SAM SAID IT! From Silence to Strength: The Samantha Parker Journey

Navigating Heavy Times: My 9/11 Memories, Cancel Culture, and the Power of Vulnerability

In this episode of the Samantha Parker Show, Samantha reflects on the emotional weight of September 11th, her vivid memories of the day, the recent tragic death of Charlie Kirk, and the impact of cancel culture. She shares her personal experience of being canceled in 2020, the fear of sharing openly, and the struggles with self-censorship. Emphasizing love, compassion, and the importance of having a voice, Samantha calls for a change in the conversation around cancel culture and encourages listeners to show up authentically. This deeply personal episode also touches on her journey with sobriety, the value of human connection, and the importance of making choices out of love rather than fear.

00:00 Introduction and Acknowledgements

00:43 Reflecting on 9/11 and Personal Memories

03:15 The Impact of Charlie Kirk's Tragedy

04:48 Navigating Cancel Culture

05:15 The Journey of Sobriety and Vulnerability

07:28 The Consequences of Cancel Culture

14:26 Choosing Love Over Fear

18:35 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Step into Your Sober Era! Are you ready to embrace a life of clarity and empowerment? ✨ Check out Sam’s Sober Club on Substack for journals, tips, community and more [Subscribe Now ➔] Sam's Sober CLUB | Samantha Parker | Substack

Want to Work with The Samantha Parker for Content Management CLICK HERE

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthaparkershow

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@thesamanthaparker

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesamanthaparker/

Transcript

Hey guys. Welcome back to the Samantha Parker Show. I wanna thank you guys so much for being here today. We're recording this. It is actually nine 11, and yesterday was a really heavy day, especially here in Utah and especially being an American. A lot of you have probably seen that Charlie Kirk, if you haven't seen it, you've been living under a rock, especially the fact that we're gonna be airing this episode an entire week later.

 Charlie Kirk was an amazing human who really just asked people to have conversations, and he was shot and killed yesterday in Orum, Utah. Which is where I grew up. I did a couple semesters of college there and it was really disturbing because I knew the place. I could see the place in my head, but also because that happened.

So not only is today nine 11, which I am old enough to remember, nine 11, I was alive during it. In fact, I was in high school and I can remember it very vividly. My mom used to do this thing in the morning where she would come and lay in my bed while I got ready. It used to drive me insane, and now I'm like, that was so much fun because she was just trying to connect with me before I went to school.

So she would hang out in my room. She was making sure I was getting up and getting ready, and she would chat with me, but I would turn on the news. This isn't something I would ever do now, but I used to turn on Fox 13 News. I would watch the news in the morning, and when I went to school, they had channel one.

I know that they broadcast channel one, all over different schools in the us they would show a curated news segment made for junior high and high school kids.

Every morning we watched channel one, every classroom had a TV mounted in the corner, I asked my son this morning, he's 14, he was on his way to school and I was like, do you guys watch a sort of program. And do you have a TV in the room?

And he is we don't have TV in our classrooms. He goes, we have a projector. Like some of the classes have a projector. So I definitely don't think they do these little news segments anymore. But I like vividly remember nine 11, because I had that news program in my room. I was sitting at my vanity, my mom's laying in my bed, chatting it up with me, and she goes, oh my God, look at that.

And I was like, oh, are they showing a movie? And it was the first plane flying into the first tower. And I was like, oh, it must be a movie. And my mom's no, this is happening in real life. And it really upset my mom. So we were sitting there watching the news and eventually I was like I'm gonna go to school.

And I was about 10 minutes late for school because I got enthralled in what was going on, which nobody understood. But they were just live streaming the news, so I get to school and they have the channel one rolling, and it's going in every classroom.

I get into my first class, I sit down. And about that time, the second plane had already hit, but about that time is when, the building started to collapse. We watched it live on television. People jumping out of the buildings. You could see it all. As a teenager, I don't think I could quite

emotionally connect with what was happening, but it was a lot to see that live. I think as an adult, if I had been older, and I have my own kids, I have more emotional maturity that would've been so hard to witness. But anyways, today is nine 11. I vividly remember nine 11.

It's one of those things, there's even a song. Alan Jackson. Where were you when the world stopped Turning? The World definitely did not stop turning that day, but it's true because everyone who was alive during that time remembers exactly where they were at. So I was thinking a lot about, today's nine 11, but also the Charlie Kirk thing yesterday really hurt my soul.

Not because I am like pro Charlie Kirk or pro this or pro that. This isn't a political show at all. I just don't think it's okay when someone gets shot for their beliefs. There was just no reason for that. I don't care if it was an activist that's on the other side of him or vice versa, like that's not okay in America.

And that's what really bothered me. I told my husband last night I just can't believe they shot that kid. Because Charlie, he's so young, he's 31. I woke up this morning feeling that way too.

I wanted to talk about it. That's not what our podcast episode is about today, but it is. It's just like the fills of the world, and how do we show up when the world feels heavy? I know on this podcast I talk a ton about sobriety, but sobriety is also an emotional, mental journey, and this is something that I feel like is so emotional and it just, it hit me.

There's always gonna be different things that really strike a chord with different people. This feels like it happened right in my backyard. This, feels like the tipping point for me. A lot of the reasons why I have stayed quiet about other events because you guys, it, let's just get this straight.

 You were never, ever required to talk about a specific topic online. It is your platform. It is how you choose to show up. You do not have to show up if you're going through something hard. You do not have to show up and make a comment. You do not have to show up one way or the other. I, however, feel like this is a moment when I have some things to say and I do feel like this is a tipping point for me.

So let me give you guys a little bit of a backstory. I was canceled in 2020 and it wasn't fun at all. I'll just tell you guys what happened. 2020 was explosive. Lots of different things were going on. I was posting pretty damn openly, in 2020. I started working online in 2015.

I've been doing this for over a decade, and for those first five years I really treated a lot of my social media like a journal. I would pour my heart and soul into it. After I was canceled in 2020, I just went, no. Absolutely not. I know so many of you guys have seen me document my sobriety journey, and I have to tell you guys that.

That was scary because I was like, I'm gonna get canceled all over again. I know the two, aren't related, but in my head I was like, it's gonna be scary for me to get vulnerable and it's gonna be scary for me to show things. So even this last year. You have seen a very limited, curated version of what I really wanted to say.

Oftentimes I would go to say things and I'd be like, that's too personal.

Too vulnerable. They're just gonna cancel you again. It has fucked with my head so bad for the last five years. This morning I woke up and I was like, no. I get to have an opinion, and it's okay if it doesn't align with yours.

You get to have an opinion, and it's okay if it doesn't align with mine. I get to choose what I comment on. It's my social media pages. I get to decide what feels good to me. I get to decide what I'm passionate about. There's so many different things that people are passionate about in this world.

This is gonna sound extreme, but it could be, making sure that everyone in Africa has water. There's actually really cool companies that like, that's what they do well. Nonprofits, essentially that's what they do. And there's people that are so passionate about that, and I'm like, that is so amazing.

I hope more people can get on board behind that. But then there's gonna be other people that like, they're super passionate about, maybe bringing more awareness to autism or something like that. Maybe they're super passionate about that because they have a family member who's experiences that, right?

We're all gonna have different things that we're. Passionate about. And I think that's what makes us so special. And I think that's what makes America so special. I am a very proud American. My husband served three tours overseas. We are a proud military family. And I fucking love it.

I love living here. I live in a beautiful community and I love America. I'm not gonna pretend like I don't love America. I don't love politics. I don't love either side. I don't think either one has this glorious, glorified plan going on. But I have to tell you, I love the people that live in this country, and I love the fact that we get to have different opinions.

I don't think it's okay that one of us gets silenced because we have a different opinion we can look at the very horrific thing that happened in front of those poor college students, with Charlie Kirk yesterday. But then we can look at the small things like telling someone they're stupid and they should die online because you have some alternate opinion and you're basing.

W that off of one little post snippet. So showing up when the world feels heavy, it's hard. And this is gonna air next week, and hopefully I don't get scared about posting it, but we're gonna put it out there because I have some shit to say and I don't think we should be silenced, and I don't think that we should be worried about expressing our own opinion.

So let's go back to 2020. Everyone's like, why did you get canceled? How did you get canceled? And I know some people know the story. Someone messaged me today and it was so kind, and she said, Hey, don't let PTSD creep up. And don't silence your voice.

That was really awesome what you posted today. She's you're doing a really good job. And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you. Because there was a co there's people that don't like what I posted today and some pretty nasty stuff on my Instagram, but the nasty is so minuscule. You guys, it's so small compared to zillions of other comments.

I had a meeting with my sponsor yesterday, speaking of alcohol stuff. That one to 10, I felt like one negative thing. Seems to outweigh 10 good things we get really hyper fixated myself, especially on one negative opinion when we have 10 amazing things going on.

And you guys listening to this podcast, I love the episode with Jenny from Men Counseling. She said something that's really stuck with me over these last few weeks she said. Sam, don't worry about the one or the small group that's rejecting you. Do not see all of these other people that are lined up to be your friend.

I think she said, I'm here, I'm waiting. There's all these other people who are looking at you and they're admiring you don't get your focus. So stuck on that. But I do feel like, negativity, it's so strong and powerful that one negative comment, feels like it almost outweighs 10 good comments.

And I think that we change that. I really think we do. I think that we stop giving so much power to that dark. I don't know what that looks like though. I don't have a playbook for any of it. I just think we start changing the conversation and stop being afraid to say things. 2020, this is what I did.

I chose not to post the black square. If you guys might remember, there was that thing going on. And basically if you didn't post the black square. You were automatically this horrible person. To me, it didn't make a lot of sense. I didn't understand the movement behind it. Now there's been so many things that have come out about that organization, embezzling money.

And Lemme take that back, you guys. I did understand the movement and what was going on. Okay. I'm not gonna say that I didn't, and that none of that stuff exists. I'm not gonna say that racism doesn't exist because that's ridiculous. I just didn't quite understand. Why it was being shoved at us in such a way, there was just something weird about it to me.

That was like five years ago. I couldn't tell you exactly what I was thinking, but I chose not to post the damn black square and I'm sure there are millions, in fact, billions of people on this planet who did not. I woke up one day in the morning.

And had hundreds of comments on my Instagram. I had lost thousands of followers, and I was shocked. It turns out there was a group of people that they were going around and they were screenshotting people's profile who they didn't feel were. Posting or acting in a specific way that aligned with Black Lives Matter.

So they took a screenshot of my profile and posted it in a Facebook group, and everyone in that group, their job was to attack . I was getting emails, I was getting hate comments. And it's weird. What was really interesting to me was the snowball effect of it.

I started getting hate comments from people I know. My cousin left a really nasty comment on my thing and I haven't heard from him since. I'm like, Hey, come back. Say it to my face. It was so interesting to me. I was like, did anyone like actually just call me? It wasn't like I had made a statement, or anything.

I could have been hospitalized and just not posted the fucking black square. It was so wild. But I was targeted and I think the movement did a lot of great things in America. But I think it caused a lot of division and a lot of hate.

And going through that where it was like I didn't do something that the specific majority thought I should do. And looking back, I don't know. I don't know if I should have, shouldn't have posted it to be honest. And you can come at me, whatever. Like I said in my stories this morning, I was canceled once.

So if you're leaving outrageous comments on my Instagram. I'm just gonna add you to my prayer list. And I think as humans we can always do better. I can always do better every single day. . But getting canceled sucks. It doesn't feel good.

It feels horrible to have people saying things to you. And it was a snowball. It was like you're my friend. I know you from yoga and you're saying these things to me. You're a family member. And then to have hundreds of strangers telling you that you're a horrible person and you're just sitting in your house and you just woke up.

That was wild to me. It shut me up. At first I didn't stay quiet about it, but over time I would do things, even if it was subconsciously, like I would go to post something and decide I didn't wanna share it. I would go to say something and decide I didn't wanna share it.

I would go to share something that was on my heart and mind and decide that I didn't wanna share it. I know there's gonna be people listening to this and they're like, wow, you really share a lot. I'm like, I was sharing a very filtered version of myself and it sucks to show up that way.

And the other thing I notice is when you show up that way you start calling in people, that match that energy as well. I started acting in behaviors that match that energy as well. I spent a lot of time over the last five years doing this thing, where I would put myself out there.

I would get a negative reaction from someone because I was so focused on that one that I'd missed the other 10, and then I would pull back. I would do things like sabotage my business. I would stop going into my office. I would stop posting. There would be whole weeks where I just didn't post anything

I didn't feel like I was a good enough person to be there, I played this game for so long, getting canceled, and this cancel culture has to stop. My experience is a small piece of the pie from what some people have experienced.

 It has gone to the point where people are getting killed because of what they have to say and because there are people out there that don't believe in their opinion, that is so much bigger than what I experienced. Today I wanted to share that. I feel like I've been sharing a lot about my alcohol journey.

I feel really turned up about sharing it. I was laying in my hammock in my backyard last night and I was just watching the stars and I was like, it's time to really step out there. I think that alcohol ruins a lot of people's lives. It does a lot of damage to us.

It did a lot of damage to me, and there's so many times even where I've been sharing my journey, and then I'll pull back. I won't post tiktoks for two or three weeks. I've been so afraid of how I was gonna be perceived. And I don't like it.

I don't cancel culture. It's basically adult bullying for the online world. It's like insane. And they're saying that, the vast majority of the accounts leaving, like these insane, hateful comments, especially on X, they're actually fake.

So it's like there's something out there or someone programming things to make people feel like shit. That is insanity to me. That is absolutely wild. So I plan to double down. On my focus of spreading more love, more light, sharing my alcohol story as much as I can, and my content journey.

I just sat in this exact room and we filmed, two hours worth of content for a client. She has a book coming out. She has a story that needs to be told. That woman is brave for telling her story. We need more brave people out there and I will keep making content. I will keep sharing your message. I don't care if you're a hotel.

I don't care if you're selling plates. You have a purpose here and it is okay to stand out to be brave, and to be in this online space. We all deserve to be here. We all deserve to be seen. We all deserve to be heard. We all deserve to believe anything we wanna believe.

As long as it's not harming other people okay. That was deep. That was super deep. I pulled some stats this morning, about the mental health impacts of cancel culture.

I wanted to share some with you because I can yap all I want, but I like to back things up with facts and stats cancel culture, increases anxiety, depression, shame, loneliness, and makes you feel ostracized in a study in the premier journaling.

In a study in Premier Journal of Psychology, people canceling online reported heightened anxiety, social isolation, and self-censorship. We should not be censoring ourselves even as small as there's days when I don't wanna show up and share about my alcohol journey. That should not be censored. I get that I'm gonna have days where I need to rest and reflect, but I shouldn't be censoring myself because I'm afraid of being canceled.

For teens and young people, being canceled by peers can cause trauma, depression, and suicide. For bystanders, observers feel guilt, fear that they'll be next. Leading to more self-censorship and silence.

Pew Research. There was some research done in 2020 where about 44% of US adults said that they had heard about cancel culture by 2022. That rose to 61%. This is becoming normalized, and it's like it's fucked up. No one should ever be silenced, harm or lose their life for having a voice. Even when we disagree, there has to be a path to dialogue, growth, and compassion like this has to happen.

Okay, so how do we show up in times? I think that's your own personal choice. You don't have to do anything. I'm a social media manager and a creative media director. We create produce, and scale content across all of the major platforms. This morning I reached out to quite a few clients and I said, what do you wanna post today?

Are we posting our normal content is scheduled, or would you like to make a statement? What would you like to do today? I came in a couple hours early and for those who wanted to make a statement. We made a graphic and put the statement out, for those that didn't, I was sending you lots of love today.

You get to decide it doesn't matter. But you should decide out of love and compassion and not outta fear and censorship. That was a good one.



So I think no matter how you choose to show up, just show up with love, show up for yourself. Stop feeling guilty for the choices you've made in the past. I have a lot of guilt from the choices I made when alcohol was controlling me, but that's not who I am today. And honestly, no matter where you're at in your Journey, today is a brand new day, you can choose to show up in a different way.



I think we really need to remember to be human first and sensor second.

You do not have to choose between silence and business as usual.

You can choose presence. You can choose to honor the moment, and I know that I can choose love.

How can we show up?

I wanna make sure I got through all my notes.

 I think I really wanna hit home that you don't have to do anything. I just want you to make that choice out of love and not out of fear of being canceled or fear of censorship. I can't tell you why I am choosing now to be really outspoken about this. I always trust in God's timing. I don't know why 2024 was the gear that I got sober.

I just know that it was when I was supposed to do something and I feel like right now I'm supposed to say something. Okay.



So you guys, thank you for listening to the Samantha Parker show today. I promise I'm not making this a political platform, a political podcast. I'm just making this a space where it's safe. We can talk about what we wanna talk about. The whole reason I named it the Samantha Parker show and not, the Sobriety Hour or the content social media show.

I wanted to give myself the space to be a human, to show up as a human, to have guests that intrigue me, to invite curiosity and spark conversation. I wanted to have this show as a safe space. We started it out on my couch. My first guest was Carmi, one of my good friends.

In fact, Cindy, her daughter, is sitting in the room right now, now I'm here back sitting on this couch. I shifted the focus of the podcast to sobriety because that's what I was going through. I'm not gonna stop talking about sobriety that has put me where I am today, but this show is about so much more.

It's about the human connection and it's about. Love and compassion and kindness even sometimes love and compassion and kindness doesn't show up great. I know that because we're messy humans. I don't know what you're supposed to take from this. I just know it's something that I wanted to say.

Sending you lots of love. I hope you have a really good day whenever you're listening to this, and I know next week is gonna bring a new batch of love, hope, inspiration, and things might be going really well, or you might be having a really bad day. Don't turn to alcohol for sure.

Don't turn to hate, turn to curiosity and turn to kindness. Alright guys, I'll see you next time on the Samantha Parker Show.