Sash & Soul

#65 Miss Universe 2025: Beyond “Sit Down, Look Pretty, Be Grateful”

• Raeanna Johnson

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In this week's episode, I'm breaking down the recent Miss Universe controversy and the bigger conversation it sparks about conflict, mistreatment, and emotional maturity in pageant culture. I'm sharing my own experiences as a former titleholder, the lessons I learned the hard way, and what Miss Mexico's response can teach all of us about grace under pressure. Whether you're a new competitor, a seasoned titleholder, or someone who supports the industry, this episode offers a real, grounded look at how to advocate for yourself, navigate difficult dynamics, and protect your peace without hurting your reputation. Let's talk about what pageantry should look like, where we can do better, and how you can stay empowered every step of the way.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey, what's up you guys? Welcome back to Sash and Soul. I am sorry that I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks. I just haven't been at my best. So unfortunately, that just meant me taking a little bit more time for myself. And so I'm really sorry to leave you hanging. But I really try and practice what I preach. So when I look at the things that I need to get done in the day-to-day and my priorities, I make sure that I prioritize the calls that I have with clients and any consultations that I have. But then after that, it's kind of like social media is kind of the first thing to go. And then sometimes the podcast unfortunately goes to the back burner as well. So I apologize. I do really like to be here consistently with you guys every week on Fridays with a new episode for you. So I apologize that that has been lacking in the last couple of weeks, but we're back. And today we are going to talk about something that's super timely. We've got the Miss Universe Finals going on tonight. So today I want to kind of just go off. I really don't have a script. I don't really have a any bullet point list of things that I want to cover today. I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about just the pageant industry in general that the controversy within the Miss Universe organization for the past few weeks has really been bringing up for me. And it's not something I haven't talked about before. There are lots of Sash and Soul episodes where I share very openly about my criticism for some of the practices in the pageant industry. And I that's important for me. I want to keep it real. I never want to sway someone from getting involved, but I do think it's important that if you're serious about succeeding in pageantry, to know, to have a realistic job expectation for yourself of what it actually looks like to hold the title, who you're working with. And one of my biggest goals as a coach is to provide the tools to help you empower yourself and to protect yourself because conflict happens. Even if you have the best directors ever and it's a super healthy relationship, conflict can still happen. So how do you manage that? How do you navigate that? How do you handle yourself when maybe your emotions are high? And what do you do within that space? So that's a lot of what I kind of want to talk about today. That's what it's bringing up for me. Cause when I look back at my experience competing, I was really, really blessed and privileged to have some of the best local directors. Truly, I held four local titles in the Miss Merrick organization. And the directors or co-directors that I had with each title poured into me and were there for me in ways that some of my family members couldn't be. And I will never forget or yeah, like I'll just there's no way that I can ever repay them for what that meant to me and what that did for me at that time. Because when I first started competing, I was 17, I was struggling with depression. I was in the throes of grief after losing my brother to suicide and still like trying to navigate the trauma that I experienced growing up. And um I was just taken in with open arms and accept accepted for who I was and encouraged to put myself out there and uh praised for success and just celebrated in ways that that I had maybe never been celebrated before. Um and that's not to say that I had like a terrible upbringing or anything. I had supportive parents and everything as well, but it's complicated. And so the the support that I had in pageantry early on was incredible. And I'm so grateful for it. When I was Miss Wisconsin, however, as a state title holder, there was a lot more conflict at that level. And I didn't have the same relationship with the directors or with the board of directors that I had with my local directors. So it was kind of a almost like a culture shock for me that I wasn't quite expecting. And I learned a lot through navigating that, through making mistakes and through, you know, multiple misunderstandings and communication that now I use in my life and with my clients to help them better understand how to navigate these things without honestly looking like the asshole. Excuse my language. But how do you stand up for yourself when you're dealing with difficult people without looking like the jerk? So if we take this back to what's been happening with Miss Universe and the controversy that happened a couple of weeks ago at the sashing ceremony where Miss Mexico was berated by one of the executives and then chose to walk out and then was followed by other title holders that walked out after her, including the outgoing Miss Universe 2024. I think that is a great example for us to look at of okay, how do we, how do we navigate situations like that? Because any job that you have, any industry that you're in will not be perfect. There will be conflict and there will be people that are in it for the wrong reasons, or that treat people poorly, or that disrespect you, or that have really terrible bias, um, biases that that can be prejudiced and painful and horrible to undergo. And in this particular situation, let's just label it as bullying because Miss Mexico was truly bullied in that situation. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, feel free to look it up. There's like I saw it was like every other TikTok was about the situation in Thailand a couple of weeks ago. So you can find it. I'm not gonna like go through all of the nitty-gritty details. I have it all written out in front of me as if I was going to just like report the news to you as to what happened, but I'm not gonna do that. Um, so but if we look at that situation, there's a very clear lesson that can be learned from how Miss Mexico handled herself. And that is having grace under pressure. Knowing that in life, we can't always control what happens to us or around us, but we do have the capability to control how we respond. One of the problems with controlling how we respond is if we are highly emotional, it's gonna be really, really difficult to reasonably expect ourselves to respond in the most appropriate way. Because when we're highly emotional, and I'm gonna use the term dysregulated, when your emotions are dysregulated, when you have inflicted your fight, flight, or freeze response, we go into a very primitive space in our brain and we are no longer in a very wise state of mind to be able to respond respectfully or in ways that in our best state of mind, we would typically handle ourselves. That's why I think we get a lot of like outside perspectives telling us how we should or shouldn't have behaved. Because yeah, it's easy from an outside perspective from someone that isn't in that emotional fight or flight space to have like a rational perspective as to how you should have or could have responded. But when you're in that space of fight, flight, or freeze, it's a lot harder for you to navigate the best way to respond. So we have options though. If you find yourself in conflict and you are struggling with some level, any level of emotional dysregulation, one of the best things you can do is pause and choose not to confront it right then and there. And that's something that I actually recently practiced for myself. It was about a week ago, and there was a conflict with a family member, and I was incredibly emotional. I was, I really was just trying to express how I felt about something, and it didn't come across apparently in the way that I thought it did. And they then responded as such and were clearly upset with me, and I triggered them in some way, and then I was kind of being attacked for that, and then emotions just kind of went haywire. And we ended the conversation, and I took hours. Like I'm still even now reflecting on it and trying to navigate and figure out like how I best want to move forward. We don't always have that option, and I understand that. If you can, on the other side, use some of those skills to get ahead of that fight, flight, or freeze response, which can be really tricky, but it's things that we practice of taking a deep breath, doing some self-talk, like trying to calm our nervous system. That's always step one is like, how can we maintain a level of calm in the midst of conflict? How can we maintain our calm nervous system at a healthy level in the midst of conflict by telling ourselves that we're safe, we're okay, we can handle this, we've handled conflict before, it's going to be okay. In that space, you can more appropriately respond to the conflict. And I think like watching Miss Mexico, and I watched her statement from when she left the room immediately after, after, after the um the the conflict happened with the Thai executive. Um when she left and she chose to s to pause and make a statement. It was obviously very passionate, but she managed to keep her composure. She found a way to ground herself rather than reacting emotionally. And it was so impressive to me listening to her words and what she had to say, like quotable statements that she said that I think we could all take to heart. And and then going back to like stand up for yourself when you are being mistreated. And in the pageant industry, that's that's a difficult thing to do. And I'm gonna get to that about, you know, how we're kind of told to just be grateful for what we have. This is an opportunity for us, and that somehow negates the mistreatment that we may experience with that title. I mean, that was something that that was a message that I certainly received as Miss Wisconsin, especially, was that I sounded entitled or ungrateful when I was voicing my concerns or when I was trying to make changes so that it wasn't as difficult for the next Miss Wisconsin. Um, and we'll dive into that later. But for for Miss Mexico and her composure, the way that she was able to regulate her emotions, even under that stress, shows me that she's done the work, to truly know who she is, truly know what that she's worthy and where her value lies, and that no crown is worth her being treated that way. And I think we're seeing that so much in the pageant industry, and I'm absolutely here for it. Especially like if we look at the last five years, even the last decade in various different pageant systems. Like, look at Miss America and how we went from, you know, the original Miss America to 2.0, and all of that was coming out because of mistreatment of Miss Americas at that level. And then we were seeing upheaval on the state levels of directors being basically fired or let go from their positions or um taking licenses away from different state organizations because of the way that they were treating their girls or running the organization or whatever it was. So we saw a lot of that drama going underway with the Miss America organization. And then, of course, within Miss USA and Miss Universe, we've been seeing title holders step down and being very vocal that they are stepping down for the sake of their mental health and they are putting themselves first. It is to me a movement and it is a force of empowerment for us to be seeing other women in that space do that, to actually step down. Because, okay, I think I think it would be really hard for someone that that maybe doesn't understand the experience of a title holder. But when you've held a title, when you've competed at a state or a national level, you develop an ongoing bond with these other women. And you develop a sisterhood not only with the women that you directly compete with, but you develop a sisterhood with women in pageantry everywhere. Because we have similar experiences. We are all putting ourselves out there to be judged. We are all putting ourselves out there to challenge ourselves, to make a difference in our communities and states and countries and potentially the world, if you're, you know, going for an international title. We are all receiving feedback and criticism from perfect strangers and from people closest to us. The expectations are high. We're navigating a lot of stress in the midst of all of this for the sake of reaching our goals and reaching this level of excellence and uh potentially a crown and an opportunity to do so much more and receive so much more in return in terms of scholarship and opportunity and network and everything that comes with the crown. So this sisterhood builds because we have a mutual understanding and respect for maybe not complete understanding of what the other person is going through because we're not walking in their shoes, but a respect and understanding of the difficulty that comes with doing this really cool and unique thing that is putting on your pageant shoes and competing in a competition. And so I think it's incredibly empowering for us to be seeing women coming out of the woodwork and voicing their experiences and standing up for themselves and stepping down or not showing up for the crowning of the new title holder, like what we just saw at Miss USA, where the outgoing Miss USA chose not to come. And we're seeing women decide for themselves that they're not going to be told to just sit down, look pretty, and be grateful anymore, that we actually deserve so much more. And I'm hoping that this is going to produce an incredible change in the industry. I think the only way that we can create meaningful, ongoing, long-lasting change where we're not just all talk in pageants, that we say that we're here to empower women and provide all these incredible opportunities, but then behind the scenes belittle them and dismiss them and break them down, that we actually can find a way to connect what we say to the reality of the experience. That's how it should be. And I think the only way that we can do that is as women coming out and having conversations just like this one, like the one that I'm having with you right now, talking about the reality behind the scenes, not to dissuade you from participating, but to empower you to know that you are worthy of being treated well, no matter where you are, no matter what space you're in. That just because you have this incredible opportunity to wear a crown and a sash does not mean that somehow your autonomy is gone now and you just have to be pretty and say what they want you to say. That is not what pageantry was ever supposed to be, from my perspective. And I think the future of pageantry, if we want this to be a relevant industry, if we want women to participate, if we want donors to contribute, if we want people to invest in competing for themselves, then we actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. And that's, I guess, where you come in really is by not being afraid to speak your mind. However, I'm gonna go back to what I said early on. How do we do this without being the asshole? Because this has been an issue that I've seen with clients and with title holders that I haven't worked with, but just kind of see from the outside looking in, that something happens and they speak out, but they speak out in a way that sounds disrespectful or unprofessional. And then all of a sudden, because of the powers that be and the reputation of Miss America, now all of a sudden they look bad. And it's pretty easy to turn and blame the person that looks like an emotional wreck rather than turning and blaming someone. It it's gonna be a lot harder to turn and blame someone that is speaking eloquently and holds themselves well under pressure and brings receipts and isn't just bashing someone because they're angry. Because that's that's what I have seen a lot of that, you know, title holders speaking out because of poor treatment, but they're speaking out in a way that really is just bashing their director, and that's never gonna come across well. There are steps to be taken in ways that you can take action that will have much more long-lasting impact and will also make you look more professional in the long run as well. So to wrap up just this part of the conversation, this like having grace under pressure. If you are being mistreated and want to speak up, remember that your power isn't gonna come from like dominating, isn't gonna come from being really loud and making people listen. It's going to come from a level of self-control and a level of planning and mindfulness in your communication and how you handle yourself will actually result in the outcome that you want to see so much more than honestly what it's gonna look like is throwing a tantrum if you come at it from a different way. And I say that with love. Um been there, done that, but you do have the opportunity to control how you respond. And like I said earlier, sometimes that means taking a step back, breathing, getting your um emotional regulation back under control, um, centering your nervous system, grounding yourself, and then figuring out where to go and how to take action from there. And truthfully, one of the best things you could probably do is to speak to someone that you consider trustworthy and consider a problem solver. My sister and I have been having a lot of conversations lately about just stressors that we have. And she said that, especially recently, in the last few months, she's really experienced some great conversations with me in that she'll call me and she'll she'll vent about things. And um, I'll listen and validate and relate and all the things. But the thing that I won't do is sit there in it with her and I won't perpetuate the distress. And I don't do that with my clients either. And I have to really practice not doing that for myself either. Because venting can be helpful, but venting for too long or venting too much is not helpful because what feels better than just venting is solutions and taking some kind of action. Feeling empowered is so much better than venting and having people tell you that, like, yeah, you're so right, like that person is crazy. Like it might feel good momentarily, but long term, that just weighs heavy and nothing's gonna change from that. So my sister and I, when we get into this role where we're like venting, we've got like big problems. We have been really trying to be there for each other to validate, to understand, but then also find an opportunity when the momentum starts to shift to calming down, regulating, and figuring out, okay, where do we go from here? What do I want out of this? How can I take action here that's gonna make this better? And I want for you to have the exact same thing. I want you for you to have a relationship with someone, whether that is a mentor or a best friend or your mom or a coach or a director, some or a therapist, honestly. Oh, my therapist. I had an emergency conversation with her last week, too, um, so that she could help me calm and rela regulate and get to a space where I'm like thinking with my wise mind instead of my overly emotional, dysregulated mind. Like, use your resources, is what I'm saying. Like, ask for help, reach out to somebody. I want that for you because it is that's emotional maturity. Emotional maturity isn't like you never having a fit or you never getting, you know, emotionally overwhelmed or angry or lashing out. That's like having emotional intelligence doesn't mean that you never do those things. Having emotional intelligence just means that you're better able to navigate through big emotions and you're better able to navigate where to go from there. Who to ask for help, um, the resources that you might need to calm yourself down, to get to the other side of things, to be solution focused. That's emotional maturity, and that's what I think we should all be working towards. We're not victims here. Um maybe we're we can be victim of circumstance, but but you are not victim because you can take action. At the end of the day, you don't have to stay the victim, I guess is what I'm saying. You may be victim to somebody berating you or bullying you, like Miss New Mexico was, but she didn't act like a victim. She stood up and took action. And that is why I'm saying like I would not label her as a victim because she is in total control of her choices and how she's moving through this. So that is my message for you if you are a title holder. Again, I want to be very clear that if you are new to competing, which I know a lot of you are, and I do know this for a fact because I recently had a conversation with someone that has been listening for quite some time, but is, you know, officially participating in their first competition here pretty soon. So they actually haven't been on a pageant stage yet as a competitor. So I know you are all on a whole spectrum of different levels of experience in this. And some of you may not even be competitors. Maybe you are supporters, or maybe you are just, you know, big fans of pageantry. All of that is great. But speaking directly to the women listening that are competing, but in the early stages of competing. I think it's important for you to have a realistic perspective, of course, of what you're getting into. Um, but I don't want you to get too far ahead of yourself either. And I think that's a life lesson for everyone. But specifically speaking, to those of you that are new, you have so much to learn. And it'll take some time. You do not learn need to learn everything overnight. You shouldn't learn everything overnight. You should take everything with a grain of salt. You should listen to my episodes and really just look for okay, how can I better myself through that frame of mind and not not be scared away from it. Because at the end of the day, pageantry has given me so much in my life. Um I can't even, it's a laundry list of things that I took away from pageantry. And I would never tell someone not to participate ever, ever, ever, ever. Like I said, I had the best experiences with my local directors. But I know the reality that it's not always great. So try to understand the best of your ability to know what you're getting yourself into at this level. If you're competing for a local competition, try to best understand what's expected of you as a title holder. What does the year of service actually look like? Right? Educate yourself in that way. If you are getting ready to compete for a state title, and this is your third or fourth or fifth time competing, and you are serious about winning that crown and doing the job, try to learn what that job actually looks like. And you can interview the people that are actually in the job or have had the job right now. Or, you know, you can go back and use other resources like I have the Crowned and Candid series that I that I put out there on Sash and Soul last spring that has like, I don't know, close to 15 different state title holders that are talking very realistically about their experience as state title holders. So you can get a better idea of what that job looks like. Same thing for a national level, same thing for an international title. The best thing that you can do for yourself is to have a very realistic perspective on the job that you are competing for right now. Don't get caught up in the weeds of the complaints of other people. I was in a situation when I was Miss Wisconsin once, and there was a former title holder backstage with a bunch of local title holders that was going off about her experiences in a negative, excuse me, in a negative way. And I pulled her aside and politely asked her to tone it down quite a bit. Because the women that were competing that day didn't need to be thinking about what the experience is as Miss Wisconsin. They needed to be thinking about how to best put themselves out there on stage at this local competition and what they want to accomplish as a local title holder. And to not, as my therapist says, not kick the can too far down the road. One thing at a time. Do not overwhelm yourself with all the things, stay focused. And she didn't really like that I said that because she obviously was like just really wanting to be honest. And I said, please, please be honest, always be honest. I will always be honest. However, there's a time and a place. And so my message for you is if you want a realistic perspective, then sit down with someone that can give you a realistic perspective, ask them key questions about it so that you can best understand, and take things with a grain of salt because we are all different human beings that handle things differently. Something that stresses me out might not be even close to stressing you out. You might think it's the silliest thing ever, even though like it bothers me to no end. And it's the same thing with anyone that holds the title. Every single woman is a different person. Their experience is going to be different. And everyone's always learning too. The leadership is always learning, and we hopefully are always trying to improve based on the things that we've learned and the mistakes that we've made. So that's my message to any of you that are relatively new, because I don't want This very honest conversation to scare you away by any means. Um because for the most part, I would say that pageantry is majority amazing. And then there are some yucky places too that exist within the industry. And I think it's just important to be aware of those and to be mindful of how you would handle yourself in those situations. So that being said, I want to shift gears and talk now directly to those of you that are listening that might be directors or volunteers or owners of pageant systems. Because I think I I think we should never be done trying to improve. We should never be done learning. And I would actually encourage you to consider doing like an exit interview with your title holder that may be handing off the crown and ask them, you know, what went well and how can we improve for the next title holder? And be very open-minded to their feedback. That is the best way to improve and the best way to understand somebody else's perspective is to ask them about it and sit and listen. No defensiveness, no projection, no judgment, none of that, but truly just sitting down and listening. Because I know as a coach that I may have an intention, but the perception and the experience that the other person may have may be completely different than what I had intended. I experienced that in my personal life and personal conflict. That was part of the problem, I think, last week with a family member that I was struggling with was that I had an intention and what I thought I was projecting. And then there was a perception and an experience on the other end of it. And I think taking accountability for how we affect other people and taking accountability for our setbacks and our mistakes, or the areas where we didn't show up to the best of our ability, or we drop the ball, taking accountability for that and working to improve is the best thing that you can do for your organization. If you are truly in this for the right reasons, if you are truly in this to empower young women, to help them grow, to help them succeed, to help them live out their dreams, to help them make a difference in their community, then you need to be a lot less focused on yourself and your self-preservation and be a lot more focused on how you can be the best person to help them accomplish those things. That's not to say that you should let someone be rude to you either. Like that is part of your job, I think, as a director or, you know, a mentor or whatever it is, is to help your client learn how to handle themselves. Um, but do so in a way that doesn't tear them apart or break them down. Like there are ways to educate, to teach, to coach that can still be uplifting and empowering. Um, we're not the military. This is not the military. This is not a like break them down to nothing and then build them up to what we want them to be. No, this is an outlet for women of all backgrounds to come out and be themselves, become more of who they are, and do incredible things to their unique perspectives and passions and talents and intellect. And we should just be a vessel to allow them to do that. And we can always be improving there. I think that that's just market feedback at its finest. And if you treat your organization, whether that's local, state, national, what have you, as a business, then you should every single year be looking for opportunities to improve. And the best way to do that is by getting market feedback. And in this case, one of the best areas of market feedback would be from your title holders. What was their experience? What could be improved? Would they be willing to stay and help with any of these things that they they want to see improved? You know, can they volunteer their time? Where are you having some gaps? Can you bring in other people to fill those gaps? And honestly, to take a take a really like deep breath and ask yourself, have I been doing this too long and maybe it's time for me to take a step back? Am I causing more harm than good? Like, that's gonna be a really painful question for you to hear from me. But truly, truly, truly, like, are you doing more harm than good? Are you making this about you instead of about empowering women? Uh because sometimes us outsiders looking in and we see, you know, what happens in Miss Universe, and we hear about women stepping down from mental health issues. And I work with clients that call me sobbing because of something that their director said to them, or I have conversations with someone brand new during a consult, and they tell me about some of the things that previous coaches have said to them. Like I am heartbroken, and honestly, it leads me to a level of burnout. I literally sit back and wonder, why do I keep doing this? I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I feel like I'm fighting something that I'm never gonna win. So please don't be part of the problem. Truly. Like it's okay to say you've you've you're burnt out. It's okay to say you're gonna take a step back and do a little bit less volunteering. Maybe you're not gonna be at a director level anymore. Like, don't be a martyr if you're causing more pain than good. I think that's all I have for today. I think I feel like I forgot about something, something that I said I was gonna talk about earlier. Um, but I don't remember. And honestly, at this point, I kind of just feel like my heart has poured out everything that it needed to for today. So I guess with that, like take all of this, like I said, with a grain of salt. These are my personal opinions and my perspective as a coach, as a former title holder, as a former judge, as a fan of pageantry, as a supporter of pageantry. Like this is just my unique perspective. And um I think at the end of the day, if we all just show up trying to do good for others and trying to live out our morals and values in the best way that we know how, and if we always show up striving to be better than we were yesterday, learning, developing more emotional maturity, then I think we are on the path to this industry looking more like what we say it actually is, rather than it being something different. Because y'all, that's false advertising, and I'm not here for it. So, with that, enjoy the Miss Universe finals tonight. I am gonna enjoy some family time. So, unfortunately, I will not be watching it live, and I'm not quite sure where or how to watch the recording. So I'm just gonna have to watch some, some uh, some clips of it, some highlights of it afterwards. Um, but my mom and stepdad are in town for some holiday festivities this weekend. So I'm gonna enjoy that. You all take care of yourselves. I will be back, I promise, next week with another episode of Sash and Soul. Next week, we're gonna focus on gratitude and truly like the power of gratitude in your life every single day, how it builds confidence and helps you maintain that level of humble confidence in everything that you do. So we're gonna talk about that next week. I feel like obviously, if I didn't talk about gratitude, the week of Thanksgiving, like what am I doing here? Um, and then moving into next month, um, we're gonna talk a lot more about reflection on this past year, um, growing from that and setting ourselves up for success in 2026, no matter what your goals look like for the new year. So stay tuned for more, my friends. Reach out if you need anything, of course. Follow on Instagram at Sash and Soul, and I'm on TikTok at Fearlessly Authentic Coach as well. So I will talk with you next week. Stay well, be well, and I'll see you then. Bye.

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Raeanna Johnson

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