episode? Watch/listen to my episode with Nick on the Road to Radical Visibility where he shares the pivotal moment when he thought he had “arrived” only to think to himself in front of thousands “is this all there is” and shifting what was no longer working to experience his life exactly the way that he wanted/wants to.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/W38e6FRJjDM
Apple:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-is-it-how-to-stop-waiting-start-creating-the/id1594221824?i=1000611895643
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/episode/04X696DRKaH6BUpJOjPLaH?si=Yc3mDzHHRtGjapV98h5qsw
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1292543/12594715
Did you have an Ah-Ha moment from this episode? I would love to hear about it! No seriously, I want to hear from you! Send me a DM or email at rachel@rachelfreemonsowers.com.
Watch more self-empowering content on my YouTube Channel.
Want more inspiration and empowerment connect with me on social:
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#LGBTQ+ #LGBTQ+business #visibilitymatters #timetoshine #RoadtoRadicalVisibility #RachelFreemonSowers
This is the Korean soul winner podcast. I'm your host, Nick Dimas. Well, let's get
Nick Demos:Okay, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. First, thank you so very very much. For spending your time with me. I know how precious our time is and the fact that you're here really is so heartwarming to me and I am so appreciative of you. So thank you so much. I know you're gonna enjoy today's episode because This is a magical human being walking this planet. In fact, our mutual friend, Marcona, McCabe Allen, who several of you know you listening to the podcast. You've listened to episode of her perhaps. If not, I can hit it on the show notes so you can hear her. I call her magical organa. And magical Morgana hooked me up with this other magical human being, Rachel welcome to the show.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Thank you so much. It's I just can't wait to see what comes out for today. You guys are in for a ride. It's gonna be good.
Nick Demos:You're writer di friend.writer di. That's right. Yes. So Morgana did introduce us and part of the reason she did is she just said, you all have so much in common. You're just kind of like similar people. And at the time, I thought, uh-huh, sure. Whatever. But then we got on a call on a Zoom and this, you know, new bangled world we live in. Zoom, and she was right. There's just some some real connection there between us, but also some synergy in terms of what we do and who we are in the world. So we I'm gonna have you introduce yourself, but before we go there, Yes, before we go there. My first question for you is what does the word creativity Meant to you. Oh,
Rachel Freemon Sowers:it means open. It means exploration. It means revealed. Birth, you know, the creativity is just what comes out of you when you have all the senses in place when you have a knowing of yourself and you can just be in in this beautiful I don't know, like, creative space. It's just that energy that comes out when things are really beautifully aligned and Even beautifully aligned in pain, just FYI, not just in all, like, uh-huh. I'm so happy. Really?
Nick Demos:The light unicorn.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:But really just and being allowing yourself to be that expression of the fullest you is creativity for me.
Nick Demos:Yeah. I I love the first word you said was open because I think of you as an incredibly open person. Yeah. Right? You I'll let you interview. I I thought I was gonna let you introduce I thought I began to introduce you, but I'm gonna let you do it anyway for yourself. So tell everyone what it is that you to? How do you see that?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Again, my name is Rachel Freeman Sowers. I am a visibility coach and a licensed marriage family therapist. I work with people in the LGBTQ plus and female communities helping break free from the toxic social constructs. Expectations and beliefs that have been holding you back from experience in your life exactly the way that you want to. And my professional and personal motto is being one hundred percent yourself, a hundred percent of the time, no shame or guilt needed. Oh, that's it.
Nick Demos:I love it. I love it. I love it. Which which, you know, why I think of you as so open. You mentioned being a hundred percent you all the time. No shame, no guilt. How do you get there? How did you do that?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh, well, you know, this is a work in progress. That's not fool anybody. We're not in here. We're not in this podcast. Let's see. Like, oh, do this one thing and then you're healed forever. That's not how it works. Right? It's it's allowing yourself to see so many parts of yourself without that judgment. I mean, like, come on, We are taught to self shame, twenty four seven. And the things that we see wrong in the world are that we that are not I don't know, aligned than we take on as our own stuff. Right? It's all me. It's what and it's a hundred percent yourself. It's how to get to know yourself, and how to say, like, there are all these beautiful parts of me. There's all these painful parts that I've had experiences. There's there's like the true self. And when I acknowledge and heal through all of these and love all parts of me as corny as it sounds, then I don't wonder who I am anymore. I know exactly who I am and therefore operate from that space, that heart space, every single moment of the day.
Nick Demos:Yeah. I try to make those darker spaces, my friend.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yep.
Nick Demos:Can they be my best friend? Right? There's always lessons from them. There's always learnings. There's always teachings. But also, it's this this, like, radical acceptance of of that part of myself. Do you think that being a LGBTQ person shaped that for you.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:When you say shaped that, what does that mean?
Nick Demos:Yeah. Good question. Good good good better question. Host, shaped how you viewed yourself? And the shame and the guilt that you dealt with? So
Rachel Freemon Sowers:my shame and guilt did not start at being l t b t q plus. I don't believe anyone's Shane actually starts there, especially for those of us in this community. It started with religious trauma. Mhmm. It started with toxic social constructs that already told me it wasn't good enough. And then when I tried and I wanted to be who I am, it was even worse. Now you're even more not good enough. Like, I know that's not grammatically correct. But, like, now there's even more things wrong with you. Right now, you just don't fit in that much more. Now you're going to hell. Now, I can't accept you. Now, whatever all of us had have heard. I think it is it is a challenge for people in the LGBT Q plus community and other marginalized communities to function in a world that's that has been built by somebody totally different than us. And people who live in fear.
Nick Demos:Yeah. I I I so get that. Backup for me -- Mhmm. -- to this religious
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh, we're gonna go deep in it now. Lord help us.
Nick Demos:Lylon. Jesus take the wheel. Yeah. This this omnipresence that permeates our society, particularly in America of religion. How did that play? Because you said, no, it it was there. It was way back there. Mhmm. Saying that to me, how were you raised or what what was that that existed for you?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So I was raised in the church my whole entire life, went to Christian school, wore nylons every day, dress, scared below my knees. That's all of it. Right? I've been a preacher's daughter. Just I don't think you've known that. So I was a preacher's
Nick Demos:daughter. This is the new one.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:That's what got me pregnant in the first legs, you know. Pretty sure so. Just a second. Anyway, so, like, the shame that you even are given you are given shame in I was given shame in that religious construct. I was given shame of saying that if I did these things I wasn't going to be able to go to heaven. I, if I acted in these ways, and I remember sitting in the pew so often in church, while the preacher is up there saying something. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense to me while you get to see end up there and behind the scenes, you get to do all this stuff. And even as a woman, as a young woman and whatever, Like, I'm taught this is how I have to behave, but you behave however you want. Like, I've never been on board with that. And that's gotten me in a lot of trouble, but I don't regret one single bit of it. Right? And it's we're taught we're taught these things. And then, I mean, the church I was in, this is gonna date me. Like, Ronald Reagan was president. I remember, like, I picketed outside adult bookstores. With my family.
Nick Demos:Wow.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:We my I grew up in the Bay Area. We were outside in my dad's track. We are getting ice cream. And these two gay guys walked by, and my brother's like, oh my god. Look at those gay guys. I'm like, it is ingrained in us. That these things were not what would equal your salvation. And there there's so much shit that's carried on from that for years in the most formative years of our lives. Right? And I tried well, I rebelled, and I rebelled, and I rebelled, and then I was just labeled, and labeled and labeled and labeled. Right? And, you know, if it's generational, I don't know how it's been for you, but know, my parents have been in the church where I'm almost Catholic, my dad was, you know, Baptist or whatever. And, I mean, we went from Southern Bad this to conserve it. I mean, like, we are in the tent. We were, like, all the things.
Nick Demos:You're in the trenches.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah. And so it was kind of like, okay. As you go through that, when I finally decided to come out, when I knew what I knew, and I was like, okay, I'm going to be brave enough. You know, I'd had a child rather than I'd never been married, had never been married then. And the first thing my mom said was Well, what's gonna happen to Bethany, my daughter? So it's like we carry these things on for generations. It's like it's passed down to us. It's not because I chose it. And then she was like, yeah, please let me come out of this room and then just be automatically self shamey because that's how I wanna live my life. No, we're taught it. And it affects us when we it we can see how it stops us from being a hundred percent ourselves. And then we take on that as our own shit. And I'm here to let everyone know that's listening just like you are, that that's not yours, and it's time to say, audios Bossa LaVista, no more. To those things, so we can be free.
Nick Demos:Yeah. I did not grow up in a religious family or household. My father was Catholic, but he had lots of trouble with the Catholic church. My mother was sort of this general Christian. We believed I'm using quote air quotes here in God and in being a good person. It was like the golden rule was big and integrity was big in my home. But we never went to church until my grandmother came to visit. And then it was we're going to church. We're going to church. And I was like, why are we going to church now? Because grandma's here. Like and I was like, sitting in the back of the pew I had to go, you know, I did the whole thing. I sat in the back of the pew and my my father was sitting in front of me and I was whispering, Empqua. Empqua. He was like, shut up. He was like, empqua. Because it was so absurd to me. Mhmm. But even with that, Because I grew up in the eighties, like you, this Ronald Reagan sign of conservatism, not dissimilar to what we're experiencing now in terms of backlash and of and movement. Mhmm. There was just this heaviness
Nick Demos:--
Nick Demos:Mhmm.
Nick Demos:--
Nick Demos:about religion and about God. I remember being sixteen years old laying in bed and praying to a god I didn't know to not make me gay. I'm working, I guess it was. Praying, please don't make me gay. Please, please, please, please, please go, I'll do anything. I'll do anything god to not be king. But I knew I was. Right? And what that did was this sense of guilt and shame that you're talking about was so deep Even though I wasn't even raised in it, that's what's even crazier when you think about it, but it's so part of our culture and so beyond to you. That just by being in the world that was given to me. Yeah. That construct, like you were saying, mhmm,
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, and it's like the only choice. Yeah. Here, you can have peas. I don't want peas. I don't want carrots. Here you can love a man. I don't wanna love a man. I wanna love a woman. Like like, it's like you're given one choice and we're like, oh, okay. Well, you know, we go along with it or we try and make our cells go along with it. And that's the thing, like, I didn't just get here, like, by doing a couple of meditations and, you know, eating the right food. Like, that's not how I got to be a hundred percent myself. I had to go deep. Like, you're saying deep into these depths of of myself and say, hey, I feel I want I can be okay in this space. I can I can see these parts of me and be like, hey, that was never mine in the first place and we're gonna lift ourselves out of here because we don't need to be down there anymore?
Nick Demos:Howard Bauchner: Yeah, and it had to be there for some time for me. I, you know, I had terrible anxiety and stress. And I, you know, I physically used to shake, literally would shake without realizing I I I was shaking. My body was in such hyperactive state. From now granted there were other things of trauma and abuse on top of that. Physical and sexual abuse on top of the but that root issue of the shame was the same. And it caused a physical manifestation in me even. Mhmm. And I'm curious how it manifested for you early on?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh, well, like you, massive, massive anxiety. And, like, I've I've been highly, highly intuitive my whole entire life. Like, I have some really beautiful gifts that I've been given.
Nick Demos:Yeah.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And, you know, it manifested in that high anxiety, my body, which also shake. Like, because it's just overwhelmed. It would manifest itself in such confusion. Like, wait, this this isn't making sense. Like, it doesn't it doesn't make sense. Like, do under others as you would have them do unto you and yet that's that doesn't make sense the way you're telling me to do that and you're not doing the same thing. Like, that that massive confusion, a lot of tears, like a lot of tears. And just general I mean, at one point, I shared on my podcast this last this episode that's coming out this week, but at one point, suicidal ideation.
Nick Demos:Same.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Because you're like, how I don't this I don't even fit here. And it was and it's only been through this this part of me that same I'm I'm not fucking doing that.
Nick Demos:So what was that? That's what I wanna know. Like, what is that moment for you? What was it for you that the shift began, where the healing began, were you new to say no more?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I was lying in bed and I could see my life. It's almost like I was outside of myself. So I was in bed. I was recovering from my first surgery. I could see my life. I could see all the shit. All the ways that there was chaos. That's another way to manifest at chaos. It's all like constantly everywhere. And noticing and seeing myself how how broken I was and that if I didn't heal my self. If I didn't go within myself, there's not someone that's gonna come along and just pick me up and heal me. And this is where all that rebellion comes in really handy, and that gumption. Right? I love that word gumption. It was like, nope. This is this is not what I desire for my life and I refuse to believe anybody that says, this is how it has to be. And I said, I I need to change these things, and I knew what I need to change. And I left complete friend groups. I stopped talking to people. And this may not be how other people have to do it, but that's how I had to do it. And I was like, no. It's I'm committing to myself now. Because this is my fucking life. No one's living my life. No one's going to pay my bills. No one's committed any of that. It's my life. Start acting like it's my life.
Nick Demos:I love that. I did what they call they they call location I ran away from home. Mhmm. Not I mean, I wasn't I was nineteen. I wasn't sixteen running away from my home. I was an adult, but I ran from Michigan to New York City in the guys that I'm gonna be a Broadway performer. And but, really, in in older version. Me now can look back and say, oh, you were running to get out of that feeling. And you were the rebel in you actually is what fueled your fire to be successful. So there's gifts to this as well. Right? Yes. There's lots of gifts. But once I got there and I actually had down moments, because the path of Broadway is nonlinear. It's high as in Lowe's. Right? In the Lowe's, I had to sit in my shit and actually look at myself and be and realize the the intense amount of shame that I was feeling and that I just carried it and took it with me. Yeah. I've gotten rid of it because I ran away. But when you run away with the circus, the circus is still there. No joke. You know?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Right. And I think this this may be where it's interesting how yours was at a younger age. I was literally, like, probably twenty seven. I had had a kid. She was so many years old and you know, like and I was, like, maybe even more than twenty seven. Lord, long time ago. But it's kind of like, if I didn't change it then, like, it was just gonna be my life. And so I really could see. Like, you you ran away and then could see. I lived that whole entire time and then was like, bam, now I can see it.
Nick Demos:But I didn't see it till probably twenty seven either. Because I was so running. It was like, you know, a hamster that was on a hamster wheel that we just kept running in circles and circles and circles and there was chaos in my life. I directed new type of chaos like you were saying. Lord, so much. So much. Right? In relationships, in friendships, and even I know this sounds a little, you know, woo, but even in terms of, like, I got mugged twice. Mhmm. One's at gunpoint. Like, I was attracting and drawing all this. I was in that energetic field. Mhmm. Of absolute chaos. And it wasn't until I stopped and sat and really have tuned in and listened and found a teacher that my life began to shift. So after you had that moment, Oh, my gosh. Okay. Something has to change. How did you begin to do that process? Or what was that process for you?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, the process for me was I guess part of that process was advocating, was entering into multiple different kinds of learning So I don't know if you know this about me either, but I have like a partial PhD in mind body medicine and integrative mental so really diving into, like, an educational kind of system in which gave me tools to heal myself and arenas to do that. Right?
Nick Demos:Yeah.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Funny than I left with the Phd program because it was either my health, my marriage, or the Phd, and I ditched the Phd and took my marriage and my health. So, you know, but it's like incorporating myself in those things. I did a little bit of therapy And that helped a little bit, but it was more it was more me just being with myself. Being out in nature no longer no longer putting myself outside for somebody else's wellness.
Nick Demos:Oh, I love that. I love that. I was giggling only because you know, I do have deep as well and went and, you know, and to be a yoga teacher, it's like two hundred hours. Right? Mhmm. I have, like, twenty five hundred hours clocked in. I you know, like, you know, over that, I I met I was, you know, a master, and I began to really I worked with a teacher one on one, and I sat with him. And I'm like, I really dove in in that way, and I shift on it there. Not a little bit of therapy, a ton of therapy to sort of untangle so many wires that have been crossed in my brain. Mhmm. Mhmm. And spending time by myself, like you said. In contemplation, in meditation? Yeah.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, and don't you think it's funny? That, you know, we start on this and we we dive into these things and we get to know the things and we take on, like, we learn different things, different skills, yoga, whatever it is people do. Like and then the hunter knowing yourself comes from when you're no longer looking for yourself in those people.
Nick Demos:Yes. It's in the surrender. It's in the letting go. The tool or the technique is exactly that. It's a tool or technique. It's only when we begin to attach to the tool or technique that it becomes problem. So when that happens, you let go of the tool. This is like yoga. Right? You let go eventually, you let go of the technique or the tool so that you're just the state of being. But you have to go through that. You have to under have the deep understanding. You need the tools until though they're no longer needed.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Right. And that's but that's the that's the bridge. The bridge is finally creating and what I call ultimate self trust. This ultimate self trust that, you know, there's no external factor that I need to know everything about to know how I'm gonna handle it. I only need to know me. I only to know the desire in which and how I want to interact in this world. I only need to know about how I want to be living my life.
Nick Demos:Yeah. And it and as you said, it's not perfect. Right? Before we came on this call -- Okay. -- without perfection. Right before we came on this call, I was I said I was having a day. I'm having I haven't happened in several years if I'm questioning everything in my business. And what am I doing? And, you know, I'm having this problem? And, you know, and an older version of me would have catastrophized it, sent it down this path. I would have taken actions that were not productive. Let's just put it that way and or escapism.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Mhmm.
Nick Demos:I spent years in escapism versus just sitting with it and being like, this is really uncomfortable and this really sucks and this is difficult, but guess what I'll get through. Mhmm. Because it's not perfect. There is no perfection here of us data I'm gonna live in the Zenworld. And I think that there is there is this thing and it's marketing. Hello. It's marketing no matter what it's wherever the brand is, is. It's -- Yeah. -- your brand of it is bliss, Nirvana, whatever, it's marketing. Mhmm. But it's not truth.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So, like, that's interesting to me because your I mean, like, Everyone knows that the truth is, is that everyone's life sucks every now and then. We have ups and downs. It's a beauty of being human It's the beauty of living a full experience of life. Right? And yet, we continue to try and believe that it doesn't exist. Because we don't want to then see it in ourselves. And so if we just keep having false positivity, if we just keep saying it's all gonna be okay. And yes, Will it? Sure. Like and yet at the same time, when you can sit in those places. When you learn to sit with yourself, there's no fear of sitting anywhere else.
Nick Demos:And for me, I had to learn to sit but not wallow.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh, you just needed to dip your toe. That's what I saw in my guidance. Don't jump into the deep end. Like, don't dive down in there.
Nick Demos:Just because I wouldn't have a tendency to go all in because I am a perfectionist. I'm going to be the most perfect. I'm gonna be in it, and then I would sit in this in wallow -- Mhmm.
Nick Demos:--
Nick Demos:circling it rather than feel it, let it go and move through it. And that was the cycle. The shame Sangamo that I was in, I would shame myself. Right? Now that now that nobody else is shaming me or I no longer actually, it's more like this. They're still trying to shame me, but I no longer allow anybody to shame me. Mhmm. Well, I sure it's fucking shame my that the hell out of myself.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, again, such a great student overachiever, such perfection in self shaming. I mean, like, that's what we are taught. We are given it. Like, food. Like, here. It's your fault. Yeah. You know? And you're right. It's like, you and I, we we do do similar things foundationally with people, and it's teaching them how to move that energy through their body. Teaching them how to create the reduction in this nervous system so it can Start feeling the way your body wants to feel good. Yeah. It does.
Nick Demos:I love that. Because I don't think I knew that for a long time. Mhmm.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And how would we? I mean, again, like, if everything that you and I are saying, we know it comes from somewhere because we were taught it. And so it's like, even if someone is wondering how do I get started, just listen to what's coming out of your mouth.
Nick Demos:Yeah. It's the path of on learning.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Mhmm. And sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it can be fun, and sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's painful, it's all the things, but it's not just one thing.
Nick Demos:What's fun for you now?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, a microphone is fun for me. I love me a microphone, like getting up in front of people. That's fun for me.
Nick Demos:As you're on one.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah. Of course. I think fun for me now is I want to say full expression and and just living living how I want to, It's fun for me to ride my bike. It's fun for me to get outside. It's fun for me to push limits. Push ideas. Like, do we really it's fun for me to explore and play with possibility? And it's fun for me to teach people how to get out of the system so they can do whatever the fuck they want. I don't know. Does that answer your question?
Nick Demos:Does that answer my question? And lots of fun ways. I I asked that because I think that there's a light Right? There's a tunnel that you can be in and it can feel really dark. And it can be like, oh, I'm not sure how to get out. And all those tools that we were talking about help you get out. But on the other side, at that light, there is this, like, really fun life to live And sometimes when you're in the darkness, you can forget how fun life can be. And so I asked you that question as the as the the the flashlight shining. Right? Fun the joy of life. I know for me, it was really hard for me to find joy. For a really long time. And even this year, I've realized, oh, I'm not finding the joy in that. Why am I doing it? Why am I still doing that if I'm not finding joy in it? But yeah, at fifty almost two years old, I'm like, I don't I'm seeing time go. So what the hell am I doing spending it not feeling good?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Exactly. Yeah. You know, there's a bike trail here and it's the old train tunnel that you ride through. And at the end of the train tunnel, there's some light, and at the other end, there's light. But in the middle, it's dark. It is dark. And every time I go through there, I am get high anxiety. I'm like, shit. I'm gonna wreck and no one's gonna see me. Because even if you have a bike light, it just doesn't really help all that much. And what you're talking about is, you know, at the end of that in that light, but in that middle part, it's so dark. You just have to have the faith and you have to have faith in yourself. I mean, like, you can have faith in universe, of course, I have it. God, whatever you whatever you wanna call, I don't really care. But it's like, No. Breathe. Keep going. Slow pedal strokes.communicate with those around you. Keep moving through. I mean, there's moments of heightened awareness of, like, oh shit. Like, those are some of the things that must be traveled through to get to that joy. And I like you haven't been joyful a lot of my life because I was thought I was never enough. So why would I be joyful. And if I was joyful, then I had to be joyful in the lord. I had to be joyful in a different way through someone else or because be joyful for them. It wasn't being joyful for myself. So learning to be joyful for yourself is huge
Nick Demos:for me. Right? Because why I think somebody who maybe knew me from thirty years ago, I would say, you're you were joyful, you were fun. What are you talking about? And sometimes I presented as joy. Oftentimes in in a mask, it was I had the mask of joy that I could just put on. But what was happening externally wasn't necessarily how I felt internally. And that's the difference. Is that the mask of joy is no longer on. If it's not coming from inside out, it's not happening. I'm not gonna pretend in that way. So I really truly have looked at, and this is, you know, like, amount of a station one zero one, what brings you more joy? Do more of what brings you joy. Mhmm. And if that's riding your bike, if that's being on a mic if that's, you know, being incredibly visible in the world. If whatever however that's helping others. Whatever that is, however that that because when you're doing more of that, that's when people are going to be drawn to you and attract to to to who you truly are. Mhmm. Because it's easy in many ways to get baked intimacy, fake connection, particularly in the world more and more and more. But that true that deep in your soul connection you're having with people, that's where it's
Rachel Freemon Sowers:at. Well, and we kind of circle back to how you get that is by having deep intimacy with yourself. Yeah. And, I mean, like, what a gift? What a gift that we can access within us. Right? And and to know that there is plenty of it.
Nick Demos:I actually think that's one of the things about being a gay person or a queer person, an LGBT queue member, is that Because we have been other in many ways, it actually, for me anyway, required me to know myself better. It asked that of me in a way that maybe I wouldn't have experienced had I not been. Mhmm. And I think it's such a
Rachel Freemon Sowers:gift. My gift.
Nick Demos:Mhmm. What a gift that I and this this is brick and maybe sound cuckoo. What a gift, whatever, my podcast, don't listen if you don't like the cuckoo. You know, it is the is I don't mean, don't listen. You know what I'm saying? Yo. Is that even the abuse that I experienced, even those are all gifts. I can now say that and see that because without them the deep well of experience, of wisdom, of knowledge of what I have to share and offer the world wouldn't be the same. Wouldn't be the same. Yep.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I I can deeply resonate with that. And if there's people out there struggling with the trauma that they've experienced, the one thing I do want you to know because everything shapes us. Right? Nick, like, every every experience that we have influences us in some way. But you do not have to use your trauma as the reason that you can now care for yourself.
Nick Demos:Oh, gosh. No. I
Rachel Freemon Sowers:had to
Nick Demos:learn from myself before I was able to to to love the drama.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah. Right? Because it's like and I and I don't need to use that to justify what I wanna do in my life either. And I think that sometimes as a therapist, for the last twenty five years, I see people abusing that trauma as a reason and that that now they can say, well, because I experience that, I can have this.
Nick Demos:Nice one then. Yes. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And so but to know that that you have all of those things that you truly desire already. And it's just uncovering those. That's what that's what we help people do. Right?
Nick Demos:Yeah, it is. Ultimately, yeah. Okay. Three questions.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh, no.
Nick Demos:First thing that comes to mind. K? Okay? First question, who would you love? To collaborate with that you have not yet collaborated with.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh my gosh. Obviously, like, I don't even know. He's he's he's doing this thing, race. Like, I almost said him earlier. Like, we we would have fun collaborating.
Nick Demos:We have fun collaborating. We are currently collaborating. And I -- Mhmm.
Nick Demos:--
Nick Demos:podcast that we collaborated. But, you know, I didn't realize this was gonna be a tough question. Well,
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I I honestly don't know because they don't think about I guess they don't always think about that. That is so weird.
Nick Demos:That's a really that's really good for you to think about then. I was like, you know, people say, Oprah or, you know, or gray brown or, you know, or whoever. But, you know, Nick is a good one too. I'll take it.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I want I mean, like, all those people are real.
Nick Demos:Yeah.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:But I just I guess, I don't know. I don't know what the question the answer is. I don't I don't have like, I wouldn't take any large names. I don't know what that would even look like to collaborate with them. I guess that's a manifested thing. I'm gonna need sick.
Nick Demos:Well, there you go. And here's my second question. With Connect so well to that. I can't even believe you just said that. The second question is, what is your next great manifestation?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh, my next great manifestation is on a stage with like three thousand people in the audience. That's my next great manifestation.
Nick Demos:I see it. I see that. That's done.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah.
Nick Demos:It's done. And my final question for you is a fill in the blank. Dang, I am
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I'm fucking free.
Nick Demos:Yes.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Mhmm.
Nick Demos:I love it. That's really good. Nobody has used the f bomb after it. That's a new one. And I had to say, it's so fitting of you. It's so right on. That's awesome.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Remember when we are my podcasting, like, hey. Can I test? And I was like, yeah. I've already cussed, like, three times.
Nick Demos:Yeah. And I haven't even realized it. Yeah. That's awesome. So okay. Speaking of your podcast, you have an amazing podcast. What is the name of the podcast? How can people find it? And how can people find you?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So the name of the podcast is road to radical visibility. So we talk all about becoming radically visible. I just got done interviewing this fabulous person. It made me, you know, I'm a James Nick. His episode's gonna be coming out. This next week. And you can find it on iTunes, Apple, Spotify. I also have a YouTube channel, Rachel Freeman's hours, and you can look there for all different kinds of things that I'm doing.
Nick Demos:And for future collaborations with likely yours truly. So we really appreciate having you here today By we, I mean, the collective because anybody listening to this is also appreciative. And I also think all of you for spending your time like said at the top of this because I know how special that is and I don't take it for granted. Thank you for being an amazing guest
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh my gosh. Thank you. I can't wait to I can't wait to do it more. Yeah.
Nick Demos:And I we will see you on the next episode.